Vinko Pribojevic and the Glory of the Slavs

[Toska]

since we are on the topic, i thought ill mention this book written 500 years ago before nationalism had awaken, its a long read but worth it.

this is the whole book translated from latin to english

https://archive.org/details/VinkoPri...loryOfTheSlavs


here is a summary

A book about the Greeks and the Macedonians, published in Venice in 1532 – Were Alexander the Great and Samuil the Emperor speaking the same language?
Labels: Geschichte, Mittelalter, Sprache


In this very interesting book which is kept in the National Library “Saint Clement from Ohrid” Prof. Vinko Pribojevic, using a great number of quotes from Greek and Latin writers, claims that the Macedonians had always spoken the language they spoke in 1525, at the time of writing the book. According to him, the Macedonians lived in this region in the 16th century, as well as all the preceding centuries.

Vinko Pribojevic was a very educated man for his time, a great connoisseur of the ancient, classic history. He was born on the island of Hvar, where he finished elementary school. He started studying theology and went on specialization in Italy and later became one of the most prominent theology professors at the time.

As he knew the history of the Balkan Peninsula, which he called Macedonian Peninsula, very well, in his book Pribojevic used a great number of source information that he collected in libraries, archives and Dominican monasteries. That is why, in his introductory addressing to his friend Petar, Patrician and commander of Gaul, who probably paid the printing of the book, he asked that the book was “published for the benefit of all, without deleting the quotes from the writers that are noted parallel with the main text”.

According to the quotes and what the professor discovered through his researches based on the differences in the speech between the Macedonians and the Greeks, it is very clear that there is no way that the Macedonians could be Greeks as they don’t know that language and have always known their own, Macedonian language.

Pribojevic said in his book that Thucydides himself claimed that “Macedonia covers the areas from Byzantium, Thrace, Misia and Illyria” and “the difference between the Greeks and Macedonians can be seen immediately from their character and way of life and it is because of such an opposite in characters and customs it can be concluded that the Greeks and Macedonians are not the same people”.

Did the ancient and medieval Macedonians speak the same language?

In this very interesting book about Macedonia and the Macedonians, Prof. Vinko Pribojevic, using a great number of quotes from Greek and Latin writers, claims that the Macedonians had always spoken the language they spoke in 1525, at the time of writing the book. According to him, the Macedonians lived in this region in the 16th century, as well as all the preceding centuries.

This claim by Pribojevic didn’t go well with the Macedonian fifth column, which claimed that there was a great gap without Macedonians – from the time of Paul the Apostle to the book by Krste Petkov Misirkov from 1903, meaning that the Macedonians disappeared along with their language, customs, tradition and history. Pribojevic’s book from 1525 is a proof that that notion was a lie made by those that never felt as Macedonians.

He claims that at the time when he lived, the Macedonians spoke “the same language as they did 1500 years before that, when the Greeks could not understand them so a translation was necessary”. The professor from Venice from the 16th century said: “As an objection to the claim by some writers that the Macedonians should be considered Greeks, I would like to bring out an opinion by Quintus Curtius in his book “The work of Alexander the Great”.

He could make a clear difference between the Macedonian and the Greek languages and it was also very clear that Alexander’s army could not understand the Macedonian speech because part of it was Greek. When Philota, son of Parmenion, had to defend himself in front of the Macedonian parliament, Alexander told him: “Philota, the Macedonians are going to pronounce a sentence; I want to know whether you will talk on your mother tongue” to which Philota said no because not everybody would be able to understand him.

Then Alexander said that Philota hated his mother tongue. If the Macedonians were Greeks then this wouldn’t have been a problem because they would all speak the same language. The fact that the Macedonians’ mother tongue differed from the language spoken by the Greeks in Alexander’s army clearly indicates that the Macedonians never felt as Greeks because the affiliation of one nation is best proved with the uniqueness of the language, as Pribojevic said, so “we consider the people as members of a certain nation that took the mother tongue together with the mother’s milk from the earliest age”.

If the Macedonians and the Greeks were the same people, then there was no need for Alexander the Great to call himself King of the Macedonians and the Greeks, but just King of the Greeks. In his five-century old book Pribojevic says that because the Macedonians have their own language, which didn’t just fall from the sky, it is clear that they have always spoken the same language.

