Serbs were pushed west to Croatia by invading Ottomans. Serbs were settled by Habsburg monarchy in 17. century, as military settlers in return for land and religious freedom.
You know that if you hide your comments we can still use reddit search and see them, and we know you're hardline Croat and all :)
Serbs were mostly pushed to the north, into Hungary, hence the Hungarian name Ratz, after Rascia (Raška) which was how Serbia was known in medieval times (like in the Dante's Inferno).
For the rest of the non-Balkan people, the story is not so black and white, and the national identities weren't clearly established 'till the 19th century and before that national identities were very aligned with religion.
The blue areas in question are simply areas where Orthodox church had more influence (hence the Krka monastery and all) while the Franciscan monks and the Catholic church stayed mostly on the trade route that went roughly along the Split-Livno-Zenica-Brčko line
Either way... if the quibbling and tribalism would go away...
Yugoslavia could have had a Poland experience the last 30 years... instead we have... whatever you want to make of all these mostly dysfunctional pieces.
The quibbling and tribalism has been amplified since the fall of the USSR for a reason. The West needs a big and strong Poland... a big and strong Balkans though? That's more likely to get in the way.
Nice work obscuring the the military buffer-zone created in underpopulated post-Ottoman Croatia with the repopulation of Hungary.
Which both were a thing. Separate events, different intentions. In both cases there was active incentive of inviting workforce and manpower to those regions that was not already there, and of course on basis of elimination could not have been from the countries that basically had a population collapse.
One thing we (Hungarians, Croats) remember* like nothing else is that the ex-Ottoman territories weren't just underpopulated. They were basically empty. Everyone who had a sense of survival fled it.
So anyone still there would probably have been a newcomer. Nobody within pre-WW1 Hungarian borders or todays Croatia was under any serious Orthodox pressure or power.
Even if ethnicity was still kind of undecided, it is already pretty clear religion and hundreds of years of separation had a serious divide.
Almost, the ottomans ethnically cleansed these parts of croats who didn't want to convert or didn't want to go into slavery, that's why there are croats in austria, italy,... The serbs on the other hand surrendered but they were left in peace but also had to pay blood tax
The difference is that Ottomans controlled the orthodox patriarch in Constantinopol and catholics were its sworn enemy.
Therefore they would use the orthodox population as settlers in border areas.
They had privileges and were not subject to harsh treatement, which can be testified by their request to Austrian emperors where they demanded priviledges that they enjoyed or they will switch sides.
Now some people might not like this, but a large part of those Serbs and Croats, especially in Hercegovina and the Dalmatian Hinterland, are descendants of Vlachs that were forced to pick a side according to their religion when the Turks came
If you overlay the religion map over it, you will see how the religious identities like Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims matches with the ethnic identities in this region. Not sure if this is shaped by the Millet System) of the Ottomans !
That's false and more of a western perspective fueled with propaganda from the past wars. Serbia and Croatia have existed as separate entities since even before they arrived in the region. While they grew closer together culturally and linguistically in Yugoslavia, they have varied in their traditions over time and have mostly separate histories.
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted, these are facts.
Absolutely false. The most common names Croatians carry today are the names of the kings and dukes from the 7-11th centuries. The language, customs, historical monuments and scriptures date back to these periods. We study this history because we are direct descendants of those people and that state.
A big identifier of Croatia at the time indeed was Catholicism as it gave the kingdom legitimacy. Croats are still majority catholic - we still use the same calendar, same holidays, same rituals and practices. Our people get married in the church and they get baptized.
I feel like people in this comment section have absolutely no clue about this region. Claiming that these countries differ only in religion is ridiculous. Do they think Croats in austrohungary had the same customs as Serbs in the Ottoman empire?
So it's not primarily about the differences between Serbs and Croats so to say, but about regional differences which come into play.
Firstly, Vojvodina is a specific region in which many Croats actually lived. Of course there will be more overlap. Now try looking into the difference between Zagorje and the torlakian region of Serbia. Croats lived very differently, especially as they were not subjugated by the ottomans. Serbs had their own little empire which fell apart and were under the ottomans for 500 years. Croats had their own kingdom and joined Hungary in a union, after which they joined Austria-Hungary and fought the ottomans for centuries. What area was Croatia and what area was Serbia was always clear, and customs differed very much between these regions.
Historically the countries have vastly different cultures and traditions that mostly merged in Yugoslavia, which was intended policy by Tito who aimed to unify the country. This does not mean, however, that the citizens are any less different from eachother than the French and Italians are from eachother and it is revisionism to claim that these countries differ only in religion.
Except a clear historical link? Croatia was it's own separate region for a thousand years, you think it randomly re-emerged in the 19th century? Those tribes brought the languages the people spoke.
Every European identity is the product of the 19th century by your definition and has no link to past states. It would be no different and by your logic Italy and France are separate states only by chance as they differ less from eachother then these Balkan states that at least differ in religion.
The “languages” they speak are closer to each other than regional German dialects are to each other. I.e. mutually intelligible. Serbo-Croatian is considered to be a single language by linguists with differing standard forms by country.
We are still talking about 2 groups that were mentioned as separate peoples 1300 years ago, followed different creeds of Christianity, had different customs and never united.
They were never part of same state untill Ottomans mixed up Bosnia by causing Serb migration, even so generally separate till Kingdom of Yugoslavia (btw Yugoslav is idea of nationalist policies of late 19th c. as many European nations).
Croatian parliament even had continuity whole middle ages to modern era...
Furthermore all Slavs are part of language continuum.
Neighboring languages AND their dialects share some similarities, from Bulgaria to Slovenia, which would connect to Slovaks, Czechs and further if Austria and Hungary hadnt come to existence in 9th - 10th c.
Therfore denying any group its uniqueness is hypocrisy at best and chauvinism at worst.
The linguistic differences were actually larger in the past, but Yugoslavia attempted to standardize it further. The language was a continuum before (but used 4 different scripts broadly following ethnic and state boundaries: Latin, Glagolitic, Arabic, and Cyrillic).
However, language is not the only deciding factor that determines ethnicity, and technically Italian and French share the same root also. Should they be one country because they once shared the same language of vulgar Latin? Their borders have certainly overlapped more in the past then Croatia's and Serbia's borders.
Historically speaking a better case can be made for unifying France and Italy then these three countries. It's not the separation that was special, it is the attempt at unification between countries so diverse in their past and customs that was laudable.
I don't know about France, but Italy was and still is a good comparison to be honest.
I am comparing France and Italy not internal reagions, they are culturally extremely close to eachother. Much closer than Croatia and Serbia would have been at basically any time.
the intellectual elite (Croatian and Serbian) formed ideas based on Illyria centuries before the SHS kingdom came to be.
As had happened with France and Italy. This sentiment also came from oppression by other powers and at the time was facing many challenges.
When the standardisation happened the elite then tried to map based on language and religion which nationality someone belonged to.
That is just not true, except for Bosnia. People in Croatia were very clearly Croatian even 600 years ago, especially the elite. People were declared Croatian nobility by the Croatian sabor.
As I have already said nationality was the last thing in the minds of people who constantly worried about their crops and livestock.
Yes, but this is also true for Italians and the French. They conquered eachothers provinces continuously and the language continuum that existed between the two places allowed for this. There was not even an Italian state, whereas Croatia and Serbia were both clearly delineated.
Also I don't know if we can take into account Glagolitic and Arabic when looking at the continuum (at least from the 1800s onwards standpoint).
Glagolitic was used in churches in specific regions until the 19th century, the point was that apart from religion the influence sphere of Croatia and Serbia were clearly very different. Much more different than France and Italy, which both used the Latin script for languages that both came from Latin.
Therefore claiming that Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia ONLY differ in religion is ridiculous. By that same approach France and Italy differ even less. They have the same linguistic origin, use the same alphabet, the same religion, largely the same history, with much more geographical overlap. The point of my comment was pointing out the stupidity, as nobody is claiming that France and Italy are culturally the same (when they are historically more similar and more closely related).
The linguistic differences were actually larger in the past
With what confidence can we claim this given the lack of vernacular writings? I've found 2 Damaskin manuscripts excerpts written in serbian and croatian vernacular in 17th century and they show a remarkable similarity. The syntax is identical, the variety is mostly in words that have a more regional preference.
The script is different, and the region matters. Kajkavian was more widely spoken in Croatia proper compared to today, for instance.
But again, language isn't the only determining factor for either statehood or ethnicity. It is just one aspect that has grown closer together in the last 100 years, with others being food, music, etc. Some of this cultural mixing was done forcibly as well, in an attempt to unify the country.
