The Serbs Under Foreign Supremacy 650-1168

The manner of the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkan peninsula, of that of

the Bulgars, and of the formation of the Bulgarian nationality has already

been described (cf. p. 26). The installation of the Slavs in the lands

between the Danube, the Aegean, and the Adriatic was completed by about

A.D. 650. In the second half of the seventh century the Bulgars settled

themselves in the eastern half of the peninsula and became absorbed by the

Slavs there, and from that time the nationality of the Slavs in the

western half began to be more clearly defined. These latter, split up into

a number of tribes, gradually grouped themselves into three main divisions:

Serbs (or Serbians), Croats (or Croatians), and Slovenes. The Serbs, much

the most numerous of the three, occupied roughly the modern kingdom of

Serbia (including Old Serbia and northern Macedonia), Montenegro, and most

of Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Dalmatia; the Croats occupied the more western

parts of these last three territories and Croatia; the Slovenes occupied

the modern Carniola and southern Carinthia. Needless to say, none of these

geographical designations existed in those days except Dalmatia, on the

coast of which the Latin influence and nomenclature maintained itself. The

Slovenes, whose language is closely akin to but not identical with Serbian

(or Croatian), even to-day only number one and a half million, and do not

enter into this narrative, as they have never played any political role in

the Balkan peninsula.



The Serbs and the Croats were, as regards race and language, originally

one people, the two names having merely geographical signification. In

course of time, for various reasons connected with religion and politics,

the distinction was emphasized, and from a historical point of view the

Serbo-Croatian race has always been divided into two. It is only within

the last few years that a movement has taken place, the object of which is

to reunite Serbs and Croats into one nation and eventually into one state.

The movement originated in Serbia, the Serbs maintaining that they and the

Croats are one people because they speak the same language, and that

racial and linguistic unity outweighs religious divergence. A very large

number of Croats agree with the Serbs in this and support their views, but

a minority for long obstinately insisted that there was a racial as well

as a religious difference, and that fusion was impossible. The former

based their argument on facts, the latter theirs on prejudice, which is

notoriously difficult to overcome. Latterly the movement in favour of

fusion grew very much stronger among the Croats, and together with that in

Serbia resulted in the Pan-Serb agitation which, gave the pretext for the

opening of hostilities in July 1914.



The designation Southern Slav (or Jugo-Slav, jug, pronounced yug, =

south in Serbian) covers Serbs and Croats, and also includes Slovenes;

it is only used with reference to the Bulgarians from the point of view of

philology (the group of South Slavonic languages including Bulgarian,

Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; the East Slavonic, Russian; and the West

Slavonic, Polish and Bohemian).



In the history of the Serbs and Croats, or of the Serbo-Croatian race,

several factors of a general nature have first to be considered, which

have influenced its whole development. Of these, the physical nature of

the country in which they settled, between the Danube and Save and the

Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere

mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much as

10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an intricate

network and have always formed an obstacle to easy communication between

the various parts of it. The result of this has been twofold. In the first

place it has, generally speaking, been a protection against foreign

penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial. Bulgaria, further

east, is, on the whole, less mountainous, in spite of the Balkan range

which stretches the whole length of it; for this reason, and also on

account of its geographical position, any invaders coming from the north

or north-east, especially if aiming at Constantinople or Salonika, were

bound to sweep over it. The great immemorial highway from the north-west

to the Balkan peninsula crosses the Danube at Belgrade and follows the

valley of the Morava to Nish; thence it branches off eastwards, going

through Sofia and again crossing all Bulgaria to reach Constantinople,

while the route to Salonika follows the Morava southwards from Nish and

crosses the watershed into the valley of the Vardar, which flows into the

Aegean. But even this road, following the course of the rivers Morava and

Vardar, only went through the fringe of Serb territory, and left untouched

the vast mountain region between the Morava and the Adriatic, which is

really the home of the Serb race.



In the second place, while it has undoubtedly been a protection to the

Serb race, it has also been a source of weakness. It has prevented a

welding together of the people into one whole, has facilitated the rise of

numerous political units at various times, and generally favoured the

dissipation of the national strength, and militated against national

organization and cohesion. In the course of history this process has been

emphasized rather than diminished, and to-day the Serb race is split up

into six political divisions, while Bulgaria, except for those Bulgars

claimed as 'unredeemed' beyond the frontier, presents a united whole. It

is only within the last thirty years, with the gradual improvement of

communications (obstructed to an incredible extent by the Austro-Hungarian

government) and the spread of education, that the Serbs in the different

countries which they inhabit have become fully conscious of their

essential identity and racial unity.



No less important than the physical aspect of their country on the

development of the Serbs has been the fact that right through the middle

of it from south to north there had been drawn a line of division more

than two centuries before their arrival. Artificial boundaries are

proverbially ephemeral, but this one has lasted throughout the centuries,

and it has been baneful to the Serbs. This dividing line, drawn first by

the Emperor Diocletian, has been described on p. 14; at the division of

the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed

the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly

the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and

Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from

the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory. The

Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by

the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the

Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had

consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the

hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the

country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is

difficult to be accurate.