If that was true in 1525, when the book was written, then it is very probable that Alexander and Samuil spoke the same language. According to Pribojevic, Alexander, Samuil and Saint Clement would have no problem understanding each other in their mother tongue in 1525.

Were there no writers to truly depict the deeds of the Macedonians?

According to Pribojevic, “there were no writers to truly depict the deeds of the Macedonians”, so “a great part of their oldest history after Alexander the Great remained unknown”.

There are many records that confirmed that many Roman emperors and Popes were called Slavs. Pribojevic said that it would take him a lot of volumes to write about their deeds while also saying that he couldn’t keep quiet about these facts: “When the battles were in the sea or on the land, the Slavs always overcame their opponents or died in battle.”

He also wrote that even though it may be strange, but the truth was that the Turkish sultan had great respect for the Macedonian people, which is why nearly all main commanders of the army were Macedonians and he formed a strong squad made of 20.000 people as his personal guard.

The Romans were making up provinces just to erase the name Macedonia!

Pribojevic used hundreds of quotes and names of authors in his book as source to back up his thesis about the interrupted history of the people that allegedly settled in the Balkan Peninsula during the 6th century.

According to him, the so-called Slavs have always been here, albeit under different names, and the move was made up simply to annul the continuity of the survival of the ancient nation through the centuries. To him, all the divisions in this part of Europe were made just to annul the autochthony of the people that lived in this region for thousands of years.

Even though Macedonia didn’t exist as a country at the time, the borders were remembered as Macedonia’s borders. An interesting thing about Pribojevic’s book is that there is no mention of Bulgaria and the Bulgarians as part of the so-called Slavs on the Macedonian Peninsula.

Actually, there is only one reference that “the whole land all the way to the Black Sea is a Macedonian land that was later named with different names to cover up the track of the truth about Macedonia”.

Important facts about the suppressed History of the Balkan

A sample of Vinko Pribojevic’s book was found in 1922 by the academician Novak Grga, who was a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences in Zagreb in 1951. Thanks to him, the book was published for the first and last time in two languages – the Latin original that was published in Venice in 1532 and the translation to Serbo-Croatian from 1951. The National Library in Skopje got the book in 1952 and according to the stamps on the first page it was registered three times – 1957, 1965 and 2002 - through revisions of the library fund.

According to academician Novak Grga, the work of Vinko Pribojevic in its conception and views is of “epochal importance because it discovers important suppressed facts about the glory of the so-called Slavs” on the Balkans. Therefore, Pribojevic’s work is one of the most important works of the Balkan historiography and deserves a special place in the international historiography.

The Pope ordered the burning of the book that used Pribojevic’s quotes!

What is very interesting is that Vinko Pribojevic and his book about the Macedonians and their history which was printed in 1532 had a great influence on Mauro Orbini, who accepted his theses and published his book in Rome in 1544.

Unfortunately, the book was immediately forbidden and the Pope ordered to burn it to the last copy. However, one copy was somehow saved so Orbini’s work was re-published in 1601 and all main directions from the book of Pribojevis were elaborated in it.

In any case, as Grga said, Pribojevic was a great patriot who was the first to set forth the conception about the greatness of the Macedonians and the people from the Macedonian Peninsula from the ancient time to mid-16th century, while also persisting on scientifically proving it.

How much he succeeded and how much his book can be considered scientific is for the science to prove and the only copy of the book still exists in the National Library “Saint Clement of Ohrid” in Skopje.

[VMRO]

Great find Toska!

[Constellation]

I have always been puzzled by works such as this and others, including "The Kingdom of the Slavs" by Orbini.

Writers such as these--writing hundreds of years ago--use the generic term "Slavs" to describe all Slavic speakers, but not merely as a language family. On the other hand, the writers clearly distinguish between the different Slavic speaking ethnicities.

Works such as this are more important from a historical perspective to document the existence of a Macedonian ethnicity hundreds of years before Tito and Yugoslavia, but the pronouncements made in regard to ancient history is speculation and interpretation.

The writer lived in the 1500s and so he cannot prove that the ancient Macedonians spoke Slavic, but uses a wide variety of historical documents to make the case that there is Slavic continuity.

I personally do not believe this book or Orbini's proves that there is a common Slavic culture.

