The Macedonian Question Djoko Slijepcevic

T H E A M E R IC A N

IN S T IT U T E F O R B A L K A N

A F F A IR S

This b o ok is d ed ica ted to the m e m o ry o i a ll those w ho d ied that K o s o v o m ig h t be a ven ged and the Serbian lands tree and united. W r itte r

TH E A M E R IC A N

IN S T IT U T E F O R B A L K A N

A F F A IR S

THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION The Straggle for Southern Serbia

by D r.

D joko

S LIJEP C EV IC

Translated b y James

Larkin

T he American Institute for Balkan Affairs

Published by T h e A m erican Institute fo r Balkan A ffa irs 1525 W . D iv e rs e y P arkw ay, C h i c a g o 14, Illin o is P rinted in G erm an y b y Buchdruckerei Dr. P eter B elej, M undien 13, Schleissheim er Str. 71

PREFACE Many books, brochures and articles have already been written on the Macedonian question. Most of them are of the nature of propaganda, and make no serious attempt to sub­ stantiate their views. Consequently, one more exposition o f this problem, provided that it be based on historical facts, is hardly supererogatory— particularly as the Macedonian ques­ tion has fo r decades been the cause o f numerous political disturbances in the Balkans. W hile little that is new can be said of the entire period up to 1918, no fu ll and properly documented account as yet exists of the development o f this question since that date. The present book incorporates an attempt to throw further light on this latest period and to examine the factors that have been at work. Originating in the efforts of the Bulgars to impose their own national character upon the population of Southern Serbia and those parts of the geographical area known as Macedonia which passed to Greece after the wars of 1912— 13, the Macedonian question began to assume a new aspect after the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slo­ venes: it became the instrument of the Comintern in the latter’s efforts to disintegrate this kingdom, which from 1918 to 1941 was the chief obstacle in the w ay of a Communist revolution in the Balkans. The brunt of the Comintern’s attack was directed against the Serbs as the backbone of Yugoslavia, which had come into being as a result of their m ilitary exer­ tions between 1914 and 1918. In the years follow ing W orld W ar I, the Macedonian question became the critical factor uniting all those separatists, whether of left- or right-wing orientation, whose activity was fo r years directed at integrat­ ing, both within and without Yugoslavia, all anti-Serbian elements. It is in the propaganda of this movement that the myth of “ Greater Serbian imperialism” found its most com­ plete and aggressive expression. The ultimate aim o f this movement, the dismemberment of the Serbian national lands, has been fu lly realized in the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. By examining the various phases through which the Mace­ donian question has passed, the author has attempted to trace 5

Its historical development. The fa irly detailed account which he has given of the efforts o f the Bulgars to impose their national physiognomy upon the Serbian population of Southern Serbia is by no means the reflection of any hostility on his part toward the Bulgarian people. The w riter of these lines considers himself a friend of the Bulgars and is fu lly aware of their value and importance fo r the Balkan Peninsula. He believes that the dispute between the Serbs and Bulgars over Southern Serbia was fin ally settled by the outcome o f W orld War I. This is also probably realized by the most responsiblyminded Bulgars, who have succeeded in freeing themselves from the shackles o f a myth that has brought the Bulgarian people so much misery. Originally a dispute between the Serbs and Bulgars over the question of the national orientation of the population of Southern Serbia, the Macedonian problem subsequently became a weapon in the revolutionary activity of the Comintern, and later, during W orld W ar II, took the form of a quarrel between the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Com­ munist parties as to which party was entitled to control the operations of Communist organizations in this area. In every phase of its development, the Macedonian ques­ tion has affected the vital interests of the Serbs. These interests are now threatened in a new form by the thesis of the existence of a distinct Macedonian nationality in a region which was the scene of the most brilliant events in their medieval history and for the liberation of which they made many sacrifices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This thesis was first propounded under the influence of so­ cialist ideas as they took root in a prim itive environment. Long maintained and cherished by the Comintern, it was ac­ cepted by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which today is its sole champion. W ith the creation of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, the Yugoslav Communist Party has applied this thesis in practice over that part of the territory which is under its control. On its own territory, the Macedonian question is virtually non-existent fo r the Bulgarian Communist Party. It has even less significance in Greece, where the Communists w ere never generous toward the demands of the Slavs of Aegean Macedonia fo r national recognition. Thus, from being a problem of significance for the Balkans as a whole, the Macedonian question has become a matter of Yugoslav internal policy, or, to be more precise, an important II

part of the Serbian question in Yugoslavia. As such, it has entered a new phase, marked by a diminution in the im­ portance which it enjoyed fo r decades, not m erely on the Balkans but also on the international plane. The frontiers of the states now almost exclusively concerned with this question have been confirmed by international treaties, which cannot be altered without another war. The fact that no one today would venture upon a w ar in the Balkans in order to change these frontiers enhances their immutability and limits the international significance of the Macedonian question. The present work is the result of prolonged research and a serious effort to set forth this question in its organic deve­ lopment. Am id the uncertainties of §migr6 life, it has been a strenuous task. The procurement of the necessary literature, especially that published in Yugoslavia, has been linked with great difficulties. Many relevant works published in Yugo­ slavia have proved to be unavailable in libraries abroad, with the exception of those at Vienna and Rome, where they have been indirectly accessible; w hile from Yugoslavia itself some works have been obtained with difficulty and others not at all. Moreover, the material problems involved have frequently proved insuperable fo r an 6migr§ thrown upon his own re­ sources. Mr. Stanislav Krakov, the w riter and journalist, has been kind enough to place his library at the disposal of the author, who takes this opportunity of expressing his sincere gratitude fo r his assistance. Special acknowledgment is due to Professor John C. Adams, Professor of History at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, fo r reading the work in manuscript and making suggestions fo r its improvement. Professor Adams is not responsible for any of the views expressed in this book. Finally, the author wishes to express his indebtedness to the American Institute for Balkan A ffairs, and particularly to Dr. U. L. Seffer, for undertaking the publication of this work and thus rendering it accessible to the English-speaking public. Ascension Day 1958

Djoko M. SlijepCevifi.

Munich (Germany)

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M A C ED O N IA A S A G E O G R A P H IC A L CONCEPT It has never been precisely stated what one is to under­ stand by the expressions “ Macedonia” and “ the Macedonian people.” A ll w e know is that ancient Macedonia was not a state with an ethnically and culturally homogeneous popul­ ation. According to Strabo, the Thracians and Illyrians made up the Macedonian people,* w hile Leopold von Ranke states, “ the mutual influence o f the Macedonian and Greek ways of life constitutes the main theme of Macedonian history.” 2 Dr. Otto Hoffmann is of the opinion that the ancient Mace­ donians w ere ethnically Greeks, “ but,” he adds, “ the Mace­ donian empire, which they founded, was in existence before the time of K in g Archelaus as a union of various peoples under the leadership and rule of the Greek Macedonians and their tribe.” 3 The same view is put forw ard by the w riter of the article on Macedonia in the Paulys-Wissowa RealEncyclopadie: the Macedonians w ere of Greek provenance and inhabited Northern Thessaly.4 Dr. K arl Oestreich asserts that the ancient Macedonians w ere nearer to the Greeks than to the Thraco-Illyrian people. “ They [the Macedonians] should be regarded as a nation closely related to the Hellenes which, later on in the ancient period, became completely Hellenized. From Roman times on, there are no more Macedonians.” 5 Referring to this problem, Joachim H. Schultze asks in some perplexity, .. the Macedonians. They gave the land their name, but who w ere they? What do they signify nowadays? Do they exist at all? And what about the ‘Macedonian Slavs’?” 8 He goes on to say that the meaning of the term “ Macedonian” as a territorial concept was frequently modified, 1 L eop old von Ranke, W eltgesch ich te, V o l. I, 1928, p. 326. * Ibid. * O tto Hoffm ann, D ie M a k ed on ien , ih re Sprache und ih r V o lk s turn, G ottingen, 1906, pp. 260— 61. 4 P a u ly s-W issow a R eal-E ncyclopadie, V o l. X X V II, p. 690. • K arl O estreich, „D ie B evolkeru n g v on M a k ed o n ien ", G e o g ia phische Z e itsch rilt, 1905, V o l. I, pp. 273— 74. • Joachim H. Schultze, N eu g riechen ia n d , Gotha, 1927, p. 128.

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and points out that the Arabian geographer Idrisi spoke of Rhodope and the Balkans as “ Macedonian mountains” (gebel al-M aqedoni).1 James Barker remarks that with the fa ll of Perseus Macedonia lost its national character. The land was divided into four regions, the people enslaved and trade hampered.8 The British Universities Encyclopaedia states: “ The ancient kingdom of Macedonia extended in a north­ westerly direction from the Aegean Sea. Originally occupying a small area, it stretched, at the time of its greatest extent, from Haemus [i. e., the Balkans] in the north to Thessaly, and to the Aegean in the south, and from Epirus and Illyria in the west to Thrace in the east.” 9 In 168 B. C., the Romans turned it into a province which included Thessaly and Illyria. A t the division of the Empire in 395 A. D., this province fell to the Eastern part. The fame of Macedonia was created by Philip and Alexander. Indeed, it is their achievements that impressed the name of Macedonia so deeply in the consciousness of its later inhabitants. According to Alexander Randa, Macedonian patronage of arts and letters lies at the foundation of the pro­ gressive activity of Hellenism.10 Dr. Gustav Weigand is of the opinion that in ancient times Macedonia was understood as signifying a somewhat smaller region than we associate today with the term: “ O riginally it was only the district on the low er reaches of the Haliakmon [Bistrica] and the Aksios [Vardar] under the rule of local kings who came from Orestis, i. e., the land around the Kastoria Lake.” 11 “ The ancient Macedonians,” says Theodor Capidan, “ who originally extended from the valley o f the Aksios to the Haliakmon, were gradually denationalized by the Thracians, Illyrians and Greeks.” 18 According to JireCek, “ medieval Macedonia consisted of two regions with somewhat differing histories: one, which embraced the Byzantine coast in the neighborhood of Salonica and Serrai, and another, 7 Ibid., p. 126. 8 James Barker, T u rk ey , N e w Y ork , 1877, p. 248. * B ritish U n iv e rs itie s E n cy clop a ed ia , V o l. V I, p. 804. 10 A le x a n d e r Randa, D e r B alkan: S d iliisselra u m der W e ligeschichte, G raz-Salzburg-Vienna, 1949, p. 116. 11 G ustav W e ig a n d , E th n o gra p h ie v on M a k e d o n ie n , L eip zig, 1924, p. 2. 11 Th. Capidan, D ie M a zedorum Snen, Bukarest, 1941, p. 52.

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without access to the sea, which, from the seventh century on, was occupied by Slavs and which, from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, was fo r the most part under the in­ fluence and domination of the Greeks.” 13 Mentioning Basil the Macedonian, who was born in a village near Jedren and as a boy was taken prisoner by the Bulgarians, JireCek says that the name “ Macedonian” should not cause surprise, fo r “ in the Middle Ages the whole of present-day Rumelia was often called Macedonia.” 14 Theodor von Sosnosky pointed out that “ after the fa ll of the Byzantine Empire, the name [of Macedonia] disappeared completely from the map, and when it was mentioned at all it always referred to the empire o f Philip and Alexander. With the collapse of Alexander’s w orld empire it ceased to play an independent role in history. Then, however, it sudden­ ly appeared on the lips of the whole world. . . . Only the name, admittedly, for it signifies only the same land, not the same people.” 15 “ The name ‘Macedonia,’ ” says Horand Horsa Schacht, “ disappeared with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. Otherwise applied only as an historical designation, it reappeared in the national struggles of the Balkan people. . . . Under the Turks, there was no Macedonia. For this reason, the Turkish government spoke only o f the ‘Rumelian question.’ ” 16 For Dr. Oestreich, too, Macedonia is no more than an “ historical designation which originally covered an area further to the south, including the plain o f Salonica, . . . and, as a term whose meaning had not been clearly de­ fined and could be stretched at w ill, was arbitrarily applied to the hinterland.” 17

13 Constantin Jos. Jirefiek, Das diristlich e Elem ent in der topographischen N om ertklatur der Balkanlander, S ltzu n gsberich te der K aiseriichen A k a d e m ie d er W issenschaften in W ie n : P h ilo lo g is ch h istorisch e Classe, V o l. C X X X V I, p. 42. u Constantin Jos. J ir e ie k , G eschichte der B ulgaren, Prague, 1876, p. 157. 15 Th. v o n Sosnosky, D ie B a lk a n p o litik O sterreich -U n g a rn s seit 1886, V o l. II, pp. 118— 19. ’ • H orand H orsa Schacht, D ie E n tw icklu n g d er m azedonischen F ra g e um die Jahrhundertw ende zum M u rz s te g e r P rogra m m , H alle, 1929, p. 14. 17 K arl O estreid i, R eiseein d riicke aus dem V ila je t K o s o v o , V ienn a, 1899, p. 331.

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Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the extent of Macedonia has been variously defined. Von Gruber states that it lies between the Balkans and Athos, on both sides of the Vardar and the Struma, and that it covers an area of 1,720 square miles inhabited by a population of 500,000. “ Geographically,” he says, “ it is normally divided into two sanjaks— those of Salonica and Custendil. In accordance, however, with recent information, w e shall abandon this practice and mention the best-known places: Salonica, the chief meeting-place of commercial routes connecting European Turkey with the rest of Europe (from here Vienna and Smyrna trade in money exchange); then Seres [Serrai], Karaferija fVerija], Vodiin [Edessa], Jenisa, St. Orfano, Emboli, Filibi [Philippopolis, P lovdiv] and Custendil.” 18 O f Bulgaria, he says that it lies on the Black Sea between the Balkans and the Danube, and that it embraces an area of 1,740 square miles with a population of 1,800,000. According to him, Bul­ garia was at that time divided into four sanjaks— those of Sofia, Nicopolis, Silistria and Vidin. To Serbia, von Gruber assigns the sanjaks of Kratovo, Skoplje and N ovi Pazar.1* R. Walsh, who traveled round Bulgaria in the late 1820’s, states: “ Modern Bulgaria stretches from the mouth o f the Danube, along this river, to the point above Vidin where it is joined by the Timok. The Danube constitutes its entire northern boundary, as the Balkan chain does its southern. The whole of the area within these limits is over a hundred hours’ distance long and about sixteen hours across. The Bul­ garians have, however, spread far beyond these artificial limits.” 20 A. F. Heksch also considered that “ Bulgaria pro­ p er” extended “ from the low er Danube to the main ridges of the Balkans and the Black Sea,” and that, ethnically, it “ still embraces the district of Sofia also.” 21 Hugo Grothe was extrem ely cautious in defining the geographical concept “ Macedonia” : considering the question what was considered as constituting Macedonia under the Turks, he says, “ From

18 C arl A n ton v o n Gruber, Das osm anisdie Reich, p. 24. '• Ibid., pp. 16— 17 and 18— 19. 20 R. W alsh , R eise von K on s ta n tin op e l dureh R u m e lie n ,. . . Dresd en-Leipzig, 1828, pp. 203— 04. !1 A le x a n d e r F. Heksch, D onau, v o n ihrem Ursprung bis an d ie M iindung, L eip zig, 1884, p. 51.

