The Serbs did not "steal" FYROM from Bulgaria!! Firstly, Skoplje was the Serbian capital during many,many years in the Medival Period. Secondly, prior to WWII, when Tito, a croatian communist and his goons came to power, FYROM was a part of Serbia. FYROM is more liguistically related to Serbia. Also, the time you metioned the changing of macedonian names form their original ending to the "ski" ending was al tito. It makes sense that Tito would do such a thing, after all himself being a croatian, wanted to see the downfall of Serbia (the philosophy by which he run his nation was "a weak Serbia makes a strong Yugoslavia") So, he tried to distance the FYROMians as much from Serbia as possible by giving them their own alphabet, their own language (which is basically just a combination of Serbian and Bulgarian) and their church..etc. Also, he did this in order to satisfy his territorial ambitions in Northern Greece (he renaimed the province Macedonia) He also weakened Serbia by making Montenegro and Bosnia their own republics and by making Kosovo and Vojvodina their own provinces. Thus, FYROM is Serbian...

P.S. The thing about macedonian history being under construction.... BRILLIANT!!!

I believe FYROM is meant d be divided among the three nations (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece) historically FYROM was land between these 3 countries (mostly Bulgaria and Serbia) and a bit on South for Greece

Hello Brother. I disagree with many of the things you said and agreed with others. Historically I disagree with you about the ethnic nature of Vardar. But beleive me if Serbia was to end the FYROM problem by taking over Vardar I would be a happy man. It would make it alot easier to control the albanians who keep jumping over the border from Kosovo taking over the Skops who cant defend themselves


Anyway I actually intended this thread to be reserved strictly for Primary and Secondary source posting. So can a mod split this post to form another thread called the 'Serbian claim to Skopia' or something?

Done. The other sections please see them as a data or a library of info, this section P.H.A Discussions are for general chit chat.

Knez_Nenad_of_Serbia, Glad you could join.
For those of you here, he and milos are from a forum I'm a part of promoting strong ties between Greece and Serbia.

If you want to know more about it, PM me.

FYROM should be split btw 3 nations most people say and that is Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. Bulgaria reasons are they, speak more of the Bulgarian language and are more of Bulgarian conscious.

From my knowledge and belief it should be between Greece and Serbia I once had a document which I cannot find now.

It was an article based on communications between Serbia and Greek Governments just before the break away of Yugoslavia, in regards to Milosevic informing the Greek Government of the day. Serbia asked Greece to take half of Skopia, whoever for some reasons Greece declined.

Now in my opinion Serbia should take 90% and Greece 10% the 10% parts of which is Hellenic of origin. And Kosovo is historically Serbian what are the Albanians doing over there? they have no right to Kosovo.

ande, we should reward the Albanians for terrorising FYROM, hahahahahahahahahaha

Exactley my piont, why don't they leave Kosovo alone and put it with the Skopiani, I give the Skops 7 years and they'll be gone.

im being generous, i give them 12 yrs

Can you send me info on the forum?

It can be found here:
http://serbhellenic.16.forumer.com/index.php

It is a site promoting friendship and political/social/religious union & relations between both our great nations; Serbia & Hellas.

Glad to see that people are interested in the forum!

Anyways, in one of Minimalistx''s posts he stated that FYROM should be partioned to four contries. (Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania)

Alright fair enough but ALBANIA!!! We dont want to make them stronger!! Heck, I'd rather give ALL of FYROM to Greece or Bulgaria instead of giving 10-30% to Albania!!

Anyways, the FAIREST possible solution is that the southern Greek speaking area be given to Greece and the rest to Serbia. (90% to Serbia and 10% to Greece).

Also, I beilieve that the albanian state should be dismantled (North Epirus to Greece and the Skadar regions to Serbia) We should simply expell the albanians from our lands!!! Give'm to Canada (considering the shortage of workers and young people, I think they would be thrilled to get them) or turkey. This way peace will be restopred to the Balkans and FINALLY, maybe Serbia will have a chance to rebuild our Military and Economy.....

why would u wanna build ur military up???

u already have wicked fanatical national rebels, hehehe

and i say like 10% of FYROM to Albania to reward them for killing FYROM off, hahaha

uno 1/3rd of FYROM's population is Albanian

BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Look buddy being a Bosnian and a Bosniak for that matter, i couldnt just sitback and let you have your little power trip, ok you may not like Tito, but this man has united Yugoslavia under one name, under one entity while he was alive, he strengthened the economy, made differences unknown, ok he may have made some mistakes in his time, but this man has been given legendary status in yugoslavia, that is until ofcourse Milosevic and his Goons, which were the real goons, and Chetniks may i add, decided that Yugoslavia was to be under what they believed as a "greater Yugoslavia" translation, well basicly a Greater Serbia, obviously no one was going to stand for it and heck, war broke out but to call tito names and to call his supporters goons, is bullshit on its own, ok you may not like what he did, but i appreciate the fact he allowed Bosnia to have recognition, i wouldnt wana be apart of any greater Serbia or any greater Serb state for that matter, chetniks believe in a orthadox religion, not that their is anything wrong with that, but to force it onto others of different beliefs is another issue for another day, point being is if your going to discuss and pick at any politician make that Milosevic and his Goons as they obviously fucked the Former Yugoslavs and took away what we loved so much, a unified state

thank you

GRAPHIC IMAGES:

QUOTE(BiH @ Apr 20 2006, 05:40 PM) [snapback]28312[/snapback]

ok you may not like Tito, but this man has united Yugoslavia under one name, under one entity while he was alive,

oh great Tito, bless be you, Yugoslav 'brothers' to kill each other

source: Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-399
First printing, November 1961,
Second printing, May 1962
Published by: The American Institute for Balkan Affairs
1525 West Diversey Parkway, Chicago 14, Illinois
Edition 1990

THE INTRODUCTION of the book starts as following:

Quote:

The greatest genocide during World War II, in proportion to nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany but in Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There, in the years 1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Gypsies -- men, women and children -- perished in a gigantic holocaust. These are the figures used by most foreign authors, especially Germans, who were in the best position to know...

...The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an allegedly civilized part of the world. Yet even a book such as this can attempt to tell only a part of the story.

(End quote)

---

The following photograph was referenced in:

Professor Edmond Paris: "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941 - 1945" on page 319.
The caption under the photograph reads (quote):
Her eyes were gourged out for the eye-ball collection of Ante Pavelic.
(End quote).



---

The Ustashi took pictures following their "heroic deeds," ...

(End quote).

Raped and tortured! In 1990's - the Ustashi tradition lives as evident from the Serbian women survivors' depositions.



---

NOW HERES ONE FOR YOU MY BOSNIAN FRIEND:

The following photograph was referenced in:

Professor Edmond Paris: "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941 - 1945" on page 227.
The caption under the photograph reads (quote):

Ustashi carrying the head of a Serbian Orthodox priest.

(End quote).

Also appears in Time-Life book by Ronald H. Bailey "Partisans and Guerrillas", on page 112.
The caption under the photograph reads (quote:)

Grinning Ustashi storm troopers show off a severed head in Bosnia in 1942.

(End quote).

These proud Croats boasted about Croatian thousand years of Christianity. And here they hold, by the hair, a head of a Christian priest that they have tortured and murdered. This particular slaughter occured in village of Drakulic near Banja Luka, on February 7, 1942.

The tradition of chopping off Serbian heads still lives. Simillar atrocities were repeated in Bosnia in 1990's.[u]



---

Professor Edmond Paris: "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941 - 1945" on page 232.
The caption under the photograph reads (quote):

Serbian women and children, labeled as enemies of the State of Croatia, being taken to concentration camps, where they died of starvation, or were killed.

End quote.

Avro Manhattan: "The Vatican's Holocaust", under similar photograph, on page 91 says (quote):

The Ustashi after raiding some Orthodox village, as rule deported the women and children, either to concentration camps or to the nearest convent, where the little "heretics" were rebaptized. This task was carried by "Caritas," a Catholic organization run by the Hierarchy.

Very often, however, women and children were massacred with the rest.

End quote.








oh the hypocrisy

source: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/convert.html

The following photograph was referenced in:

Professor Edmond Paris: "Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941 - 1945" on page 235.
The caption under the photograph reads (quote):
Vlado Margetic, Franciscan, forcibly proselytizing Orthodox Serbs.
(End quote).

Avro Manhattan: "The Vatican's Holocaust", under similar photograph, on page 68, says (quote):

"Converting" the Orthodox Serbs, December 21st, 1941, Friars, besides Priests, participated in forcible conversions. They were no less ruthless than the parish clergy, e.g. Monk Ambrozije Novak, Guardian of the Capucine Monastery in Varazdin, who, after surrounding the village of Mosanica with Ustashi contingents, told the people: "You Serbs are condemned to death, and you can only escape that sentence by accepting Catholicism."

Catholic Padres did not hesitate to liquidate those who resisted. Witness Father Dr. Dragutin Kamber, a Jesuit priest and sworn Ustashi, who ordered the killing of 300 Orthodox Serbs in Doboj... Or Father Dr. Branimir Zupanic, who had more than 400 people killed in one village alone: Ragoje. Father Srecko Peric, of the Gorica Monastery, near Livno [Herzegovina], advocated mass murders with the wollowing words: "Kill all Serbs. And when you finish come here, to Church, and I will confess you and free you from sin." This resulted in a massacre, on August 10th, 1941, during which over 5,600 Orthodox Serbs in the district of Livno alone lost their lives.

