History of the Modern Serbs

[Onur]

I came across the PDF of the book written by the Byzantine Emperor himself, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (10th century AD) named "De Administrando Imperio". This PDF has both English translation and the original Greek text;

http://depositfiles.com/files/42uuu8xz3

I am posting this here cuz this is the oldest and most comprehensive text about how and when the very first Serbs, Croats, Hungarians came to Balkans, when they were still unbaptized.


Croats comes to Dalmatia by using the path from eastern Bavarian lands. Avars rules in Dalmatia at that time but Croats defeats them and subjugates some of them;




Croats defeats Franks and gains autonomy in Dalmatia. Some of them asks to be baptized from Rome;




Constantine VII talks about Hungarians here but he calls them as Turks cuz in that times, they were known as Turks and today`s Hungary, including Banat region was also called as Turkey. "Chazaria" means Khazar lands, "Chagan-prince of Chazaria" means Khan of Khazar lands;






Hungarians defeats Moravian residents and they flee for refuge to surrounding places, Bulgaria, Croatia etc.;




The Emperor talks about the formation of Venice and Venetians. "Attila, the king of Avars" is Attila the Huns but since Avars are the descendants of the Huns, the emperor speaks about him like that;





Emperor mentions about Avars as "Slavonic nations" here;

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triballi

The term "Triballians" appears frequently in Byzantine and other European works of the Middle Ages, referring exclusively to Serbs.[13][14][15][16][17] Some of these authors clearly explain that "Triballian" is synonym to "Serbian".[18][19][20][21][22] For example, Niketas Choniates (or Acominatus, 1155–1215 or-16) in his history about Emperor Ioannes Komnenos: "... Shortly after this, he campaigned against the nation of Triballians (whom someone may call Serbians as well) ..."[23] or the much later Demetrios Chalkondyles (1423–1511), referring to an Islamized Christian noble: "... This Mahmud, son of Michael, is Triballian, which means Serbian, by his mother, and Greek by his father."[24] or Mehmed the Conqueror when referring to the plundering of Serbia.[25]

In the 15th century, a coat of arms of "Tribalia", depicting a wild boar with an arrow pierced through the head (see Boars in heraldry), appeared in the supposed Coat of Arms of Emperor Stefan Dušan 'the Mighty' (r. 1331–1355).[26] The motif had in 1415 been used as the Coat of Arms of the Serbian Despotate and is recalled in one of Stefan Lazarević's personal Seals, according to the paper Сабор у Констанци.[27] Pavao Ritter Vitezović also depicts "Triballia" with the same motif in 1701[28] and Hristifor Zhefarovich again in 1741.[29] With the beginning of the First Serbian Uprising, the Parliament adopted the Serbian Coat of Arms in 1805, their official seal depicted the heraldic emblems of Serbia and Tribalia.[30]

[George S.]

Triballia
Triballian Plains or Tribalia or Lower Timok (Tribalija) is the souther territory of the Timočka Krajina, between Yantra river and Morava river. Its name is derived from the Paleo-Balkan tribe of Triballi who lived in the region. In the 11th century, Greek-Byzantine historian John Skylitzes referred to the region as "ton topon ton Serbon" (eng. Serb region)

[Soldier of Macedon]

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.

That is interesting. It may have more to do with common legend than kinship. After the establishment of Samo's realm from formerly Avar-controlled territories, the Bulgars may have been looked upon as the new liberators from further Avar domination by the Croats and other peoples.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Here is something regarding one of Serbia's most important political figures during the 19th and 20th centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Pa%C5%A1i%C4%87

Pašić was born in the eastern Serbian village Veliki Izvor, near Zaječar, in the Principality of Serbia at the time. As his parents had come from Ottoman Bulgaria,[1][2] sources claim Pašić's ethnicity is Bulgarian,[3][4] and his parents were from Golyam Izvor Teteven area.[5][6] Later, his mother re-married to a Serbian baker who adopted him and gave him his surname, Pašić. In this relation he was called by his political opponents Bugarash.[7] Indeed, Pašić having relatives in Bulgaria prove indispensable during his 6 years exile from Serbia, when he lived with relatives in Bulgaria, supported by the Bulgarian government. Another version is he was born to the family from Tetovo, Ottoman Macedonia, though of Vlah antecedents.