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the point of view of state law, only three vilayets— those of Salonica, Bitolj and Skoplje [Kosovo]— may today be regard­ ed as constituting Turkish Macedonia. . . . It is doubtful whe­ ther so-called Old Serbia— the sanjaks of Prizren, PriStina and Srem [?]— belongs to Macedonia.” 22 Gerhard Schacher gives the follow ing boundaries of Macedonia: “ In the south­ west of the Balkan Peninsula is situated a territory with an area of 65,000 square kilometers— therefore not quite twice the size of Holland— which is enclosed in the south by the Aegean Sea, in the west by the Pindus Mountains, Gramus, Mokra und Stogovo, and in the north and east by the SarPlanina and Crna Gora and the spurs of the Osogovo, Rila and Rhodope Mountains respectively.” 23 W ladim ir Sis, who was definitely biased in favor of Bulgaria, defines the frontiers of Macedonia thus: “ It [Macedonia] borders in the north on Old Serbia and the pre-1913 Serbian kingdom, in the northeast and east on Old Bulgaria, to which in 1878 was added its northern part— i. e., the districts of Custendil and Dupnica— in the southeast on Thrace, in the south on the Aegean Sea, Thessaly and Epirus, and in the west on A l­ bania.” 24 “ In the Turkish empire,” says Schultze, “ the name ‘Macedonia’ disappeared. According to the political division carried out in the twentieth century, our country belongs to the vilayet of Salonica, and, within the limits of the latter, to the sanjaks of Serrai and Drama. The eastern frontier was the lower Nestos; the northern frontier included Nevrokop, and the western frontier Melnik and Diumaja.” 25 Jovan Cviji6 traced the frontiers of Macedonia in the south across a turn in the Bistrica River, in the north along the northern boundary of the sanjak of N ovi Pazar, in the west along the Crni Drin, and in the east along the Mesta. According to this frontier, both countries lie between 39°56’50” and 43°38’25” North, and between 54°14’31” and 60°7’26” East of Greenwich. The average meridian is 55°21’, w hile the average degree of latitude is approximately 41°50’. The total area of Macedonia and Old Serbia is 74,709 square kilometers, 11 H u go G rothe, A u l tiirk isch er Erde, Berlin, 1903, p. 358. G erhard Sdiacher, D e r Balkan und seine w irtschaftlichen K rd lte, Stuttgart, 1930, p. 240. “ W la d im ir Sis, M a zedon ien , Zurich, 1918, p. 7. “ Sdiultze, o p .c it., p. 126.

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which is 26,000 square kilometers greater than that of Serbia and 24,000 square kilometers less than that of Bulgaria.2® A n expert in Balkan cartography, Cvijid established, after extensive researches what one should understand by the term “ ancient Macedonia.” According to a map drawn by the Italian general Giac. Gastaldia in 1566, Serbia, in addition to Kosovo, included the area around Skoplje. According to maps by V. Coronellia, official geographer of Venice, dating from 1692, Skoplje is described as “ metropoli della Servia.” On seventeenth-century French maps, Serbia includes, apart from N ovi Pazar and Prizren, the area around Skoplje. In the atlas of 1696 by von Saunson, Serbia includes Skoplje and OvCe Polje. According to the maps of Joh. Bapt. Homann, which date from the first half of the eighteenth century, Serbia in­ cludes the districts of Skoplje, Kratovo and Custendil, while the map o f 1805 by Sava Tekelija shows Serbia as including Prizren, Pristina, VuCitm, Skoplje, Kratovo, Custendil and Pirot.27 The districts south of the border of liberated Serbia were fo r long known as “ Turkish Serbia.” The appellation “ Mace­ donia” was confined to the area of Salonica. On von Stieler’s map and in his pocket atlas of 1832, the frontiers of liberated Serbia are indicated, w hile a large area south of them, in­ cluding even Sofia and Ihtiman, is designated as “ Turkish Serbia.” On H. K iepert’s map, dated 1853, the name o f Mace­ donia is given to the district around Salonica. The same applies to the Map o f European Turkey revised by H. Berghaus and F. Stiilpnagel in 1856. Cviji6 says, “ In all the edi­ tions of von Stieler’s atlas from 1850 on, the name ‘Mace­ donia’ is given to the region approximately corresponding to the modern vilayet of Salonica. The name ‘Turkish Serbia’ disappeared from the later editions of von Stieler’s atlas, and the region between Macedonia proper and the borders of Serbia [i. e., of Serbia before the Battle of Kumanovo in 1912] remains even today without a definite name. Occasionally this region appeared under the old Turkish administrative de-

“ J ovan C v ijii, G ru n d lin ie n d er G e o g ra p h ie und G e o lo g ie von M a zed on ien und A lts e rb ie n , Gotha, 1908, p. 38. 27 Ibid., pp. 39— 40.

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signation ‘Rumeli’ before this fell out of use and the entire area was left without a name.” 28 As a result of his researches, Cviji6 came to the follow ing conclusion: “ On the m ajority of older maps [i. e., from the sixteenth century], and on a few of later date in which the classical nomenclature was used or which w ere influenced by this nomenclature, the name ‘Macedonia’ was confined to the coastal region around Salonica and the surrounding plain— that is, to Campania and the district west and northwest of it near to what is now the Meglen basin. The chief towns of this region of Macedonia proper are Vodena [Edessa] and Pella [now the village of Podol]. A t the end of the fifteenth and during the sixteenth centuries, many lands of the Balkan Peninsula, because of erroneous recollections of the classical world, were, mostly by local writers, called Macedonia— even Old Serbia, Zeta, Albania, Bosnia and Hercegovina.” 29 The geographically ill-inform ed author of the folk poem about Prince Kaica places the Danubian town of Smederevo in Macedonia. T w o versions o f DuSan’s legal code, those of Ravanica and Sofia— both from the seventeenth century— call DuSan emperor of Macedonia. The Sofia version reads: “ The pious and Christian Stefan, Emperor of Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Dalmatia,' w hile that of Ravanica says simply: “ The pious, faithful and Christian Emperor of Mace­ donia, Stefan.” *0 In a record of 1564, w ritten at the monastery of Zavala, in Hercegovina, it is stated that this monastery lies “ in the shelter of Mount Vele2, which is in the Macedonian lands.” *1 BoSidar Vukovic-PodgoriCanin says of himself that he comes from “ the Diocletian lands, in Macedonia, from the town o f Podgorica.” *2 Certain pilgrims to the H oly Sepulcher, Vukovoj, Gavrilo, Sava, Jovan and Sekule, state on two oc­ casions that they are from “ the Macedonian lands, from the land of Zahumlje, known as Hercegovina.” 33 In 1569, a certain Jakov says that he is from “ the Macedonian lands, from the *« Ibid. " Ibid. 30 Spiridon G o p f e v ii, M a k e d o n ie n und A lts e rb ie n , V ien n a, 1889,. p. 299. S1 L jubom ir S tojan ovid, S ta ri srpski zapisi i natpisi (O ld Serbian R ecords and Inscriptions), V o l. IV , p. 65, N o. 6328. 3t Ibid., V o l. I, p. 160, N o. 494. 53 Ibid., p. 195, N o . 621, and p. 389, N o . 1573.

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place called Sofia.” 34 In 1615, it was stated that the monastery o f M oraia is situated “ in the region of Hercegovina, in the western lands, in the Macedonian lands.” 35 It was on account of such statements that Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic observed that “ all our people’s lands are called Macedonia.” 3® Heinrich M uller’s Turkish Chronicle, published at Frankfurt-on-Main in 1577, contains an interesting passage on Mace­ donia which reads: “ How ever valiantly the Serbian people fought in Macedonia, the Sultan nevertheless occupied the Serbian towns of Serrai, Strumica, Philippopolis and Veles. . . . Bajazit also collected a great army against the powerful ruler Marko of Macedonia, which land is the most fertile of all Serbia.” 87 The unknown w riter who continued the work of Archbishop Danilo, in the section entitled “ On the En­ thronement of the Second Patriarch, the Serbian K ir Sava,” has the follow ing to say: “ Of his [U rol’s] empire, Prince Lazar took one part, and the other VukaSin, who, in claiming the kingdom, cared nothing fo r the curse of Saint Sava. And UgljeSa took the Greek lands and towns. A fte r this, having gathered together, they went out into Macedonia, w ere killed by the Turks and thus met their end.” 38 As may be seen, the term “ Macedonia” signifies merely a geographical concept which has been insufficiently defined and which has no ethnographical significance.

34 Ibid., p. 211, N o . 683, and p. 212, N o. 685. 38 Ibid., p. 286, N o . 1030. M V u k S tefa n ovic Karadzid, B eisp ie le d er serbisch-slavisdien S prad ie, V ienn a, 1857. 37 A s quoted in G opdevid, op. cit., p. 305. 38 Lazar M ir k o v ii (tr.), Z iv o t i k ra lje v a i a rh ije p isk o p a srpskih od a rh ije p isk o p a D an ila (T h e L iv e s o f the Serbian K in gs and A rch ­ bishops from Archbishop D an ilo), B elgrade, 1935, p. 290.

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TH E A R R IV A L OF THE S L A V S IN THE B A L K A N S On their arrival in the Balkans the Slavic tribes began to settle, among other places, in the area o f what is now Mace­ donia. Opinions are divided on the questions when and in what numerical relationship these tribes first began to cross the Danube and where and how they originally settled. In many cases, these views are completely irreconcilable. The Polish historian Surowiecky asserted that the Slavic tribes did not cross the Danube until after the collapse of the Hunnic state— that is, not before the last two or three decades of the fifth century.1 Paul Joseph Schafarik, fo r long an authority on this question, shared the same view : “ There is no doubt,” he wrote, “ that the Slavs penetrated beyond the Danube into Moesia and Pannonia before the middle of the sixth century, although w e have no direct evidence of this. Byzantine sources speak of Slavic inroads into Moesia and Thrace in the years 527, 533 and 546; similarly, there is frequent mention of mercenary troops (in the years 537, 540, 547, 555 and 556) in the service o f Byzantium. On the other hand, history makes no mention of the peaceful occupation of the lands south of the Danube, although this must in any case have begun in the late fifth or early sixth century.” * Later, Marin Drinov maintained that the settlement of the Slavs in the Balkans took place over a prolonged period— at least three centuries— and that it began before the transmigration o f peoples, being completed in the seventh century.8 JireCek regarded this view o f Drinov’s as the more accurate one, and emphasized that "in the fifth century the Slavs w ere far from being unknown in the [Balkan] Peninsula: they w ere a fa irly numerous and influential people, although their colonies appear to have been 1 C onstantin Jos. J ire ie k , Geschichte der B ulgaren, Prague, 1876, p. 72. * Paul Joseph Schafarik, S lavische A lt e r thum er, V o l. II, L eip zig, 1884, pp. 13— 14. s M arin D rin ov, ZaselenJe B alkanskago p o lu o s tro v a S lov e n a m i (T h e Settlem ent o f the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula), M oscow , 1873,' as quoted in J ir e ie k , o p .c it., p. 73.

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pretty w idely scattered.” 4 He goes on to say that Slavic colonization began in the third century and was carried out gradually: “ A t the end of the fifth century,” he says, “ armed migration began on a massive scale.” 8 This would be the second and final phase in this movement, which likewise took place over a prolonged period. W e also know that the Emperor Justin I (518— 27) and his nephew Justinian I (527— 65) w ere o f Slavic origin. A t a later date, there were even Slavs among the patriarchs of B y­ zantium. Their numbers w ere considerable in Justinian’s army. Among Justinian’s commanders, w e find mention of Dobrogost, Svegrd and Svarun, who in 555 distinguished themselves in the w ar against the Persians. Similar cases could be quoted in plenty, all of which show that the first Slavs to arrive in the Peninsula had begun to merge on a large scale with the indigenous population and had become civilized and converted to Christianity before fresh waves of Slavic tribes crossed the Danube.* On their arrival in the Balkans, these Slavs preserved their tribal organization and old w ay of life as far as circum­ stances permitted— fo r it was inevitable that they should mix to some extent with the indigenous population. A s regards the distribution o f the various tribes in the Peninsula, there is much that is still obscure: w e only know for certain the names o f some of them and the areas that they occupied. The Severjani, or Severci, settled in what is now Dobruja, the Timoiani in the region of the Timok, and the M oravljani on the Morava River; the Brsjaci, a people which still exists under the same name, occupied the area around Prilep, Veles, Bitolj and TikveS;7 nothing more than their names is known about the Smoljani and the Rinhini: JireCek remarks that their habitation and the origin of their names are obscure; the Sagudati inhabited the plain of Salonica; one part of the very important tribe known as the D ragoviti or Dragovici settled in the western valley of the Vardar River, and the other in the western Rhodope Mountains; the VelesiCi, or VelegostiCi, occupied Thessaly, the VojniCi Epirus and the Milinci the 4 • • 7

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J ire fe k , Ib id ., p. Ibid., p. Ibid., p.

op. cit., p. 80. 94. 79. 120.