Toska, I am most curious: do you believe that there is a common ancestor or ancestors of Slavic speakers?

[Gocka]

Toska,

Great find, I will try to read the whole book.

Doesn't his writing prove what I have been saying? That Macedonian culture is not "Slavic" culture, but its own natural culture?

[Gocka]

Check out the Wikipedia entry on Vinko, based on the summary posted above, the description below seems very contradictory.

Vinko Pribojević
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaVinko Pribojević (mid-15th century - after 1532; Latin: Vincentius Priboevius) was a Croatian historian and ideologue, best known as the founder of the pan-Slavic ideology.

Pribojević was born on the island of Hvar. He was educated in the humanist spirit and joined the Dominican Order around 1522.

His most famous work is the speech De origine successibusque Slavorum (On the Origin and Glory of the Slavs), where he exalts Illyrians and Slavs as the ancestors of the Dalmatian Croats. His speech, most probably made in Venice in 1525, left a deep impression on the Venetians, who published it in Latin and Italian several times over the following years. Its passionate glorification of Slavs (in which the book includes Alexander the Great and Aristotle, Diocletian and Jerome) and its strong pathos played a major role in the birth of the pan-Slavic ideology. It was the first time that such ideology was formulated as a program, which was further developed by the Croats Mavro Orbini and Juraj Križanić.

Pribojević was the first to incorporate Illyrians and their myth into the Croatian and Slavic historiography (or rather ideology), as a shield and rampart against the German, Hungarian and Italian national and territorial ambitions. His identification of Slavs as Illyrians, as well as his enthusiastic glorification of the historical greatness and importance of Illyrians, left a deep mark on world history and outlook.

Although his work is pure fiction from the aspect of critical historiography, Pribojević's basic ideas, however bizarre today, were taken very seriously by his contemporaries. At the time of Humanism and the Renaissance, there was still no established rational and critical apparatus differentiating between truth and fiction in the murky issues of ethnogenesis and national/linguistic loyalties. In fact, various fantastic theories on the origin of peoples persisted well into the 19th century.

This exceptionally influential man, one of the most important Croatian and global Latinists who created the ideological molds of the future, is also the ancestor of the Croatian Illyrian movement of the 19th century and of the pan-Slavic ideology that was embraced by all Slavic peoples.

[Constellation]

Originally Posted by Gocka

Check out the Wikipedia entry on Vinko, based on the summary posted above, the description below seems very contradictory.

Vinko Pribojević
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaVinko Pribojević (mid-15th century - after 1532; Latin: Vincentius Priboevius) was a Croatian historian and ideologue, best known as the founder of the pan-Slavic ideology.

Pribojević was born on the island of Hvar. He was educated in the humanist spirit and joined the Dominican Order around 1522.

His most famous work is the speech De origine successibusque Slavorum (On the Origin and Glory of the Slavs), where he exalts Illyrians and Slavs as the ancestors of the Dalmatian Croats. His speech, most probably made in Venice in 1525, left a deep impression on the Venetians, who published it in Latin and Italian several times over the following years. Its passionate glorification of Slavs (in which the book includes Alexander the Great and Aristotle, Diocletian and Jerome) and its strong pathos played a major role in the birth of the pan-Slavic ideology. It was the first time that such ideology was formulated as a program, which was further developed by the Croats Mavro Orbini and Juraj Križanić.

Pribojević was the first to incorporate Illyrians and their myth into the Croatian and Slavic historiography (or rather ideology), as a shield and rampart against the German, Hungarian and Italian national and territorial ambitions. His identification of Slavs as Illyrians, as well as his enthusiastic glorification of the historical greatness and importance of Illyrians, left a deep mark on world history and outlook.

Although his work is pure fiction from the aspect of critical historiography, Pribojević's basic ideas, however bizarre today, were taken very seriously by his contemporaries. At the time of Humanism and the Renaissance, there was still no established rational and critical apparatus differentiating between truth and fiction in the murky issues of ethnogenesis and national/linguistic loyalties. In fact, various fantastic theories on the origin of peoples persisted well into the 19th century.

This exceptionally influential man, one of the most important Croatian and global Latinists who created the ideological molds of the future, is also the ancestor of the Croatian Illyrian movement of the 19th century and of the pan-Slavic ideology that was embraced by all Slavic peoples.