(End quote).



--- OH YES - TITO WAS A GREAT LEADER, ESPECIALLY TO THE SERBIAN POPULATION

Ok like i said he made some mistakes, but Tito overall was loved by many Yugoslavs and you cant deny that, what im trying to say is Milosevic is a true monster, Tito was a Communist who made wrong moves, i admit that but he didnt want war, he wanted unity

wtf!!! SO FOR FUCKING UNITY HE HAD 2 GO OUT, LAY A GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ORTHODOX POPULATION, ALLOW UTASHI 2 FUCKING TORTURE SERBS IF THEY DIDNT CONVERT TO CATHOLICISM

ALMOST 1 MILLION SERBIAN PEOPLE DIED FROM YUGOSLAV HANDS DURING WW2 AND THATS A MISTAKE!!!

you can fuck off from this forum if u honestly believe rape/murder/execution/genocide/looting/conversion/torture was only a mistake!!!

he had always intended to destroy Serbia!

Look, i never once said what he did was right? and obviously its wrong but look what he did for the economy? thats what im talking about when i say benefits, i never once approved his actions against serbs, im a Bosniak, a muslim to be exact, so why would i approve the conversion of Orthadox serbs to Catholicism? doesnt make sense to me ???

ok you Free Mason

minimalistix this is a history discussion not a racial debate , its not BiH's fault and politics and history are litrally fucked. so take it easy you can learn alot from BiH not only because he is a good friend of mine but he does believe in alot of things we do , so just relax and take it easy no need to swear.

~ Woggy

No offence to either Bih or NO.1 WOG but the day I cant see what we have to learn from a muslim convert about historical matters

in a 1899 Austro-Hungarian census %98 of Bosnia Hercegovina declared themselves as serbs regardless of whether they are muslim or catholic or orthodox. today they are quite confused, they think bosnian is an ethnicity

and how about the accusation of milosevic as a murderer?? How about Nasir Oric?/

Nasir Oric was the muslim militia men who went into the now infamous srebenicca and began murdering Serbs, trying to make the muslims the majority in that town. When the Serbs came Oric retreated and the Serbs then infamously killed 8000 muslims

great man that Oric was aye? Starts a massacre, retreats and his own people get massacred

I think some of the things the Serbs did was disgusting. the hilarious thing though is that the muslims and croats are treated as saints and only as victims. anyone with a grasp of balkan history knows otherwise

And then you woke up and had breakfast

seriously though at present Albania is being used once again by a foreign power. They have a history of being what we call in Greek a 'Tsiraki' meaning 'bitch or whore' because they were used by the Turks, the British, the Italians, the Germans, the Russians.

It should say something about them that they were the last to be independent of turkey and didnt even fight for it but only got given it through italy and britain's lobbying

This time America is using albania as a foot hold in the balkans. America is trying to cut off russia's traditional sphere of influence.

Albanians are rapidly taking over FYROM and are cleansing Kosovo of the few remaining Serbs.

The Serbs have to do what ever they can to keep their borders in tact as long as albanians have the US's favour. If it wasnt for NATO I can only imagine what the Serbs will do to the misbehaving little albanians



NATO troops transported albanians to and from mortar positions of Skopje. FACT.

exacly, Bosnians are not a race of people

they are the Croatians and Serbians who converted from Christianity to Islam

source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bk.html

Ethnic groups:

Bosniak 48%, Serb 37.1%, Croat 14.3%, other 0.6% (2000)
note: Bosniak has replaced Muslim as an ethnic term in part to avoid confusion with the religious term Muslim - an adherent of Islam

---

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks

Bosniaks are a Southeast European ethnic group descended from South Slavic converts to Islam, that lived in Bosnian Kingdom (they called themselves Good Bosnians, in old Bosnian: "Dobri Bošnjani"). They are named after Bosnia, the largest and most significant historical region of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Religiously speaking, the majority of Bosniaks are Sunni Muslims.

Like ive stated before all war criminals should burn in hell and that does include Nasir Oric, i dont approve of what he has done and never will

im greek orthadox by the way makedonas eimai so i don't know why i take it to offence this is just a historical / political discussion not a racial slur of words..

Bih, whay are you here. Your pathetic heap of rubble your so proud to call your homeland has no positive affiliation with Greece (naturally, our friends, the Greeks dont deal with muslim, genocidal narco-mafiosos).

The reason tito is so loved is because he brainwashed people. He WWEAKENED Serbia greatley, hence croatias massive support for him. Firstly, Serbia before tito came to power consisted of FYROM, Serbia, Monetnegro, Bih, and Kraijna. In accordance with his "a weak Serbia makes a strong Yugoslavia" policy, he stripped Serbia of its additional territories and brainwashed people from thinking they were Serb. Secondly, you praise him for uniting the south slavs, WHAT GOOD HAS THAT DONE US!!!!!!!! Our countries hate each othe , we fought a massive war, we anallated our economies and hundreds of thousands suffered. Anyways, why would YOU of ppl, a basnian be proud of Yugoslavia AFTER ALL, YOUR COUNTRY HELPED DESTROY IT!!!!!!!!

Minamalistix and Elhinias, I agre with you 100% in regards to titos genocide on Orthodoxy and the point you made about how bosnians used to consider themselves Serbs. Tito ENCOURAGED albanian immigration. He paid for housing, education... EVERYTHING. He demolished Holy Churches that have stood there since the blood of Serbian soldiers stained the ground 700 years ago. He created the PERFECT conditions for a war to errupt in Kosovo because he knew exactly how Serbia would react.... they would want their land back and their history! He started the war for Kosovo.

Also, its true. Bosnians, Montenegrins, FYROMians, all considered themselves Serb before tito came to power. Hell, the organization that carried out the assasination on Archduke ferdinand, HALF OF IT WAS MUSLIM!!!

Lastly, TITO DID NOT WANT UNITY!!! quite the contrary!

Xristos Vackrece (Christ ahs risen, in Serbian) My Greek Friends!!!

One of the burning questions in the Balkan history of the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, until the Balkan wars 1912/13, was the Macedonian question. Not only the Balkan peoples and their states were engaged in the struggle over Macedonia but also the Great Powers endeavored to master this region, as it was rather significant for their political, economic, cultural, religious and other interests in the Balkans.

The policy of the Great Powers complicated to a great extent the natural and righteous solution of the Macedonian question by imposing those solutions that did not observe historical, economic, geographical and other facts, but paid attention to the long term strategic interests of the Great Powers instead.

On the other hand, it was Impossible to delineate clear borders between the neighbouring peoples, first of all the Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians, because of the ethnic and religious medley of the population of Macedonia and the entangled cultural influences of several civilizations. This was one of the main causes of the long lasting disputes between the Balkan states and the peoples, which was also strengthened by the insufficiently articulated consciousness of the Macedonian Slav population as regards their ethnic and national affiliation.[1]

***

After the Liberation Balkan wars in 1912/13 and the final expulsion of the Ottoman empire from Europe, the largest portion of Macedonia became part of the Kingdom of Greece, its minor portion was incorporated in the Bulgarian state and the northern part of Macedonia in the Kingdom of Serbia. The borders that were established among the Balkan states then, and slightly adjusted after World War I, remained the same until the present times. The boundaries were defined by many international agreements, starting with the London and Bucharest Treaties (1913), then the treaties of Versailles and Neuilly (1919)[2] between the Allies, on one side, and the defeated Bulgaria, on the other, and by a number of other international settlements, including the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. By all these treaties the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia was first defined as the part of the territory of the Kingdom of Serbia, then of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) and, finally, of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e. the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

After the Communist Party of Yugoslavia came into power at the end of the Second World War, the southern pan of the territory of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which had entered the Yugoslav state as a part of the Kingdom of Serbia, was proclaimed one of the six Yugoslav federal units - the People's Republic of Macedonia, later the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.

The borders between the new federal units - People's Republic of Serbia and People's Republic of Macedonia - were mostly arbitrarily set by several leading Yugoslav communists headed by Josip Broz Tito.[3] The ideological creators of the interior borders among the federal units were the leading Croatian and Slovene communists (Tito, Kardelj, Hebrang, Bakarić). It was most important to them to inaugurate by such borders the political strategy which aimed at making the Serbian factor a marginal one under the pretext of the alleged struggle against "Greater Serbian hegemony". The real political objective - the partition of the Serbian people by interior republic borders and the fragmentation of the Serbian ethnic area - was concealed by internationalist phrases and social demagogy. The Serbian people accepted the restored Yugoslav state candidly in spite of the clear fact that the principle of equality of the peoples was substituted by the union of the republic political oligarchies. By such ruling system and with the internal borders drawn in Yugoslavia in this way an artificial balance of power was established - the idea taken over from the Austro- Hungarian Balkan policy at the end of the 19th century. Having in mind this political background, it is quite clear why in the defining of the boundaries of the federal units none of the historical, ethnic or geographical reasons were observed nor was any opportunity given to the people to express their own free democratic will as to the boundaries within which they wished to live. The leading Serbian communists blindly served such political strategy for the sake of their careers and interests though it was meant against their own people. Thus, it was possible to happen that the territories that had for centuries been the part of the Old Serbia and within the boundaries of the restored Patriarchate of Peć (1557-1776), until its abolition,[4] became part of the People's Republic of Macedonia.