This kind of map is hugely misleading though, because in almost all “Serb” areas west of Sarajevo, and especially inside modern Croatian borders and modern western Bosnia, Croats make up (or made up) a very significant part of the population as well (as do muslims/Bosniaks). The same goes for areas coloured in with the other ethnic groups, of course.
What the other posters said is correct in large part though - population movements caused by centuries of Ottoman conquests caused tectonic shifts in regional ethnic composition, religious and subsequently national identities.
The map was made according to the official 1910 census. The site that made the source map is now defunct, but some images appear when you search for “monarchia elte hu” on Google.
There was no uniform 1910 census of Yugoslavia because Yugoslavia did not yet exist. If the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census is what this was based on, the information on Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia would have had to have come from somewhere else, not to mention the fact that Serbo-Croat was counted as one single language group, so I don’t see how all this differentiation could have been depicted (perhaps through a religious data set).
Regardless, I was not saying the information was false, I just said it was misleading because it represented mixed communities and territories as mono-ethnic, because it omits the usual method of striping mixed areas with the colours of two or three major ethnic groups. Other maps exist which do this, and are far better and more representative in my opinion.
Yes, the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census was used for the formerly Austro-Hungarian part of Yugoslavia. I’m sorry I forgot to mention (since I took part in the making of the map). This map doesn’t claim to show the exact ethnic structure in 1931, it is just an educated guess based on several highly credible maps. I believe the sources are listed in the comments of OP’s post (u/Winter_Humor2693). From what I can remember, the map shows the relative majority for each ethnic group. Either way, it was done in accordance with other maps that were used as sources, otherwise attempting to merge all the sources together would’ve been pointless.
I have yet to find a map as detailed as this one. That’s why we made it in the first place — to fill in the void. All other maps on the internet are sloppy copies of post-WW1 and WW2 German maps.
Yes, but in that blue circle there is one city with more than 100k inhabitants, plus a couple of small towns. I'm talking about Serbs.Very sparsely populated area .
It is the result of an interesting history. Looking back at the kingdom of Croatia, you can sort of see how migration of Serbs (fleeing ottoman incursions) and the emergence of Bosnia shaped Croatia the way it is. The current borders were cemented with the reclamation of territory from the ottoman empire to the east from the then remaining remnants of Croatia and follows along the mountains and rivers.
Can't help but while looking at that small multiethnic blob under Bjelovar, it reminds me of the borders of the Military Frontiers, which were created by the Habsburgs after the Ottomans were pushed out.
I am from the area west of Zenica and I am pretty certain that on this page a spot is blue if there are any Serbs there irrespective of who the real demographic majority are
When somebody says "war happends because imperial powers are bad at drawing borders" show them this. Just like modern Sudan you can't draw a modern nation border when the territory is a puzzle of different ethnic groups.
This map, though still greatly simplified due to its omittance of the fact that all these coloured territories were themselves mixed, not monoethnic, is itself a result of an imperial power (Ottomans) inflicting several centuries of continous invasions on the region, causing massive, tectonic shifts in ethnic composition.
The thing with yugoslavia is that all 3 times it was tried it failed. First the centralised constitutional Monarchy that to be fair failed due to an foreign invasion but had many political crisis during its existance. Then the federal socialist republic who had formed new ethnicities in order to have a reason for the 6 republic model while its economy survivied only thru imf loans. And the 3rd time fr Yugoslavia failed beacuse Montenegro that was basically culturely and ethically same as Serbia wanted more autonomy and later full indipendemce beacuse of the Western aligned (ironically former Serb nationalist) leader Milo Đukanović and his crime activities that he couldn't do so easily while still being in a state that has some kind of a federal goverment
No, Croats were not always the majority. All notable people from Dubrovnik had purely Slavic surnames. Yes, they did hire Italian builders for certain projects, but Germans and other nations did the same for such work. Zadar, Trogir, and perhaps a few other cities were Romanic.
only tangentially related to your comment but i find it quite interesting that there are two guys in the list with italian names and surnames (Baglivi and Banduri) whose nationality changes depending on the language of their wiki page (for the croat wiki they're croats while for the italian one they're italians)
They can't be Italian by nationality in Renaissance since Italy didn't exist as a country back then. Baglivi was of Armenian/Croatian ethnicity. His Italian last name is from his step-father.
italians still existed even if there wasn't a political entity representing them though? also he was adopted when he was 13 and lived in italy all of his life, i'm pretty sure he could be defined as "italian of armenian-croatian ancestry" or "italo-croatian"
Thank the Orthodox church who actually went there and built churches and monasteries for the cattle-herders.. While Catholics and Muslims were mostly in cities and lowlands
So there is no Bosnians but there is Macedonians? Come on… either you call Bosnians for Serbs and Macedonians as Bulgarians or you call them for what they are
There are sources on the original publisher’s page (u/Winter_Humor2693), whom I’ve worked with and help him find the sources and use them to the best of his ability. The map is not supposed to be a 1:1 portrayal of the ethnic structure in 1931, but rather a reconstruction based on available sources (since the census hasn’t been processed and made into a fully detailed map yet).
His map was taken and passed down from Instagram, probably as a screenshot. Since then, he has modified the map several times, mainly the area between Albanians and Serbs in Medveđa and Preševo and the Serbian-Macedonian ethnic border. You can find the original on his account.
You are mixing modern times with pre-WW2 ones. The map simply shows the Yugoslav structure some 90 years ago using data that was available at the time.
It's like looking at a pre-1492 map of North America, pointing at the Cherokee territory, and saying "but isn't that 'Murica?"
Thank you for your use of common sense. The author of the map is my friend. I compiled the sources, he did the visualization part. We do in fact have a few quite detailed maps from the time but they still haven’t been turned into basic level maps such as OP’s. He and I were sick of constantly seeing the horrible versions on the internet that are being spread massively, so we wanted to make the most accurate reconstruction possible, using maps that were available to us on the internet, and not statistical data. If anyone wants to attempt to do that, they can easily find Wilhelm Krallert’s map on the internet. OP drew the map on mobile so that wouldn’t have been possible for him.
If that were the case, why is the terms “Macedonian” used? My understanding is that that is also a comparatively new term that wasn’t adopted until recently.
It literally says "Macedonian Slavs," not "Macedonians." The "Macedonian" here is used as a regional adjective to highlight Slavs living specifically in the region of Macedonia. It's not used to label any ethnicity in particular.
Writing just Slavs wouldn't be too accurate or distinguishable, since most of this map shows Slavic people. As you may know, Macedonia is a region where non-Slavic people live as well, such as Albanians, Greeks (southern Macedonia), and Turks, and they're all technically Macedonians, per the region.
The same goes for Bosnia, so everyone living in that region is considered Bosnian, including Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The term "Bosniak" came later. Your forefathers called themselves Muslims both ethnically and religiously at that time, which is correctly shown on the map. Nothing about it is anti-Bosniak or anti-Muslim in particular.
The region of Macedonia that you keep referring to is further south; the region of Macedonia is not shown in the map. The area on the map is what is what became the state of Macedonia, notably not actually in the historically recognized region of Macedonia (much to Greece’s chagrin).
Clearly its borders have changed back and forth for political, ethnic, and arbitrary reasons, but most of North Macedonia has been considered Macedonia for a long time.
Under ancient Macedonia, the southern part was the core region, while the northern part was a dependent territory until it was included within the actual borders of the Macedonian kingdom.
In Roman times, they've split them into two provines: Macedonia Prima (south) and Macedonia Salutaris (or Macedonia Secunda, north). The Byzantines later "shifted" Macedonia to the east, into Thrace, but that didn't last forever, and the region that we know as Macedonia now is close to what the Greeks and Romans considered as Macedonia in their time.
You can look it up. There are history books, Wikipedia, Britannica, etc., all having infomation on this region's history.
Bosnian or Bosniak identity was not a thing at the time. The people there identified as muslims for both religion and ethnicity, though a minority considered themselves to be Serbs or Croats. Macedonian also wasn't an identity at the time, but the people there were often referred to as Macedonian Slavs because that's the name of the region. Some considered themselves Bulgarians but not the majority.
Are you serious? Macedonians didn't become what they are over night. I had both my great- and grandparents alive, and all of them were pre 1945 and said they've always been Macedonian as their ancestors that they also met. This fairytale that you talk about, you should keep it to yourself...since you're not even Macedonian i guess
This is exactly why they are referred to as Macedonian Slavs, because it was actually a big confusion, part of the population was certainly considered Bulgarians, there were also strong efforts to Serbinize the region, who and those third parties who rejected both identities.
Whatever, the ethnicity is obvious and has been there many many years. The locals called and call themselves Macedonian despite the many serbian and bulgarian propaganda through their church
You came to a region that's existed for thousands of years, where people called themselves Macedonians long before Slavs and Bulgarians came into existence, and laid claim to their history and identity.
