This was the best explanation of how the Balkans became Slavic that I have encountered. Much better than the many books I have read on the subject and superman myths. Awesome.
Keep in mind that this is just early south Slav history, this doesn't mention anything about ancient Greece, the Ottoman empire and ofc the Balkan wars. Also the Byzantine empire is briefly mentioned ofc because the point of this video is the Slavs not the Greeks.
Actually, the origins of the Bulgars are largely unknown. There are sources from Armenian writers telling us Old Bulgarians inhabited the Caucasuses for a period of time and that they had great stoneworking abilities and built stone houses when they migrated to the area. Because of all the evidence there is a newer theory regarding the origins of the Proto-Bulgarians, that states they are from Iranian descent and the Turkic elements we see in their culture were picked up later on, as many Turkic tribes migrated from Asia into the lands inhabited by the Old Bulgarians and vise versa.
@M. Laser History That's the case with all theories about Proto-Bulgarian history of origin, sadly. We just don't have the evidence to make some kind of a solid conclusion.
@Aleksandar be together not the same Къде отиде буквата "Ъ, ъ", смешнико? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Защо в кирилицата има буква "Ъ, ъ", а в "македонската" кирилица няма? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@Aleksandar be together not the same "Makedonian History"? 😂😂😂 I am from Plovdiv. You are nowhere near where the Macedonia of Philip was. 😃 Get a map! Also "Macedonia" wasn't a country, it was Philip's corporation. He was recruiting Thracian for his mercenary army. No such thing as "Macedonians" in Plovdiv, he recruited Tracians. You are so ignorant, it is our national tragedy to have people like you.
Correction about Boris 1 of Bulgaria - He didn't die in 889. He abdicated that year to his firstborn son - Vladimir Rasate, who, in turn, got taken down after trying to bring back paganism. In 893 Boris called a concil with which was decided that Boris's third son Simeon would take the throne. Also the map of the ninth century is incorrect on the Serbo-Bulgarian border
@Timax every slavs are russians 🗿every Russian is Slav. Don’t argue just unite Slavs into ussr 2.0 and let’s finally become great inter galactic empire again
The main reason why Bulgaria was so successful is because Asparuh convinced local Slavs to join him in the battle against the Byzantines. When they won he founded Bulgaria as a country of both Bulgars and Slavs together. Bulgar nobility ruled exclusively for a few generations initially but regarded both peoples equally and they soon merged into one culture. The early rulers practiced genuine nation building in a style reminiscent of Thracian nobility. Thracian scripts may have also been a basis for the Cyrillic script.
One thing that I always think is important to mention about ancient settlements in the Balkans is that we have to remember that they didn't have access to the New World vegetables like potatoes which are better suited for mountainous areas. Good presentation. South Slavic history is complicated because of how many people move into and around the area and how political the history is today.
Its funny how the world, especially "the West" only talks about frankish, english, and sometimes germanic history. And they only make TV shows, and movies about those nations/cultures. But in the balkans(and in general in every slavic country) you could find so many interesting, historicaly accurate topics that you could make an epic movie or a tv show. Just take the croatian-serbian history(i'm not talking about the 20th cenutry, but early history) there are so many interesting events, and stories.
Брат смотря о ком мы говорим когда используем "Запад". Обычным обывателям да всё равно на всех кроме себя, но разве так не везде? А что касается людей образованных, то там много специалистов по востоку или славянам в частности.
@Srdjan Basaric to je moderna Grcka republika, ne Grcka kultura. To je poslije nego sto su dobili neovisnost od Osmana, koji su preuzeli Bizantsko carstvo tojest Istocni Rim koji je pricao Grcki, koji je nastao jer je Rim oborio Grcku, t.j. Makedon i ostale manje Grcke drzavice (poslije Aleksandra). I to nisu Sjeverni Makedonci. Sama anticka grcka je inspirirana od Fenicana i Perzijskog carstva i Minoanske civilizacije na Kreti. Isto Vincani nisu Srbi samo su se nalazili na tom podrucju. Moras biti ogroman narcisist da si to umislis. Oni su postojali u jos drevnijem vremenu kad su Europljani vecinom bili u plemenima koji su i migrirali. U tom vremenu nije ni bilo slavena na Balkanu niti pismenih slavena. Nisi ni rekao da su Vinčani (moderni) srbi ali sam svejedno to dodao ako je to implikacija.