[Soldier of Macedon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jernej_Kopitar

Politically, Kopitar was a supporter of Austroslavism, a doctrine aimed at the unity of Slavic peoples within the Austrian Empire. He was also a staunch conservative, and supporter of the Metternich regime, with a paternalistic approach to the peasant culture. On the other side, Čop and Prešeren emphasized on the cultivation of the Slovene language as the means for the emergence of a lay Slovene intelligentsia that would foster and develop a specific Slovene identity within the framework of Slavic solidarity. After the "Alphabet War" in the 1830s, Kopitar's political and cultural influence in his native Slovene Lands diminished significantly. At the same time, however, he gained influence among other South Slavic intelligentsia, especially the Serbian one. He influenced Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in forming a new standard for the Serbian literary language based on common use.

Apologies for all the wiki links, like I have repeatedly mantained, they are useful as light reference and a stepping stone only.

[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.

Here is a clip which speaks of how Serbs saved hundreds of American soldiers during WWII.
America's Veterans: The Serbian People Are Heroes! - YouTube

[Soldier of Macedon]

More on Mihailovic.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/07/15/feature-02

Serbs seek closure on Draza Mihailovic, 15/07/2011

Serbia's Commission for Uncovering Secret Graves may have located the place where Chetnik commander Dragoljub "Draza" Mihailovic was killed and buried. The apparent discovery has sparked renewed debate over his role in the Second World War.

The site is located near a former prison on Ada Ciganlija, an island-turned-peninsula on the Sava River that has since become a favorite vacation spot for Belgraders.

"Human bones were found within only a metre of depth, in a place where vacationers pass by every day," Commission member Miladin Gavrilovic told SETimes.

"There are graves even in Belgrade's very centre," said Blazo Djurovic, the director of Monitor Holding, whose equipment was used in the discovery.

The circumstances under which the death sentence was carried out has long been a closely guarded secret. No official documents exist from the former Yugoslavia about how Mihailovic met his end.

The Commission wants to solve the mystery behind Mihajlovic, Justice Ministry State Secretary Slobodan Homen told SETimes, but it "does not want to take sides concerning his role in the Second World War".

"The discoveries that will be arrived at should enable us to place that open question dating from the Second World War in the history textbooks, and stop it being part of the political debate," Homen said.

Many across the region regard Mihailovic, leader of the nationalist Chetnik movement, as a notorious war criminal who was responsible for killing thousands of Croats, Bosniaks and others.

To some Serbs, however, he is a protector and symbol of the first armed resistance to the Nazis in Europe. Mihailovic initially fought the Nazis, though he later collaborated with them against the Yugoslav communist Partisans.

The Yugoslav communist government executed Mihailovic in 1946 after trying him quickly on charges of co-operating with the Nazis and perpetrating crimes against the people.

Serbian historians estimate the Partisans killed 80,000 members and supporters of the Chetnik movement in the immediate post-war period. The Commission has tallied 25,000 of the killed and 200 places that possibly contain mass graves.

"The post-war liquidations in Serbia and in all the communist countries is a huge topic for science to deal with," historian Srdjan Cvetkovic told SETimes.

Cvetkovic and likeminded historians argue that the anti-fascist movement was abused by some to kill people because of their views or class background.

But other historians take issue with those claims, saying uncertain facts are being manipulated for political ends.

"The people making these [claims] do not have serious information, no serious scientific research is behind it" Dubravka Stojanovic told SETimes.

The allegations that tens of thousands people were killed after 1945 are based on unconfirmed stories, she said.

A phony view of the Chetniks as patriots has been forming over the past decade, to the detriment of history and anti-fascism, Stojanovic added.

A veterans' rights law adopted in 2005 by the Serbian parliament gave participants to the Chetnik movement the right to a pension. Meanwhile, the government has changed the content of history textbooks, disassociating Mihailovic from the Nazis and stating instead that he was leader of one of the two anti-fascist movements during the Second World War.

http://inavukic.com/2012/03/22/serbian-ousted-monarchy-on-the-rise-will-serbia-rehabilitate-wwii-war-criminal-draza-mihailovic-and-author-of-chetnik-movement-program-to-create-ethnically-clean-serbian-state/

Serbian ousted Monarchy on the rise: Will Serbia rehabilitate WWII war criminal Draza Mihailovic and author of Chetnik movement program to create ethnically clean Serbian state?