There's nothing nationalistic in facts and truth. It's equivalent to a group of us moving to Italy, calling ourselves Romans, and claiming Julius Caesar as our greatest leader, all while speaking Russian or something like that.
And real discriminators and chauvinistic people say exactly what you do. Sp it is ok to claim whatever YOU want yourself to be but it's not OK for somebody else to do whatever they are entitled to and claim to be? Gotcha..
The majority definitely identified as bulgarians. Plenty of historical events point towards that. Like for example the kresna razlog uprising, where locals rebelled cause their lands didnt end up in the newly liberated bulgarian principality
The map legend is showing Macedonian Slavs as a subset of Serbs. It was the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the other groups got recognised post war.
The map was made in accordance with the officially accepted beliefs of the time. The country was first called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — no Bosniaks (you used Bosnians incorrectly; it is the endonym of all people living in Bosnia regardless of their ethnic identity) and no separate (Slavic) Macedonian people. For as long as Macedonia was under Serbia it was seen as a land inhabited by Serbs, and vice versa for Bulgaria. That’s how things used to work. No one wanted to even consider the possibility of the existence of a Macedonian people because they had nothing to indicate it. Macedonians are essentially a 19th century construct that was further implemented by the communists with Tito’s rise to power and the federalization of the state. But even as such, there is a basis for their existence because Macedonia, before the rule of the Serbs and Bulgarians, was inhabited by various Slavic tribes that were not subordinated to either peoples’ ancestral form of nation–states (basically an amalgamation of different tribes that developed the former and latter identities much later in history). It was necessary (in a sense) to create an identity for the Macedonians separate from the Serbs and separate from the Bulgarians, although both peoples have significantly influenced the formation of today’s ethnic Macedonians. That is why Macedonians have always been classified more as Serbs (the Entente powers’ leading experts favoured geographer Jovan Cvijić for his research on the topic). Those who did see the population of Macedonia as Bulgarians were French and German scholars (Ami Boué, Guillaume Lejean, Constantine Desjardins, Wilhelm Kanitz etc.) primarily because of the dialectological closeness to the dialects spoken in Bulgaria (especially the Shopluk region, which was a nationally ambiguous area claimed by both Serbs and Bulgarians; mixed to the point of no return — basically a Serbo-Bulgarian midzone). This was a crucial mistake that led to the belief that Macedonians were pure-blooded Bulgarians, but history shows us that it is not that simple and that there are many more factors and that everything is far complex than it seems. During World War II, the Germans began producing maps which labeled Macedonians separately (most notably Wilfried Krallert).
Subotica was incredibly multi-ethnic with Serbs, Germans, Hungarians and Rusyns living there. Bunjevac/Croats most definitely were there but i am 100% sure they did not constitute a majority there. What is up with this map?
Yugoslavia had a government in exile like every Axis occupied country. And Tito recognized this government and signed the Tito–Šubašić agreements in 1944 with this government in exile and promised free elections
Eastern Serbia in the Timok Valley they are not Romanians but Vlachs. Romanians are primarily in Banat region.
Source: I'm from there.
Actually it was a political-cultural problem similar to Bunjevci people, Croats claim they are Croats while they themselves do not, similar situation here. Majority of Vlachs see themselves as similar (even of the same origin (Ungurjani from Hungarian Transilvania and Carani from Oltenia)) but different than Romanians and with a different standardized language that is again similar but different than Romanian.
There was no such thing as Romania, Romanian and Romanians until relatively recently. Unless you're prepared to call the whole southern half of Romania Vlachs (because that's how they were called) since they were living in Valachia... those are Romanians. I myself am from Moldova, I'm Moldovan and that doesn't make me less of a Romanian.
Vlachs never called themselves Vlachs.They called themselves Rumâń and literally speak the dialect of Romanian language.The term Vlach is of Germanic origin that entered into Slavic then into Greek language.Originally it was used for Latinized or Romance speaking population of the Balkans
You said there is no such thing as Romania,Romanian and Romanians until recently and that is just wrong.By that logic there were no Germans or Italians until recently
Yes, for clarity, these regions weren't called Romania, the people inhabiting them weren't called Romanians and it was not said about them that they speak Romanian. So claiming that those people in Yugoslavia 100 years ago were something else because they are called Vlachs doesn't mean that much. There's also an entire country full of Romanians that are called Moldovans and until very very recently they claimed they speak Moldovan.
Wallachians,Moldovans doesn't matter.Wallachia was called Țara Românească by "Vlachs" who lived there.Romanians didn't just fell from the sky in 1800s and were like yeah we live here now
Correct. So claiming that some people just across the Danube are something else because they were called Vlachs just a few decades after Romanians themselves were called Vlachs... doesn't mean much. That was my point.
Everybody calls them Vlachs. Yes, they aren’t exactly Romanians. But before the Romanians were called that, they were Wallachian Vlachs and Moldavian Vlachs. You can’t forge a new identity based on minor linguistic differences since language is adaptable and prone to change. Rusyns used to be called Ruthenians but became their own thing for different reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that they should be considered as Ukrainians, which is what they factually are (by originl.
I don’t get how Serbs still claim Kosovo was majority Serbian before WWII, when this and even earlier official Yugoslav censuses showed that Serbs were barely 21% and grew to a maximum number during the 20th century to 27% due to the colonization in the 1920-30s. Their own data go against their claims.
There were neither self-declared Macedonians nor officially documented as such before WW2. The Slavic population of Vardar Macedonia was of Bulgarian ethnicity and its self-determination as such was brutally oppressed by the Yugoslav state also after the war.
Maybe. In some parts "Greens" or comitees were quite popular and demanded return of Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. Some were military active, mostly in 1918-21 but some up to 1929.
Krsto Popović has it's own army in WW2 and shortly afterwards. But in 1944 most of his men joined Partisans (including his sons) while he refused Tito's call.
Yes i am aware of that. Althoug Krsto said that "Montenegro is the last stand in defense of serbs" and the greens advicated for a federal unification with Serbia. Also Krsto and his army in ww2 were supported by Pavle Đuričić's Chetniks
Montenegrins were created by the collaborators of Ustashe and Italian fascists who were against the unification with Serbia early on in Yugoslavia’s history, and especially against the Karađorđevic dynasty. They wanted to preserve Montenegrin independence and distance themselves from the Serbs and they crafted a theory that they were actually a separate Slavic tribe that once ruled the state of Duklja (the Serbian medieval Kingdom), that just so happened to fall under Serbian rule and doesn’t actually have anything in common with them. This idea was further developed by the communists, who wanted to reduce the influence of Serbs in the state by separating them into multiple federal units and creating new identities for certain subgroups (Bosnian Muslims -> Bosniaks, Serbs of Montenegro -> Montenegrins, Slavs of Vardar Macedonia -> Macedonians).
This is what I find so odd about Serbia/serbs. I worked in Bulgaria and the "hate" these ethnic groups have towards each other is amazing. The Bulgarians really don't like the Macedonian. The Serbian guys there were bashing Croatians because it was basically the same language and so It was so ridiculous of them to try and make themselves a distinct own ethnic/cultural group. They really hate the people from Kosovo, but why then do they really want to control that region so bad?? (Yes I know there are many border towns that are pure Serbian which ended up in Kosovo, and perhaps the borders should have been more finely drawn?), but guess what. Nobody had anything bad to say about Montenegro. That was perfectly fine. I know they used to be their own kingdom/nation, but from this map, they are all Serbs?
The balkans remains a wierd place to this day with a lot of tension between the groups, and always have been 🤷🏻♂️. I don't get it.
Edit: I know the whole story about all the ethnic chaos of violence that happened after the fall of Yugoslavia where Serbs where tossed out of Croatia etc, but Montenegro was just let go with a vote and a shrug from Serbia. So Montenegro and Slovenia seems to be the only two in my eyes just simply avoided all the hate/conflics etc. You all got what you finally wanted. Your own state. Now, try to get along. And you wonder why there are so many civil wars in the giant artificial countries in Africa 🙄.
Montenegrins are Serbs per their own history. At times, they used to call themselves purer Serbs than Serbs from Serbia, as their region had much better resistance against the Turks, and they also mixed less with the Turks.
This is not a Great Serbia propaganda because Montenegrin kingdoms and prinpcipalities have mostly been independent throughout history, including the modern Montenegrin state, so it's basically "the same people" within different states. There are notable exceptions, such as when the first Serbian state was formed (this included the region of Montenegro within its borders) and when the Serbian Empire took over central and southern Balkans (but that was short-lived).