A great video! In the end you say that the slavic Balkans wasn't completely slavicised and that there were a lot of non-slavic speaking groups. This is very true. I know that in Croatia, the dalmatian cities were not fully slavicised until well after the middle ages, with the last speaker of the Dalmatian Romance language having died in 1898. In parallel, many speakers of eastern romance languages lived in the hills and became Vlachs and Morlachs, leading a transhumance pastoralist life. The actual Slavs initially mostly inhabited tha pannonian part of Croatia and the fertile parts of the coast, leaving the cities, the mountains and the smaller islands to the romance speakers. The romance languages later faced a double pressure to assimilate either into slavic speakers or into Venetian/Italian, which accelerated their disapparence.
Substantial remnants of Dalmatian Romance language survive in the dialects of the Dalmatian Islands today, many of which are uninteligable to most mainland Croatians. Some ethnic Italians from Istria & central Dalmatia slavicised their names during the course of the 20th century, my mothers family included.
wow you are the first person I've ever seen mention that part about one of the brothers taking his people to modern-day macedonia. very interesting to think about. Always assumed that the Bulgarian migration occurred after this time period when Bulgaria was more established and migrants started to move south.
One of the brothers settled in today's Italy, hence you have last names such as Bulgaro, Bulgari, Bulgarini, Bulgarelli, etc. and a town in central Italy called Bulgare.
sadly the video didn't go far enough for us to learn how bosnia came to be but still a lovely video about my people and our history!! And ofc i hope you make a part 2 of some sort , i would love that , the slavic history is rarely covered here on youtube
@Devil’s advocate oh God where do you people come up with this childish nonsense. He was crowned in Serbian monastery Mileševa, built by Serbian King Vladislav, at the relics of Saint Sava of Serbia. The point was not the part of the title which says "of Serbs", but the fact that there is no part which says "of Bosnians". You see, Serbia is a country that is named by the Serbian people. Bosnia is a region (today a country) named by the river, and Bosnians are named by it, like you would be named Texan if you are from Texas. So, when crowned, given the fact that he ruled over all of Bosnia and beyond, he would be the ruler of all Bosnian people, meaning that if there was a specific group of people who considered themselves as Bosnians in the ethnic sence, he would include them (probably at the first place), in his title. Also I had quoted here part of his letter in which he de facto states that he considers Bosnia as what would be called "Serbian lands". Moreover, there is not a single mention in the entire history, up until today, of Bosnian nation/ethnicity. For example "Dictionary of Bosnian language" from 17th century was written by the Turk, had only Arabic words significant for Islam, and in the introduction stated it is written (remember in Bosnia for Bosnian slavic population) for SERBS converting to Islam. But given the fact that the burden of proof should be on those making an assertion, please I can't wait for the laughs of you trying to prove your nonesensical claim.
@Goran Vukšathat’s not true. Tvrtko was crowned in Bosnia. He took a title of “king of Serbs” because of his family connection. That’s nothing unusual… Germanic kings ruled over Russia, French ruled over English… etc.
@Goran Vukša Typical Serb propagandist making stuff up, disgusting. He literally was the first king of Bosnia and claimed himself as such. Nobody is denying he had distant Serbian heritage, but he considered himself Bosnian first. He had to literally be convinced to push the claim for the Serbian crown and, like I said, that was only after the Serbian lands fell into disunity. Keep coping, Bosnia will never be Serbian. Don't bother replying to me, I'm blocking you like I do with all Chetniks.
@biggie_boss That's absolute gibberish, to be honest. Tvrtko was Ban of Bosina, his first title of the King was that of Serbs, he was crowned in Serbian monastery at the grave of Saint Sava, with the Nemanjić dynasty crown (you can't get more Serbian than that). Medieval lords and rulers were always calling themselves by the regions they've been ruling over. Small example outside of Serbs, Garibald I was known as "King of Bavaria", no one would question the fact that he was German when it comes to his ethnicity, and this was all the way back in the 6th century. Or later, Louis the Younger was also King of Bavaria, yet he was the son of Louis the German. Serbian Tzar Dušan the Mighty was "Macedonian Tzar", the founder of Nemanjić dynasty was Grand Duke of Zeta, his son was King of Raška. Yet all three were Serbs, even the central figures of Serbian history. You must take the wider context, which includes the fact that Tvrtko himself calls him the King of Serbs, never the King of Bosnians (people) only Bosnia (region), which would be impossible if he had ruled over people who view themselves as ethnical Bosnians, and that he undoubtedly considered Bosina as part of the Serbian lands, as I have given the example. Also, when talking about history, you must take everything in the context of that historical time period, and not confuse modern nation-states and political nations with the medieval societal organizations and ethnicities.