Taygetus plateau, w hile the Jezerani descended as far as the Gulf of Laconia.8 The name of the seven Slavic tribes that Asparuch was the first to subdue are still unknown. “ History,” says Dr. Ischirkov, “ speaks o f the Severci and o f seven other Slavic tribes in what is now eastern Bulgaria whose names are unknown to us.” * Schafarik was o f the opinion that the members of these tribes w ere peaceful tillers of the soil: on the arrival of the Bulgars, some of these tribes, or at least part of them, migrated to regions which remained under B y­ zantine rule.10 It is generally recognized that these Slavic migrations, on account of thier scale, completely changed the ethnic character of this region. “ From Cape Matapan to the Dal­ matian ports and the Danube estuary, there was not a single district without its Slavic colonies.” 11 Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer made an especial study of the question how far south these colonies penetrated, and discovered that they stretched as far as the southern Pelopennese. “ These prim itive Slavs of the sixth century,” he says, “ are the authentic ancestors and kinsmen of the modern Greek peasants in Macedonia, Thes­ saly, Hellas and the Pelopennese. For over nine hundred years, the population of these districts spoke both Greek and Slav. . . . It is only during the last four centuries that the Slav language died out as a spoken language on the territory of ancient Greece, with the exception of the northern tip of Acam ania.” ** Even Carl Hopf, who on many points strongly disagreed with Fallmerayer, did not dispute this view in essence; while accepting the “ irrefutable fact that the Peloponncse was for long inhabited by Slavs, he queried the iiHHcrtion that Athens was sacked, that the ancient Greeks completely disappeared and that the modem Greeks w ere connected with the Hellenes by nothing more than the lanKiniKe which they had inherited.” 18

• Ibid. * A . Ischirkov, .D ie B evolk eru n g in B ulgarien und ih re Siedlungsv e rh a itn ls s e ', Peterm ann'a M itte ilu n g e n , 1911, Halbband II, p. 117. 10 S d iofarlk , op. clt., p. 14. u J lr e ie k , op. clt., p. 126. "* Jakob Ph ilip p F allm erayer, F ra gm en te aus dem O rie n t, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1877, p. 344. 18 See J ir e ie k , op. clt., pp. 122— 23.

19

This widespread diffusion of the Slavs in the Balkans, particularly in the region o f ancient Macedonia, explains w hy this region was called “ Slovinia” in Byzantine sources. Before the arrival of the Bulgars, Moesia was known by the same name. Referring to this name, Schafarik says: “ It was used in tw o senses: in the one sense, it was applied to all the Slav lands under Bulgarian domination, i. e., to ancient Upper and Low er Moesia, together with Dardania, and in the other it referred to a smaller area which, in my opinion, should be sought in Macedonia and on the forntiers of Albania and Thessaly.” 14 The Emperor Justinian II Rhinotmetus (686— 87) conduct­ ed a m ilitary campaign against the Bulgars and the “ land of the Slavs.” In 758, the Emperor Constantine Copronymus attacked the “ Slavic land that was situated in Macedonia” and carried o ff many slaves. When Niciphorus (802— 10) dis­ banded his army, he indicated the “ land of the Slavs” to his soldiers as their future abode. It was reported of the Bul­ garian khan Krum that in 813 he strengthened his army with recruits “ from all the Slavic lands.” Thus it is with justifica­ tion that JireCek states that the “ local name of ‘Slovjenin,’ in the plural ‘Slovjene,’ was known from the sixth century on in neighboring areas to the west and south___ This name is to be found, not only in the area of Salonica and in Dal­ matia, but also in the eastern Alps and western Carpathians, among the Polabian Slavs and in the area of Novgorod.” 16 Vatroslav Jagic also pointed out that foreigners gave the name “ Slavs” to all those tribes which, after crossing the Danube, pressed toward the south and west. He added that this common name did not “ designate a single tribe or homo­ geneous people, but a whole mass, which, from the sixth century on, moved across the Danube from what is now the plain of Bessarabia and Rumania.” 16 Although, in opposition to Kopitar and MikloSi6, he maintained that the Macedonian Slavs w ere neither of the same tribe as the Pannonian nor spoke the same dialect, he took due account of the fact that 14 Schafarik, op. cit., p. 197. 15 K. Jirefiek and J. Radoni• Ibid., p. 318. *• Ibid., p. 312. !1 Corovii, op. clt., p. 38. 35

between Byzantium and the Arabs to annex numerous areas belonging to the Macedonian Slavs. “ His success,” says Corovid, “ appears to have been considerable: the Bulgars quickly emerged as the masters of Ohrid and the entire region around Devol, thus uniting under their rule the greater part of the Macedonian Slavs.” 22 Zlatarski states that Presijam annexed central and western Macedonia, the lands between the upper and low er Vardar and the C m i Drin, together with Kosovo Polje, and as far south as Ohrid and Prilep.23 JireCek shares the same view : “ From the area of Serdica [Sofia], they [the Bulgars] subdued the Slavic tribes of Macedonia as far as the Byzantine littoral near Salonica, and, since they had occupied Ohrid and the region of the Devol River, they became neigh­ bors of the province of Durazzo.” 24 Presijam ’s son Boris (852— 88) and Boris’s younger son and second successor Simeon (893— 927) supplemented Presijam ’s conquests and continued the w ar against the Serbian state, which was just coming into being. Presijam was the first to wage w ar against the Serbs: he was defeated and compelled to withdraw. Boris was later also defeated and his son Vladi­ mir taken prisoner. A relaxation of effort on both sides led to the conclusion of peace terms, as a result of which Vladim ir and tw elve Bulgarian boyars were returned, accompanied by a guard o f honor as fa r as Ras, at that time the frontier between Bulgaria and Serbia. “ The Serbs,” says Corovi6, “ were probably diffident of the issue of a continued struggle, and therefore agreed to favorable terms.” 25 Simeon, the greatest leader that Bulgaria has ever had, “ a man determined and brave in w ar,” as L a v the Deacon describes him, decided to bring the remaining Slavic tribes under his rule. “ According to the treaty concluded with B y­ zantium in 864, the southwestern frontier of Bulgaria ran from the central Rhodope westward to the Rupelo defile, along the Bjelasnica mountains, across the Vardar near Demir Kapija and then toward the southwest, embracing the lakes

!! 18 M V o l. I f*

36

Ibid., p. 40. Zlatarski, op. cit., V o l. I, Part I, p. 342. C. J. J ir e ie k and J. Radonid, Is to rija Srba (H is tory o f the Serbs), (to 1537), B elgrade, 1952, p. 111. C orovid , op. cit., p. 41.

of Ohrid and Prespa.” 28 The tribes which w ere still outside the Bulgarian borders included the Smoljani (on the low er reaches of the Mesta River), the Rinhini (between the low er Struma and the Vardar), the Sagudati and the Dragovi6i (northwest and west of Salonica). Pow erful as he was, and obsessed by the ambition to surplant Byzantium in name as w ell as in fact, Simeon was urged on by an insatiable desire to proclaim a Bulgarian empire and patriarchate: the patriarchate he did, in fact, proclaim in 918, without the permission or approval of Byzantium and sub­ sequently he proclaimed himself emperor. Soon after this, he devoted the greater part of his energies to the w ar against the Serbs, on whom he wanted to take his revenge for their defeats of his father and grandfather. Although it was only just coming into being, the Serbian state showed considerable powers of resistance and its leaders considerable skill in maneuvring between Bulgaria and Byzantium, in which they divined the lesser threat to their future development. Re­ ferring to the period when Simeon was attempting to destroy Serbia, JireCek states that the territory of Serbia stretched from the Adriatic to the Ibar, from the mouth of the Boj ana along the coast to Cetina, and in the north as far as the Sava River. The center of gravity of the ancient Serbian state was on the Lake of Skadar (Scutari). Not until the time o f the Nemanjidi did its frontiers begin to move eastward and south­ ward.*7 Simeon succeeded in destroying the Serbian state. “ Si­ meon,” says Schafarik, “ exacted a dreadful revenge upon the Serbs, who had entered upon an alliance with the Greeks against the Bulgars. Serbia was terribly devastated.” 28 Large numbers of slaves w ere taken off. Porphyrogenitus recorded that only a fe w groups of hunters w ere left in Serbia, without w ives or children. A fte r the death of Simeon, which occurred in 927, the might of Bulgaria waned rapidly. His son and successor, Peter (927— 68), an unusually close prototype of the Serbian UroS “ the W avever,” was a devout but weak person entirely under Byzantine influence and unequal to the times in which he *• Zlatarski, op. cit., V o l. II, p. 328. 17 C. J. Jiredek, Geschichte d er B ulgaren, p. 162. 18 Schafarik, op. cit., p. 187.

37

lived. Under his rule, the state began to totter to its founda­ tions: in 930, his brother Mihailo rose in revolt, but was soon killed and his revolt crushed. Caslav Klonim irovic fled from Bulgaria and set up a powerful state of his own. F ive times the Magyars attacked Bulgaria, mostly in collaboration with the Cumani. In 963, there broke out the rebellion led by the nobleman 3i§man and his sons: meeting with failure in the east, he withdrew to the western regions, where he founded a new administrative center. The First Bulgarian Empire came to an end with the death of Peter in 968. (Bulgarian historians, and with them many others, include the reigns of Samuil and his successors, and consider the First Empire as lasting until 1018). There is no doubt that the Slavs of Macedonia were also for a long period subjects of this empire. Zlatarski emphasized that throughout this extensive empire there was no inner unity. “ One may confidently assert,” he says, “ that in the earliest period of the First Bulgarian Empire there existed a Bulgarian state, but there was as yet no Bulgarian people with strongly defined cultural principles, with its own w ay o f life, which would set it apart as an entity, as a separate nation.” 29 Zlatarski claims, however, that this situation changed in the middle of the ninth century, but no evidence can be found fo r this assertion. The western part of the empire, chiefly the territory of the Macedonian Slavs, displayed a persistent tendency toward separatism and a lack of interest in the idea of a Bulgarian state. Hugo Grothe states that as late as the ninth century Bulgarian inroads into unconquered Slav territories “ were undoubtedly raids carried out by marauders, which could hardly have left any ethnic traces on these territories.” 30 R eferring to the replies given by Pope Nicholas I to the questions put to him by the Emperor Boris, JireCek says that they o ffer valuable and irrefutable evidence that the Bul­ garian ruling stratum had not yet become fused with the subjugated Slavs.31 Murko also remarks that in the tenth century the Bulgars were still a separate people,32 while Dr. 28 Zlatarski, op. cit., V o l. I, Part I, pp. 351— 52. 30 H u go Grothe, A u t tiirkisch er Erde, Berlin, 1903, p. 361. 81 C. J .J ir e ie k , Geschichfe d er B u lga ren, p. 156. 32 M. M urko, Geschichte der a lteren siidslawischen Lite ra tu r, L eip ­ zig, 1908, p. 25.

38

Ku rt Floericke, despite the assertion that the Bulgars, as an ethnic group, rapidly disappeared in the Slavic masses, emphasizes that the administration of the Bulgarian state of that time was definitely aristocratic in character: “ thus,” he says, “ in customs and ideas, there was everywhere the greatest possible opposition to the democratic Slav nation.” 88 There can be no question of a single people in the enormous Bulgarian state of the Middle Ages. Some blending of races did occur, since this was inevitable; but the idea of a Bulgarian state, represented as it was by a non-Slav ruling stratum, left hardly any permanent traces in the minds of the Macedonian Slavs. Even when it was resurrected in the form o f the Second Bulgarian Empire (1186— 1393), it was not defended with such determination and self-sacrifice as was the Serbian state. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the Second Bulgarian Empire took its origins from Tum ovo, which, after the battle on the Klokotnitsa in 1230, regained its form er power. “ From the time of Samuil,” says JireSek, “ the Bul­ garian Slavs w ere once more united under a single scepter. In addition to Danubian Bulgaria, it embraced BraniCevo and Belgrade, Nig and Velbuzd, Thrace together with Didimotika and Adrianople, the whole of Macedonia— that is, the regions around Ser, Skoplje, Prilep, the Devol, and Ohrid— and A l­ bania together with Elbasan as far as the approaches to Durazzo.” 34 The history of the Second Bulgarian Empire is also fu ll of drama. There w ere constant quarrels, rebellions and con­ spiracies between various local rulers and pretenders to the throne, of whom there w ere many. Except during the reign uf Ivan Asen II (1218— 41), the Second Bulgarian Empire was ili'void of any central idea. In contrast to the First, it was at l Iw hi'lKht of its power amicably disposed toward the Serbs. Tin' Serbian state, which had come into being as a result of the work of Stevan Nemanja and St. Sava, had overcome its initial obstacles and was evincing an increasingly definite li'iulm ry lo spread southward. The Emperor Ivan Asen II, fathrr-lii-law of King Vladislav, was himself a great admirer of St. Sava, and, when St. Sava died at Tum ovo, he made an nttempl to keep his remains in Bulgaria. In his L ife of *' K u rl Flonrlcko, Geschichte d er B u lga ien , Stuttgart, 1913, p. 12. M C. J. J lretek , Geschichte der B ulgaren, p. 251.