They can call themselves whatever they want now. It's their right. But the fact is that we arrived to the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries as one people, and we proudly called ourselves the same people for most of our history. I think it's Serbia-centric nationalism and irredentism that pushed others away, especally Montenegrins, as they didn't want to get sucked into the corrupt and selfish modern Serbia.
Most, if not all, Montnegrin monarchs and dynasties considered themselves Serbs, including the most notable one: the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. The idea of a Montenegrin language came in the 90s when Yugoslavia started to fall apart. It was officialized in 2006-2007 when Montenegro went fully independent. Before that, they always spoke and wrote Serbian.
What a horrible attempt by fascists to delete Bosniaks. We were here hundreds of years ago and will stay for hundreds of more years, you couldn't kill us all in a war, even tho everyone was against us
Bošnjak was a Bosnian newspaper. In early April 1891, the Bosnian government gave support to a request by a group of Bosniaks led by Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, then Mayor of Sarajevo, for the publication of this political paper.[1] The first issue of Bošnjak was published on 2 July 1891. The owner until issue number 17 was Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, and the editor was Hilmo Muhibić. One of the later editors was Edhem Mulabdić, as well as Šukri Karišiković and Muhamed Senai Softić. The newspaper was printed in Latin script in the Bosnian language.[2]
Quick facts Founder, Founded ...
In Bošnjak it was written:
Dočim Hrvati tvrde da su pravoslavci naši najveći dušmani i da je Srpstvo isto što i pravoslavlje, Srbi se upinju iz petnih žila da nas upozore na svoju izmišljenu historiju po kojoj su posrbili vascijeli svijet. Mi nećemo nikad poreći da pripadamo južnoslavenskoj porodici, ali ćemo ostati Bošnjaci, kao i naši preci, i ništa drugo.[3]
[While the Croats claim that the Orthodox are our greatest enemies and that Serbdom is the same as Orthodoxy, the Serbs are straining every nerve to acquaint us with their fabricated history according to which they have Serbized the entire world. We will never deny that we belong to the South Slavic family, but we will remain Bosniaks, like our ancestors, and nothing else.]
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. It's widely known and available infomation. The 13th Waffen Mountain Division was made up of muslims from Bosnia for the most part.
Bosniak is the ethnicity, a Bosnian is anyone who lives in the region.
As for your question, no, it's not the term Bosniak was not used until the 90s until then they most often just called muslims.
You see litle blob of blue between Varaždin and Bjelovar? Northern Croatia?. It says "Serbs", but these people even to this day call themselfs "Vlahi". They are not Serbs,never ware and are orthodox. My friend married a Vlah girl from there. You can see the facial and body difference between Serbs,Croats and then Vlahs. They look like they moved from Rumunia last night. Locals call them "Romari".
It is known that many Vlach tribes were assimilated into Serbs over time, which is why Croats and Bosniaks derogatorily call Serbs Vlachs. Serbs migrated towards the interior of Croatia, all the way to the Dalmatian coast. More precisely, they moved in accordance with the shifting of the Ottoman border with the Habsburg Monarchy. In that chaotic environment, Vlachs and Serbs mixed. So many Vlachs became Serbs, and even Serbs became Vlachs for that matter. For example, the Sinobad family of Knin was originally Vlach (Mor(ov)lachs or Black Vlachs, either of Serbian or Vlach origin – sources vary).
It could have succeeded as greater Croatia with capital in Zagreb and Catholic administration or as two entities: Croatia-Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro.
Ruled from Serb Belgrade was always doomed as more backward people should not rule over more advanced ones.
Croats could treat people fairly irrespectively of religion but Serbs could not, Serbs have only themselves to blame.
Alternatively if it stayed like that, it would have worked.
OK, wording might have been rough but the point stands
Croats were part of Austrian Empire and used Western methods of governance: elected representatives, separation of powers, committee decision making, rule of law and the such. People had their say in that system,
In contrast Serbia was government by appointed pashas, who had unlimited unchecked authority. Pashas just suppressed all dissent and ignored everyone and their needs. That is why this system sucked.
Serbia simply inherited Ottoman methods, just replaced pasha with local tzar. That is why Yugoslavia failed. The suppressed any opposition and essentially destroyed the state from within. It briefly worked somewhat under Tito, who was not so incidentally a Croat. But Serbs did not like it and Milosevich wanted more power to Serbs, Croats and Slovene quit and Yugoslavia was no more.
Western Europe is not more rich because they have oil, diamonds or such, they are rich because they are better governed.
Yugoslavia could only prosper if it used Western governance methods, or split based on Eastern and Western mentality and governance.
Map is as good as we can have for the time considering that it is built on Yugoslav population registers, but it is important to note that it is far from perfect, and it had a good deal of political bias in favor of Serbs.
Malicious map. Slovenes almost the same color as Serbs. Montenegrins grouped into Serbs. And barely inhabited mountains of Croatia and Bosnia shown as Serbs.
The distribution pattern is so bizzare, the croats almost form a circle
Serbs were pushed west to Croatia by invading Ottomans. Serbs were settled by Habsburg monarchy in 17. century, as military settlers in return for land and religious freedom.
You know that if you hide your comments we can still use reddit search and see them, and we know you're hardline Croat and all :)
Serbs were mostly pushed to the north, into Hungary, hence the Hungarian name Ratz, after Rascia (Raška) which was how Serbia was known in medieval times (like in the Dante's Inferno).
For the rest of the non-Balkan people, the story is not so black and white, and the national identities weren't clearly established 'till the 19th century and before that national identities were very aligned with religion.
The blue areas in question are simply areas where Orthodox church had more influence (hence the Krka monastery and all) while the Franciscan monks and the Catholic church stayed mostly on the trade route that went roughly along the Split-Livno-Zenica-Brčko line
Either way... if the quibbling and tribalism would go away...
Yugoslavia could have had a Poland experience the last 30 years... instead we have... whatever you want to make of all these mostly dysfunctional pieces.
The quibbling and tribalism has been amplified since the fall of the USSR for a reason. The West needs a big and strong Poland... a big and strong Balkans though? That's more likely to get in the way.
Nice work obscuring the the military buffer-zone created in underpopulated post-Ottoman Croatia with the repopulation of Hungary.
Which both were a thing. Separate events, different intentions. In both cases there was active incentive of inviting workforce and manpower to those regions that was not already there, and of course on basis of elimination could not have been from the countries that basically had a population collapse.
One thing we (Hungarians, Croats) remember* like nothing else is that the ex-Ottoman territories weren't just underpopulated. They were basically empty. Everyone who had a sense of survival fled it.
So anyone still there would probably have been a newcomer. Nobody within pre-WW1 Hungarian borders or todays Croatia was under any serious Orthodox pressure or power.
Even if ethnicity was still kind of undecided, it is already pretty clear religion and hundreds of years of separation had a serious divide.
Almost, the ottomans ethnically cleansed these parts of croats who didn't want to convert or didn't want to go into slavery, that's why there are croats in austria, italy,... The serbs on the other hand surrendered but they were left in peace but also had to pay blood tax
1/10 ragebait
The difference is that Ottomans controlled the orthodox patriarch in Constantinopol and catholics were its sworn enemy.
Therefore they would use the orthodox population as settlers in border areas. They had privileges and were not subject to harsh treatement, which can be testified by their request to Austrian emperors where they demanded priviledges that they enjoyed or they will switch sides.
Now some people might not like this, but a large part of those Serbs and Croats, especially in Hercegovina and the Dalmatian Hinterland, are descendants of Vlachs that were forced to pick a side according to their religion when the Turks came
Do you have sources for this. Would love to read more about that topic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_language
I meant the Vlach topic.
You really don't like Google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlachs
I love it! Thanks anyway.
If you overlay the religion map over it, you will see how the religious identities like Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims matches with the ethnic identities in this region. Not sure if this is shaped by the Millet System) of the Ottomans !
This is because Serbian, Croatian and Bosniak identities are, in practice, religious identities.
That's false and more of a western perspective fueled with propaganda from the past wars. Serbia and Croatia have existed as separate entities since even before they arrived in the region. While they grew closer together culturally and linguistically in Yugoslavia, they have varied in their traditions over time and have mostly separate histories.
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted, these are facts.
The modern Serbain and Croatian identities are products of the 19th century and have little in common with the 7th century tribes except for the name.
Absolutely false. The most common names Croatians carry today are the names of the kings and dukes from the 7-11th centuries. The language, customs, historical monuments and scriptures date back to these periods. We study this history because we are direct descendants of those people and that state.
A big identifier of Croatia at the time indeed was Catholicism as it gave the kingdom legitimacy. Croats are still majority catholic - we still use the same calendar, same holidays, same rituals and practices. Our people get married in the church and they get baptized.