@Goran Vukša Good job destroying your own argument. Tvrtko didn't take the title of King of Serbia until after the Serbian principalities were collapsing. His primary title he held was King of Bosnia. "A Serbian logothete named Blagoje, having found refuge at Tvrtko's court, attributed to Tvrtko the right to a "double crown": one for Bosnia, which his family had ruled since its foundation, and the other for the Serbian lands of his Nemanjić ancestors, who had "left the earthly realm for the heavenly kingdom". ". Furthermore, Bosnian as a nationality existed well before Tvrtko. Look up the Charter of Ban Kulin where he calls himself a Bosnian, not a Serbian. Stop trying to diminish our heritage. Bosnians are Bosnians and it has nothing to do with religion.
Thanks for a great overview! Some details I've pick up for myself over the years I can share for expanded context around what constituted the First Bulgarian state: - The tribe that gave us our Bulgarian name(or at least a tribe by that name) is mentioned in Chinese sources a heck of a long ago in BC times already; that tribe arrived in the moder-ish day lands of Bulgaria with around as little as 100 000 people, 10 000 of them as a cavalry-dominant khan’s army - They integrated with a local populace of ~2-2.5 million people, mostly Slavic tribes but also substantial numbers (maybe up to 40%) are still Thracian tribes and romanized urban populations - It is not exactly clear if that integration was by force or by synergy - Slavic tribes were a predominantly infantry-centered force, and vastly outnumbered the Bulgarians, yet the Bulgarian clans held the succession of titles - Converting to Christianity was a way to both centralize power and unite the populace. The son of Boris when he took over power reverted the change, so old Boris had to step away from the monastery, grab his sword, and have a counter-revolution ending with the blinding of his son.
Thank you for this video! It provides the context for some of the things you mentioned in your western slavic history video while explaining southern slavic settlement in a straightforward way. I look forward to your eastern slavs video!
These are the places I'm most curious about and would most like to visit - along with Anatolia and the -stan countries. They're fascinating to me since they're kind of like border areas between multiple cultures - at least historically.
Good representation of Slovenia. Even Slovenes rarely know of the fact that we have common roots with Czechs and Slovaks. Even though we no longer share national or cultural border, we still have more in common that with our southern neighbours.
I really like your videos, everything is presented very clearly and reasonably. I can see the huge ammount of work you put into this. Keep up the great work. Pozdrowienia z Polski! :)
13:48 The reason for the invention of Cyrillic script may not have been the fact that Glagolitic script was not suitable for Old Bulgarian / Old Church Slavonic, since both Glagolitic and Cyrillic script had had pretty much the same letters (for comparison visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_script#Characteristics ), including the Slavic letters such as "Yat". Perhaps the reason was more the fact that Glagolitic script is more difficult to learn / teach / read. That's not to say that Glagolitic script is worse (but it is more difficult). It is arguably one of the most beautiful scripts, similar to the current Georgian script, and also, a lot of the letters that sound the same, e.g. "G" and "H", also have similar looking letters (Ⰳ and Ⱈ), which is not the case in, for example Latin alphabet.
I love your animation skills. And I love the use of very detailed map, very very detailed map with detail rivers and mountain heights showed in colours; with such map you can see different layers of history.
I live in Istria the most western part, my hometown was founded by the romans and remained roman until the 9th centuary. There is a very important document called the Risana Placit (Rižanski Placit or Placito di Risana) from 814th that regards slavic imigrations and problem with the new frankish rule, the towns and cities that are complaining are still very much latin. Another thing, we still speak a dialect that is officially croatian, but it could easily pas as a Slovenian dialect, as we have many words from old slavic..
Small corection - Boris the First died in 907 not in 887. I see why you may have been cnofused since he abdicated the throne to his firstborn and the thirdborn son (hella of a infighting)
Thanks for not only painting these maps, but also mentioning what information sources we have, and which we dont have. Also, using the geographic map as underlying base is a very good idea!
