Brief Overview of the Balkans
Hey everybody!
Many people struggle with family history in the Balkans because they do not know enough about the history. They read of the wars, religions, tribes, and the empires, and the many names and dates are enough to intimidate anyone not from this region. They (the Balkan people) know their family history, and the regional history from their perspective, but they do not always give a clear, non political view of the history. Since I focus on the Western Balkans, the Ex Yugoslavia, I will give you that. However, to understand why these countries do what they do, one has to realize that the Balkan Peninsula is a big peninsula full of
Greece,
Bulgaria,
Albania,
Romania,
Kosovo,
and the Ex Yugo.
(Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Slovenia).
These little countries are dependent on bigger countries which periodically dominate them. Sometimes, these little countries dominate each other. It all depends on outside factors.
Some of the other countries are
Austria,
Hungary,
Italy,
the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire,
Russia,
Germany
Ottoman Empire (the Turks!)
Great Britain,
and the USA.
The religions that people are dependent on are
Catholic,
Orthodox Christianity,
and Islam.
Each of these are really critical for understanding who we are and where we come from. I will explain little bits about each place, nation (narod (nah rode)), to help it all make sense. To begin, the Roman Empire began collapsing about 200 AD. In about 385 AD, a man named Diocletian, the last great Roman Emperor built a palace in a place called Split. (SPLEET), in Croatia. It was a beautiful palace, but after he died, the local citizens started building this city within the middle of the palace laws.
Diocletian had split the Roman Empire in half, in the face of new barbarian, or less civilized people who did not speak Latin coming in on horseback to settle new lands. The West was from Spain to Croatia (just east of Italy), and the East was from Croatia to Iraq, and included Turkey and Egypt.
The boundary was the river Drava in the Balkans. The
Rome was the capitol of the west, Constantinople, or what is now Istanbul was the capitol of the East. Rome spoke Latin, and Constantinople Greek. The Bishop of Rome was the Papa or Pope, the recognized leader of the church, and the Eastern Empire was led by Patriarchs. In essence they were the same thing.
After four to five hundred years, the Slavic tribes, like the Russians of today, followed the Germanic tribes into Europe. They made their way into Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. Slav, means Glory, and many times they were taken over by other tribes or peoples, like the Huns, the Mongols, the Germans, etc, but at this point they were stronger. The Byzantine Emperor, or the Eastern Emperor Heraclius was weak, and being attacked by the Muslims in the Middle East, he asked that the Serbs and the Croats (Srbi and Hrvati (Serb i Hervahtee)) to come and defend their lands. These were two Slavic tribes, that share a common language. The Serbs settled more inland by Belgrade and Kosovo, and the Croats settled in on the southern coast by Dubrovnik and in Bosnia.
See this map? It explains where they went all across Eastern Europe.
They lived their happy lives down there, but they were being attacked by Italian forces, Bulgarian, and Germanic. So they fought back. See how big the Bulgarians were...They were huge, but the Byzantines were tricky and got them back. The Croatians and Serbs maintained their freedom.
We will talk more about that later.
A couple hundred years later, a Duke Tomislav (Tome ee slav) did something remarkable. He united the Croatian clans and tribes into one Duchy. He also got the whole people united and converted to Catholicism. Supposedly, he had the largest army and navy in Europe at the time. However, within two hundred years, the Hungarians, a non Slavic but Catholic people from the North, took over the Kingdom of Croatia, and united it with Hungary.
The destiny of Croatia was forever united with Hungary. In the meanwhile, the seeds of the future Serbia was tied with the beginning of what we now call Montenegro. Back then, it was called Zeta.
This is Montenegro today. Zeta was a small part of it.Serbia was not yet Orthodox Christian, but with the rise of Catholicism in nearby Croatia, it began to look at different religions, and reaching out to the different countries that sponsored the varying faiths.
So that is Balkan History at its Slavic Roman Beginnings. We will talk more in the future. But this is all for now.
Thanks for reading!
Many people struggle with family history in the Balkans because they do not know enough about the history. They read of the wars, religions, tribes, and the empires, and the many names and dates are enough to intimidate anyone not from this region. They (the Balkan people) know their family history, and the regional history from their perspective, but they do not always give a clear, non political view of the history. Since I focus on the Western Balkans, the Ex Yugoslavia, I will give you that. However, to understand why these countries do what they do, one has to realize that the Balkan Peninsula is a big peninsula full of
Greece,
Bulgaria,
Albania,
Romania,
Kosovo,
and the Ex Yugo.
(Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Slovenia).
These little countries are dependent on bigger countries which periodically dominate them. Sometimes, these little countries dominate each other. It all depends on outside factors.
Some of the other countries are
Austria,
Hungary,
Italy,
the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire,
Russia,
Germany
Ottoman Empire (the Turks!)
Great Britain,
and the USA.
The religions that people are dependent on are
Catholic,
Orthodox Christianity,
and Islam.
Each of these are really critical for understanding who we are and where we come from. I will explain little bits about each place, nation (narod (nah rode)), to help it all make sense. To begin, the Roman Empire began collapsing about 200 AD. In about 385 AD, a man named Diocletian, the last great Roman Emperor built a palace in a place called Split. (SPLEET), in Croatia. It was a beautiful palace, but after he died, the local citizens started building this city within the middle of the palace laws.
Diocletian had split the Roman Empire in half, in the face of new barbarian, or less civilized people who did not speak Latin coming in on horseback to settle new lands. The West was from Spain to Croatia (just east of Italy), and the East was from Croatia to Iraq, and included Turkey and Egypt.
The boundary was the river Drava in the Balkans. The
Rome was the capitol of the west, Constantinople, or what is now Istanbul was the capitol of the East. Rome spoke Latin, and Constantinople Greek. The Bishop of Rome was the Papa or Pope, the recognized leader of the church, and the Eastern Empire was led by Patriarchs. In essence they were the same thing.
After four to five hundred years, the Slavic tribes, like the Russians of today, followed the Germanic tribes into Europe. They made their way into Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. Slav, means Glory, and many times they were taken over by other tribes or peoples, like the Huns, the Mongols, the Germans, etc, but at this point they were stronger. The Byzantine Emperor, or the Eastern Emperor Heraclius was weak, and being attacked by the Muslims in the Middle East, he asked that the Serbs and the Croats (Srbi and Hrvati (Serb i Hervahtee)) to come and defend their lands. These were two Slavic tribes, that share a common language. The Serbs settled more inland by Belgrade and Kosovo, and the Croats settled in on the southern coast by Dubrovnik and in Bosnia.
See this map? It explains where they went all across Eastern Europe.
They lived their happy lives down there, but they were being attacked by Italian forces, Bulgarian, and Germanic. So they fought back. See how big the Bulgarians were...They were huge, but the Byzantines were tricky and got them back. The Croatians and Serbs maintained their freedom.
We will talk more about that later.
A couple hundred years later, a Duke Tomislav (Tome ee slav) did something remarkable. He united the Croatian clans and tribes into one Duchy. He also got the whole people united and converted to Catholicism. Supposedly, he had the largest army and navy in Europe at the time. However, within two hundred years, the Hungarians, a non Slavic but Catholic people from the North, took over the Kingdom of Croatia, and united it with Hungary.
The destiny of Croatia was forever united with Hungary. In the meanwhile, the seeds of the future Serbia was tied with the beginning of what we now call Montenegro. Back then, it was called Zeta.
So that is Balkan History at its Slavic Roman Beginnings. We will talk more in the future. But this is all for now.
Thanks for reading!
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