In the course of almost a half-century long existence of the Yugoslav federal unit under this name, the concept of Macedonia expanded much beyond its historical-geographical boundaries in the north. By the one-sided secession of this federal unit not only was the heritage of the Serbian struggle for liberation in the 19th century endangered but also was the portion of the Serbian people living in this former Yugoslav republic separated from their motherland and pushed to the position of a national minority to which neither basic national nor human rights were guaranteed.

Besides historical and ethnic reasons, the geographical ones are obvious when the union of this area with the area of the Serbian and Yugoslav state is in question: the Morava-Vardar river basin which "unites" this area into a single geographical whole offering natural communication and economic entirety and compatibility.[5] Besides the geographical role, the Morava-Vardar basin also has an important geopolitical role and for centuries it has been the pivot of the political and cultural development of the Serbian people.

Unfortunately, neither the public here nor the international public are aware of the facts that the Serbs, the Serbian cultural heritage and tradition are present in the area of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.M.). This is not surprising if one considers that this topic was not to be tackled in this Republic and in others as well, primarily for ideological reasons. Every attempt to present facts was interpreted as an expression of "the tendencies and territorial claims on the pair of the Greater Serbia". This position resulted from the ideological viewpoints of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the nation and the national question in Yugoslavia. The substance of the concept lay in the idea that the national question was a "revolutionary question" and, actually, by stirring up regional and religious feelings the "capitalistic creation" could be most easily destroyed. The term which was used for the Yugoslav state by the communists.[6] That was the milieu in which the idea on the Macedonian nation and the Macedonian federal unit was born. Some local features of the Macedonian Slav population served as an argument in favour of proclaiming a separate nation. This led to neglecting a whole array of historical and other facts decisive for understanding the Macedonian question as a whole and the problem of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in particular.

***

In the ethnographic aspect, Macedonia has always represented a true medley of peoples and religions, mostly the Slav and non-Slav population. For this reason, the term Macedonian has always had a solely regional meaning, and not ethnic or national. The Macedonian Slavs, besides the feeling of closeness with the Serbs and Bulgarians, depending on whether the region in which they lived bordered on the one or the other people, also shared the feeling of regional adherence. This feeling of regional adherence never appeared in the form of affiliation to any particular nation nor was a strife for a separate state.[7] Only some sort of consciousness of autonomy appeared, but primarily as the result of the Serbian-Bulgarian dispute over Macedonia. One should not overlook the fact chat, apart from the Slavs, the Greeks and Cincars have always lived in the region of Macedonia, and later the Turks, Albanians, Jews and others. This ethnographic medley characteristic of Macedonia was also characteristic of the area that was later delineated as the area of the Republic of Macedonia. This was not the case, however, for the area that entered the Greek state after the establishment of the Serbian-Greek border in 1913. As for the Slavs, besides those that felt as Serbs or Bulgarians, there were transitional zones in which either the Serbian or Bulgarian influence was somewhat more felt.[8]

On the territory of the F.Y.R.M. both the Serbs and Bulgarians started exerting their Influence as early as in the 9th century, the Bulgarian influence being more political by nature and earlier in time, and the influence of the Serbs from the end of the 13th and in the course of the 14th century was not only political but also cultural, as it can be seen in the numerous Serbian monuments of culture preserved till the present day. In the 19th century, the government of the Principality of Serbia took care of the destiny of the Serbian and Slav people in Turkey and in Macedonia as well. It was an integrational effort to help the Slav revival in the Balkans, in which Serbia had a leading role. As early as in 1848, the Serbian government prepared The Motion to the Porta on the Interior Structure in Macedonia with two main requests: the independent election of the district and nahye princes as it was in Serbia in the times of Hadzi Mustafa pasha, and the nomination of bishops and metropolitans of the Slav nationality. The renowned Serbian statesmen Ilija Garašanin wrote a detailed study in which he pointed to the suffering of the Slav population in Turkey and to the oppression of the Slavs by the "Turkish rulers and Greek bishops".[9]

A stronger Bulgarian influence was resumed in the mid 19th century, particularly after the proclamation of the Bulgarian Exarchos in 1870, whose aims were more of a political than spiritual nature and served, besides the righteous struggle for the national emancipation of the Bulgarians, as a means to Bulgarize a pare of the Serbian and Macedonian Slav population. This activity of the Bulgarian Church served the unconcealed tendency to ensure the hegemony of Bulgaria in the Balkans (Bulgaria of San Stefano). The Serbian presence and tradition were a great hindrance to such tendencies of the Bulgarians and also to their patrons among the Great Powers whether this be Russia, on one side, or Austria-Hungary and England, on the other.

The Serbian rulers and the Serbian medieval noblemen built numerous churches and monasteries in the central Balkan regions in which the Serbian art boomed. The evidence of this is found in the sources of different origin. Around Skopje, Prilep, Ćustendil (in western Bulgaria today), Kumanovo, Kratovo, Štip, around Tetovo, in the Crna Reka river valley, around Debar and Ohrid, and in other regions, there are dense clusters of Serbian churches of which many still exist.[10] Moreover, under the Ottoman Empire, the districts of Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Poreč, Kratovo, Štip and Radovište belonged to the Patriarchate of Peć until its abolition.

Skopje was proclaimed the capital of the Macedonian federal unit when the Yugoslav communists came into power although it had always been a part of the Old Serbia. On almost all geographical maps by the western cartographers of the 17th and 18th centuries,[11] Skopje was marked as the part of the Serbian lands, and since the end of the 19th century until the liberation from the Turkish rule it was the sear of the Kosovo vilayet that included most of the territory of the Old Serbia. The largest part of the classical Macedonia belonged to the Bitolj and Salonica vilayets.

Already in the first half of the 19th century, numerous political, economic and social links existed among the population of these lands and the Principality of Serbia and other Serbian lands. A major portion of the Serbian population in the Principality, particularly town dwellers, had their origin in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Many prominent chiefs in the First Serbian Uprising came from these regions: Petar Novaković-Čardaklija (from the village of Leunovo - Gornji Polog), Janko Popović (of Ohrid), Marko Krstić from Bjelice, Vuča Živić from Mavrovo, Dositej Novaković from the village of Dabnica near Prilep, etc.[12] It is no wonder, then, that Gedeon Jurišić in his well known Dečanski prvenac (1852) wrote of Tetovo as the pride of the "Srpsrvo" /Serbs/, while he considered the citizens ofTetovo "the model of his nationality". If it had not been so, would the Principality of Serbia, though poor, have paid generously the Serbian schools and teachers in the middle of the last century? Would it have sent books and church articles and have aided the work of churches and monasteries in many other ways? [13] That this tradition has deep roots is confirmed by the monuments of the old Serbian literature found in the last century in the area of the F.Y.R.M.

As early as at the beginning of the seventies of the 19th century, there were dozens of Serbian schools in this region.[14] A small number of these schools had existed before this period. They presented the primary forms of teaching literacy in some of the monasteries or in private houses. With time, modern forms of tuition were adopted. In 1843, for example, Spiridon Jovanović started teaching in Veles and in 1854, Andjelko Cvetković became a teacher in Skopje. Sima Damjanović, born in Bosnia, taught in Bašino Selo from 1856 till 1873; Jovan Nešković, born in Pest, Hungary, taught in Veles from 1857 till 1860.[15] In the course of the eighties of the 19th century, Serbia took care of the political and educational-cultural needs of the Serbian people in Turkey and this activity became an integral part of the Serbian foreign policy. These tasks were pursued by the cultural societies (the Society of St. Sava) and institutions, and also by the Serbian consular offices stationed in the Old Serbia and Macedonia: first in Skopje (1887) and Salonica (1887), and then in Bitolj (1889) and Priština (1889). The Serbian consular office in Serez was in operation since 1897. At the end of the 19th century, the Serbian schools in the Old Serbia and Macedonia grew significantly in number in spite of hindrances imposed by the Turkish rule and the representatives of the Bulgarian Exarchos, and even the Patriarchate of Constantinople. For example, in the Sanjak of Skopje of the Kosovo vilayet during the 1892/93 school year, 775 pupils attended elementary schools, 612 boys and 163 girls. Apart from Skopje and the villages north of Skopje, the elementary schools were established in Kratovo, Kočani, and Berovo. In the next school year there were already 29 elementary schools (1058 pupils) in the Sanjak of Skopje.[16]