The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the

Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present

political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from

the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going

southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically approximately

correct till it reaches the newly acquired and much-disputed territories

in Macedonia, and represents fairly accurately the line that has divided

the two nationalities ever since they were first differentiated in the

seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan politics in the Middle

Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended west of this line

and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times that of

Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier

districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each

of the two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and

resents the fact that any of them should be included in the territory of

the other. Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the

Turkish conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in

the times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian,

especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth century,

while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek Empire, which

always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds, therefore, each of

the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia. From an ethnographic

point of view the Slav population of Macedonia (there were always and are

still many non-Slav elements) was originally the same as that in the other

parts of the peninsula, and probably more akin to the Serbs, who are pure

Slavs, than to the Slavs of Bulgaria, who coalesced with their Asiatic

conquerors. In course of time, however, Bulgarian influences, owing to the

several periods when the Bulgars ruled the country, began to make headway.

The Albanians also (an Indo-European or Aryan race, but not of the Greek,

Latin, or Slav families), who, as a result of all the invasions of the

Balkan peninsula, had been driven southwards into the inaccessible

mountainous country now known as Albania, began to spread northwards and

eastwards again during the Turkish dominion, pushing back the Serbs from

the territory where they had long been settled. During the Turkish

dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the

Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, like the Serbs,

then been several times under Bulgar, and finally, under Serb influence,

were left to themselves, and the process of differentiation between Serb

and Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian Slavs would have

become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further development of the

Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).



The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east,

where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were

the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save

and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of

tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian [)z]upan

and in Greek arch[=o]n. Whenever any one of these managed, either by

skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of the

neighbouring districts he was termed veliki (=great) [)z]upan. From

the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650, until

A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their suzerains were

nominally always the Greek emperors, who had 'granted' them the land they

had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be energetic and powerful,

as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867-86), John Tzimisces (969-76), Basil

II (976-1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143-80), the Greek supremacy was very

real. At those times again when Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon

(893-927), Samuel (977-1014), and John Asen II (1218-41), many of the more

easterly and southerly Serbs came under Bulgarian rule, though it is

instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do not recognize the West

Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state.

The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands under their

sway.



Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some

Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious

scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs

reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves.

Such wore the attempts of [)C]aslav, who had been made captive by Simeon

of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large part of

central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father, Michael, was

even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed a state near the

coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro), and ruled there from

1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the country peopled by the Serbs

was split into a number of tiny principalities always at war with one

another. Generally speaking, this country gradually became divided into

two main geographical divisions: (1) the Pomorje, or country by the

sea, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the southern halves

of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the Zagorje, or country behind the

hills, which included most of the modern Bosnia, the western half of the

modern kingdom of Serbia, and the northern portions of Montenegro and

Hercegovina, covering all the country between the Pomorje and the Save;

to the north of the Pomorje and Zagorje lay Croatia. Besides their

neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an

important part in Serbian history even in those early days.



Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of

the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great

impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, kral or

korol, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered

the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This

is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies between the

Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this day known as

Fru[)s]ka Gora, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars fought against the

Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the Serbs were beaten, and

those who did not like the rule of the new-comers had to migrate

southwards across the Save; at the same time the Serbs between the rivers

Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by the Bulgars. With the

arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was raised between

the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia

(between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of

the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia

was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since.

Hungary, aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected

most of Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily

growing in power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had

secured control of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part

of the coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of

Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.



In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth

centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped

themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had

been Caslav's centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian

state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the

south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the

Turkish sandjak or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the

modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which

runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded to the modern province

of that name, became independent in the second half of the tenth century,

and was never after that incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it

fell under Hungarian influence; in the twelfth century, during the reign

of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all

other Serb territories, had to acknowledge the supremacy of

Constantinople.



It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory

which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses,

Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself was divided, in the eleventh

century, was torn apart between the two beliefs. The dividing line between

the jurisdictions of Rome and Constantinople ran from north to south

through Bosnia, but naturally there has always been a certain vagueness

about the extent of their respective jurisdictions. In later years the

terms Croat and Roman Catholic on the one hand, and Serb and Orthodox on

the other, became interchangeable. Hercegovina and eastern Bosnia have

always been predominantly Orthodox, Dalmatia and western Bosnia

predominantly Roman Catholic. The loyalty of the Croatians to

Austria-Hungary has been largely owing to the influence of Roman

Catholicism.



During the first centuries of Serbian history Christianity made slow

progress in the western half of the Balkan peninsula. The Dalmatian coast

was always under the influence of Rome, but the interior was long pagan.

It is doubtful whether the brothers Cyril and Methodius (cf. chap. 5)

actually passed through Serb territory, but in the tenth century their

teachings and writings were certainly current there. At the time of the

division of the Churches all the Serb lands except the Dalmatian coast,

Croatia, and western Bosnia, were faithful to Constantinople, and the

Greek hierarchy obtained complete control of the ecclesiastical

administration. The elaborate organisation and opulent character of the

Eastern Church was, however, especially in the hands of the Greeks, not

congenial to the Serbs, and during the eleventh and twelfth centuries the

Bogomil heresy (cf. chap, 6), a much more primitive and democratic form of

Christianity, already familiar in the East as the Manichaean heresy, took

hold of the Serbs' imagination and made as rapid and disquieting progress

in their country as it had already done in the neighbouring Bulgaria;

inasmuch as the Greek hierarchy considered this teaching to be

socialistic, subversive, and highly dangerous to the ecclesiastical

supremacy of Constantinople, all of which indeed it was, adherence to it

became amongst the Serbs a direct expression of patriotism.