Wikipedia is right. Beyond the historical reference to a Macedonian people living in the 1500s, it is useless (even this is suspect, as I did a word search in his book and I did not find references to a Macedonian ethnicity). Similar to Orbini's book, it a tale about Pan-Slavicism that later became official communist and Yugoslav dogma.

Pribojević's tales can be understood as propaganda. He lived at a time when the Balkans were populated by Slavic speakers. Similar to today's YugoSlav propaganda, he made the assumption that all these peoples are one and the same and that there is an unbroken connection between them since ancient times.

This is highly doubtful.

[Constellation]

Here are some notable quotes:

As mentioned in the previous chapters, a claim on the heritage of the past, that of the lUyrians in the case of Pribojevic, is established by securing the ethnic continuity between them and the inhabitants of his time. For Pribojevic, the same people, descendants of Thyras, inhabited the lands of the Balkan peninsula from time immemorial to the present day. As mentioned, this he attempted to prove by the usage of arguments of common descent, language and customs. Judging by his strict insistence on the humanity understood as the posterity of Adam, being divided by lines of descent into various gentes and nationes, one could almost categorize Pribojevic's understanding of collective identity as one of the first works of the primordialist theory.

Common descent, language, and customs is what makes us Slavic. We know scientifically that there is no common descent of Slavic people and we also know there is no common culture. The languages, while Slavic, are all very different and mostly unintelligible.

This is the same Yugoslav propaganda of generations ago and the same Western propaganda used today to discredit Macedonians.

A full discussion concerning the name and the nature of the common language, follows in the sections below. For now, I only wish to mention that Pribojevic designates that common language as Slavic. He states that there exists the unity of language among the descendants Thyras, and later in his argumentation in favor of Slavic ethnicity of Macedonians and Istrians claims that they speak Slavic. Apart from this, he states that the Russians are also using Dalmatarum sermone.^'^'^ Through this language unity, Pribojevic claims a continuity of the present inhabitants of Balkan peninsula with those from Antiquity.

More of the same nonsense.

The Slavic genealogy stems of one root (Thyras) from which all the branches of the Slavic tree sprang forth.

Here it is -- the biggest whopper of all.

Three main arguments are repeatedly used by Pribojevic when advocating someones Slav identity: descent, language and customs. Indeed, he is systematic and consistent in the application of this criteria, but also rather subjective. In the following paragraphs through several case studies, the practical application of those criteria through Pribojevic's argumentation, are illustrated.

Very much the same.

Do not be afraid by the diversity of the names, due to the vastness of the lands inhabited by the descendants of Thyras, it was unavoidable for them to be named differently. Under their rule are, not to mention the old names of the regions, Ruscia, Cassubia, Pruscia, Masouia, Vandalia, Moscouia, Polonia, Slesia, Morauia, Bohemia, Panonia, Carniola, Hystria, Lybumia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosna, Rascia, Dardania, Seuria, Myssia and Bulgaria once called Macedonia.^^'"
2. Pribojevic's Concept of Collective Identity or What Makes Slavs Slavs?

So you see, according to the author, despite the richness of different ethncities, ultimately we are Slavs. This is the mother of all of our problems.

This is the ultimate problem facing the survival of our people. Unfortunately, some Macedonians, young and old, believe this, but are even worse.

I know of one Macedonian, relatively young, who believes in Pan Slavicism and believes Macedonia is historically Greek. So-called "Slavic Macedonians", he believes, are southern Slavs related to all southern Slavic people and ultimately a Slavic people.

I have a relative who thinks in these terms, but is even worse. He believes that Macedonia is southern Serbia. He also rejects the connection to ancient Macedonia.

I think the problem is that growing up, pretty much everyone is taught the official Greek position, which is to say, the ancient Macedonians were Greek. Today's Macedonians, understanding their own language is different than the ancient Macedonians, but similar to surrounding Slavic speaking countries, become convinced that they are southern Slavs, usually Serbian or Bulgarian.

What I always found puzzling is that even if the ancient Macedonians spoke a different language than modern day Macedonians, it should not follow that we are not Macedonians anymore should it follow that the Egyptians of today cannot relate to the ancient Egyptians or the Lebanese with the Phoenicians.