March 22, 2012

According to media reports The Supreme court of Serbia will, tomorrow Friday 23 March, rehabilitate Serbian war criminal Dragoljub Draza Mihailovic, leader of Serbian Chetnik forces in World War II. This move will cancel the 1946 conviction and consequent death sentence after which he was executed by the Yugoslav Communist authorities. The application for rehabilitation was lodged by the war criminal’s grandson Vojislav Mihailovic, Serbian Liberal Party and some organisations and individuals. Their arguments rest on their theories that the court was biased, that Mihailovic was not given the right to defend himself and that he was served with criminal charges only a week before the start of his trial.

Croatia’s government has not reacted to this apparently imminent rehabilitation – odd, bizarre, shameful, unacceptable, disappointing!

However, upon being questioned about it on Croatian radio last Monday president Ivo Josipovic said:

“Draza Mihailovic is a war criminal from WWII. We know what evils Chetniks perpetrated. I cannot remember any battle in which they seriously fought against occupation forces (Nazi Germany), but I can remember the battles in which they fought together with the Ustashi against the Partisans. I can also remember that they retreated with other defeated forces towards Austria.”

Again, the Croatian government and the president are walking on eggshells when it comes to commenting on events in Serbia. One would have expected a great deal more in the line of condemnation and protest from them against the attempts to rehabilitate the Chetnik leader – Chetnik murderous movement that had set in its goal an ethnically clean Greater Serbia for King and Country!

Croatian government and president, former Communists, have always been only too ready and too loud in protecting, often unreasonably, the image of their Yugoslav Communists when it comes to, for instance, pursuits against WWII Communist crimes. God forbid if anyone in Croatia even thought of rehabilitating a former Ustashi!

Croatian Podravka organization for Homeland War Veterans, Invalids and Widows have expressed bitterness and are stupefied by the fact that war criminal, general Draza Mihailovic is to be rehabilitated.

“If that happens this will be nothing else but the return of Serbia into the early 1990’s days which brought the aggression against Croatia. Serbs are constantly complaining and protest only when at some concert a youth wearing a T-shirt with letter ‘U’ printed on it, criticize the Croatian government and others for not resisting harder ‘ustashi’ marks, although there is no Ustashi movement in Croatia. Among everything else the most concerning is the fact that Belgrade newspapers feature some known Serbian historians who stress out that Mihailovic’s rehabilitation has an enormous meaning for Serbian people and that it shows that Serbia has chosen the right path”, said Mladen Pavkovic, the president of the organization.

“We seek from the Croatian government, especially from the Ministry of War Veterans, to firmly and with all democratic means resist this mad deed, and we hope that the leaders of the Serbian Democratic Party (in Croatia), Milorad Pupovac and Vojislav Stanimirovic, and they should have been the first, will raise their voice against the return of Chetnik movement in Serbia. Pupovac is the one who first raises his voice if anyone paints graffiti on a Serb monument in Croatia, and he and his followers are keeping quiet as if this has nothing to do with them. In this way they silently support the rehabilitation of the war criminal Mihailovic and are causing enormous damage not only to Croatians but also to the Serbians who have accepted Croatia as their own country,” Pavkovic continued.

According to demographic estimates made by Vladimir Zerjavic, economist and United Nations expert, the Chetniks had murdered about 20,000 Croatians in former Yugoslavia. Most of these murders occurred in areas occupied by Italian Fascists. Italian Fascists were the best allies to Serbian Chetniks and indeed, the history records that Chetniks fled from Yugoslavia after WWII in masses, fearing revenge killings from victorious Communists.

Very briefly down memory lane:

The Windsor Daily Star, 6 April 1946, p.5: Speaking in the British Parliament on February 22, 1944, the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said: “General Mihailovic, I much regret to say, drifted gradually into position where his commanders made accommodations with Italian and German troops…”

In September 1941 Mihailovic sent his Program of the Chetnik Movement to London, to the exiled government of Kingodm of Yugoslavia. The goal was to create an ethnically clean Serbian state. Of course, Draza Mihailovic and Chetniks in Serbia were Royalist forces, Mihailovic was the Army Minister of King Peter Karadjodjevic’s government in exile.