39

St. Sava, Teodosije says that, on receiving Vladislav’s first re­ quest that he be allowed to remove St. Sava’s remains to Ser­ bia, Asen “summoned the patriarch and his counsellors and asked them whether he should surrender the Saint, and they replied that he should under no circumstances do this, since the state leaders and the entire city w ere indignant on ac­ count of this.” 85 In the spirit, work and achievement of St. Sava may be seen a revival of the period o f St. Clement and o f that movement toward the unification of the Slavic tribes to which w e have already drawn attention. Moreover, there is ample evidence to show that he did much to secure recognition o f the independence of the Bulgarian Church, thus putting both the Bulgarian Church and the Bulgarian state in his debt. During the period when the Second Bulgarian Empire was still in its infancy, the Macedonian Slavs w ere once more under Greek rule. When the Latins captured Byzantium in 1204, they fe ll into the hands of the despots of Epirus. A kinsman of Kaloyan (1197— 1207), Dobromir Strez, who is also prominent in Serbian history, remained loyal to the Greeks and under their patronage formed an independent principality. Later he accepted the protection of Stevan PrvovenCani, then betrayed him, and fin ally paid fo r this with his life. In his account of this period, the monk Teodosije says that “ the Goths [so he calls the Bulgars] became very power­ ful and, finding many Greek cities deserted and helpless, they seized and held them; they also occupied the cities around Salonica and controlled Ohrid.” 85 From the death of Ivan Asen II to the battle on the VelbuSd in 1330, the Bulgarian throne was occupied by a series of rulers who are of little interest. As a result of the battle on the Velbuzd, the Bulgars w ere driven out of Slavic Macedonia, and fo r several centuries after this, until the emergence of the Exarchate, they w ere to play no further role in this region. “ On that day,” says Floericke in reference to this battle, “ the leader­ ship of the South Slavs passed from the Bulgars to the Serbs.” *7 The collapse of the Bulgarian Empire with the fall “ Stare 3» 37

40

T e o d o s ije , Z iv o t s ve to g a Save (T h e L ife o f St. Sava), in B asii, srpske b io g r a lije (O ld Serbian B iograph ies), p. 240. Ibid., pp. 162— 163. F loericke, op. cit., p. 33.

to Turnovo in 1393, took place without noise and without heroic feats: it was the Serbs who defended Macedonia against the Turks. Conscientious and well-inform ed historian as he was, Zlatnrski committed a serious error in supposing that he Slavic tribes which settled in Macedonia and the whole of the Bal­ kans bore no resemblance to the Serbs and Croats who, at the time of Heraclius (610— 41), settled in those areas with which their later history was to be associated. R eferring to the Slavs of the so-called Slavo-Antic group, Zlatarski says: “Neither In their origin, nor in their language, nor in their political interests did they have anything in common with the SerboCroats.” 88 “ Consequently,” he goes on to say, “ during the first period o f their history, the Serbs w ere unable to unite and form a single state, and, from the time when they first !x}gan to settle in the Peninsula, failed to take an independent part in the political affairs of southeastern Europe. On the contrary, they kept aloof from the other Slavs in the Pen­ insula, since they belonged to another Slavic group and con­ sequently differed from them in their origin, language and political interests.” 39 Evidently, Zlatarski overlooked a number of important facts. Until the time of Samuil, the other Balkan Slavs also failed to create a state of their own; the efforts of Prince Samo and later of Lju devit Posavski to form a Slavic state proved unsuccessful; as soon as the Serbs began to form a state of their own, the Bulgars intervened with the object of preventing them from doing so and w ere repeatedly defeated by the Serbs; like the BraniSevci and TimoCani, the Mace­ donian Slavs felt no enthusiasm for the Bulgarian regime, and lit*’ Malkan Slavs in general w ere fo r long incapable o f reKanlliiK I he* Bulgarian state as their own since it was, indeed, (i IIm i to them. By misinterpreting the concept of the state, at a time when states were formed by individuals or their dynasties, Zlatarski erroneously regards as Bulgars all those Slavs who at any time had found themselves under Bulgarian domination. If Bulgaria had indeed been their national state, it would have been impossible, in spite of everything that *• Zlatarski, op. cIt., V o l. I, Part I, p. 16. M Ibid., p. 345.

41

subsequently occurred, for all trace of it to disappear. In 1814, Dobrovsky considered Bulgarian to be a dialect of Serbian, w hile until 1826 Schafarik had not seen a single book w ritten in Bulgarian.40 Identifying the Bulgarian state, from the national point of view, with its subjects, Schafarik de­ signated all those Slavs who had at any time been incorporat­ ed in the Bulgarian state as “ Bulgarian Slavs.” “ In its widest sense,” he says, “ w e understand the term ‘Bulgarian Slavs’ as including all those Slavs who w ere at one time to be found in Moldavia, Wallachia, Sibiu and southern Hungary from the Prut R iver in the north to the confluence of the Drava and Danube rivers, in ancient Moesia and modern Eastern Serbia from the mouth o f the Danube to the Morava, in Thrace, Macedonia and Albania, in Thessaly and other parts of Greece and even in the Pelopennese and on the neighboring is­ lands.” 41 Follow ing Schafariks’ example, other writers have em­ ployed an equally uncritical approach in defining the ethnic boundaries of Bulgaria. Paul Dehn states that they encompass a wide area. “ With the exception of some isolated com­ munities in Epirus, west of the Vardar and in Upper Moravia, the Bulgars inhabit a wide area which is bounded by the right bank of the Danube from the Serbian frontier to the Black Sea, from where the frontier follows the shores of the Black Sea, Sea of Marmor and Aegean Sea as far as the mouth of the Vardar, then follows the course of the Vardar up to Kosovo Polje, from where it passes through Giljane, Vranje, Leskovac, NiS and Pirot to Vidin on the Danube. Only in the large ports such as Byzantium and Salonica do w e find a re­ duced number of Bulgars.” 42 A similar definition of the Bul­ garian frontiers is to be found in Stefan Mladenov’s Geschichte der bulgarischen Sprache, published in 1929. Such definitions are, of course, to be regarded as arbitrary and unrealistic.

40 C. J. Jirefcek, Geschichte d er B ulgaren, p. 506. 41 Schafarik, op. cit., p. 152. 42 Paul Dehn, D ie V o lk e r Siidosteuropas und ih re politisch en P ro blem e, H a lle, 1909, pp. 20— 21. 41 Stefan M la d e n o v , Geschichte der bulgarischen Sprache, BerlinL eip zig, 1929, p. 1.

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THE EMPEROR S A M U IL In the history of the Macedonian Slavs, the attempt of Samuil to create and maintain a Slavic state in the Balkans furnishes a chapter apart. The son of comes Nikola, Samuil (976— 1014) is an extrem ely interesting figure, but, like the times in which he lived, there is much about him that is obscure. Bulgarian historians, together with many others, re­ gard him as a Bulgar and his state as a continuation of the Bulgarian state. The most recent research, however, suggests that he was of Armenian origin: Nicolas Adontz has put fo r­ ward the view that his fam ily was Armenian. That his mother Ripsimija was Armenian is no longer open to doubt.44 His state, which came into being as the result of a rising against Byzantium, did not include all, if any, of the eastern regions of the Bulgarian Empire, but did embrace all the Serbian lands. Between Samuil and the Serbian princes there appears to have been mutual confidence and dependence: Samuil made Jovan Vladimir, Prince of Zeta, his son-in-law. On the other hand, he regarded his domain, not as a con­ tinuation or revival of the old Bulgarian state, but as his own, new and original creation. He had his own conception and his own aims. From Ohrid, where he had his capital, Samuil began to extend his territory in all directions. “ From here,” says Bo2idar Prokic, “ he gradually extended his authority over all the Serbian tribes as far as the Croatian frontier, over all the Slavic tribes in Macedonia and Thessaly and all the Bulgars except those south of the Balkan Mountains in Thrace. Thus, Samuil was the first among the Slavic rulers to attempt the liberation of all the Slavic tribes in the Balkan Peninsula— Macedonians, Serbs and Bulgars— from an alien regime. This he soon suceeded in doing, uniting them in a single Slavic state and giving it that name which the hitherto strongest Slavic state in the Balkans had borne.” 45 Summing up this period, Corovi6 says: "Samuil, therefore, did not recognize the authority of the form er Bulgarian 44 N ico la s A d on tz, “ Samuel l'A rm en ien , ro i des Bulgares,” M i m o i res de I'A ca d 6 m ie ro y a le de B elgiq u e, 1938, pp. 41— 42. 4* B o iid a r A . Prokid, “ V o jv o d a Iv a c ” (Duke Iv a c ), B ra tstvo d ru itv a s ve to g a Save, V o l. I X and X , 1902, p. 5.

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dynasty over his lands: he created a new state administration and a new dynasty. Even though he later conquered Bulgaria and its imperial capital, Preslav, he did not transfer his own capital thither, but remained true to his Macedonian environ­ ment, to Prespa and Ohrid___ Thus the land of the Mace­ donian Slavs, fo r the first and the last time in our history, became the center of a great liberation campaign and of a great state___ Samuil’s state of Macedonian Slavs was a new creation, which exploited the imperial inheritance of Bul­ garia. For this reason, his state is regarded in certain foreign circles as a continuation of the old state of Simeon, i. e., of Bulgaria.” 48 The only feature that Samuil’s state and that of Bulgaria had in common was that they both came into being in the course of the struggle with Byzantium, in which Byzantium was in the end victorious. A new feature in Samuil’s policy, particularly in comparison with Bulgaria, was that he gave the Slavic element a w ider and freer scope. There is one more striking difference between the two: while Bulgaria, despite her power and greatness, left no profound traces in the con­ sciousness o f the Macedonian Slavs, the same cannot be said of Samuil’s state. The subsequent desire of the people that it should be revided found expression in a series of rebellions, o f which not one was oriented toward the old Bulgaria: of these uprisings, the most interesting are those led by Petar Deljan, the soldier Tihom ir (in the region of Durazzo), Manuel Ivac (near Prilep) and D jordje Vojteh. V ojteh’s uprising was pro-Serbian in orientation. Since 1035, a new Serbian state had begun to form at Zeta, and a rebel delegation requested Mihailo, K in g of Zeta, to help them and give them his son Bodin to lead the revolt. “ A w are o f the links,” says Corovic, “ between the Zeta dynasty and Samuil, and probably also prompted by the fact that Zeta, w ith which RaSka, the Trebinje district and Hum w ere at that time in alliance, was the only Slavic state in their vicinity, the rebels appealed fo r assistance to K in g Mihailo o f Zeta. Perhaps they hoped that considerations of tribal solidarity would prompt the K in g to join them. This Mihailo did.” 47 4* C o r o v ii, op. tit., p. 64. 47 Ibid ., p. 73.

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Samuil’s religious policy also showed that he was follow ing a different course from the Bulgarian rulers: there was no enmity on either side between him and the Bogomils. W hile the names of Boris, Simeon and Peter are prominent in Bul­ garian ecclesiastical literature, “Samuil’s name is almost com­ pletely absent. . . and always wrapped in a veil of restraint.” 48 Jireiek also remarks that Samuil gave neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic Church any support in their struggle against the Bogomils.49 As the example of Ivac shows— fo r he was certainly not the only one— there w ere members o f the Orthodox faith among Samuil’s m ilitary commanders. (On the Feast o f the Assumption, August 28, 1018, Ivic was captured by Evstatije Dafnomil, administrator of Ohrid, by trickery and blinded.) The celebration in Macedonia of the slava, which is attested by the Byzantine chronicler Skilica, is one more proof that the Macedonian Slavs in Samuil’s state differed from the Bul­ gars. “ In the east, in Bulgaria, this custom was never ob­ served— nor is it today— and when, in the eleventh century, the Bulgars began to subdue the Christianized Slavic tribes in Macedonia and the Serbian lands, they found the slava already established there. When the Bulgars w ere converted in the second half of the eleventh century, they neither then nor at any later date took over this custom from the Mace­ donian Slavs.” 50 A ll this indicates the individual character of Samuil’s state, which was neither Bulgarian nor Serbian. In 1884, Alexander Heksch, on inadequate grounds, called this state "Serbian,” chiefly in order to emphasize that it was not Bulgrnian. " A t the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century,” he says, “ a kingdom under Samuil emerged in Macedonia is erroneously called Bulgarian, fo r the Bulgars hnd no part in it. On the contrary, the chief cities of Bul­ garia— Sllistria and P lo vd iv— remained outside the frontiers of Samuil’s state and under Byzantine rule. Samuil’s state was Slavic, with its center in Macedonia.” 51 Somewhat more 48 Dm itri O b olen sk y, T h e B o g om ils : A Study in Balkan N e o M anichaelsm , C am bridge, England, 1949, p. 151. 4* C. J. J ire fe k , Geschichte d er B ulgaren, p. 191. M Prokid, op. cit., p. 12. A le x a n d e r F. Heksch, Donau, L eip zig, 1884, p. 635 (footn ote).

45

circumspectly, Hugo Grothe w rote in 1905: “ Whether this state was Bulgarian or Serbian— usually it is referred to as the ‘Western Bulgarian Kingdom ’— is still an open question. In any case, as soon as the SiSmani attempted to conquer this land from the north, a movement of immigration began from Old Serbia.” 52 Samuil’s state was the first and last state of the Mace­ donian Slavs. It was called into being by the circumstances of the period, which likewise soon removed it from the historical arena. Its disappearance in 1018 creates for us a new problem: that of the old archiepiscopacy of Ohrid, which, like Samuil’s state, has been erroneously called Bulgarian, for, while it controlled the Slavic areas in its immediate vicinity, it did not extend, after the collapse of the Second Bulgarian Empire, to the central areas of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. While, with the gradual decline of the Serbian state and, concurrently, of the Patriarchate of Ped, the authority of the archiepiscopacy of Ohrid spread to the dioceses of the Patriarchate of Pec, the Patriarch of Byzantium, after the fa ll of Turnovo, placed the Bulgarian Church under the control of the Metropolitan of Moldavia. In 1402, nine years after the collapse of Bulgaria, w e find at Turnovo a Greek bishop, who was subordinate to the Patriarch o f Byzantium.5®

51 G rothe, op. cit., pp. 361— 62. 5a C. J. Jirecek, Geschichte d er B ulgaren, p. 350.

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TH E M A C E D O N IA N S LA V S UNDER SE R B IAN RU LE

I. The Macedonian Slavs came gradually under the sway o f the medieval Serbian state as a consequence of the struggle of the Serbs against Byzantium, not Bulgaria. There must have been contact even earlier between the tribes of central Serbia and those of Macedonia. During the first stage of their life in the Balkans, they had been, at least form ally, under the aegis of Byzantium, from which they w ere gradually taken over by the Bulgars. Right up to the time o f Presijam, mutual relations between all the Slavic tribes w ere good. In the middle of the tenth century, Constantine Porphyrogenitus recorded that until the time of Prince Vlastim ir Serbs and Bulgars w ere on peaceful terms, since they w ere under B y­ zantine rule. Then Presijam, anxious to prevent the formation of a Serbian state, opened w ar against the Serbs. The most natural explanation of these good relations is that, despite all their tribal differences, they w ere bound together by ties o f kinship and by the fact that they had much in common. In contradiction o f the view of Jem ej K opitar a ml Franc Miklogic (both of them Slovenes), which was taken o v e r nnd developed by Zlatarski, more recent research has nIi o w i i thut the Serbs and Croats, whose migration to the UnlkmiH on a large scale is assigned to the reign of the Em­ peror lienicllus (610— 41), neither linguistically nor ethnically d i f f e r e d bo much from the other Slavic tribes which settled in the Hulkuns before them as to justify their being con­ sidered as an entirely separate Slavic group.1 1 See Ernst DOmmler, .U b e r d ie alteste Geschichte der Slaw en in D alm atien (549— 928),* S U zu n gsb erid ite d er K a iserlichen A k a d e m ie d er W issenscha/lcn In W ie n : P h ilo lo g is ch -h istoris ch e Classe, V o l. X X , 1856j and Lu d w ig G um plow icz, .D ie politische G esch idite der Serben und K roaten,* P o lllls ch -a n th rop o lo g is ch e R evu e, 1902/03, p. 783.