Should the Greeks be conquered tomorrow, and adopt Slavic is their dialect, I very much doubt that they will argue that they are Slavic and their forefathers were a different people because they spoke a different language (ignoring the issue of the origins of today's Greek population).

[George S.]

cbonstellation why waste your time questioning defining what is slav. constellation why they ac cuse us of not being Macedonian our oppressors with have the propaganda and are smearing our identity for their 1912 landgrab We are called slavs so they can legitimize their claim on macedonia.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Constellation

Pribojević's tales can be understood as propaganda.

It's not propaganda, and while he may be incorrect in some areas, the overall point is a valid hypothesis that was developed to try to explain the origins of Macedonians, Croats and others, people who spoke related languages and inhabited a vast space of land.

I know of one Macedonian, relatively young, who believes in Pan Slavicism and believes Macedonia is historically Greek. So-called "Slavic Macedonians", he believes, are southern Slavs related to all southern Slavic people and ultimately a Slavic people. I have a relative who thinks in these terms, but is even worse. He believes that Macedonia is southern Serbia. He also rejects the connection to ancient Macedonia.

People are free to think what they like, not every person in every nation believes the same theory on origins for their own respective people. But in your case, I am inclined to think that you're making some of this stuff up as you go along.

Today's Macedonians, understanding their own language is different than the ancient Macedonians, but similar to surrounding Slavic speaking countries, become convinced that they are southern Slavs, usually Serbian or Bulgarian.

Your subliminal messages are becoming more pronounced. I would advise you to reconsider your approach. Few Macedonians refer to themselves as Slavs and would only use such a term in a common linguistic context. The only Macedonians who consider themselves Serbs or Bulgars (aside from an extremely tiny minority in the Macedonian republic itself) are those that either live in those countries and have been assimilated or those in the diaspora that have been subjected to such propaganda. Most are simply a product of the bizarre and manipulative environments they grew up in.

[Constellation]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

Your subliminal messages are becoming more pronounced. I would advise you to reconsider your approach. Few Macedonians refer to themselves as Slavs and would only use such a term in a common linguistic context. The only Macedonians who consider themselves Serbs or Bulgars (aside from an extremely tiny minority in the Macedonian republic itself) are those that either live in those countries and have been assimilated or those in the diaspora that have been subjected to such propaganda. Most are simply a product of the bizarre and manipulative environments they grew up in.

Let me see if I understand this correctly. I do not believe there is a Slavic ethnicity. I do not believe in a Slavic culture. I do not believe there is a single origin to Slavic speakers. I do not believe Macedonians are Slavs. But, according to you, there is a subliminal message. Publicly I am denying Yugoslav propaganda, but subliminally I am conveying what?

Today's Macedonians, understanding their own language is different than the ancient Macedonians, but similar to surrounding Slavic speaking countries, become convinced that they are southern Slavs, usually Serbian or Bulgarian.

I am not arguing that Macedonians are south Slavs, Bulgarians, or Serbs. What I am arguing is the opposite. That some Macedonians relate to Yugoslav propaganda and see more affinity with Yugoslav propaganda. This is what Orbini and others have advocated. I disagree with it.

We have a problem. Even a writer in the Slavic Brotherhood thread noted that some people between the ages of 15-25 or so identify as Slavic.

Originally Posted by Momce Makedonce

Unfortunately what you are saying is true in a lot of cases. People in mainstream society have a habit of
trying to lump everyone into the Slavic ethnicity pile. This is even more the case when it comes to the Balkan countries due to the Yugoslav past and all the Yugo propaganda about all those countries being the same South Slavic people. This has stuck around even to this day and is used by people who cant see behind all the Yugo and Soviet propaganda.

It is also unfortunate that some Macedonians seem to have been brainwashed by Yugo propaganda and today will actually say that they have a Slavic ethnicity when there is no such thing. Even worse is when confused Macedonians ( the young ones in my age bracket of 15-25) claim that Alexander the Great is ours as he was Macedonian but then call themselves Slavic, which contradicts what they said about Alexander being ours ( Macedonian ).

This is not good. They should identify as Macedonian.

Why is it no one on this forum can understand basic logic? Why is it words are taken out of context or misconstrued to mean something very different than the apparent meaning? There is a difference between advocating something and pointing out the problems we have as a people.