I feel like people in this comment section have absolutely no clue about this region. Claiming that these countries differ only in religion is ridiculous. Do they think Croats in austrohungary had the same customs as Serbs in the Ottoman empire?
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Firstly, Vojvodina is a specific region in which many Croats actually lived. Of course there will be more overlap. Now try looking into the difference between Zagorje and the torlakian region of Serbia. Croats lived very differently, especially as they were not subjugated by the ottomans. Serbs had their own little empire which fell apart and were under the ottomans for 500 years. Croats had their own kingdom and joined Hungary in a union, after which they joined Austria-Hungary and fought the ottomans for centuries. What area was Croatia and what area was Serbia was always clear, and customs differed very much between these regions.
Historically the countries have vastly different cultures and traditions that mostly merged in Yugoslavia, which was intended policy by Tito who aimed to unify the country. This does not mean, however, that the citizens are any less different from eachother than the French and Italians are from eachother and it is revisionism to claim that these countries differ only in religion.
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Except a clear historical link? Croatia was it's own separate region for a thousand years, you think it randomly re-emerged in the 19th century? Those tribes brought the languages the people spoke.
Every European identity is the product of the 19th century by your definition and has no link to past states. It would be no different and by your logic Italy and France are separate states only by chance as they differ less from eachother then these Balkan states that at least differ in religion.
The “languages” they speak are closer to each other than regional German dialects are to each other. I.e. mutually intelligible. Serbo-Croatian is considered to be a single language by linguists with differing standard forms by country.
We are still talking about 2 groups that were mentioned as separate peoples 1300 years ago, followed different creeds of Christianity, had different customs and never united. They were never part of same state untill Ottomans mixed up Bosnia by causing Serb migration, even so generally separate till Kingdom of Yugoslavia (btw Yugoslav is idea of nationalist policies of late 19th c. as many European nations). Croatian parliament even had continuity whole middle ages to modern era...
Furthermore all Slavs are part of language continuum. Neighboring languages AND their dialects share some similarities, from Bulgaria to Slovenia, which would connect to Slovaks, Czechs and further if Austria and Hungary hadnt come to existence in 9th - 10th c. Therfore denying any group its uniqueness is hypocrisy at best and chauvinism at worst.
The linguistic differences were actually larger in the past, but Yugoslavia attempted to standardize it further. The language was a continuum before (but used 4 different scripts broadly following ethnic and state boundaries: Latin, Glagolitic, Arabic, and Cyrillic).
However, language is not the only deciding factor that determines ethnicity, and technically Italian and French share the same root also. Should they be one country because they once shared the same language of vulgar Latin? Their borders have certainly overlapped more in the past then Croatia's and Serbia's borders.
Historically speaking a better case can be made for unifying France and Italy then these three countries. It's not the separation that was special, it is the attempt at unification between countries so diverse in their past and customs that was laudable.
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I am comparing France and Italy not internal reagions, they are culturally extremely close to eachother. Much closer than Croatia and Serbia would have been at basically any time.
As had happened with France and Italy. This sentiment also came from oppression by other powers and at the time was facing many challenges.
That is just not true, except for Bosnia. People in Croatia were very clearly Croatian even 600 years ago, especially the elite. People were declared Croatian nobility by the Croatian sabor.
Yes, but this is also true for Italians and the French. They conquered eachothers provinces continuously and the language continuum that existed between the two places allowed for this. There was not even an Italian state, whereas Croatia and Serbia were both clearly delineated.
Glagolitic was used in churches in specific regions until the 19th century, the point was that apart from religion the influence sphere of Croatia and Serbia were clearly very different. Much more different than France and Italy, which both used the Latin script for languages that both came from Latin.
Therefore claiming that Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia ONLY differ in religion is ridiculous. By that same approach France and Italy differ even less. They have the same linguistic origin, use the same alphabet, the same religion, largely the same history, with much more geographical overlap. The point of my comment was pointing out the stupidity, as nobody is claiming that France and Italy are culturally the same (when they are historically more similar and more closely related).
With what confidence can we claim this given the lack of vernacular writings? I've found 2 Damaskin manuscripts excerpts written in serbian and croatian vernacular in 17th century and they show a remarkable similarity. The syntax is identical, the variety is mostly in words that have a more regional preference.
The script is different, and the region matters. Kajkavian was more widely spoken in Croatia proper compared to today, for instance.
But again, language isn't the only determining factor for either statehood or ethnicity. It is just one aspect that has grown closer together in the last 100 years, with others being food, music, etc. Some of this cultural mixing was done forcibly as well, in an attempt to unify the country.
This kind of map is hugely misleading though, because in almost all “Serb” areas west of Sarajevo, and especially inside modern Croatian borders and modern western Bosnia, Croats make up (or made up) a very significant part of the population as well (as do muslims/Bosniaks). The same goes for areas coloured in with the other ethnic groups, of course.
What the other posters said is correct in large part though - population movements caused by centuries of Ottoman conquests caused tectonic shifts in regional ethnic composition, religious and subsequently national identities.
The map was made according to the official 1910 census. The site that made the source map is now defunct, but some images appear when you search for “monarchia elte hu” on Google.
There was no uniform 1910 census of Yugoslavia because Yugoslavia did not yet exist. If the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census is what this was based on, the information on Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia would have had to have come from somewhere else, not to mention the fact that Serbo-Croat was counted as one single language group, so I don’t see how all this differentiation could have been depicted (perhaps through a religious data set).
Regardless, I was not saying the information was false, I just said it was misleading because it represented mixed communities and territories as mono-ethnic, because it omits the usual method of striping mixed areas with the colours of two or three major ethnic groups. Other maps exist which do this, and are far better and more representative in my opinion.
Yes, the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census was used for the formerly Austro-Hungarian part of Yugoslavia. I’m sorry I forgot to mention (since I took part in the making of the map). This map doesn’t claim to show the exact ethnic structure in 1931, it is just an educated guess based on several highly credible maps. I believe the sources are listed in the comments of OP’s post (u/Winter_Humor2693). From what I can remember, the map shows the relative majority for each ethnic group. Either way, it was done in accordance with other maps that were used as sources, otherwise attempting to merge all the sources together would’ve been pointless.
I have yet to find a map as detailed as this one. That’s why we made it in the first place — to fill in the void. All other maps on the internet are sloppy copies of post-WW1 and WW2 German maps.
Yes, but in that blue circle there is one city with more than 100k inhabitants, plus a couple of small towns. I'm talking about Serbs.Very sparsely populated area .
Right that is striking
It is the result of an interesting history. Looking back at the kingdom of Croatia, you can sort of see how migration of Serbs (fleeing ottoman incursions) and the emergence of Bosnia shaped Croatia the way it is. The current borders were cemented with the reclamation of territory from the ottoman empire to the east from the then remaining remnants of Croatia and follows along the mountains and rivers.
The pattern happened mostly because of Franciscan campaigns in Middle Bosnia.
Can't help but while looking at that small multiethnic blob under Bjelovar, it reminds me of the borders of the Military Frontiers, which were created by the Habsburgs after the Ottomans were pushed out.
I am from the area west of Zenica and I am pretty certain that on this page a spot is blue if there are any Serbs there irrespective of who the real demographic majority are
the difference between Serb and Croat is pretty much nothing
Differences - religion, culture, history and identity, genetics, writing system, songs and folklore
Similarities - food, spoken language, some traditional instruments, hospitality and some customs
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That’s just… no more than other places.
If you don’t wonder why Yugoslavia fell apart, thinking that’s the reason, you surely must he wondering how a more mixed place, like the USA hasn’t.
Apparently they ran out of colors and had to reuse the exact same shade.
When somebody says "war happends because imperial powers are bad at drawing borders" show them this. Just like modern Sudan you can't draw a modern nation border when the territory is a puzzle of different ethnic groups.
This map, though still greatly simplified due to its omittance of the fact that all these coloured territories were themselves mixed, not monoethnic, is itself a result of an imperial power (Ottomans) inflicting several centuries of continous invasions on the region, causing massive, tectonic shifts in ethnic composition.
The thing with yugoslavia is that all 3 times it was tried it failed. First the centralised constitutional Monarchy that to be fair failed due to an foreign invasion but had many political crisis during its existance. Then the federal socialist republic who had formed new ethnicities in order to have a reason for the 6 republic model while its economy survivied only thru imf loans. And the 3rd time fr Yugoslavia failed beacuse Montenegro that was basically culturely and ethically same as Serbia wanted more autonomy and later full indipendemce beacuse of the Western aligned (ironically former Serb nationalist) leader Milo Đukanović and his crime activities that he couldn't do so easily while still being in a state that has some kind of a federal goverment
so dalmatian is croats?
yes?