***

Multiple centuries-long profound links of a good portion of the people from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia primarily with Serbia, then with other Serbian countries, are seen in the deeply rooted Serbian tradition which is expressed not only in folk customs and heritage but also in the ethnographic and literary heritage of the people from this area. The tradition of Slava, which is inherent to the Serbs only, existed in the largest portion of the area that belongs to this former Yugoslav federal unit. The old Serbian traditions and customs, such as: the poems about St. Sava, Dushan's wedding, Marko Kraljević/Marko the Prince/, King Vukašin, Karadjordje were also present in this area. The Macedonian epic poems told of other Serbian heroes as well. One of the best Serbian story-tellers from the beginning of this century was Andjelko Krstić, born in the village of Labunište, Drimkol (the Drimkol area includes Struga, Podgorac, Labunište, Borovac, Jablanica, Vevčani, Nereze, and other places). In his novel Trayan, he described very vividly the lives of the Macedonian migrant workers: at home, personal relationships, then- relationship with the Turks, their work abroad. The valuable material on the life of the people in the Drimkol of Debar was collected by Mihailo Veljić, the striking notes from Kratovo were written by Stevan Simić, while Tomo Smiljanić Bradina described Mount Galičnik and the people living there. Kočović and Kavajac, two story-tellers from Struga, left their traces in the Serbian literature. These numerous sources speak persuasively of the power of the Serbian tradition in the mentioned areas of the Old Serbia and Macedonia and about the imbuing of this tradition with folk and cultural heritage of the Serbs on the whole.[17]

At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, Skopje was the centre of the political life of the Serbs in Turkey. Immediately after the revolution of the Young Turks, the conference of the Serbian leaders in Turkey was held in Skopje in August 1908, and the decision was passed to found the Serbian democratic league, its objective being "...to aid the establishment of civil freedoms and constitutional life." From February 2 to 11, 1909, in Skopje, the National Assembly of the Serbs in Turkey was held and the Constitution of the Serbian National Organization in the Ottoman Empire was passed; the requirements concerning education, political and economic life of the Serbs in Turkey were proclaimed. Besides the Chief Committee seated in Skopje, there were four district committees: for the Raška-Prizren eparchy, for the Skopje eparchy, for the Bitolj vilayet, and for the Salonica vilayet. Let us mention only several deputies to the Serbian National Assembly in Skopje. From Bitolj and surroundings: Jovan Ćirković, Rista Cvetković, Gligorije Božović and Rista Stavrić; from Veles and surroundings: Djordje Stamenković, merchant; from Debar and surroundings: Dr Isailo Hadžijevski, physician; from Dojran and surroundings: Jovan K. Grošević, teacher; from Drimkol and surroundings: Matija Šumenković, priest; from Djevdjelija and surroundings: Stojan Ristić; from Kičevo and surroundings: Janićije Djurić, baker, and Jovan Č. Tomić, peasant; from Ohrid and surroundings: Serafim Krstić, priest; from Prilep and surroundings: Gligor Sokolović, chief, and Petar Dimitrijević, merchant; from Voden and surroundings: Stojan Marković, merchant, and so on.[18] With the growing of the economic power of the Serbian merchants and with an increasing number of educated persons, a class of Serbian city-dwellers was formed, at first rather sparse but gradually becoming more noticeable and the main factor in the social and cultural renaissance of the Serbs in the Old Serbia and Macedonia. The grammar school in. Skopje had the highest possible reputation among the Serbian high schools in Turkey. This social class initiated a comparatively fast economic and cultural renaissance of these districts after the Balkan wars 1912/1913 and especially after World War I.

At the beginning of 1914 the National theatre was opened in Skopje. The director of the Theatre was the well-known Serbian comedy writer Branislav Nušić. Since the old theatre building was soon destroyed in fire, a new building was built in 1927. The City theatre was opened in Bitolj in November 1913, and after World War I, the City theatre was opened in Štip in 1926. Also, after the First World War, many important educational, cultural, and health institutions were established within the boundaries of the new Yugoslav state. The Faculty of Philosophy was founded immediately after the war, in 1920, and soon after it the Skopje Scientific Society, in 1921. The society published an excellent periodical: Glasnik Skopskog naučnog društva /Herald of the Skopje Scientific Society/ (as many as 17 books of the Bulletin were published in the period 1925-1937). In 1925, the Great Muslim theological secondary school named "King Alexander" was opened in Skopje, and in 1937, the theological school of Gazi-Isa bey. The Students' hostel in Skopje named "King Peter the First" was built in 1931. Among some of the cultural societies in Skopje between the two World Wars, there were also five singing societies, the Skopje String Quartet (1933), the Cultural Society "Jefimija" (1930) that emulated the Belgrade Society "Cvijeta Zuzorić", the Society for Promotion of Tourism "Jug"/South/ (since 1927), the Flight Club "Naša krila" /Our Wings/, and other societies of the kind. Besides the National Hospital in Skopje, new hospitals were built in Veles, Tetovo, Djevdjelija, Ohrid, Štip, Kumanovo and some other places after World War I.[19] All this shows that the Kingdom of Serbia, and later the new Yugoslav state as well, endeavoured to overcome the differences in development levels between the earlier liberated lands and the newly liberated territories after the Balkan wars.

***

The Bulgarian occupying regime in the First and particularly in the Second World War, and most of the leaders of the Macedonian regime after the Second World War, strove to annul the development achievements of these regions within the Serbian and Yugoslav state before 1941. Instead of the facts, the official ideological propaganda spoke only of the "oppression by the Serbian nationalism" and the "occupation" of Macedonia. This systematic and persistent propaganda imbued all the layers of society, first of all education, culture, public media, scientific activities, advocating repulsion and even hatred of the Macedonian people towards everything that was Serbian. Unfortunately, it was a rather successful process that went on. So, instead of strengthening natural traditional connections with Belgrade and other Serbian economic and cultural centers, the education of the new Macedonian intelligence was primarily directed towards Zagreb.[20]

For the last half century, from 1941 until our times, a systematic long term policy was pursued to push the Serbs out of the Macedonian federal unit, and then to deprive of their national identity those Serbs that remained to live on their own old hearths. Could one not speak here of "ethnic cleansing"? With the arrival of the Bulgarian occupying army in 1941, after Hitler's attack on Yugoslavia, mass expulsion of the Serbs from the area of the F.Y.R.M. took place. First, the city dwellers were deported in 1941, then all of the suspected pro-Serbs, i.e. all those who did not consent to be forcefully proclaimed Bulgarians. In the summer of 1941, mass arrests and the deportation of the Serbian rural population starred in the Kumanovo, Veles, and Tetovo districts. And then, to complete the absurdity, the new Communist regime authorized the situation created by the Fascist occupation and enacted a law on prohibiting the return of the expelled Serbs!

A large number of those who acceded to the Bulgarian Fascist occupier in 1941 ranked high in the organization of the new Communist rule and Macedonian state later on. Therefore, it is not surprising that already in 1944 the remaining Serbian population in the People's Republic of Macedonia was the object of brutal deprivation of their national identity. With the colonizing methods applied in 1947, some regions were emptied and the number of Serbs or those who were traditionally linked to Serbia decreased. Thus, about 22,000 people from Poreč, Kičevo, Kriva Palanka and Kumanovo were settled in Vojvodina.

Immediately after the liberation from the occupying forces, in 1945, the requests to become a part of the newly formed federal unit of Serbia came from some regions of Macedonia in spite of the terror of the new Macedonian government. The typical example was the plea of the rural population in the Vratnica municipality, Tetovo district. In a letter to the minister for Serbia in the Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia the inhabitants of these villages stated: "We, the Serbs from the Vratnica municipality have never felt otherwise but as Serbs, the same as our ancestors, and it has been so for centuries. Because of that we suffered extremely during the occupation both in the last World War and in this one that ended recently. During the occupation in this war, 41 Serbs were executed by firing squads, some were Interned and there was not a single Serb between the age of 15 and 66 that was not beaten and molested to exhaustion."[21] The inhabitants in the Vratnica municipality also complained about the new Macedonian officials and listed the main reasons such as: "In our district the administrative authorities are mostly constituted of the persons who were Fascist collaborators, the persons who welcomed the German army with delight, the persons who held religious service of thanksgiving when the German armada was victorious though the Germans never requested such things from the city dwellers." Even an example is given: during the occupation the village representative in the Vratnica municipality was Andra Hristov from Tetovo (in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia he was a clerk in the Tetovo district court, but then his surname was Serbian - Ristić), who is now said to be "...an official of the people's administration authorities in Skopje.[22]

***

In the whole period after the Second World War the Serbs in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia were kept from freely developing their national and cultural identity. The Serbs were, in the true sense of the word, the citizens of the second order. The Macedonian authorities changed their surnames by force, substituting "ić" with "ski " (Jovanović - Jovanovski) most often when issuing personal and other documents. The attitude of these authorities towards the Serbs was best illustrated in the attitude towards the Serbian monuments, particularly towards the army cemeteries and mass mausoleums from the period 1912-1918. We are witnessing the disrespect of the elementary norms of civilization. The monument and the mausoleum on Zebrnjak (erected in 1937 to the memory of the Kumanovo battle in the First Balkan war of 1912) was pulled down by the Bulgarian occupying army in the Second World War. After the war only the base section, i.e. the ruins and remnants, was protected because the Macedonian authorities did not allow the restoration of the monument. In the vicinity of the monument a quarry was opened and the existing monument remnants were exposed to further destruction. The mass crypt holding the bones of 40,000 warriors and dwellers of Kumanovo and the surroundings who died of typhoid in 1912 was furrowed. The Cemetery of the fallen warriors in 1912 located in the churchyard of St. Trojica was destroyed; the memorial chapel and the crypt of the fallen at the Bregalnica river in Štip was destroyed during the Second World War, while after the War the place was used for a meteorological station; the Soldiers' cemetery with the chapel and the crypt from World War I in Štip in which many a thousand fallen warriors were buried was displaced, while their earthy remains were not marked; through the Serbian soldiers' cemetery in Bitolj runs a rural road; among the monuments pulled down in Skopje we should mention here the monument to the Pupils of Skopje, the monument to King Peter I, the monument to the Fallen Warriors 1912-1918. The mausoleum in Ohrid to the memory of 400 young men the refugees from Serbia, captured during their escape in 1915 and shot by the Bulgarian komitadjis, was demolished in the course of the Second World War. After the war nothing was done to restore it, and there are many examples of the kind.

