History of the Balkans. Arnold Toynbee
described on p. 14; at the division of the Roman Empire into East and West it was again followed, and it formed the boundary between the dioceses of Italy and Dacia; the line is roughly the same as the present political boundary between Montenegro and Hercegovina, between the kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia; it stretched from the Adriatic to the river Save right across the Serb territory. The Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is difficult to be accurate.
The boundary between the Serbs in the west of the peninsula and the Bulgars in the east has always been a matter of dispute. The present political frontier between Serbia and Bulgaria, starting in the north from the mouth of the river Timok on the southern bank of the Danube and going southwards slightly east of Pirot, is ethnographically approximately correct till it reaches the newly acquired and much-disputed territories in Macedonia, and represents fairly accurately the line that has divided the two nationalities ever since they were first differentiated in the seventh century. In the confused state of Balkan politics in the Middle Ages the political influence of Bulgaria often extended west of this line and included Nish and the Morava valley, while at other times that of Serbia extended east of it. The dialects spoken in these frontier districts represent a transitional stage between the two languages; each of the two peoples naturally considers them more akin to its own, and resents the fact that any of them should be included in the territory of the other. Further south, in Macedonia, conditions are similar. Before the Turkish conquest Macedonia had been sometimes under Bulgarian rule, as in the times of Simeon, Samuel, and John Asen II, sometimes under Serbian, especially during the height of Serbian power in the fourteenth century, while intermittently it had been a province of the Greek Empire, which always claimed it as its own. On historical grounds, therefore, each of the three nations can claim possession of Macedonia. From an ethnographic point of view the Slav population of Macedonia (there were always and are still many non-Slav elements) was originally the same as that in the other parts of the peninsula, and probably more akin to the Serbs, who are pure Slavs, than to the Slavs of Bulgaria, who coalesced with their Asiatic conquerors. In course of time, however, Bulgarian influences, owing to the several periods when the Bulgars ruled the country, began to make headway. The Albanians also (an Indo-European or Aryan race, but not of the Greek, Latin, or Slav families), who, as a result of all the invasions of the Balkan peninsula, had been driven southwards into the inaccessible mountainous country now known as Albania, began to spread northwards and eastwards again during the Turkish dominion, pushing back the Serbs from the territory where they had long been settled. During the Turkish dominion neither Serb nor Bulgar had any influence in Macedonia, and the Macedonian Slavs, who had first of all been pure Slavs, like the Serbs, then been several times under Bulgar, and finally, under Serb influence, were left to themselves, and the process of differentiation between Serb and Bulgar in Macedonia, by which in time the Macedonian Slavs would have become either Serbs or Bulgars, ceased. The further development of the Macedonian question is treated elsewhere (cf. chap. 13).
The Serbs, who had no permanent or well-defined frontier in the east, where their neighbours were the Bulgars, or in the south, where they were the Greeks and Albanians, were protected on the north by the river Save and on the west by the Adriatic. They were split up into a number of tribes, each of which was headed by a chief called in Serbian [)z]upan and in Greek arch[=o]n. Whenever any one of these managed, either by skill or by good fortune, to extend his power over a few of the neighbouring districts he was termed veliki (=great) [)z]upan. From the beginning of their history, which is roughly put at A.D. 650, until A.D. 1196, the Serbs were under foreign domination. Their suzerains were nominally always the Greek emperors, who had 'granted' them the land they had taken, and whenever the emperor happened to be energetic and powerful, as were Basil I (the Macedonian, 867–86), John Tzimisces (969–76), Basil II (976–1025), and Manuel Comnenus (1143–80), the Greek supremacy was very real. At those times again when Bulgaria was very powerful, under Simeon (893–927), Samuel (977–1014), and John Asen II (1218–41), many of the more easterly and southerly Serbs came under Bulgarian rule, though it is instructive to notice that the Serbs themselves do not recognize the West Bulgarian or Macedonian kingdom of Samuel to have been a Bulgarian state. The Bulgars, however, at no time brought all the Serb lands under their sway.
Intermittently, whenever the power of Byzantium or of Bulgaria waned, some Serb princeling would try to form a political state on a more ambitious scale, but the fabric always collapsed at his death, and the Serbs reverted to their favourite occupation of quarrelling amongst themselves. Such wore the attempts of [)C]aslav, who had been made captive by Simeon of Bulgaria, escaped after his death, and ruled over a large part of central Serbia till 960, and later of Bodin, whose father, Michael, was even recognized as king by Pope Gregory VII; Bodin formed a state near the coast, in the Zeta river district (now Montenegro), and ruled there from 1081 to 1101. But as a rule the whole of the country peopled by the Serbs was split into a number of tiny principalities always at war with one another. Generally speaking, this country gradually became divided into two main geographical divisions: (1) the Pomorje, or country by the sea, which included most of the modern Montenegro and the southern halves of Hercegovina and Dalmatia, and (2) the Zagorje, or country behind the hills, which included most of the modern Bosnia, the western half of the modern kingdom of Serbia, and the northern portions of Montenegro and Hercegovina, covering all the country between the Pomorje and the Save; to the north of the Pomorje and Zagorje lay Croatia. Besides their neighbours in the east and south, those in the north and west played an important part in Serbian history even in those early days.
Towards the end of the eighth century, after the decline of the power of the Avars, Charlemagne extended his conquests eastwards (he made a great impression on the minds of the Slavs, whose word for king, kral or korol, is derived directly from his name), and his son Louis conquered the Serbs settled in the country between the rivers Save and Drave. This is commemorated in the name of the mass of hill which lies between the Danube and the Save, in eastern Slavonia, and is to this day known as Fru[)s]ka Gora, or French Hill. The Serbs and Bulgars fought against the Franks, and while the Bulgars held their own, the Serbs were beaten, and those who did not like the rule of the new-comers had to migrate southwards across the Save; at the same time the Serbs between the rivers Morava and Timok (eastern Serbia) were subjected by the Bulgars. With the arrival of the Magyars, in the ninth century, a wall was raised between the Serbs and central and western Europe on land. Croatia and Slavonia (between the Save and the Drave) were gradually drawn into the orbit of the Hungarian state, and in 1102, on the death of its own ruler, Croatia was absorbed by Hungary and has formed part of that country ever since. Hungary, aiming at an outlet on the Adriatic, at the same time subjected most of Dalmatia and parts of Bosnia. In the west Venice had been steadily growing in power throughout the tenth century, and by the end of it had secured control of all the islands off Dalmatia and of a considerable part of the coast. All the cities on the mainland acknowledged the supremacy of Venice and she was mistress of the Adriatic.
In the interior of the Serb territory, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, three political centres came into prominence and shaped themselves into larger territorial units. These were: (1) Raska, which had been Caslav's centre and is considered the birth-place of the Serbian state (this district, with the town of Ras as its centre, included the south-western part of the modern kingdom of Serbia and what was the Turkish sandjak or province of Novi-Pazar); (2) Zeta, on the coast (the modern Montenegro); and (3) Bosnia, so called after the river Bosna, which runs through it. Bosnia, which roughly corresponded to the modern province of that name, became independent in the second half of the tenth century, and was never after that incorporated in the Serbian state. At times it fell under Hungarian influence; in the twelfth century, during the reign of Manuel Comnenus, who was victorious over the Magyars, Bosnia, like all other Serb territories, had to acknowledge the supremacy of Constantinople.
It has already been indicated that the Serbs and Croats occupied territory which, while the Church was still one, was divided between two dioceses, Italy and Dacia, and when the Church itself