Thank you for your effort to picture one of the most dynamic areas in the Medieval Europe. Still the origins of the bulgarian ethnic people was under a discussion in science, but there were two independent scientific researches that tried to test all the possible variations. They used bones and teeth for this task. Scientists were barely able to isolate the thracian genome back in 2012 and finally reached to the conclusions that the bulgarians/proto-bulgarians/ have nothing common with turkic / altay ethnic groups. /With all due respect to this culture/. The bulgarian genome is mostly closer to the people from Croatia and Slovakia today. Although I do not accept that we are slavic people, still it is very difficult to state how common we have with the slavs genetically, because slavs tribes used to burn the dead and left no remains and necropolises.
It is said that croatians are the most slavic people in the balkans, with 65% slavic lineage, the servs are only 50% , what about bulgarians or westbulgarians ?
Amazingly well-researched, and I love the graphics! It filled in a lot of gaps that the History of Byzantium, just by virtue of its mission statement, didn't have time to fill in.
Great video. With so much information, I know that it is impossible to mention everything. I do have a couple of small details that were not mentioned as it pertains to Croats settling the area. The first being that there was some kind of treaty or offer of settlement (contingent on Christianizing) from either Rome or Byzantium extended to Croats to settle the region after it was largely vacated due to raids and economic ruin. For the life of me, I can't recall the name of the document or where it can be found. A similar situation may have occurred with Serbs, given that they entered the area around the same and managed to unify the Slavs who were there before them. The other thing I would mention was that the Croatian Kingdom allied with Byzantium during one of their wars with the Bulgarian empire. As such, they were rewarded with Southern Dalmatia, which demographically, had already become largely Slavic any way. The Adriatic coast remained largely Slavic demographically until later Venetian colonization which brought back some Latin populations.
Its pretty funny, Cyril and Method created Hlaholika for the Western slavs, then Svatopluk started leaning towards Frankia and they instead started using latin so Cyril and Method turned to another slavic country and gave them the alphabet lol
@Frosty maybe because your “country” started existing 5 years ago and has been historically always a part of bulgaria yet now you are descendants of alexander from thousnads of years ago
Thank you so much for your work in putting these videos together.... I have learned a great deal and look forward to more of your videos Again thank you
by accident I found ur channel, with the very first video, you won a subscriber. the way u showed the information is remarkable - very distinctly and accurate, subaltern on facts, no sci-fi, straight on the point.
Pretty good video! Must've taken an eternity to research. The Balkans is a rough historical vacuum to cover, well done! Way better than most other videos about the subject. I just have one genuine question; I keep seeing this everywhere, but nobody seems to know what the actual evidence is apart from invoking a nationalist historian: What is the evidence that there were any Serbs west of the Drina river and any Croats east of the Una river before 897 CE, or that either of the two countries had borders inside of Bosnia? (I mean archaeological or written evidence, or something concrete, or at least circumstantial, deductive and identifiable) From what I know, there is archaeological evidence for an unknown culture with strange huts with an unidentified architecture in the vicinity of Sarajevo (found by Irma Cremosnik in the 1970's), dated back to around 551 CE, and is thought to be the wave of Slavs that Procopius wrote about arriving to Dalmatia in the spring of 551 CE. And during the synods of Salona in 530 & 535 CE, the region between today's Tomislavgrad up to the Sava river and east to the Drina river (judging by the borders of Dalmatia and the surrounding bishoprics' locations) was named "Bestoensis" which was under the supervision of Andreas the bishop, whose supervisor was the archbishop of Salona called Honorius. There's also mention of a small part of the Herules crossing the Danube and entering into Dalmatia before that, and an Illyrian governor from "Gratiana"(Gradiska on the Sava river) warning Amalasuntha about invading "his city" Gratiana. So there were non-Croat, non-Serb Slavs, Illyrians, some Herules and probably descendants of retired Roman soldiers there in 551 CE. Anonymus Ravennatis wrote around 700 CE that there are different countries in the middle of Dalmatia. But between then and the mention of Pribina of Nitra fleeing from the Franks to Ratimir across the Sava river in 838 CE, there's no mention of any rivers, landmarks, cities or such inside of the whole of Bosnia. And then Anastasius Bibliothecarius designated Bosnia as an independent country in 876 CE (Tibor Zivkovic, De Conversione Croatorum Et Serborum, 2012). Then Steven Runciman found some evidence that Petar Gojnikovic invaded and conquered