When the Autocephalous Macedonian Church was proclaimed, contrary to the existing canons, the Serbs were deprived of their Church since the "Macedonian Church" presented itself to be the Church of all the Orthodox people on the territory of the Macedonian republic. The paradox was even greater since the establishment of this Church was urged by the League of Communists (namely by the republic and federal authorities of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in which the Slovenes and Croats had the main say), the party that separated the Church from the state. Apparently, this Church was to play a certain role in the disintegration of the Serbian ethnic and cultural area and of the Yugoslav state community as well. The future studies will certainly reveal the true role of the Vatican in all this, since the Roman Catholic Church showed benevolence towards this self-proclaimed Church.

By the one-sided secession of the SR of Macedonia, the Serbian people in this Republic became the hostage of arbitrary administrative boundaries between the Yugoslav republics. Having remained inside the seceded republic, the Serbs have become exposed more than ever to the policy of deprivation of national identity and to the different forms of oppression by the Macedonian regime (the case of the Kučevište village and other). The paradox of the situation with the Serbs in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is particularly striking if one has in mind that the Serbs from this part of the former Ottoman empire had their deputies in the central Ottoman parliament in Constantinople (1908-1912), while in our time they were for long denied the right to political organizing and free expression of national will by the alleged democratic Macedonian government,

Today there are no reliable data on the number of the Serbs in the F.Y.R.M. since there are many reasons to doubt the truthfulness of the official data of the Macedonian authorities. The only reliable data that could be accepted are those that could be obtained by the declaration of the population under the supervision of an unbiased international commission. This number is certainly far greater than the number computed in the official census, which proves to be true if we study the statistical data of the Turkish authorities (and the data from other sources) before the Balkan wars, as well as the censuses between the two world wars. According to the data published by Jovan Cvijić in the study The Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian Issue (Belgrade, 1908) there were 280,000 Serbs in the region of Skopje (the districts of Skopje, Tetovo, Kumanovo, Preševo, Kratovo, Kriva Palanka, Kočani, Pehčer, Štip, and Radovište) and 300,000 in Macedonia (within the full historical-geographical boundaries of this notion) in 1908. In other words, in that part of the Old Serbia and in Macedonia there were 580,000 Serbs. Cvijić was of the opinion that in Macedonia there were also about one million Macedonian Slavs.[23]

If the world accept the one sided secession of the Macedonian federal unit and recognize it as an independent and sovereign state in the international community, the Macedonian question may again become one of the burning questions in the Balkan region. The neighbouring Bulgaria has never concealed its aspirations towards this territory, and is not concealing them now either, because the recognition of the independence of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia seems to Bulgaria to be just one phase on the way to finally annexing Macedonia to the Bulgarian state, which will realize the hegemony of Bulgaria in the Balkans. It goes without saying that this will give wings to Greater Bulgarian aspirations to the Greek part of Macedonia, towards Thessaloniki, which may Ignite a period of long lasting instability, if not open conflicts, in the Balkans. If the really strong Albanian separatist movement in the F.Y.R.M. and its aspirations to become a part of the Greater Albania is added to the above, then it is quite logical that the future of an independent and self-sufficient Macedonian state is extremely uncertain. There are indications that a possible agreement between Bulgaria and Albania on the division of the territory of the F.Y.R.M. may be made. The statements of the supreme Turkish statesmen on the political ambitions of their state (the area of the Ottoman empire as the Turkish sphere of interest) fit with the strategy of radical rearrangements in the Balkan area. In this strategy, the processes in the southern part of the Balkans would obviously develop under the patronage of the Turkish imperialistic ideas.

Having in mind all these interior and exterior factors, the flow of events has, no doubt, fully opened the Serbian question in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The only fair and democratic solution would be to recognize the right to self-determination to the Serbs, as they are compelled to live apart from the rest of the Serbian people due to the act of forced secession and contrary to their will. This will of the Serbs can be verified in a plebiscite conducted under an unbiased international supervision. At present, the minimum guarantee that should be given to the Serbs in the F.Y.R.M. is the security of all the rights to free political, educational, cultural and spiritual organizing and activities and, on the basis of these, the non-interfered connections with their compatriots in all of the Serbian countries.
_______________________________________________

Compiled by Igor Malinovski (a skop!)

1) Around 950,Byzantine Emperor Constantin Porphyrogenitos stated that city of "Ta Serbia" situated north-western from Thesaloniki,has it's name from its Serbian founders (around early 7th century A.D.) and in 10th century that same city is mentioned as "Srpchishte" in the manuscript by the Byzantine author John Zonara.

Constantin Porphyrogenitos "De Administrando Imperio" cap.32, pp.152 ed.Bonn
"Starine" 14,1882 pp.16

2) In the year 680 in Bythinia, city of Gordoservon is mentioned whose name is derived from the Serbs resettled in Asia Minor by Byzantine Emperor Constance II from the areas around river Vardar (FYROM) . Isidor,the Episcop of Gordoservon is mentioned in 680/681 and the fact that this town was Episcopal Center gives ground to the thesis that it had large Serbian population. Around year 1200 this city is mentioned as Servochoria (Serbian Habitation) .


Constantin Porfyrogenitus "De Administrando Imperio"
Erdeljanovich.J. "O naseljavanju Slovena u Maloj Aziji i Siriji od VII do X veka" Glasnik geografskog drushtva vol. VI 1921 pp.189
Lequen,M. "Oriens Christianus" I, 1740, pp.659-660
Micotky,J."Otiorum Chroate", Vol. I ,Budapest, 1806, pp.89-112
Niederle,L. "Slovanske starozhitnosti" Dilu II,Svazek pp.389-399; pp. 444-446
Ostrogorski,G."Bizantisko-Juzhnoslovenski odnosi",Enciklopedija Jugoslavije 1,Zagreb 1955,pp. 591-599
Ramsay,W.M. "The Historical Geography Of Asia Minor", London, 1890, pp.183, pp.210

3) Around 1229/1230 Bulgarian Emperor John Asen II wrote an inscription in Trnovo:"I have took the land from Adrianopolis to Drach,Greek,Albanian and also Serbian".Since Serbian states were situated far north from the line outlined in this commemorative text,it is not unlikely that "Serbian" means an ethnically Serbian enclave,situated much more southerly than political borders of Serbia.


Daskalov,H.S. "Otkritija v drevnei stolicji Bolgarskoi,Ternovo"Moskva, 1859 pp.18-19
Dujchev,I. "Car Ivan Asen II" Sofija, 1941 pp.23-24
Makushev,V "Bolgarija v' koncjah XII i v pervoi polovini XIII veka" ,1872 pp.56-57

4) In the Law of Serbian Emperor Stephan Dushan (Dushanov Zakonik) issued 1349-1354 in Skoplje and Seress following peoples are mentioned in Serbia:Serbs,Greeks,Albanians (Arbanasi) (art.77,82) , Aromanians (Vlasi) (art.32,77,82) , Saxons (Sasi) (art.123) .

Novakovich,S. "Zakonik Stefana Dushana Cara Srpskog 1349-1354" Beograd 1898

5) Despot Ugljesha in the 1366 letter written and confirmed in Skoplje stated that he is the master of Serbian land,Greece and Pomorje.

Novakovich,S. "Zakonski spomenici Srpskih drzhava srednjeg veka", 1912, pp.509

6) Patriarch of Constantinople mentioned master of Serbia,Ugljesha in a letter from 1371. Ugljesha's state was around Lower Struma.

Mikloshich,F & Muller,J. "Acta et diplomata" I, 1860, pp.571

7) The place of 1371 battle at Marica,when Kings Vukashin and Ugljesha, leading armies from their provinces in Old Serbia ,clashed with the Turks, was named "Sirf-Sindughi"-"Serbian defeat".

Jorga,N. "Geschiste des Osmanischen Reiches" Vol.I, cap IV,pp241

8) In the second half of 14th century, monk Isaiah said that Ugljesha has risen Serbian and Greek army (Srbskija i Grchskiija voiska) and his brother Vukashin,and with that army they confronted the invading Turks.


Novakovich,S. "Srbi i Turci XIV i XV veka , 1893,pp.184,
Mikloshich ,F. "S.Joannis Chrystostomi homilia in ramos palmarum", 1845, pp.71
Mikloshich,F. "Chrestomatia Paleoslovenica", 1861, pp 41

9) In 1395 Mihael Paleologos and his wife Helena established estate to Helena's father,Master of Serbia,Konstantin Dejanovich.Konstantin's state was around river Struma.