Always has been?
Yes, northern Dalmatia is the cradle of the Croatian state
used to be Italian romance actually
No, Croats were not always the majority. All notable people from Dubrovnik had purely Slavic surnames. Yes, they did hire Italian builders for certain projects, but Germans and other nations did the same for such work. Zadar, Trogir, and perhaps a few other cities were Romanic.
only tangentially related to your comment but i find it quite interesting that there are two guys in the list with italian names and surnames (Baglivi and Banduri) whose nationality changes depending on the language of their wiki page (for the croat wiki they're croats while for the italian one they're italians)
They can't be Italian by nationality in Renaissance since Italy didn't exist as a country back then. Baglivi was of Armenian/Croatian ethnicity. His Italian last name is from his step-father.
italians still existed even if there wasn't a political entity representing them though? also he was adopted when he was 13 and lived in italy all of his life, i'm pretty sure he could be defined as "italian of armenian-croatian ancestry" or "italo-croatian"
Nationality is which country you belong to.
Ethnicity is which people you belong to.
Romans were there before any slav even heard of these lands
Aren't they dogs?
Yeah, from this area
I propose allyship with pomeranians from the other maritime dog province - Pomerania
I never realized how much Yugoslavias map looks like Iran. I actually thought it was r/mapcirclejerk and that it was Iran.
Error in the Matrix!
It looks like a revolver: MK is the handle, BH is the cylinder…
I like how the unpopulated mountainous areas are always Serbian in these types of maps. /s
Thank the Orthodox church who actually went there and built churches and monasteries for the cattle-herders.. While Catholics and Muslims were mostly in cities and lowlands
Highlands are mostly Orthodox to this day
Classic Serbian narrative from the 1900s to the present day. Serbian propaganda and lies are next level.
Edit: 86% russians from temu on the thread
So there is no Bosnians but there is Macedonians? Come on… either you call Bosnians for Serbs and Macedonians as Bulgarians or you call them for what they are
Everyone from Bosnia is Bosnians. It's regional identity.
Seems to kind of odd to say “Serbian-Croatian speaking Muslims” when we already have the word “Bosniac” to roughly describe such an ethnic group.
Back then they were just called Muslims.
And “Macedonians” were called “Bulgarian” yet Macedonian is on the map.
They were not. In Kingdom of Yugoslavia they were counted among "Serbs or Croats" and in kingdom of Serbia they were "Serbs".
It was decades before this map that anyone called them Bulgarians.
Yes, map is inconsistent and lacks source, but Macedonians were not called Bulgarians in Yugoslavia or Serbia.
And the fact that both claimed them means they were neither.
There are sources on the original publisher’s page (u/Winter_Humor2693), whom I’ve worked with and help him find the sources and use them to the best of his ability. The map is not supposed to be a 1:1 portrayal of the ethnic structure in 1931, but rather a reconstruction based on available sources (since the census hasn’t been processed and made into a fully detailed map yet).
His map was taken and passed down from Instagram, probably as a screenshot. Since then, he has modified the map several times, mainly the area between Albanians and Serbs in Medveđa and Preševo and the Serbian-Macedonian ethnic border. You can find the original on his account.
You are mixing modern times with pre-WW2 ones. The map simply shows the Yugoslav structure some 90 years ago using data that was available at the time.
It's like looking at a pre-1492 map of North America, pointing at the Cherokee territory, and saying "but isn't that 'Murica?"
Thank you for your use of common sense. The author of the map is my friend. I compiled the sources, he did the visualization part. We do in fact have a few quite detailed maps from the time but they still haven’t been turned into basic level maps such as OP’s. He and I were sick of constantly seeing the horrible versions on the internet that are being spread massively, so we wanted to make the most accurate reconstruction possible, using maps that were available to us on the internet, and not statistical data. If anyone wants to attempt to do that, they can easily find Wilhelm Krallert’s map on the internet. OP drew the map on mobile so that wouldn’t have been possible for him.
If that were the case, why is the terms “Macedonian” used? My understanding is that that is also a comparatively new term that wasn’t adopted until recently.
It literally says "Macedonian Slavs," not "Macedonians." The "Macedonian" here is used as a regional adjective to highlight Slavs living specifically in the region of Macedonia. It's not used to label any ethnicity in particular.
Writing just Slavs wouldn't be too accurate or distinguishable, since most of this map shows Slavic people. As you may know, Macedonia is a region where non-Slavic people live as well, such as Albanians, Greeks (southern Macedonia), and Turks, and they're all technically Macedonians, per the region.
The same goes for Bosnia, so everyone living in that region is considered Bosnian, including Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The term "Bosniak" came later. Your forefathers called themselves Muslims both ethnically and religiously at that time, which is correctly shown on the map. Nothing about it is anti-Bosniak or anti-Muslim in particular.
The region of Macedonia that you keep referring to is further south; the region of Macedonia is not shown in the map. The area on the map is what is what became the state of Macedonia, notably not actually in the historically recognized region of Macedonia (much to Greece’s chagrin).
Clearly its borders have changed back and forth for political, ethnic, and arbitrary reasons, but most of North Macedonia has been considered Macedonia for a long time.
Under ancient Macedonia, the southern part was the core region, while the northern part was a dependent territory until it was included within the actual borders of the Macedonian kingdom.
In Roman times, they've split them into two provines: Macedonia Prima (south) and Macedonia Salutaris (or Macedonia Secunda, north). The Byzantines later "shifted" Macedonia to the east, into Thrace, but that didn't last forever, and the region that we know as Macedonia now is close to what the Greeks and Romans considered as Macedonia in their time.
You can look it up. There are history books, Wikipedia, Britannica, etc., all having infomation on this region's history.
Bosnian or Bosniak identity was not a thing at the time. The people there identified as muslims for both religion and ethnicity, though a minority considered themselves to be Serbs or Croats. Macedonian also wasn't an identity at the time, but the people there were often referred to as Macedonian Slavs because that's the name of the region. Some considered themselves Bulgarians but not the majority.
Are you serious? Macedonians didn't become what they are over night. I had both my great- and grandparents alive, and all of them were pre 1945 and said they've always been Macedonian as their ancestors that they also met. This fairytale that you talk about, you should keep it to yourself...since you're not even Macedonian i guess
This is exactly why they are referred to as Macedonian Slavs, because it was actually a big confusion, part of the population was certainly considered Bulgarians, there were also strong efforts to Serbinize the region, who and those third parties who rejected both identities.
Whatever, the ethnicity is obvious and has been there many many years. The locals called and call themselves Macedonian despite the many serbian and bulgarian propaganda through their church
Yeah, they called themselves Macedonians because of the region they lived in. Real Macedonians are not Slavs and Bulgarians.
Real stupid thing to say. There is no “real” anything. You tell me what you think you are and I will have the argument to call you not real.
Only a nationalist deals in absolutes.
I phrased that wrong, but Macedonians are Greeks. Current inhabitants of northern Macedonia are Slavs and Bulgarians. There's no question about that.
North Macedonia (not northern) and Greece made an agreement that Macedonian means different things on the different sides of the border.
This is the one there is no question about.
What you wrote however? The only “no question” about is that you’re just parroting some nationalistic stupidity.
I will stop it here. No good will come out of continuing this with you.
You came to a region that's existed for thousands of years, where people called themselves Macedonians long before Slavs and Bulgarians came into existence, and laid claim to their history and identity.
There's nothing nationalistic in facts and truth. It's equivalent to a group of us moving to Italy, calling ourselves Romans, and claiming Julius Caesar as our greatest leader, all while speaking Russian or something like that.
And real discriminators and chauvinistic people say exactly what you do. Sp it is ok to claim whatever YOU want yourself to be but it's not OK for somebody else to do whatever they are entitled to and claim to be? Gotcha..
Whatever helps you sleep better at night, buddy
Oh, random bs online doesn't make me uneasy no worries. It's just amazing that people like you exist, and really sad... Especially for you 😊
Random bs, haha. Pick up any history book published outside of North Macedonia instead of getting your history degree from Reddit.
The majority definitely identified as bulgarians. Plenty of historical events point towards that. Like for example the kresna razlog uprising, where locals rebelled cause their lands didnt end up in the newly liberated bulgarian principality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kresna%E2%80%93Razlog_uprising
The map legend is showing Macedonian Slavs as a subset of Serbs. It was the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the other groups got recognised post war.