4?

Moreover, Schafarik asserts that the Slavic tribes in the region of the confluence of the Southern and Western Morava w ere mingled with Serbs.* The same thing must have oc­ curred to the southeast and south of the central Serbian tribes, where the population was more or less sim ilarly con­ stituted. “ Linguistic archeology,” says Corovid, “ gives fairly positive results in respect of the dialectal unity of the old South Slav tribes, and excludes the possibility that the Serbs and Croats came to the Balkans as an element dialectically distinct from the other Slav masses. Our linguists have found that Serbo-Croat and Slovenian are the product of a common language and that they were spoken even before the grouping [of the Slavic tribes] in the regions they occupy today took place.” 3 R eferring to the speakers of proto-Slavic, Max Vasmer says that “ before the more important dialectal d if­ ferences began to emerge, they inhabited a region whose in­ dividual areas w ere subject to mutual linguistic modifica­ tion.” 4 “ W here w e find Slavs,” says J. J. Mikkola, “ who call themselves Slavs, we must derive them from a single proto­ tribe.” 5 It is interesting to note that, despite all the vicissitudes of fortune to which the Slavic tribes were, during the centuries, exposed, linguistic oases have survived in the south which testify to the kinship of the southern tribes with those which inhabit present-day Slovenia and KoruSka. During World W ar I, Ljubom ir Pavlovid discovered, in the Slav villages around Ostrovo, a language group which resembles Slovenian. “ The language of these Slavs,” he reports, “ is nearest to that of the Slovenes. I have seen many Slovenes from our front who have no difficulty in conversing with these Slavs. Mos­ lems from Meglen stated repeatedly that linguistically they are nearest to the Slovenian volunteers in the Serbian army. An acquaintance of mine, a respected householder from Voden, told me, after a conversation with a lieutenant colonel in our 2 Paul Joseph Schafarik, Slavische A lte rlh u m e r. V o l. II, Leipziq, 1844, p. 259. 3 V la d im ir C o r o v ii, Is to rija J u g o s la v ije (H is tory o f Y u g o s la v ia ), B elgrade, 1933, p. 22. 4 M a x V asm er, U ntersuchungen iib e r d ie altesten W o h n s itz e der Slavert. P a rt I: D ie Ira n ie r in Siidrussiand, L eip zig, 1923, p. 1. 8 J. J. M ik k o la , „Sam o und sein Reich,* A rc h iv fu r S ia v is d ie P h iio lo g ie , V o l. X L II, 1929, p. 86.

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army who came from Slovenia, that he understands the Slo­ venes better than he does Serbs and Bulgarians, Slavic cus­ toms associated with weddings, "slava,” funerals, domestic and agricultural life are almost identical with those in the mountain villages of Old Serbia and Montenegro.” ® Much that would be of interest for us today in the prehistorical life of these Slavic tribes remains obscure. Schafarik himself felt this, and was right when he said that “ the pre­ history of the Serbs of Illyria is covered in impenetrable dark­ ness.” 7 This is especially true of the period preceding the formation o f a Serbian state under Vlastimir: apart from the evidence of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, which is accepted by many historians and rejected, at least partially, by many others, we are unable to learn anything further of the arrival of the Serbs in the Balkans and of the manner of their settling there. W e only know that there w ere Slavs who called themselves Serbs outside the Balkans: in 631, Prince Samo was joined by Drvan, “ a prince of the Serbian tribe, which was of the Slavic nation.” 8 This appears to be the earliest mention of the name “ Serb.” The second occurs in the year 822: the chronicle o f Einhard mentions that in this year Lju devit Posavski fled to the Serbs in Bosnia, “ which people holds a large part of Dalmatia.” It is not open to question that there w ere also Serbs in other parts of the Balkans than those in which the first Serbian state came into being. O f primary importance are those who, before the mass migration began, settled in the area of Salonica. Vatroslav Jagi6, follow ing Porphyrogenitus, states that Serbs, without meeting any opposition, came to Salonica “ and settled near Salonica in a district which was called ‘ta Serblia.’ ” 9 Jagic is of the opinion that the name “ Oi Serbloi” was confined to a very small area.10 J. Mikotcy affirm ed that in 640 the Serbs spread first over Macedonia,

• Ljub. P a v lo v ii, “ O stan ovnistvu i selim a O strovsk e o k o lin e ” (T h e Population and V illa g e s o f the O s tro v o D istrict), G lasnik G eog ra is k o g d ru itv a , V o l. V , 1921, p. 239. 7 Schafarik, op. cit., p. 249. 8 See D iim m ler, op. cit., p. 389. * V . J a g if, „Ein K ap itel aus der Geschichte der siidslawischen Sprachen," A rc h iv filr alavische P h ilo lo g ie , V o l. X V II, 1895, p. 60. 10 Ibid.

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then Illyria .11 Schafarik supposed that one part of the Serbs, unwilling to return with the m ajority to the north, remained in Macedonia.12 Kaspar Zeuss rejected this view: “ [The argu­ ment] that a people which stretched from the Tim ok to the Adriatic originally inhabited a small theme [i. v., province] near Salonica, that it took it into its head to return to its form er home and then decided to stay where it was, needs no further proof of its absurdity.” 13 H ow ever that may be, there is evidence that among the Slavs who were transferred to Asia Minor there w ere some who called themselves Serbs. In 649 (i. e., at a time when, even according to Porphyrogenitus, the resettlement of Serbs in areas outside Macedonia had been completed), the Emperor Constantine I I I transferred a part of the Slavs from the V ar­ dar to Asia Minor. There these migrants founded the city of Gordoservon, the name o f which gives grounds fo r supposing that among its founders there w ere Serbs. From the seventh to the tenth century, there w ere fiv e such transfers of popu­ lation.14 Between 1118 and 1143, the Emperor John Comnenus resettled some of the Serbs in the region of Nicomedia.15 C orovii points out that place names of Serbian origin are to be found over the entire southern part of the Balkan Pen­ insula, far from the regions where the principal groups of Serbian tribes had settled.18 JireCek conjectures that the an­ cestors of the Serbs and Croats may have been “ those Slavs who, near Syrmium on the Sava River, built boats fo r the Avars, and who, together with the ancestors of the Slovenes, fought, side by side with the A va r hordes, in the eastern Alps against the Bavarians, and, as auxiliaries, went over to the Longobards in Italy.” 17 11 J. M ik o tc y , O tio ru m C h roa tia e, V o l. I, Budapest, 1806, pp. 89 to 112. 12 Schafarik, op. cit., p. 239, footnote. 1S K aspar Zeuss, D ie Deutschen und die Nachbarstam m e, Munich, 1837, pp. 612— 13, footnote. 14 J. E rdeljan ovid, “ O n a seljavan ju S lo ven a u M a lo j A z i j i i Sir iji od V I I d o X v e k a ” (T h e Settlem ent o f Slavs in A s ia M in o r and S y ria from the S eventh to the Tenth C en tu ry), G lasn ik G e ogra tsk og d ru itv a , V o l. V I, 1921, p. 189.

>' Ibid. 14 C o ro v ic , op. cit., p. 6; cf. K. Jire^ek and J. R a d on ii, Is to rija Srba (H is to ry o f the Serbs), V o l. I (to 1537), B elgrade, 1952, p. 59. 17 J ir e ie k and Radonifi, op. cit., V o l. I, p. 59.

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Further evidence of strengthened mutual contacts and, particularly, of the intermingling o f Slavic tribes is the rapid spread among all these tribes of the Slav (Cyrillic) alphabet. Among Serbian scholars it is generally assumed that these mixed tribes brought the Slav alphabet from Slavic Mace­ donia into the hilly regions of Serbia. This would be all the more likely if, as Corovic says, “ there can scarcely have ever bi>en any definite frontiers between them [the Slavic tribes In the Balkans]; here as in the areas through which they had passed, they w ere distributed among fraternities and tribes and mingled and maintained contact [with one another].” 18 Aleksa I vie remarked that the Balkan Slavs w ere regarded by foreign writers as “ one great ethnic entity, possessing chiefly one language and one general culture.” *• Although w e know that the Slav alphabet and liturgy spread among the Serbs in Bosnia and MaCva from Pannonia, it is true that “ the Serbs in Zeta and RaSka acquired the Slavic alphabet, the Christian faith and the first foundations o f Slav writing from the south. Certain Serbian documents of the tw elfth and early thirteenth centuries, such as the Miroslav Gospel and the Hilandar typic, bear pronounced traces o f the influence of Slavic Macedonia.” 20 Schafarik made an attempt at defining the eastern and southern frontiers o f the Serbian lands as they w ere at the time of Porphyrogentus. Quite arbitrarily, he traced them along the valley of the Ibar R iver and the “ Serbian” Morava, even though, as he himself admits, Porphyrogenitus says nothing on this point.81 “ It is open to doubt,” says Schafarik, "whether the eastern bank of the Ibar and the confluence of the Toplica and TempeSka, i. e., the whole of form er Dardania, was originally inhabited by Serbs. It is more probable that this strip of land was first settled by Bulgarian Slavs and that it was only later annexed to the Serbian state by Stevan Nemanja and his successors, with the result that the Serbian speech subsequently predominated.” 22 He further states that 18 C orovid , op. cit., p. 15. 19 In N a rod n a e n c ik lo p e d ija SH S (N a tion a l E n cyclop ed ia o f the Serbs, C roats and S loven es), V o l. IV , p. 306. 20 Ibid., p. 307. 21 Schafarik, op. cit., pp. 258— 59. 22 Ibid.

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the western banks of these rivers were permanently settled by Serbian tribes. According to them, the eastern banks of both rivers w ere inhabited by Slavs o f “ the other tribe.” 28 “ In the east, the Morava and Ibar up to ZveCan separated the Serbs from the Bulgarian Slavs.” 24 Kaspar Zeuss, whom Robert Roesler described as a “ researcher of whom it may be said that the more we read him, the more he fills us with wonder,” 25 accepts the in­ formation given by Porphyrogenitus on the settlement of the Serbs in his De administrando im perio as correct, but points out that Porphyrogenitus fails to define all the frontiers of the Serbian tribes. Only those tribes are mentioned which settled in the immediate hinterland of the Adriatic Sea, “ but not the main masses in the east.” To these, from among the most important tribes, he assigns the TimoCani and BraniCevci.i6 Ernst Dummler, also a serious critic of Porphyrogenitus, says that the Serbian tribes settled on both sides of the Danube, beginning from the confluence of the Drava with the Danube and reaching as far as the Timok.27 He surmises that the Serbian tribes, together with the state of Prince Mutimir, came under the ecclesiastical authority of Methodius’ diocese of Moravia and Pannonia, which was founded in 870 by Pope Adrian II. He confirms this with a passage from a letter from Pope John V III to Prince Mutimir, which runs: “ Follow the practice of your predecessors and try, insofar as it is pos­ sible, to return to the Pannonian diocese. Since, thank God, a bishop has been appointed there by the See of St. Peter, entrust yourself to his paternal care.” 28 Schafarik’s mistake was that the ethnic boundaries, which w ere obscure to him, he confused with political boundaries. Byzantine writers did the same thing: all those tribes which the Bulgars gradually brought under their domination they began to call Bulgarian, being perhaps under the impression “ Ibid. 24 Ibid. 85 Robert Roesler, „U b er den Zeitpu nkt der slavischen An sied lu n g an der unteren Donau,” S itzu n gsberich te der K aiserlichen A ka d e m ie d er W issenschalten in W ie n : P h iio lo gis ch -h istoris ch e Classe, V o l. L X X III, 1873, p. 96. *• Zeuss, op. cit., pp. 614— 15. 17 Dummler, op. cit., p. 396. 28 Ibid., p. 407.

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that membership of a state and ethnic character are one and the same. Thus, Zlatarski called the Macedonian Slavs “ Bul­ garian Slavs” even before some of them had come under Bul­ garian rule.*® A t this time, and fo r long afterward, the Balkan states w ere the creations of rulers and dynasties rather than national states in the modem sense of the word. Even the state of the Nemanjici, in which the national element was prominent, was regarded by Stojan Novakovid as the creation of a dynasty rather than of a people. “Everything here,” he says, “ was personal and bound up with personalities___ The very idea of a great empire and a great state did not exist in the minds of the people or even among the aristocracy of that period: it sprang from DuSan himself and the dynasty of the Nem anjici.” 30 I f these remarks are true of the medieval Serbian state, they are, mutatis mutandis, even more applicable to the Bul­ garian state under both empires, whose dynasties were alien to the masses of the Slavic population: in proportion as the state became more powerful, the concept of the state grew more cosmopolitan in character. Recently, Mihailo Dinid point­ ed out that the idea o f a universal empire still haunted the Bulgars in the time of Jovan Aleksandar: “ The autocrat of the Bulgars and Greeks was presented as the rival of Constan­ tine the Great.” 31 II. The land of the Macedonian Slavs was conquered by the Serbs, not from the Bulgars, but from the Greeks. When the Second Bulgarian Empire was still in its ascendancy, and Asen I was struggling with Isaac Comnenus, Stevan Nemanja had already extended his territory beyond the frontiers of the old state of Ra§ka. Referring to this period, JireCek says: “ V . N . Z la tarsk i, Istorija na Bulgarskata du ria va prez srednite v e k o v e (H is to ry o f the B u lg a ria n State in the M id d le A g e s ), V o l. I, Part I, Sofia, 1918, p. 343. so S tojan N o v a k o v id , “Les probl&m es serb es,” A rch iv liir slavische Ph ilologie, V o l. X X X I V , 1912, p. 232. 31 M ih a ilo Dinid, “D u S an ova carsk a titula u odim a sa v re m e n ik a ” (D u san 's Im perial T itle in the Eyes o f C o n tem p oraries), Zborrtik u (a st i e s l e s to g o d iin jic e Zakonika cata DuSana, V o l. I, B elg ra d e, 1951, p. 106.