Mikloshich,F. & Joseph,M. "Acta et dipolomata",1862, pp.260

10) A 1401 remark from government of Venice says about the envoy of "Konstatntin,master of Serbia,which is around our Drach area" (Constantini domini Servie teritorii,quod est circa teritorium nostrum Durachii) .

Ljubich,S. "Listine" 4,1874, pp.437

11) Sometimes in the beginning of 15th century Bulgarian chronicles are written,where remark that Turkish Sultan Murat had went to conquer either Bulgars or Ugljesha.Ugljesha and King Vukashin gathered a great Serbian army (Sobra sja mnozhestvo voisk Serbskih) .

Bogdan,J. "Archiv fur Slavische philologie" 13, 1891,pp.481; pp.493

12) Dimitar,writer from Kratovo in 1446 said that he begin to translate "Law" for the Archbishoprics of Ohrid from Greek language into Serbian (v ezhe sastaviti mi pisaniem srbskoga ezika sochinenie, rekshe knigu imenuemu zakonik) under order of Ohrid Archbishop Dorotej,who visited him in Kratovo,because Congregational Church in Ohrid did not had that book in Serbian language (po eziku srbskom) but only in Greek.

Kachanovski,V. "Starine" 12,1880 ,pp.255

13) Remains of John Rilski are transferred from Trnovo in the Monastery of Rila.That was described by Vladislav Gramatik,in 1469,who also mentioned Serbian soldiers (Srbskiie voje) in the 1371 Marica battle.

Novakovich,S, "Glasnik Srpskog uchenog drushtva" 22,1867,pp.287

14) Sometime at the end of 15th century Hungarian historian Bonfini wrote about "Macedonia,which is now called Serbia" ("Macedoniam quam Serbua nunc appelant") .

Ant.Bonfini "Rerum Hungarii Indec." II lib IX,Viennae, 1774 pp.248a

15) In the year 1515 Gjuragj Kratovian was burnt.In his biography stands:...From the Serbian root and guided by Holy Spirit you have left fatherland and relatives in Kratovo and moved to the Sardakian City (Ot korene srpskago i douhom svetim vodimi ostavil jesi otachastvo i srodniki izhe v' Kratovja, prishel jesi k' Gradou Sardaskomu) .

Novakovich.S. "Glasnik Srpskog uchenog drushtva" 21,1867, pp.154

16) Stephan Gerlach wrote in 1574 that relative of Mehmed Pasha "Became Archbishop in Bulgaria,and his seat is ten days away from Adrianopolis in the city of Ohrid,on the border between Epirus and Serbia" (Zu eineim Erz-bischopff in der Bulgarey gemacht worden,hat seinen Sitz zehn Tagreiss von Adrianopol,in der Stadt Ochrida,in der Grantzen Epiri und Servien) .

Gerlach,S. "Tage-Buch",Frankfurt,1674, pp.64a

17) Jakov Soranzzo from Venice arrives in Skoplje,in the province of Serbia, in the year 1575.

Matkovich.P."Rad. Jugosl. Akad." 124,1895, pp.131

18) In Kraljevo (Romania) ,priest John has written in 1580 that he is a Serb from Kratovo (Srbin od mjasta Kratova) .

Stojanovich,Lj."Stari Srpski zapisi i natpisi" I,1902 ,pp.752

19) ) Martin Crusius in his book mentions"Vscopia, or Scopia, a great and populous City of Turkey in the K. of Servia".

Crusius, M. "Turcogreciae libri octo", 1584, pp.5

20) In the year 1584 Alexander Komulovich mentioned that in Serbia (Servia) ,Skoplje is principal city (Scopia principale citta) and that it is situated in the middle of the province (nel mezzo della provincia) .

Fermendzhin,E. "Acta Bosniae" "Monum. Slav. Mer. XXIII 1892 pp.39

21) In 17th Century,Hadji Kalpha,a Turkish geographer recorded that mountains of the Castoria district are peopled by Serbs and Aromanians.He also mentions that on the bank of the lake between Seres,Thesaloniki and Siderocaps there is a village inhabited by Greeks,Serbs and Aromanians.

"Rumeli und Bosna,Geographisch beschrieben von Mustapha Ben Abdalaih Hadschi Chalfa aus dem turkischen ubersetzt von J. von Hammer" Wien 1812 pp.80; pp.97

22) Mitropolit Jeremiah from the City of "Pelagon" (Bitolj) went to Russia in 1603 saying that he arrived from Serbian land.

Archive of the Russian Ministry For Foreign Affairs, Year 7112,Dec.19

23) In the October of 1605 delegation of monks went in Russia and among them was Diakon Avksentij from the Serbian land, Nicholas Monastery in Strumica (Serbskoi zemli nikolskoga monastira chto na Strumicja,Diakon Avksentii) .

"Snoshenia Rossii po djelam cerkovnim" ,I,1858

24) In 1609,in the archive of Vatican,catholic church in Skoplje Serbia is mentioned (La chiesa di Scopia in Servia) .

Horvat,K. "Glasnik zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini" XXI,1909

25) Mitropolit Sergius said in Russia that he was appointed as Mitropolit in Greven by Archbishop of Ohrid,Nectarij of Serbian land (Posvjashchen on na mitropoliju grevenskuju arhiepiskop ohridskim ,Nektariem serbskoi zemli) .

"Snoshenia Rossii po djelam cerkovnim" II, 1860 pp.29

26) Comment by Dominican Nicolo Longi from Dubrovnik states that "it is useful to send 3-4 Serbian priest in Serbia, because in Nish, Kragujevac, Jagodina, Crna Gora (Skopska Crna Gora-I.M) and Kratovo Serbian is spoken"

Acta. S. Congr. Vol.3. Fol.24 A D Congr. diie 20 decembris 1622

27) A part of Matija Masarek's report based on a visit throughout the Serbian dioceze in 1623-1624 ,reflecting the ethnicity of Kratovo.

"Cratovo, dove saranno 40 fouchi di Catolici....habitata da Turchi di qualita, Serviani , et 160 anime piu Catoliche"

Visite e Colllegi, Vo.1 f66r-82r

28) Congregation approves purchase of a house in Skoplje ( " della Casa in Scopie " ) in which four or five young Serbs ("4, o 5 giovani Servian") are to be trained and send into the Illyrian College in Loretto ( " Collego Illirico di Loreto " )

Roma, 25 marzo 1628

Lettere, vol. 7, f.36v-37r

29) Archbishop Bianki of Bar divided Serbia into upper and lower.In the area of Upper, he sorted Prokuplje, Novo Brdo, Trepcha, Janjevo, Skopska Crna Gora, Skoplje and Kratovo,places where "all Catholics are of Serbian speech".In Lower Serbia's domain Prizren, Guri and Shegec were included by him.

"Arch. S. Congr. Visitte.Vol 16. Fol. 239.

30) Archbishop Bianki mentiones an epidemic of plague in Serbia and the newly appeared disease in Skoplje, Janjevo and Novo Brdo.

"Va p doi mesi cheo mi trovo in Servia visitando queste vile contorno Prisren che e Servia Inferiore, che la Servia Superore questa esta passat e stata gran mortalita della pesta, e che p alcuni mesie stata cessata.Hora di novo si trovano loughli infetati Scopia,Jagnevo, e Montenevo"...

....Prisren, il di 29 ottobre...

...Giorgio Bjanchi, Arciv d' Antivari et Primate di Servia.

SOCG, Vol 60f. 176r-177v.

31) Archbishop of Ohrid Avram in 1634 arrived in Russia with escort.When asked,they said they were Greeks from the Serbian land of Ohrid (Grechane Serpskie zemli iz Ahridona Goroda) .

Archive of the Russian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, Year 7142,No 8

32) Addressing the Russian Emperor Mihail in 1641, Mitropolit of Skoplje said that he is from Serbian land (Serbskie zemli Semion mitropolit) .

Dimitrijevich.S. "Spom. Srp. Kralj. Akad." 38, 1908 pp.60a, pp 60b

33) In 1644 a Serb,Dimitrije Nikolajev (Serbjanin' Dmitrei Nikolaev) from Kastoria, arrived in Russia.

Archive of the Russian Ministry For Foreign Affairs,Year 7156

34) Petar Bogdani had wrote in 1650 a letter of recommendation for his relative Andria Bogdani from Albania ,saying about him that he is recommended for Archbishopric of Ohrid in Serbia (Proposto per L'Archivescovato d' Ochrida su in confini della Servia) .

Fermendzhin,E. "Starine" 25,1892, pp.172

35) in 1651 Mitropolit of Kratovo wrote to Russian Emperor "My forefathers and ancestors are lords of the Serbian land of Kratovo".

Dimitrijevich,S. "Glasnik Srpske kraljevske akademije", 58,1900.

36) 1652 In the documents of Russian Imperial House,it is recorded that Serbian Mitropolit Mihailo (Serbskii Mitropolit Mihailo) had dinner with the Russian Emperor.He is the same person from reference above.

"Filologicheskaja nabljudenija A.H. Vostokova".1865, pp.184

37) 1653 Jeromonah Damaskin,wrote a letter to his cousin,mitropolit Mihailo of Kratovo,in which there is a statement about mercy of the Russian Emperor towards our Serbian language (Jeziku nashemu Srbskom) .