I cannot shake off the firm belief that it’s no accident but a political treachery that this rehabilitation of Chetnik war crimes comes at the time when Serbian Prince Karadjordjevic has well settled back in Serbia, having returned from decades in exile. Indeed, it’s blatantly clear that the WWII Chetnik movement program, accepted by the Serbian royal government in exile, in London, in 1941, that had set itself the ideal of creating an ethnically clean Serbia (just like the Nazis did for Germany) is not dead and buried but very much alive and kicking on “all fours”, claiming a theory as fact that the history was unfair – i.e. that 1946 court in Belgrade did not give the war criminal enough time to prepare his defence.

So, if this trick works for the Serbs then the flood gates to revisit judicial history must be opened for everyone in the world.

http://ansamed.ansa.it/ansamed/en/news/nations/serbia/2012/03/23/visualizza_new.html_155944902.html

Croatia: Josipovic against rehabilitation Chetnik leader, Rehabilitation of Draza Mihailovic in progress in Serbia, 23 March, 18:35

(ANSAmed) - ZAGREB, MARCH 23 - The president of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic, today harshly criticised the ongoing proceedings before a Serbian tribunal for the rehabilitation of Draza Mihailovic, political and military leader of the Serbian Chetnik movement during the Second World War. Mihailovic was sentenced to death in 1946 in socialist Yugoslavia as traitor, collaborationist and supporter of fascism. ''The rehabilitation proceedings are damaging and contradict historic facts, Mihailovic was a war criminal and the Chetniks a criminal and collaborationist movement,'' said Josipovic.

''There are several historic examples of Chetniks fighting side-by-side with German and Italian troops than of Chetniks fighting against them. There are many examples of crimes and massacres of civilians committed by Chetniks in Croatia, but also at the expense of Serbians,'' the Croatian president added.

After the occupation of Yugoslavia by Italian and German troops in 1941, Mihailovic, who was a general in the Yugoslavia army, remained loyal to the king and the exiled government in London.

He placed himself at the command of a paramilitary movement which promised to fight the occupation. However, soon after he started to collaborate with the Nazis and fascists, fighting the anti-fascist and communist movement led by field marshal Josip Broz Tito. The Chetniks committed many war crimes against non-Serbian citizens, but also against communist Serbs.

[Valmir]

Actually, it isn't. I don't recall mentioning Turkish loanwords as a significant factor, do you (even though most of your kinsmen have Turkish or Arabic first and last names)? Try seeing how many Slavic, Greek and Latin words there are, I can assure you that they collectively outweigh the 'Shqipe' words in your language. Or perhaps you too were having a Mein Kampf moment by referring to the 'consistency' of Albanian ethnicity since antiquity?

Your language(So called Macedonian) have more loanwords from Turkey than the Albanian language! And this is a FACT!

[Risto the Great]

Your so called identity Valmir has permanently left the building for denigrating the Macedonian language.

He suffers from a curious inferiority complex because the Macedonian language has been documented for about 1000 years longer than his. He can take his Illyrian dream (recently usurped form the Croats) and gently insert it in his hijab.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Your language(So called Macedonian) have more loanwords from Turkey than the Albanian language! And this is a FACT!

You don't have a clue. You never did. Farewell moron.

[George S.]

how insulting to our language too.

[Carlin]

Your language(So called Macedonian) have more loanwords from Turkey than the Albanian language! And this is a FACT!

You have a bigoted and narrow minded worldview.

All languages have loanwords from other cultures. The Balkan region in general, being the crossroads of civilizations, is a great example of a region where various nations and cultures met and intermingled for millenia.

[Stojacanec]

Yeah good riddens you peasant majmun.

All Valmir like in Macedonia especially post 2001 refugees should be given notice to change their attitude,if not ...get out of this country.

[George S.]

That's it stojanec they should change their attitude with one of healthy respect for us macedonians who are a majority.If someone respects us then we respect them it's reciprocal.With the albanians i have my doubts maybe they should all go to kosovo.