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“ W hile the Serbs w ere laying waste the towns of Macedonia and Albania, the Bulgars w ere fighting, side by side with the Wallachians and the Cumani, along the whole of the line from P lo vd iv to the Black Sea.” 32 When the Serbian state began to emerge in the ninth century, during the period when Bul­ garia was at the height of its power, the Serbs were assisted by the Byzantines, who saw in them their natural allies against Bulgaria. “As a result of their successful halting of the Bulgarian advance during the ninth and tenth centuries, the Serbs became the most powerful of all these mountain peoples, and the Byzantines wished to have them as allies, since every enhancement of Serbia’s power at that time was extrem ely welcome to them.” 33 Furthermore, the growth of the Serbian state constituted a threat to Bulgaria on account of the fact that, by virtue of its origins, its line of development and its entire internal structure, the Serbian state was Slavic and therefore attracted the other Slavic tribes to itself more pow erfully than did either Bulgaria or the Greek state. W e have already seen how, immediately after the collapse of Samuil’s state, these peoples began to orient themselves toward Serbia. Another characteristic feature of this period is the absence, despite their common desire for expansion toward Macedonia, of the hatred which, as w e have seen, existed from the time o f Presijam to the death of Simeon. Nemanja was cooperating with the Bulgars when he offered Frederick Barbarossa his alliance against Byzantium: it was in conjunction with them that he began his attacks on the Byzantine lands. Stevan PrvovenCani assisted Dobromir Strez. During the reign of Asen II, one of the most likable and powerful of the Bul­ garian rulers during the Second Empire, K in g Vladislav married the Emperor’s daughter. W e have already mentioned the Emperor’s regard fo r St. Sava and the deep respect which the saint enjoyed in Bulgaria. Milutin himself, one of the most outstanding Serbian rulers, married Ann, daughter of the Bul­ garian Emperor D jordje Tarterije. M ilutin’s son Stevan, who later became king, married the daughter of the Bulgarian Emperor Smilats: Emperor DuSan was the issue o f this mar** C o nstantin Jos. JireCek, Geschichte d er Bulgaren, P ragu e , 1876, p. 227. 33 J ir e ie k and Radonid, op. cit., V o l. I, p. 68.

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riuge. Milutin’s daughter Ann was married to Mihailo SiSman, while DuSan married the sister of the Bulgarian Emperor .fovan Aleksandar, who called himself “Emperor of the Bul­ g u r s and Greeks.” A fte r the battle on the Velbuzd (1330), the Bulgarian nobles, completely broken and, through the death of Mihailo SiSman, deprived of a leader, came before Stevan Dcdanski and said to him: “ Behold, the Bulgarian Empire and the entire Bulgarian state— its cities, its lands, its glory and its wealth— today are in your hands and you shall give them to whom you wish, for it is given you by the L ord ’s own hand___ For, from henceforth, the Serbian kingdom and the Bulgarian Empire shall be constituted as one and there shall be peace. W e who sign this are at the disposal of your king­ dom.” 34 Stevan refused to annex the Bulgarian state, and gave the Bulgarian throne to his sister Ann and her son. "A rise,” he said to his sister, “ and go in glory with your son to the Im perial throne, to the Imperial city of glorious Turnovo, where you were before.” 35 Nowhere do Serbian sources mention that the Neman] ici conquered the lands in the south from the Bulgars: they al­ ways state explicitly that they took them from the Greeks. In the cities of the south, which were captured in stages, the population was Greek: nothing is said about its being Bul­ garian or showing any leaning toward the Bulgarian state. St. Sava, who certainly was acquainted with the true state of affairs and who was not ill disposed toward the Bulgarian state, says that Nemanja annexed Zeta and DraSkovina, “ both Pilots” and the region between Prizren and Skadar, and goes on: “ . . . and, of the Greek lands, Patkovo [the district around the modern Djakovica], Hvosno and Podrim lje, Kostrac, Sitnica, Lab, Lipljan, DuboCica, Reke [the district around Aleksinac], U5ka [east of the DuboCica near Ni§ava and Vlasina], Zagrlata [the district around Djunis], LevCe and Belica [on the left bank of the Velika M orava].” 38 That St. Sava re­ 34 L a za r M irk o v id (tr.), 2 ivo/i k ra ljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih od arhiepiskopa Danila (A rch b ish op D a n ilo 's L iv e s of the S erbian K ings an d A rch bish o p s), B elg ra d e, p. 147.

M Ibid. 34 St. S av a , “Z iv o t S tevan a N e m a n je ” (Life o f S tev an N e m a n ja ), in M . Basid, Stare srpske bio g ra fije (O ld S erb ian B io gra p h ies), pp. 3— 4.

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garded all these regions as ethnically Serbian may be seen from his remark that Nemanja, “ by his wisdom and labors, acquired everything that had been wrested by force from his patrimony, and that had belonged to him from the Serbian lands.” 37 Stevan Prvovenfcani, Nemanja’s son and successor, says that Nemanja “ gathered together the lost lands of his mother­ land.” 38 In the Hilandar charter of 1198— 99, it is stated that “ of the Greek lands” he conquered the regions mentioned by St. Sava.36 In another Hilandar charter, written in 1200— 02, Stevan PrvovenCani states that Nemanja “ recovered his lost patrimony, and took, from the coastal lands, Zeta with its cities; from the Albanians, Pilot; from the Greek lands, Lab together with Lipljan, DuboSica, Reke, Zagrlata, LevCe, Lepenica and Belica. W ith God’s help and by his own labors did he acquire all this.” 40 Stevan Nemanja, who, even before he rose above his brothel's, ruled the areas on the Toplica, Ibar and Resava rivers and the district of Duboiica, had to know who in­ habited the regions bordering on his own territories. A ll these regions w ere under Byzantium: this is why they are described as “ the Greek lands.” A ll Nemanja’s efforts were directed toward the object of annexing as much as possible of these lands. A t one time, the Emperor Manuel Comnenus’ favorite, later his prisoner and enemy, Nemanja, a gifted and prudent ruler, always saw in Byzantium his chief enemy and the main obstacle in the w ay of extending the frontiers of his state. In order to frustrate Byzantine policy to the m axi­ mum extent, he concluded as many alliances as he was able. A fte r the death of Manuel Comnenus, Nemanja, in alliance with the Magyars, penetrated as far as Sofia. When the Magyars abandoned the war, Nemanja continued his ag­ grandizement alone. “ When,” says Stevan PrvovenCani, “ the Hungarian king returned to his own state, the Saint, leaving him, departed with his forces to the fortress of Pem ik and 47 Ibid., p. 4. 38 Stevan P rvoven dan i, “Z iv o t S tevan a N e m a n je ” (L ife o f Stevan N e m a n ja ), in Ba§ic, op. cit., p. 31. *• Lazar M ir k o v it , Spisi sve to g a S a ve i Stevana P r v o v e n ia n o g a (W r it in g s o f St. S a v a an d Stevan P rv o v e n c a n i), p. 25. 40 Ibid., pp. 161— 62.

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I

destroyed and sacked it with his forces; also the fortress of Stob, the fortress of Zemun and the fortress of Velbuzd [all of which are now districts in western Bulgaria], the city o f Skoplje, the fortress of Le§ki, the fortress of Gradac, the town of Prizren, the glorious town of NiS, the fortress o f Svrljig, the fortress of Ravni and the fortress of Kozli. These fortresses w ere destroyed and razed to their foundations, for not one stone was left on another that was not destroyed. And even today they have still not been rebuilt. Their land, their wealth and their glory he added to the wealth and glory of his motherland and the glory of the nobles and his peop le... . To the territory of his motherland, he added the entire region of Ni§, Lipljan, the Morava, so-called Vranje, the region of Prizren and both Pilots in their entirety, together with their boundaries.” 41 These conquests w ere completed by Nemanja in the period from 1183 to 1189: on July 27, 1189, together with his brother Stracimir, he gave Frederick Barbarossa a ceremonious w el­ come in Nis and entertained him lavishly. Together with Bar­ barossa and the Bulgars, he pressed with his troops as far as Trajan’s Gate (Trajanova Kapija). Frederick’s refusal to con­ clude an alliance with Nemanja and the Bulgars against By­ zantium did not prevent Nemanja from continuing his con­ quests alone. When Barbarossa decided, a little later, to agree to such an alliance, his envoy, Duke Berthold, failed to find Nemanja at Trajan’s Gate, and their negotiations w ere con­ ducted through the agency of messengers. “ A t that moment,” says Jirecek, Nemanja “ was very busy with large-scale m ilitary operations on the territory of the old Bulgarian state.” 42 The defeat on the Morava in 1190 put an end to Nemanja’s conquests. By the ensuing peace terms, he lost the greater part of the lands he had taken. He even failed to retain Prizren, and was obliged to surrender the “ Serbian conquests south of the Toplica and Morava, while in the Morava va lley the Serbs abandoned the important town of NiS; however, they consolidated their positions at certain other points, as, 41 In B asit, op. cit., p. 41; cf. JireCek and Radonid, op. cit., V o l. I„ p. 157, and C o r o v ii, op. cit., p. 99. 4* Jiredek an d R a d o n ii, op. cit., V o l. I, pp. 156— 57. 4* C o ro v it, op. cit., p. 102.

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fo r example, in the immediate vicinity of Ravni, w hile the Serbian frontier was advanced in the northeast and in Zagrlata near Djunis.” 48 “ The Serbs,” says JireCek, “ retained a considerable part of Byzantine territory. In the east, there remained in Serbian hands the region between the Rudnik Mountains and the junction of the Morava with the valleys of the Lepenica [the district around Kragujevac], Belica and LevaC; the region of Zagrlata between the two Moravas where they join; finally, the region of DuboCica south of Nis. In the south, there fe ll to the Serbs the whole of Kosovo Polje, together with the confluence of the Sitnica and Lab and the village o f Lipljan. In the basin of the Beli Drin, they retained the district of Hvosno around Pec and Djakovica, which be­ longed to the diocese of Prizren, and, in northern Albania, the districts o f Upper and Low er Pilot, on the road from Prizren to Skadar. One permanent acquisition was the littoral of Duklja, that is, Zeta together with the towns o f Skadar, Bar and Kotor. A fte r these concessions, Belgrade, Ravno, NiS, Skoplje, Prizren, K roja and LjeS became the frontier towns of the Byzantine state.” 44 Neither Stevan PrvovenCani (1196— 1227/28), nor kings Radoslav (1228— 34) and Vladislav (1234— 43) extended the frontiers of Nemanja’s state. Only around Ni§, the great im­ portance of which was w ell understood by Nemanja, did con­ flicts take place with the Bulgars and the Magyars. Nem anja’s ambition “ to drive the Greeks out of the northern part o f the Balkan Pennisula as he had driven them out of the southern littoral of Dalmatia and Zeta” 45 did not prove entirely practicable, but his achievement, such as it was, proved to be well-founded: from the areas which he annexed, further con­ quests could easily be carried out. “ A part from the natural routes,” says Jovan Cvijic, “ which lead from the crossroads at Raska, it was vita lly necessary fo r Ra§ka and Zeta, which were united in the tw elfth century, to occupy the Morava valley in the neighborhood of Nig, Kosovo and Metohija. Another territorial ambition of the strengthened Serbian state was to descend from the mountainous regions of the Peninsula and occupy the valley of the Vardar, above all Skoplje and 44 JireCek an d Radonid, op. cit., V o l. I, p. 157; N a rodna encik lop ed ija SHS, V o l. Ill, p. 42. 44 C o ro v id , Istorija J u g o sla vije , p. 100.

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cf. V . C o ro v id in

both Pologs [Tetovo]. This she succeeded in doing during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Then she conquered A l­ bania south o f the Ma6a. A t the time of her greatest ex­ pansion, in the fourteenth century, she even took Epirus, Thessaly and the western part of Thrace.” 4# As the result of all these successes, the name of the Serbs as a people spread over an ever increasing area. “ W ith Nemanja and the state of the Nem anjici,” says Corovic, “ the Serbian name crossed the Morava and the Vardar.” 47 “ The name ‘Serb,’ ” says JireCek, “gradually became the general appellation fo r the neighboring tribes, in the same way as, in the northern Slavic lands, the name of the Czechs proper spread to the Czech tribes enumerated in the charter of the Prague bishopric, or the name of the Poljani near Gdansk to all the Polish tribes.” 48 During the reign of Stevan PrvovenCani, the Bulgars once more entered Macedonia and took it from the Byzantines. The Emperor Kaloyan, who was killed at the siege of Salonica, "took possession o f the Byzantine west from the mountains near Sofia to the frontiers of Thessaly, together with the towns of Prizren, Skoplje, Ohrid and Ber.” 48 Here too, the Bulgars became the neighbors of the Serbs: as a result o f the ensuing situation, the Serbs were obliged to abandon N il in 1203, only to recover it in the reign of the Emperor Borilo. In 1204, when the Latins took Byzantium, parts of Macedonia fe ll into the hands of Latin principalities. For Serbia, these w ere grievous times. R eferring to this period, Prvovenfani writes: “And they [the enemies of PrvovenCani] conceived the high ambition of destroying the Saint’s [Nemanja’s] patrimony and making me extrem ely angry, and, i f possible, o f driving me out of my state.” 50 It was during this period that Dobromir Strez, with the assistance, first of the Greeks of Epirus, later of Stevan Prvoveniani, formed his principality around the town of Prosek. Although he was related by ties of kinship, the Bulgarian 46 Jo van C v ijid , Balkansko p o lu o strvo I ju in o s lo v e n s k e ze m lje (T he B alk an Pen in su la an d the South S la v Lands), p. 134. 47 C o rov id , lstorija J u g o sla vije , p. 102. 48 Jiredek and Radonid, op. cit., V o l. I, p. 68. 4,1 Ibid., p. 164. *® In BaSid, op. cit., p. 162.