Stanojevich,Lj "Stari Srpski zapisi i natpisi", I,1902.No 1547,No 1562

38) Catholic missionaries in Serbia (Servia) are mentioned and among them mr.Stefan Kratovian (In Cratovo d.Stefano da Cratovo) .

Fermendzhin,E. "Starine" 25,1892, pp.194

39) In an inscription from 1659 stands:"Mihail Mitropit, visitor of Holy God's Grave in the Holy Jerusalem, from the Serbian land city of Kratovo" (Mihail Mitropolit,poklonik bozhia groba svetago Ierusalima ot Srbskie zemli grada Kratova) .

"Chtenija v imperatorskom' obshtesvja istorii i drevnosti Rossiiskih pri Moskovskom univerziteta" Moskva 1896 II 5th part pp.4a

40) In 1665 Archbishop Petar of Sophia wrote that:"Now in this Kingdom of Serbia there is one Metropolitan church,that of Skoplje"(Al presente si trovano in cotesto regno di Servia una chiesa Metropolitana,cioe,Scopia) ,than saying that Pope Urban VIII in his declaration on foundation of "del collegio Illyrico" says that there are three Biscopates in Serbia :those of Skoplje,Justinijana called Prizren ,and Nish (Che sono del regno di Servia tre vescovati:cioe Scupi,ovvero Scopia,Justiniana detta Prisren,et anche Nissa) .

Fermendzhin,E. "Starine" 25 ,pp18

41) Peter Heylin,English geographer writes under the word "Servia": Principal towns hereof : 1.Nissa 2.Vidina (by the Turks called Kiratow) 3.Cratova........9.Scopi,by Ptolemy called Scupi.

Heylin,P. "Cosmographie in four books" London,1666

42) In 1666 Mitropolit Ananije of Cratovo wrote to Russian Emperor, mentioning "Mihailo,Mitropolit of Serbs" (Mihaila Mitropolita Srbian) .

Dimitrijevich,S. "Spomenica Srpske kraljevske akademije",38,1900 pp.64b

43) 1667 Emperor Leopold gave some privileges to the Greeks (Graeci) and Serbs (Rasciani) who emigrated toward Northern Hungary and most of them arrived from Macedonia (Praesertim autem ex Macedonia adventum) .

Vitkovich,G "Glasnik Srpskog uchenog drushtva",67,1887,pp.128;pp.131

44) It is stated in the "Report about Serbian or Skopje's Diocese" ( Relazione della diocesi di Servia o Skopia ) about "Main places in Serbia : Prizren , Skoplje...."
(" Li loughi principali della Servia: Prisren, Scopia ....")

Fermendzhin E., "Starine" 25, 1892. pp. 195-196

45) 1676 Secretary of the society "De Propaganda Fide" wrote a report to Pope Inocentius about Catholic Church in Bosnia and neighboring countries, in which Biscop of Skoplje,Andrea Bogdani in Serbia (Servia) is mentioned.

Horvat,K. "Glasnik Zemaljskog Muzeja Bosne i Hercegovine" XXI,1909,pp.393

46) Around 1680 Urban Cerri mentioned in his report to Pope Inocentius XI archbiscop of Skoplje in Serbia.

Theiner,A." Vetera. Monum. Slav. Mer. Histor. Ill." II, 1875,pp 213

47) Archbishop of Skoplje writes about Serbia and says that Skoplje is capital city in Serbia (Scopia....metropolli di Servia) .Further,He mentions that Orthodox houses in Skoplje are Greek and Serbian (Case Greche e Serviane) .

Theiner,A. ibidem, pp. 220

48) Canonical Visit by Archbishop of Skoplje Peter Bogdani in 1680 indicated that inhabitans of Skoplje are "Greeks, Serbs, Jews, Armenians".
"Scritture orig. rif. nelle. congr. gen. vol. 482 ad congr. die 5 maii 1681 Nro 24"

49) In 1685 Catholic Archbishop of Skoplje Petar Bogdani wrote to Cardinal Cibo saying that Turks had thrown him into exile from entire Serbia (da tutta la Servia) .

Horvat,K. "Glasnik zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini" XXI, 1909, pp. 403

50) Mitropolit Jevtimije from Serbian land of Skoplje (Serbskija zemli goroda Skopija)
arrived in Russia in 1687 where he delivered a request in which he says that he is Mitropolit of Serbian land of Skoplje (Mitropolit Serbskije zemli Skopskie Crkve) .

Dimitrijevich,S. "Glasnik Srpske Kraljevske Akademije" 60, 1901 pp.154

51) In 1690 Catholic Bishop of Cotor, Marin Drago,reports that "Skoplje is inhabited with Turks, Serbs of Greek Rite and Catholics",

"Scritture riferite nei congressi - Servia.Vol. I, Fol. 120"

52) Austrian Emperor Leopold proclaimed Jovan Monastirlija from Bitolj a Vojvoda (Military chieftain) of the Serbian nation in Austria in 1691.

Trifunoski,F.J. "Makedoniziranje Juzhne Srbije" Beograd 1995 pp.24

53) Bratan Ivanov,a Serb from Macedonian land arrived in Russia (Makedonskie zemli Serbin' Bratan' Ivanov) in the year 1704.
Archive of the Russian Ministry For Foreign Affairs,Year 1704
Kapterev,N.A. "Harakter otnoshenii Rossii k Pravoslavnomu Vostoku v XVI i XVII stoletija" 1914 pp.348

54) Dimitrije Petrov from Kichevo arrived in Russia to collect funds for building church dedicated to St. Demetrius in Kichevo.He declared himself as coming from the Serbian land of Kichevo (Serbskie zemli goroda Karacheva) .The arrival is recorded as being by the: "(From) Serbian land (from) Ohrid's Eparchy (of the) Krachevite city Serb Dmitrei Petrov": "Serbskie zemli Arhidonskija Eparhi Krachevskogo goroda Serbjanin Dmitrei Petrov".

Archive of the Russian Ministry For Foreign Affairs,Year 1706, No. 7

55) Archbishop of Bar, Vichentije Zmajevich mentiones that "main places in Serbia are: Belgrade, Smederevo, Nish, Skoplje, Prokuplje, Novo Brdo, Prishtina, Trepcha, Prizren and Pech, and forts Kachanik, Tetovo, Janjevo, Vuchitrn, Mitrovica, Djakovica and Novi Pazar"
"Scritture riferite nei congressi - Albania. Vol. V, Fol. 175"

56) In 1723 Gerard Cornelius von Driesch,secretary of the Austrian delegation heading for Constantinople, mentioned that in Pirot there are "Greeks and Serbs in those lands" (Grichen oder Raitzen dieses landes) .He also mentioned place named Grobblian located eastern of Sofia saying that the greater part of its inhabitants are Serbs (Raitzen) .

Cornelius,G.V.D. "Historische nachricht von der Rom. Kayser.Gross-Botschaft nacht Konstantinopol" Nurnberg 1723 pp.84; pp.102

57) The Urgent Congregation of Roman Catholic Church in 1742 issued an report which states that "Serbs of Greek Rite" are peopling Croatia,Slavonia,Hungary,Serbia,Thrace,Macedonia,Albania and Montenegro.

Archivum Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide."Congregazioni Particolari"Vol.106.Fol.1

58) In the year 1744 Russian Empress Elisabeth addressed the "Noble and honest lords of Serbian lands in Macedonia,Skandaria,Montenegro and Primorje of Montenegrin people,to the governors , dukes, princess and captains as well as their spiritual and secular masters".

Milutinovich,S."Istorija Crne Gore",1835

59) In a 1756 letter main cities in Serbia (La Servie) are mentioned, and among them Skoplje ,where Serbian Archbishop reside; Cratovo,by which province is named (Scopia, ou reside Archeveque Rascien; Cratovo, qui donne son nom au Gouvernement) .

"Le Voyager francois, ou la connoissance de l' ancien et du noveau monde mis au jour par M. l' Abbe Delaporte", tome XXIII, Paris,1777

60) Catholic Archbishop of Skoplje Matija Masarek, an Albanian, reported that the city as inhabited with "Grece, scismatici Serviani, Ebrei et Armeni" in a report written c.1770.

In 1790 he mentioned in his report that Turks are suspicious of Greeks and Serbs of Skoplje because they have sent letters to Russia.


"Scritture rif. nei congressi - Servia. Vol. III", marzo 1790

61) A group of French staff officers in 1807,with the permission of the Turks, traveled around Macedonia compiling a statistical survey of the population. Apart from Greeks,Turks,Albanians and Aromanians they found only Serbs.

Slijepchevich, Dj. "The Macedonian Question",The American Institute For Balkan Affairs, Chicago,1958

62) Correspondence by the Czech philologist Dobrovski to a Slovenian colleague B. Kopitar between 1809-1810 contains this opinion by Dobrovski: "I have little regard for geographical names.Dubrovnikers, Macedonians, Bosnians are nevertheless Serbs" :
"Die geographischen Benennungen kummern mich wenig. Ragusiner, Macedonier, Bosnien sind doch Serben".
Jagich, V. "Briefwechsel zwischen Dobrowsky und Kopitar" Berlin, 1885 pp.34

63) A statement by Joseph Muller, Austrian, Medical officer in Turkish Army in early 19th century, who worked in Albania about Slavs in neighboring countries that were visited by him.Dr. Muller was a fluent speaker of the Serbian language.
"Together with Slavic community of Spiz on Triplex confinium and smaller communities in Skadar,Podgorica and Spuzh,Serbian tribes live in eastern mountains Altin-Ili in Dibr-Sipre in the area of Struga as well as in eastern coast of the Ohrid Lake, further in the valleys of Rezna and Prespa in the city of Monastir and its northeastern surrounding, in the valley Srebrnica,and by name on communities of Optorosh,Shrbica,Mahmusha,Mrtvuca,along the left, eastern coast of White Drim in communities of Kremovik, Mirozhizh, Cuprevo, Grebnik, Zlokuche."