The map was made in accordance with the officially accepted beliefs of the time. The country was first called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — no Bosniaks (you used Bosnians incorrectly; it is the endonym of all people living in Bosnia regardless of their ethnic identity) and no separate (Slavic) Macedonian people. For as long as Macedonia was under Serbia it was seen as a land inhabited by Serbs, and vice versa for Bulgaria. That’s how things used to work. No one wanted to even consider the possibility of the existence of a Macedonian people because they had nothing to indicate it. Macedonians are essentially a 19th century construct that was further implemented by the communists with Tito’s rise to power and the federalization of the state. But even as such, there is a basis for their existence because Macedonia, before the rule of the Serbs and Bulgarians, was inhabited by various Slavic tribes that were not subordinated to either peoples’ ancestral form of nation–states (basically an amalgamation of different tribes that developed the former and latter identities much later in history). It was necessary (in a sense) to create an identity for the Macedonians separate from the Serbs and separate from the Bulgarians, although both peoples have significantly influenced the formation of today’s ethnic Macedonians. That is why Macedonians have always been classified more as Serbs (the Entente powers’ leading experts favoured geographer Jovan Cvijić for his research on the topic). Those who did see the population of Macedonia as Bulgarians were French and German scholars (Ami Boué, Guillaume Lejean, Constantine Desjardins, Wilhelm Kanitz etc.) primarily because of the dialectological closeness to the dialects spoken in Bulgaria (especially the Shopluk region, which was a nationally ambiguous area claimed by both Serbs and Bulgarians; mixed to the point of no return — basically a Serbo-Bulgarian midzone). This was a crucial mistake that led to the belief that Macedonians were pure-blooded Bulgarians, but history shows us that it is not that simple and that there are many more factors and that everything is far complex than it seems. During World War II, the Germans began producing maps which labeled Macedonians separately (most notably Wilfried Krallert).
Subotica was incredibly multi-ethnic with Serbs, Germans, Hungarians and Rusyns living there. Bunjevac/Croats most definitely were there but i am 100% sure they did not constitute a majority there. What is up with this map?
Yeah, there's no way it had more Bunjevac people than Hungarians at any point if time.
What do you mean, an interwar Yugoslavia
There's many of them?
There were a total of 3 permas with different social arrangements.
1 First Yugoslavia refers to the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia(1918-1941).
2 The Second Yugoslavia is what people think of when they mention Yugoslavia, Tito's communist Yugoslavia(1945-1991).
3 The Third Yugoslavia, or Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was the joint state of Serbia and Montenegro between 1992-2006.
Between ww1 and ww2. In shoet before a communist takeover
There was no communist takeover of Yugoslavia; there was the Partisans' liberation of the area from Nazi puppet regimes.
what would you call a militant group seizing control of the government and banning elections? not a takeover?
There were no governments deserving of the name in the area during WW2, you can’t take over something that isnt there.
Yugoslavia had a government in exile like every Axis occupied country. And Tito recognized this government and signed the Tito–Šubašić agreements in 1944 with this government in exile and promised free elections
Technical, Bograd was captured by General Vladimir Zhdanova's four mechanized corps Soviet Army.
Macedonia is like two testicles.
Cool map. I can’t find the Italians, where are they?
In parts of Croatia and Slovenia occupied by Italy at that time.
there's a very small sliver near the border with italian istria, i assume where fiume/rijeka would be
Well italians were there but they didn't hold a strong majority anywhere. Also istra was a part of Italy back then
This map is laughable what’s the sources for this?
So Slovenes are basically just Alpine Serbs? My father-in-law was right, I guess
Where on the map does it say that? Right, it doesn’t.
Serbian and Slovenian aren't mutually intelligible. Slovenes are at least, culturally more like seaside Austrians
Viennese stableboys 🙏🏻
At least we weren't đojlens ;)
What on earth is that
Google it up, a fun fact that is disgusting but very true
Prvič slišim
Eastern Serbia in the Timok Valley they are not Romanians but Vlachs. Romanians are primarily in Banat region.
Source: I'm from there.
Actually it was a political-cultural problem similar to Bunjevci people, Croats claim they are Croats while they themselves do not, similar situation here. Majority of Vlachs see themselves as similar (even of the same origin (Ungurjani from Hungarian Transilvania and Carani from Oltenia)) but different than Romanians and with a different standardized language that is again similar but different than Romanian.
There was no such thing as Romania, Romanian and Romanians until relatively recently. Unless you're prepared to call the whole southern half of Romania Vlachs (because that's how they were called) since they were living in Valachia... those are Romanians. I myself am from Moldova, I'm Moldovan and that doesn't make me less of a Romanian.
Vlachs never called themselves Vlachs.They called themselves Rumâń and literally speak the dialect of Romanian language.The term Vlach is of Germanic origin that entered into Slavic then into Greek language.Originally it was used for Latinized or Romance speaking population of the Balkans
I never said that's what they called themselves.
You said there is no such thing as Romania,Romanian and Romanians until recently and that is just wrong.By that logic there were no Germans or Italians until recently
Yes, for clarity, these regions weren't called Romania, the people inhabiting them weren't called Romanians and it was not said about them that they speak Romanian. So claiming that those people in Yugoslavia 100 years ago were something else because they are called Vlachs doesn't mean that much. There's also an entire country full of Romanians that are called Moldovans and until very very recently they claimed they speak Moldovan.
Wallachians,Moldovans doesn't matter.Wallachia was called Țara Românească by "Vlachs" who lived there.Romanians didn't just fell from the sky in 1800s and were like yeah we live here now
Correct. So claiming that some people just across the Danube are something else because they were called Vlachs just a few decades after Romanians themselves were called Vlachs... doesn't mean much. That was my point.
Dude,you are contradicting yourself
No I'm not, I'm responding to someone claiming those are not Romanians but Vlachs. Where am I contradicting myself?
Everybody calls them Vlachs. Yes, they aren’t exactly Romanians. But before the Romanians were called that, they were Wallachian Vlachs and Moldavian Vlachs. You can’t forge a new identity based on minor linguistic differences since language is adaptable and prone to change. Rusyns used to be called Ruthenians but became their own thing for different reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that they should be considered as Ukrainians, which is what they factually are (by originl.
Source : i am brainwashed by serbian propaganda.
I don’t get how Serbs still claim Kosovo was majority Serbian before WWII, when this and even earlier official Yugoslav censuses showed that Serbs were barely 21% and grew to a maximum number during the 20th century to 27% due to the colonization in the 1920-30s. Their own data go against their claims.
Delulu people. This map shows uninhabited regions as Serbian. It justifies their plan of Greater Serbia. Simply uneducated.
What's the ethnic group around Subotica? Having trouble with the legend because of bad colour vision.
Bunjevci. Croats and Hungarians
No wonder it collapsed. Genuinely surprised it functioned short term whatsoever.
for a moment I thought serbs were the sea and that I was in r/worldbuilding. My imagination is going crazy now.
They've gotta be mixed.
Confused the color of ruthenian with the Serb color and was to write a very strongly worded essay 😅
The maker of this map SGP.cartography is known Serbian nationalist propaganda. Don’t trust this map!
I blame the turks for the lack of paint coloring.
Gorani do not speak Serbo-Croatian. They're Macedonian/Bulgarian (depends on who you ask) speaking.
The color choices are dumb
i thought were more italians
It’s As real as Yugoslavia was.
Montenegrins annihilated!
Every decent cartographer would show Montenegrins as a separate nation before 1918 https://www.reddit.com/r/crnogorac/comments/1pqt271/njema%C4%8Dka_etnolingvisti%C4%8Dka_karta_19_vijek/
There were neither self-declared Macedonians nor officially documented as such before WW2. The Slavic population of Vardar Macedonia was of Bulgarian ethnicity and its self-determination as such was brutally oppressed by the Yugoslav state also after the war.
It's a big lake
Hell nah, border gore worse than in hoi4. No wonder communists didnt bother to draw propper ethnic borders
No Italians around Split, Šibenik, or Dubrovnik?
Where are Montenegrians? They are not Serbs.
But it is hard to tell since censuses classified people not by nationality but by religion.
We kinda are tho. The diffrence between a Montenegrin and Serb is mostly political. Before 1945 most Montenegrins did classify themselfs as Serbs
Maybe. In some parts "Greens" or comitees were quite popular and demanded return of Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. Some were military active, mostly in 1918-21 but some up to 1929.
Krsto Popović has it's own army in WW2 and shortly afterwards. But in 1944 most of his men joined Partisans (including his sons) while he refused Tito's call.