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court considered him as an apostate, and requested Prvovendani to extradite him. Teodosije remarks that this request was complied with “ since they feared that he would make him­ self Emperor and kill them.” 51 Teodor Andjel, despot of Epirus, drove the Bulgars out of Macedonia. In 1232, the frontier between Epirus and Serbia ran, in the north, from Arban, Debar and Skoplje.52 Seven years later, in a battle near the Klokotnica, the Bulgarian Emperor Asen II defeated Teodor A ndjel and became master of Macedonia. The in­ fluence of Epirus in Serbia, to which K in g Radoslav had been particularly exposed, was replaced by that of Bulgaria, where the crown now passed to Asen I I ’s son-in-law, who, as we have seen, was amicably disposed toward the Serbs. In the second part of his reign, K in g Uro§ (1243— 76), after he had checked the attacks of the Bulgars, who in 1253 reached B ijelo Polje and in 1254 occupied the Rhodope Moun­ tains and eastern Macedonia up to the Vardar, advanced, together with the Epirans and Latins, penetrated as far as Skoplje, Prilep and KiCevo: in the follow ing year, however, he was obliged to abandon all these towns, and the Niceans once more occupied Skoplje. During the reign of K in g Dragutin (1276— 82 fo r this part of the state), the Serbo-Byzantine frontier ran along the Sar-planina above Prizren and Lipljan.5* W ith the accession of K in g Milutin (1282— 1321), there began an irresistible advance of the Serbs toward the south. “ In those days,” says the well-inform ed Archbishop Danilo, “ the Serbian land found itself greatly hemmed in and re­ duced, for the Greek empire reached to the place known as Lipljan, and its power was growing, so that it wanted to take the entireregion of this Christian state, and even to have it as an obedient servant.” 54 Milutin’s entire energies w ere directed toward rectifying this situation. His conquests w ere mainly achieved at the expense o f Byzantium, which had captured the whole of Macedonia from the successors of Asen II and thus once more become the master of this region. Summing up M ilutin’s suc­ 51 T eo d o sije , “2 iv o t sv e to g a S a v e ” (L ife o f Saint S a v a ), in Basit, op. cit., p. 62. M Jire&ek and R ado n it, op. cit., V o l . ] , p. 171. “ Ibid., p. 188. 54 M i r k o v i i (tr.), op. cit., p. 81.

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cesses, Danilo, who enjoyed the king’s confidence, describes how, “ rising with his forces,” Milutin “ entered the neighbor­ ing territories of the Greek empire; namely, first he took both Pologs, together with their cities and lands, the glorious city of Skoplje, then O vie Polje, Zletovo and Pijanac. A ll these lands he took soon after his accession, and added them to the territory of his motherland.” 55 This was in 1282, and the following year, immediately after Christmas, he penetrated into eastern Macedonia and captured the whole of the terri­ tory as far as Ser and Kavala. Danilo states that Milutin “ went with his forces into the interior of the Greek lands, to Mount Athos, and, having conquered all these lands of that empire, the regions of Struma and Ser, Krstopolj and other neighboring districts, and having seized their property and wealth, returned by God’s w ill to his motherland, fu ll of every good intention.” 66 Milutin escaped the fate o f his predecessors, fo r he suc­ ceeded in retaining his conquests. “ Without peace terms’ being concluded,” says JireCek, “ the frontier line ran north of the Byzantine fortresses of Strumica, Prosek, Prilep, Ohrid and K roja.” 57 Corovid also states that Milutin retained hold of all his newly-won territories, and says: “ By means of these conquests, he oriented Serbia, for many years to come, to the south, down the valley of the Vardar, toward the Aegean. Until his reign, Serbia had gravitated mainly toward the Adriatic; it was in this direction that all the main commercial routes and all other communications had led to Dubrovnik, Kotor, Bar and Skadar. Serbian interests were now con­ siderably extended.” 58 Milutin made Skoplje his capital. A fte r the capture o f Durazzo, peace terms were concluded in 1299 between Milutin and Byzantium: Milutin retained all his conquests, and, in order to enhance his personal prestige, married the young Simonida. With the Bulgars, who did not appear on the scene while he was conquering Macedonia, Milutin was on good terms. During the reign of his successor, Stevan DeSanski (1321— 31), the Bulgars, this time in alliance with Byzantium, attempted 55 «* •’ “

Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., p. 85. Jiredek and Radonic, op. cit., V o l. I, p. 191. C o rov id , Istorija J u g o sia vije , p. 128.

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once more to put themselves on the map of Macedonia. In 1329, DeCanski besieged Ohrid, but a Greek attack obliged him to withdraw. From Danilo we learn that, even before the battle on the VelbuSd, Dedanski was pestered by the Bul­ gars: “ He was,” says Danilo, “ given some cause fo r anxiety by the Bulgarian Emperor Mihailo.” 59 W e also learn that DeCanski attempted to avoid war with the Bulgars. When these attempts met with failure— although he sincerely desired peace— he began seriously to prepare for war: on July 28, 1330, one hundred years after the battle on the Klokotnica, there took place the battle on the Velbuid, where “ the Bul­ gars met with a great collapse, and so the Serbian forces were victorious.” 90 There was no need to fight the Greeks: when the Emperor Andronicus learned of the defeat of the Bulgars, he attacked Bulgaria himself in order to gain something from a rival in the throes of chaos. “Hearing of this fa ll [i. e., defeat] of their sovereign,” says Danilo, “ they [i. e., the Bulgarian nobles], since in that land there was disturbance and great discontent, rose up in civil strige and seized one another’s wealth; more­ over, they not only did this to one another, but also seized the wealth and lands of their Emperor.” 61 From Byzantium, DeCanski took the cities of Veles, Prosek, Stip and Dobrun. Danilo, who was closely connected with the ruling dynasty, exaggerates somewhat when he says that “ even in the first years of his reign” DeCanski “ captured from the Greek lands many cities, together with their entire territories, whose many names it is impossible for us to set out in detail in this ac­ count.” ,2 The victory of the Serbs on the Velbuzd was complete. Its consequences were of the greatest historical importance fo r both Serbs and Bulgars: the question who should control the valley of the Vardar and Macedonia was finally decided in favor of Serbia. Repercussions on the orientation of the Slavic population of Macedonia w ere inevitable. Stanoje Stanojevic rightly pointed out that “ when, after the death of DuSan, discord broke out in his state and the state was con5* M irk o v id (tr.), op. cit., p. 131. «° Ibid., p. 139. Ibid., p. 146. “ Ibid., p. 149j cf. C o rov id , Istorija J u g o sia vije, p. 146.

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sequently weakened and disintegrated,” Macedonia “ was re­ garded as a part of the Serbian state.” This victory,” says Corovic, “ secured Macedonia for Serbia, gave her the leading position in the Balkans and strengthened Serbian influence in Bulgaria.” *4 Dusan, who reigned as king from 1331 to 1346 and then as emperor to his death on December 20, 1355, extended ear­ lier Serbian conquests in the south. When he ascended the throne, the frontier between Serbia and Byzantium passed through the cities of Ser, Melnik, Strumica, Prilep, Ohrid, Kroja, Berat and Valona. During his reign, these frontiers were suddenly advanced: by 1334, he had taken Ohrid, Struga and several more towns in the south. In the summer of this year, he was in the vicinity of Salonica, an it was here that, on August 26, he concluded peace terms with Byzantium. According to these terms, he retained Strumica, Prilep (where he built himself a palace), Ohrid, Kostur, Hlerin, Zeljezanac, Voden and Cermen. “ A ll this,” says Danilo, “ he took in three years of his reign, fo r God had made him so glorious.” 65 In 1342, Dusan besieged Voden, but was thrown back. Finally, however, he took both Voden and Melnik, which was sur­ rendered to him by Duke Hrelja. In the follow ing year, DuSan laid siege to Ser. On H relja’s death, DuSan also took posses­ sion of his territories. In the fall of 1345, the Serbs occupied Kostur, Drama and Orfano, together with its marine salt mines. In 1348, DuSan conquered Epirus, Acarnania, Etolia and Thessaly. “ Consequently,” says Jovan Radonic, “ DuSan’s territories stretched from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth and from the Adriatic to the Aegean. Apart from Thrace, Byzantium retained only the city of Byzantium and Salonica, which served as a gateway to the Aegean.” 6® The attempt made by Byzantium in 1350, when DuSan was in Bosnia, to recover these lost territories met with failure despite the initial successes scored by Kantakuzen: on his •3 A s quoted in C o rovid, lstorija J u g o sla vije, p. 145. M V . C o rovid, “S tevan D e ca n sk i,” N a rodna en cik lop ed ija SHS, V o l. I, p. 585. “ M irk o v id (tr.), op. cit., p. 170. M J o v a n Radonid, “M e d ju n a ro d n i p o lo za j S rb ije u X I V v e k u ” (S e rb ia ’s Intern ation al P osition in the Fourteenth C en tu ry ), Z bornik u dost Seste sto g o d iin jic e Zakonika cara DuSana, V o l. I, B elg ra d e, 1951, p. 20.

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return in the follow ing year, Dugan won back all the areas he had temporarily lost, and retained hold of them up to his death. III. Both Bulgars and Serbs, in their desire for control of the Morava-Vardar valley, gradually wrested from Byzantium the area of the Macedonian Slavs. It is not known today whether this desire was the principal m otive of Presijam ’s attack upon Vlastimir: from this time on until the battle on the Bregalnica 1885 it was always the Bulgars who began these attacks, only to be defeated. In 1885, however, it was the Serbs who opened the war and w ere subsequently defeat­ ed. In all the other wars with the Bulgars, with the exception of the attack made by the Emperor Simeon, the Serbs emerg­ ed victorious. Under the Nemanjici, the Serbs, consistently pursuing the goal set them by Stevan Nemanja, regarded B y­ zantium, not Bulgaria, as their main enemy. “ In the foreign policy of the Nem anjici,” says Georgije Ostrogorski, “ there is no more important problem than the relations with, and the struggle against, Byzantium. The struggle for independ­ ence which was concluded under Nemanja, the struggle for Macedonia, the heart of the Balkans under Milutin, and the struggle for hegemony in the Balkans under DuSan— these are the chief stages in the conflict between Serbia and Byzantium and also in the growth of the Serbian state.” 67 In the Serbian efforts to obtain control of Macedonia, the Bulgars were a factor of secondary importance: Serbian sources without exception show that the Serbs regarded the Bulgarian domination of Macedonia as something that could not last or have any particular importance for them. W e have already mentioned, as a circumstance of great significance, that Asen II was not ill disposed toward the Serbs, even though he must have known o f Nemanja’s pledge that he entrusted to his successors. It is possible that the Serbs con­ sidered the Bulgarian efforts of obtain mastery over Mace­ donia as being simply attacks upon an alien territory, rather •7 G e o r g ije O stro go rsk i, “DuSan i n je g o v a v la ste la u b o rb i sa V iz a n tijo ra ” (D u san an d his N o b le s in the S tru g gle w ith Byzantium ), ibid., p. 79.

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than as attempt to complete their national state. Teodosije says that the Bulgarian Emperor Kaloyan “ arose and destroy­ ed many Greek cities over the whole of Thrace and Mace­ donia, fo r at that time the city of Byzantium was held by the Fruzi [the Latins], who did not scruple to destroy the other cities since they w ere not their own, w hile he, finding them empty and helpless, destroyed them, and everything was from God.” 68 One important question is: how did the Slavic population look upon all these numerous changes among their political masters, and, in particular, what was their attitude toward the Bulgarian and Serbian states? W e have no sources at our disposal on which to base a clear answer to this question, but one thing is certain: during the entire period in which the Serbian state exercised control over this region, there were no rebellions or expressions of discontant against the Serbian regime on the part of the Slavic population. Instead, the ties between the local population on the one hand and the new regimes and its successors on the other began to be stregthened: a new life and pride was awakening in the conscious­ ness of the Macedonian Slavs, who felt that they were enter­ ing upon a prolonged period of peaceful and ordered exist­ ence. W hile scarcely anything has persisted in the consciousness of the Slavic masses of Macedonia of the conquests of the Bulgars and their state, which fo r centuries enjoyed great power, their memories of the Serbian regime have remained permanently alive: in the minds of the people, the idea of the Serbian state was a living thing, and the people, becom­ ing inseparably bound up with Serbian history, accepted and retained this idea as its own despite all the sufferings to which it was exposed. As in the central regions of Serbia, so here, the establishment of a national w ay of life and of a settled state was associated with the Nemanjici. The Slav Orthodox tradition, which had grown out of the efforts and achievements of SS. Clement and Naum, and the devotion to the work o f the first generations of South Slav anchorites, came once more to life in the labors of SS. Simeon and Sava. The victories of Nemanja and of the idea of the Serbian state •* In BaSil, op. cit., p. 161. 65

which he created acquired a peculiar character and warmth which was missing from the Bulgarian regime so far as the Macedonian Slavs w ere concerned. Compared with the dynasty of the Nemanji6i, the Bulgarian rulers w ere rather knights and warriors than the representatives of a state which, from the very beginning, the elements of Church and state were interwoven in a harmonious and mutually fruitful relation­ ship: throughout the whole of this period, the Church in Bul­ garia failed to acquire the moral and spiritual authority over the secular rulers which she acquired in Serbia. Similarly, in Bulgaria the Church failed to imbue the conception of the state with that livin g consciousness of the historical mission of Christianity which she inculcated in Serbia. From the very beginning, the movement inspired by St. Sava accepted the spiritual heritage of SS. Clement and Naum and supplemented it with the achievements of numer­ ous Serbian saints, who, side by side with kings, princes and bishops, included gardeners and goldsmiths. A t this stage in its development, Bulgarian Orthodoxy lacked this broadly popular character and this spiritual elan and purity. Despite all its strength and tenacity, Bulgarian Orthodoxy never suc­ ceeded in becoming a national faith in the same w ay as Serbian Orthodoxy. “ Our Orthodoxy, the ‘Serbian faith,’ ” says Corovid, “ became the embodiment of our state tradition, while our national psyche endowed the mythologized Christian faith with certain elements of genuine belief.” 69 It was this that bound the Macedonian Slavs to the fate of the Serbian state. N either the First Bulgarian Empire nor Samuil’s state nor the Second Bulgarian Empire resembled the medieval Serbian state on this plane, fo r they all failed to reconcile the ideologically Christian element with the secular in their state organization. The very fact that the founder of the medieval Serbian state became a monk and a saint and that his son was, not only the creator of an independent Serbian Church, but also, in the fullest sense of the word, the founder of the Serbian conception of the state and a teacher and educator of the Serbian lands, obliged Nemanja’s successors to display a degree of self-sacrifice and devotion to their task that was exceptional fo r their time: the cult of saintliness that so com-