Joseph Muller, “Albanien,Rumelien und die Osterreichisch-Montenegrinische Grenze”,Prague,1844

64) "The Serbian pastoral tribes are separated from the Bulgarian agrarian population of Macedonia by the Greeks, who inhabit the central and coastal regions of this great land".
Cyprian Robert, "Les Slaves de Turque" Paris, 1844, Vol. II pp.234

65) "Serbian branch includes, with the exception of Serbian Principate, Montenegro, Bosnia, also many other enclaves in Albania and Macedonia"
Cyprian Robert, "Die Slaven der Turkei" Stuttgart, vol.II pp. 278

66) Edmund Spencer's comment about ethnicity of peoples in the region of Macedonia, visited by him in the mid-19th century:
"The inhabitants are for the most part composed of Rayahs, a mixed race of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians, who, it cannot be doubted, would join to the man their brethren in faith of Serbia and Upper Moesia.It must therefore be evident that the great danger to be apprehended to the rule of the Osmanli in these provinces, is the successful inroad of the Serbian nationality into Macedonia; with this people they have the tradition of right, and their former greatness, aided by the powerful ties of race and creed"
Edmund Spencer, "Travels in European Turkey", vol. II , London, 1851, pp. 30

67) "Serbian tribes are by language and according to origin in possession of the greatest part of western part of European Turkey.At east they are distributed up to Nishava and Struma, Strumion of the Ancients, which goes in the Gulf of Orpheus.From southern to the northern border of Greek language, they inhabit Bosnia, Herzegovina, Old Macedonia.Montenegrins and Dalmatians, although not subjected by the Turks, are of Serbian tribe"


Ruestow, W "Der Krieg in der Tuerkey 1875-1876", Zurich, 1876

68) From 1880 to 1881 the Serbian Brsjaci Revolt (Brsjachka Buna) was fought in the areas of Demir-Hisar,Porech and Kichevo.The leaders of this uprising were local Chetniks:Ilija Delija,Rista Kostadinovich,Micko Krstich and Andjelko Tanasovich.


Veselinovich,V.M. "Brsjachka Buna" Beograd 1905

69) A 1854 request of the inhabitants of village Selce near Debar to HRM King Alexander Karadjordjevich.
22 Oktovra
Arsenije Janovich,Gavril Janovich,Damjan Markovich, Vasil Milich, Tane Ninovich, Trifun Grujovich, Stanisha Nikolich, Cvetko Damjanovich, Despot Potnikovich, Gligorije Naumovich i Filip Aleksich proshenijem od 21 t.m. mole Knjaza da bi se obshtini ninoi Selachkoi u Albaniji za Crkvu shtogod knjiga pravitelstvom srpskim za sirotinske crkve u Turskoj nabavljeni podarilo.
Djambazovski, K. et al. "Arhivska Gragja za istorijata na Makedonskiot narod" Beograd 1979 vol I, book 2, pp. 235

70) On the basis of the Priviligies by Rudolph II many thousands Serbian familes emigrated from Bosnia and Macedonia under the Dukes Vukovich and Pjasonich.

Czoernig, von Carl "Ethnographie der oesterrichischem Monarchie", Wien, 1885, Vol II pp.169

71) "It is understandable that the Turks preferred the patient and submissive Bulgar to the rebellious Serb or Greek. Since the Serbian principality had gained its freedom, the Turks regarded every Serb who declared himself to be such as a rebellious conspirator against the Turkish regime.

This circumstance was widely exploited by the Bulgars in order to spread their propaganda among the Serbs outside the principality. Whoever was reluctant to become a Bulgar and persisted in calling himself a Serb was denounced to the Turks as conspiring with Serbia, and could expect severe punishment. Serbian priests were maltreated; permission was refused to open Serbian schools and those that were already in existence were closed; Serbian monasteries were destroyed.

In order to avoid persecution, the population renounced its nationality and called itself Bulgarian........during the last thirty or forty years, propaganda has been rife in which the Bulgars have encouraged the Turks to act against Serbs and Greeks. Hence, throughout Macedonia, Thrace and Dardania, Slavs are considered to be Bulgars, which is quite incorrect. On the contrary, the Slavs in Macedonia are incapable of understanding a Bulgar from Jantra.

If it is desired to designate these Slavs correctly, than they must be considered as Serbs, for the Serbian name is so popular among them that for example male children are sometimes christened "Srbin" [Serb]*. the Serbian hero of the folk poems, Marko Kraljevich is obviously the Serbian ruler in Macedonia."

Alexander von Heksch "Die Donau von ihrem Ursprung bis an die Mundung",Leipzig,1885,pp.63

*On the subject of appearance of the male name "Srbin" (a Serb) ,see:

"Licno ime Srbin u krajevima danasnje BJRM ("male name Srbin in the areas of todays FYROM") ",pp.41-44 in: Jovan F. Trifunoski "Makedoniziranje Juzne Srbije", Beograd, 1995

72) In 1886 Russian publicist I.S. Jastrebov published his book "Obichai i pesni tureckih serbov v Prizren,Ipek,Morava,i Dibra" ("Customs and songs of the Turkish Serbs in Prizren,Pech,Morava and Debar) in which the following reference to the important Serb custom of "Slava" is found: "Slava is celebrated by Serbs not only in Serbia,in Austria,Hungary,Bosnia,Montenegro,Kosovo,Morava and area of Prizren,but also in the areas of Skopje,Veles,Prilep,Bitola and Ohrid,including also Debar and the area of Tetovo.All inhabitants in the mentioned area who speak with the Slavo-Serbian dialect keep that custom holy."

Jastrebov,I.S. "Obichai i Pesni tureckih serbov v Prizren,Ipek,Morava i Dibra",1886,pp.1-2

73) "Divided by faith on three parts, divided out of political destiny, under various jurisdictions, Serbian race has the missfortune to be dispersed over various provinces, names of which hinther its unity.Serbia, Old Serbia, (in today's Turkish vilayets of Kosovo and Sandjak) , Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, with Dubrovnik, southern parts of Hungary (Bachka, Srem, Baranja) , Slavonia, Croatia"

Dozon,A. "L' Europee Serbe, chants popularies heroiques (Serbie, Bosnie et Herzegovine, Croatie, Dalmatie, Montenegro", Paris, 1888, pp.15-16

74) An observation by the Austro-Hungarian Field Marshal Anton Tuma von Waldkampf: "In Macedonia Serbs are living, partly in the great plain of Bitolj,partly in Vardar plain and are particularly compact in the valley of Tetovo"


Anton Tuma von Waldkampf "Griechland,Makedonien und Sudalbanien",Leipzig, 1897 pp-214-215

75) A conclusion by the linguist Petar Draganov about the songs of "Macedonian Slavs":"It is a strikingly obvious that within the circle of Cars,Kings,dukes,heroes and other individuals of these songs one can find only persons and significant events from the medieval,new and latest Serbian history".

P.Draganov "Makedonsko-Slavjanskii Sbornik" pp.VIII (n.d.)

76) "Serbs are in the south of Dalmatia, in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia, at the south of the Kingdom of Hungary,in Macedonia"


Henry, Rene "Questions d' Autriche-Hongrie et Question d' Orient" Paris, 1905, pp.207

77) Remark of Dr. Karl Oestreich about Skoplje: "The city's population consist of all possible elements-some of whom have come out in favor of the Bulgarian Exarchate and call themselves 'Bulgars'-and Albanians or Mohammedanized Serbs. Although it is situated south of Sar-planina, Skoplje is the chief city of Old Serbia.....the rural population, although it is Serbian in origin, has for the most parts given its support to the Exarchate, since a Bulgarian bishop is for them more acceptable than a Greek bishop of the Ecumenical Church to which they formerly belonged. This is how the rural population around Skoplje has today come to be mostly Bulgarian; the same is true of the purely Serbian Tetovo".

Karl Oestreich "Makedonien" Geographisch

Here is an interesting text taken from a non Serb source
http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Balkans/00000024.htm
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.

Tito is FILTH BiH

He tried to annex the southern part of Serbia, and succeeded. Then as the leader of that nation, Vardarska, he attempted to rape Greece of our history and identity!
Tito, the mongrel, has created one of the biggest political nightmares for Greece in our entire history. Tito and Tito sympathisers must simply be destroyed.

Here is a nice 'Bosnian' forum to play around in.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/72858/
Because on behalf of all proud Greeks, you're not welcome on this one.

i read a book bout WW1 at skool n ther was nothing in between serbia and greece fyrom's land was serbia n tha skops r still in denial wat more proof they want they wer created