Yes i am aware of that. Althoug Krsto said that "Montenegro is the last stand in defense of serbs" and the greens advicated for a federal unification with Serbia. Also Krsto and his army in ww2 were supported by Pavle Đuričić's Chetniks
Montenegrins were created by the collaborators of Ustashe and Italian fascists who were against the unification with Serbia early on in Yugoslavia’s history, and especially against the Karađorđevic dynasty. They wanted to preserve Montenegrin independence and distance themselves from the Serbs and they crafted a theory that they were actually a separate Slavic tribe that once ruled the state of Duklja (the Serbian medieval Kingdom), that just so happened to fall under Serbian rule and doesn’t actually have anything in common with them. This idea was further developed by the communists, who wanted to reduce the influence of Serbs in the state by separating them into multiple federal units and creating new identities for certain subgroups (Bosnian Muslims -> Bosniaks, Serbs of Montenegro -> Montenegrins, Slavs of Vardar Macedonia -> Macedonians).
This is what I find so odd about Serbia/serbs. I worked in Bulgaria and the "hate" these ethnic groups have towards each other is amazing. The Bulgarians really don't like the Macedonian. The Serbian guys there were bashing Croatians because it was basically the same language and so It was so ridiculous of them to try and make themselves a distinct own ethnic/cultural group. They really hate the people from Kosovo, but why then do they really want to control that region so bad?? (Yes I know there are many border towns that are pure Serbian which ended up in Kosovo, and perhaps the borders should have been more finely drawn?), but guess what. Nobody had anything bad to say about Montenegro. That was perfectly fine. I know they used to be their own kingdom/nation, but from this map, they are all Serbs?
The balkans remains a wierd place to this day with a lot of tension between the groups, and always have been 🤷🏻♂️. I don't get it.
Edit: I know the whole story about all the ethnic chaos of violence that happened after the fall of Yugoslavia where Serbs where tossed out of Croatia etc, but Montenegro was just let go with a vote and a shrug from Serbia. So Montenegro and Slovenia seems to be the only two in my eyes just simply avoided all the hate/conflics etc. You all got what you finally wanted. Your own state. Now, try to get along. And you wonder why there are so many civil wars in the giant artificial countries in Africa 🙄.
Montenegrins are Serbs per their own history. At times, they used to call themselves purer Serbs than Serbs from Serbia, as their region had much better resistance against the Turks, and they also mixed less with the Turks.
This is not a Great Serbia propaganda because Montenegrin kingdoms and prinpcipalities have mostly been independent throughout history, including the modern Montenegrin state, so it's basically "the same people" within different states. There are notable exceptions, such as when the first Serbian state was formed (this included the region of Montenegro within its borders) and when the Serbian Empire took over central and southern Balkans (but that was short-lived).
They can call themselves whatever they want now. It's their right. But the fact is that we arrived to the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries as one people, and we proudly called ourselves the same people for most of our history. I think it's Serbia-centric nationalism and irredentism that pushed others away, especally Montenegrins, as they didn't want to get sucked into the corrupt and selfish modern Serbia.
Most, if not all, Montnegrin monarchs and dynasties considered themselves Serbs, including the most notable one: the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty. The idea of a Montenegrin language came in the 90s when Yugoslavia started to fall apart. It was officialized in 2006-2007 when Montenegro went fully independent. Before that, they always spoke and wrote Serbian.
What a horrible attempt by fascists to delete Bosniaks. We were here hundreds of years ago and will stay for hundreds of more years, you couldn't kill us all in a war, even tho everyone was against us
The people existed, but the term Bosniak was not used until the 90s.
Bošnjak was a Bosnian newspaper. In early April 1891, the Bosnian government gave support to a request by a group of Bosniaks led by Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, then Mayor of Sarajevo, for the publication of this political paper.[1] The first issue of Bošnjak was published on 2 July 1891. The owner until issue number 17 was Mehmed-beg Kapetanović Ljubušak, and the editor was Hilmo Muhibić. One of the later editors was Edhem Mulabdić, as well as Šukri Karišiković and Muhamed Senai Softić. The newspaper was printed in Latin script in the Bosnian language.[2]
Quick facts Founder, Founded ... In Bošnjak it was written:
Dočim Hrvati tvrde da su pravoslavci naši najveći dušmani i da je Srpstvo isto što i pravoslavlje, Srbi se upinju iz petnih žila da nas upozore na svoju izmišljenu historiju po kojoj su posrbili vascijeli svijet. Mi nećemo nikad poreći da pripadamo južnoslavenskoj porodici, ali ćemo ostati Bošnjaci, kao i naši preci, i ništa drugo.[3]
[While the Croats claim that the Orthodox are our greatest enemies and that Serbdom is the same as Orthodoxy, the Serbs are straining every nerve to acquaint us with their fabricated history according to which they have Serbized the entire world. We will never deny that we belong to the South Slavic family, but we will remain Bosniaks, like our ancestors, and nothing else.]
Remember that one time you guys helped Ramesses II against the Hittites?
There were fascist bosniaks in the SS
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. It's widely known and available infomation. The 13th Waffen Mountain Division was made up of muslims from Bosnia for the most part.
Alright bro
Is "Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslims" an attempt to deny the existence of Bosnians?
Bosniak is the ethnicity, a Bosnian is anyone who lives in the region. As for your question, no, it's not the term Bosniak was not used until the 90s until then they most often just called muslims.
I like to call bosniaks Bosanđeros, it sounds cooler
Croats and serbs can be bosnians my guy
they are Muslims who are a mix of Turk and Serbo-Croat
At the time the Bosniaks didn't identify themselfs as bosniak in censuses. Either identified themselfs as muslim croats/serbs or just as "muslims"
No! Bosnian was a regional identity used by both Serbs and Croats in Bosnia.
You see litle blob of blue between Varaždin and Bjelovar? Northern Croatia?. It says "Serbs", but these people even to this day call themselfs "Vlahi". They are not Serbs,never ware and are orthodox. My friend married a Vlah girl from there. You can see the facial and body difference between Serbs,Croats and then Vlahs. They look like they moved from Rumunia last night. Locals call them "Romari".
It is known that many Vlach tribes were assimilated into Serbs over time, which is why Croats and Bosniaks derogatorily call Serbs Vlachs. Serbs migrated towards the interior of Croatia, all the way to the Dalmatian coast. More precisely, they moved in accordance with the shifting of the Ottoman border with the Habsburg Monarchy. In that chaotic environment, Vlachs and Serbs mixed. So many Vlachs became Serbs, and even Serbs became Vlachs for that matter. For example, the Sinobad family of Knin was originally Vlach (Mor(ov)lachs or Black Vlachs, either of Serbian or Vlach origin – sources vary).
It could have succeeded as greater Croatia with capital in Zagreb and Catholic administration or as two entities: Croatia-Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro.
Ruled from Serb Belgrade was always doomed as more backward people should not rule over more advanced ones.
Croats could treat people fairly irrespectively of religion but Serbs could not, Serbs have only themselves to blame.
Alternatively if it stayed like that, it would have worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Slovenes,_Croats_and_Serbs
The rest would have been Greater Serbia.
Okay Mr master race
OK, wording might have been rough but the point stands
Croats were part of Austrian Empire and used Western methods of governance: elected representatives, separation of powers, committee decision making, rule of law and the such. People had their say in that system,
In contrast Serbia was government by appointed pashas, who had unlimited unchecked authority. Pashas just suppressed all dissent and ignored everyone and their needs. That is why this system sucked.
Serbia simply inherited Ottoman methods, just replaced pasha with local tzar. That is why Yugoslavia failed. The suppressed any opposition and essentially destroyed the state from within. It briefly worked somewhat under Tito, who was not so incidentally a Croat. But Serbs did not like it and Milosevich wanted more power to Serbs, Croats and Slovene quit and Yugoslavia was no more.
Western Europe is not more rich because they have oil, diamonds or such, they are rich because they are better governed.
Yugoslavia could only prosper if it used Western governance methods, or split based on Eastern and Western mentality and governance.
Serbia was a parliamentary constitunal monarchy with a parliment and election system
how about that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6_January_Dictatorship
Based lowkey
The Croats showed their Western way of governance by copying the Austrians, including a failed painter, from 41 to 45.
that was a revenge for Yugoslav governance, a Serb killed a Croat first
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stjepan_Radić#Assassination_in_Parliament
that is why we cannot have the above solution now
Map is as good as we can have for the time considering that it is built on Yugoslav population registers, but it is important to note that it is far from perfect, and it had a good deal of political bias in favor of Serbs.
Malicious map. Slovenes almost the same color as Serbs. Montenegrins grouped into Serbs. And barely inhabited mountains of Croatia and Bosnia shown as Serbs.
Propaganda map. Serbs gonna Serb.
there were no "montenegrins" before tito btw and barely inhabited doesnt mean uninhabited, so
You made a mistake. The bottom blob is just Bulgarian. They are too stupid to know differently.