"

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C o r o v ii, Istorija J u g o sla vije, p. 313.

pletely permeated the life and career of the physical and spiritual father of the medieval Serbian state attracted the later Nemanjidi also. In the second Hilandar charter, Stevan Prvovencani states that Nemanja commanded him to care for the churches and monasteries: “ He commanded me,” he says, “ to care for the churches and the monks serving in them, and not to incur the wrath of the Lord in any good work.” 70 O f the ten rulers of this dynasty, fiv e took monastic orders toward the end of their lives. Danilo II attests that King Dragutin led a monastic life before he took a monk’s orders. “ And when, after his death, they wanted to wash him, they found him girded with a narrow belt of straw about his naked body and clad in a frock of hard flax; the belt of straw had penetrated deep into his body, and when they tried to remove it, they w ere unable to do so.” 71 In addition to Queen Jelena, seven members of this dynasty w ere proclaimed saints. On the evidence of Patriarch Pajsije, it is known that the bones of the Emperor DuSan, who was not canonized by the Church, w ere removed by the people from his grave as a relic. The Bulgars had nothing like this: they satisfied their thirst for saintly relics by gathering in Turnovo the remains of various saints of whom the greater number had never lived in Bul­ garia. In this connection, their attempt to retain the relics of Saint Sava at Turnovo is typical. Another interesting circumstance is the fact that the remains of K ing Milutin, who brought Macedonia under the sway of Serbia, are even today to be found in Sofia. It is this aspect of the matter, difficult to express in a few words, that displays the live ly feeling and vivid consciousness o f that high calling, that orientation toward the eternal values, which was so prominent in the rulers of the Nemanjid dynasty: in the minds of the ordinary people of the time, for whom religious considerations were of greater importance than national, the spiritual and secular leaders of Serbia, for all their human weaknesses, left an ineradicable impression of themselves and their work. In the churches and monas­ teries which they and their nobles either built or restored, was set forth, as in a modern film, the whole of biblical and ecclesiastical history in a luxurious wealth of frescoes. The 70 M irk o v id , Splsi sve to g a S a v e i Stevana Prvoven C an oga , p. 165. 71 M irk o v id (tr.), op. cit., p. 41.

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people learned from them, and by studying them, w ere trans­ ported to the realm of the spiritual. When, alongside frescoes of the saints, others made their appearance depicting the Serbian rulers, their status in the eyes of the people grew even higher: to be the subjects of such rulers and the state created by them inspired a pride which today it is difficult to conceive in its entirety. Even at that early date, a national pride was growing, a feeling of warm contentment at being a Serb, a child of St. Sava. When later the wheel of fortune was reversed and the Serbs fe ll victims to the fickleness of fate, noble and serf (sebar) defended, side by side, not only their country’s frontiers, but also its spiritual and moral values. It was these very ties that inspired the heroic and self-sacrificing defense of the last remnants of the Serbian state: generation after generation of Serbs was mown down in the battle fo r its possession, soaking every inch of Serbian soil with its blood. It was the national or popular character of the work of St. Sava and the rapid rise of the state of the Nemanji6i that drew the Macedonian Slavs close to the Serbian state and Church: they became Serbian, since this was their best path into the future. “ The significance of the Church of St. Sava,” says Cviji6, “ and its influence upon the people can hardly be described as Byzantine.” 72 It was, indeed, specifically Serbian: stimulated by a powerful creative impulse, Serbian Orthodoxy bound the Serbian tribes together and assimilated them to the Slavic tribes of Macedonia. The Slavic lands in the Balkans were once again permeated with a new creative spirit and a consciousness of mutual kinship.— Not that there had, even previously, been any rivalry or spirit of litigation between the various Churches and tribes: what wars there w ere had been waged by dynasties, and even w hile they were in pro­ gress the people do not appear to have been hostile among themselves. It was as though the Slavs of this region were more concerned about being under the Greeks than whether they w ere under Serbs or Bulgars. W ithin the limits of the Serbian state, the mingling o f Slavic tribes proceeded more easily and more rapidly: more easily, as a result of the spiri­ tual and moral atmosphere that reigned there, and more58 C viji6 , op. cit., p. 160.

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rapidly, because of the conviction of the masses that the Serbian state would prove more durable. Of importance for the orientation of the Slavic masses was also the fact that the Serbian rulers w ere their kinsmen, that they had sprung from the people: the state conception that they represented was not an alien one, as was the case with the Bulgars. The brilliant career achieved by the Serbian state and the awe-inspiring power and rapid rise of its rulers also played their part. To bring Byzantium to her knees, as Milutin had done, or to toy with her, as DuSan did, must have impressed all the Slavic tribes in the Balkans, fo r they had been the victims of that very power which was disappearing once and fo r all before their eyes. This is all the more true in view of the fact that the Serbian conquests were quite different in character from the Bulgarian: the Nemanji6i took pains to establish their conquests on a basis of national cultures and thus to make them lasting, so to speak, from within, to leave their own impress on everything they did and to crown their reigns with great deeds. The conquests of the Bulgars, which w ere numerous, powerful and, for Byzantium, extrem ely dan­ gerous, w ere more like the invasions of the Goths, Huns and Avars: after the armed blow had descended, the administra­ tion settled itself in and ruled the conquered territories without taking a thought fo r the future. This is partly to be explained by the fact that the Bulgarian dynasties w ere alien and that the ruling stratum and the masses of the population had not yet been completely assimilated. With the Bulgars, there was not that universal inner compactness and fateful link between state and people as there was with the Serbs. As a result o f a combination of circumstances and also of its faith in its Christian mission, the Serbian state, before it began to disintegrate, felt itself called to resist the onslaught of Islam. As early as M ilutin’s reign, the Serbs w ere engaged in tho struggle with the Turks, and the Emperor DuSan realized, with great clarity and foresight, that his chief his­ torical task was to drive the Turks out of Europe: hence his efforts to organize a crusade under his leadership. It is also noteworthy that it was the Serbs, and not the Bulgars, who went out to the Maritsa to w ait fo r the Turks and prevent them from penetrating farther west. A fte r the heavy defeat suffered by the Serbs on the Maritsa, it is recorded that the people w ere seized by a feeling “ as heavy as lead” of helpless­ 69

ness and isolation: “ The land was left empty and bereft of all goods— people, cattle and other fruits. And there was no prince, nor leader, nor teacher to save and rescue the poeple: all were filled with dread [of the Islamites], and the brave hearts of the knights were transformed into hearts weaker than women’s. A t that time, I think, the seventh generation of the Serbian rulers was completed.” 73 “ The chief re­ sistance,” says Cvijid, “ offered the Turks as they follow ed the routes into the interior was that given by the Serbian people and state, which held the greater part o f these routes. They opposed the Turks’ advance in three battles on sites whose natural and strategic positions are even today of great im­ portance— in the valley of the Maritsa, west of Jedren (the battle o f the Maritsa— Cernomen), in the valley of the Toplica (the battle od the Plofinik, west of Ni§), and on Kosovo Polje— in order to defend the Morava valley and the Dinaric is­ lands.” 74 The Bulgarian state, which JireCek describes as “ the shadow of a state,” 75 fell without any heroic resistance. It did not even feel called upon to join the Serbs in the struggle against the Turks, by whom it too was threatened. In 1393, it passed out of existence almost unnoticed, leaving behind scar­ cely any historical traces in the mind of the people.

IV. Under the Nemanjici, the Serbianization of the Slavs in Macedonia was carried out, both on the spiritual and cultural and on the national and ethnic plane. The most characteristic feature of this process is that it was desired by both sides— by the local Slavic population, and by the new Serbian re­ gime. Circumstances that w e have already examined drew them toward one another: for this reason this movement may be described as a natural, organic process which sprang out of the very situation that had arisen at that time in that 73 cords 74 75

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Lju b. S to ja n o v ic, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi (O ld S erbian R e­ and Inscriptions), V o l. Ill, p. 43, N o . 4944. Cviji*•« Ibid. 1,7 Ibid., pp. 12—13. 115

Resistance to the pressure of Bulgarian propaganda and the campaign for national assimilation seems to have begun to crystallize even before the proclamation of the Exarchate, as soon as it became clear where the Bulgarian movement was heading. In the light of existing knowledge, it might be reasonable to say that the first group of “Macedonians” began to form in Instanbul, where, being at the very source of events, it could follow their development. This group had its own paper in Istanbul, entitled Makedonija, organ of the National Party, which first came out before the proclamation of the Exarchate and ceased publication in 1872. Its editor was Petko Slavejkov, who, in the issue for January 18, 1871, published an article entitled “The Macedonian Question.” This asserted that those “Makedonisti”—as people from this region were then called—who had refused to declare themselves in favor of Bulgaria were indeed not Bulgars but Macedonians, and that their language differed from Bulagrian. “We have scarcely won our freedom from the Greeks,” they said. “Surely we are not going to submit to others now?” In its issue of November 30, 1870, the paper Pravo, which also came out in Istanbul, attacked Kuzman Sapkarov for distributing in Ohrid textbooks written in Macedonian. He was reported as saying: “We have freed ourselves from the Greeks: are we now to become Sopovi [inhabitants of the region known as ‘Sopluk’]?” In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Petar Pop-Arsov published in Vienna his StambolovStina u Makedoniji (The Stambolov Regime in Macedonia), in which he sharply criticized the work of the Exarchate in Southern Ser­ bia and demanded Macedonia’s secession from the Exarchate and the provision of her own teachers. In general, as we shall see later in greater detail, resistance to the Greater Bulgarian aspect of the Exarchate’s work was becoming increasingly powerful. This attitude provoked a sharp response from the official Bulgarian side: those who asserted the nationally distinctive character of the population of these areas were dubbed “se­ paratists.” In his article “Claimants to Macedonia,” published in 1899 in the Russian periodical Zhizn, D. Grigorijev points out that this movement was young, “but, judging by all apf'

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Iii nranees, it would appear to have the future on its side. It is Im llN pu table that it exists only in Macedonia.... Above all, I In- wparatists deny the justice of Bulgarian claims to Mace­ donia." At the Congress of Rilo, the Macedonian revolutionary in Kiinization defined its attitude as follows: “Everything in Ilie deeds and actions of the Exarchate and its organs tending toward Bulgarian [the organization] regards as harmful to its demands and takes a stand against it.” Later, when the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Or­ ganization (also known as IMRO) had developed the scale of U,n activities, the Exarchate was its first and bitterest enemy. The younger generation, for the most part educated in Exarchist schools, began to turn against the tyranny exercised by Exarchist clergy and officials. “In 1890,” wrote G’orCe Petrov in his Memoirs, “there appeared almost imperceptibly, among young people in all the Bulgarian centers, a movement against the bishops, local authorities, Exarchist priests and officials; there was also opposition to the claims of the Ex­ archate to exercise unlimited control over the Church and schools throughout the land. In this struggle, the esnafi, who constituted a powerful class in the towns of Macedonia, took the side of the young people.. . . There was not a bishop or prominent Exarchist teacher but was subjected to insults and persecutions on the part of the population. This movement developed concurrently with that of Macedonian ‘separatism,’ as it was termed in the periodical Loza, which came out in Sofia under the editorship of Arsov, BalasCev, Hadji Nikolov and others. Even today, Loza claims that this movement appeared in Macedonia as a result of their propaganda. This same ‘separatist’ movement also made headway among teachers in the gymnasium in Salonica. In my opinion, this movement, which went on for several years, may be explain­ ed as a reaction to the old desire of the Exarchate to con­ centrate in its hands the control of public life, and moreover, may be described as the country’s first attempt at independent action.” 188 When IMRO had completed its organization, the Exarchate began to look upon its work with even greater disfavor, al­ though their mutual relations were not publicly broken off. *** Spomenl na G'orie Petrov, p. 19.

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Each continued its activities, hindering the work of the other wherever possible. The Exarchate was at an advantage, since it was legally recognized, while teachers who supported IMRO were obliged to pass themselves off as Exarchists. Petrov, who was well informed on these matters, says that the Exarchate furnished the Bulgarian government with an opportunity for setting up “commercial agencies” throughout Macedonia, for it regarded IMRO as a dangerous adversary which might ruin the entire Exarchist cause. On the other hand, the Exarchate and its supporters constantly appealed to the government and excepted it to save them.” m IMRO, for its part, stub­ bornly persisted in its efforts to remove all possible rivals from Macedonian territory and to establish itself as sole leader. It was anxious, particularly with regard to the coun­ try’s teachers, among whom it counted its best people, to force the Exarchate to submit to its will and to appoint as primary and high school teachers only those persons whom it recom­ mended. In 1898, Petrov went illegally to Istanbul on behalf of the organization in order to secure an arrangement, and took with him a list of such persons drawn up by the or­ ganization’s Central Committee.