Bosnia around 900 CE but was unable to conquer Zachumlia, John V.A. Fine thinks it was in 897 CE (Magyars destroyed Slavonia in 895 CE), and in 950 CE the De Administrando Imperio is written, Porphyrogenitus copies the terms from Anastasius when he writes about Bosnia as a "country within a country" and doesn't list its two ecumenical centers Desnik and Katera as just another 2 centers belonging to the Serbian state, and then some time after Porphyrgenitus' death, around 960 CE Caslav is drowned in the Sava or Drina by the Magyars, and Bosnia is independent again up until 968 CE when they lose the Battle of Vrbas against the Croats and that's the first time I know of Croatia having Bosnia as part of its territory. (Osman Karatay, 2003, "In Search of the Lost Tribe: The Origins and Making of the Croatian Nation") So between 551-897 CE, how do we know that Serbia and Croatia had any land at all inside of Bosnia, let alone reaching that far inside? Judging by the circumstantial evidence, it seems like the Hungarian destruction of Lower Pannonia / Slavonia made it easy for Serbia to conquer Bosnia, which implies that Bosnia might have been part of Lower Pannonia up until 897 CE rather than Serbia and/or Croatia. Especially since Braslav was the last duke of Lower Pannonia, and he disappears in 896 CE. The Slavs of Lower Pannonia have craniometrically different skulls than contemporary Croat craniums (Hrvoje Gracanin, 2008), they also seem to have been pagan from what I could gather, which coincides with the story of Theophanes Continuatus that many Slavs in the region left Christianity in reaction to Frankish oppression, and there are inscriptions of Frankish missionaries from the 9th century in a church or monastery near the spring of the Bosna river. Also, I don't know of any evidence that the Serbs and Croats were present in the Balkans before 750 CE when there is archaeological evidence near Zlatibor in Serbia and in Croatia there's the font of Viseslav and such from that time. But they're not mentioned anywhere as being in the Balkans until 822 CE (The Royal Frankish Annals / Annales Regni Francorum). There are some letters from the pope to an Aquilean or Istrian governor, worrying about the advances of Slavs into Aquilea and their possible entrance into Italy, but they're still not mentioned by name, and nothing really seems to imply that they're Serbs or Croats.
AHH FINALLY THE DAY HAS COME,I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH THIS. EDIT : I love you,it was worth waiting more then half a year for this video,and you managed to stay perfectly unbiased.Seriously you deserve a fucking medal for this video.
The Iranian influence is visible in some of the names mentioned in this video. Asparukh sounds very Iranian, even Persian as even today asb means horse and rukh could eigher mean face or some sort of miss-pronounciashion of rakhsh which means "lightning or spark", considering that the Bulgar's were nomadic people we can assume that horses played a HUGE role in their society so naming your child after horses would be reasonable. Like "man with a horse as bright as lightning". Also Avars, Avare in modern Persian means "homeless immigrant" like war immigrants or immigrants who's entire city got destroyed by an earthquake, considering that they were nomads it would be reasonable to assume that avare was a pejorarive term used by persians to call them and then the romans also called them by the Persian name and the name stuck, also them signing an alliance with Persia vs Rome could possibly mean that they were somehow related and were aware of that. Everything i have said is just speculation.
I think I heard that when slavs were still in their original place a Persian tribe (or just from iran, I'm not sure) migrated to where the slavs were and that's the reason slavs pull a resemblance to iranians and have similar words
Dude, I have studied Bulgarian history quite extensively and I still learned new things about our own history, really impressive! Great overview of the region's history, gives great perspective and I love the animations - thank you for the great work!
The language called "Serbo-Croatian" didn't exist until the 19. century when Croats and Serbs under the banner of pan-slavism created a standard language based on the Eastern Herzegovian and Dubrovnik dialects for their future Yugoslav state. I would argue that modern standard versions of Serbian and Croatian are how each country now calls that language (also sometimes called Bosnian or Montenegrin in their respective countries). First written documents of Croatian in the littoral part (Dalmatia) are based on what's today called The Chakavian Dialects which can be mostly unintelligible with normal Serbo-Croatian, same with it's cousin group Kajkavian in Pannonian Croatia which is the closest dialect group to Slovenian and even shares some underlying similarities with Slovak due to it's proximity and late magyarisation of West Pannonian Slavs which probably formed one of the last bridges between West and South Slavs. These two Croatian dialect groups covered a much wider area of early Croatia if not almost it's entirety. Just like it was mentioned in the video, there was a Slavic dialect continuum from Carinthia to Thrace. In the later medieval period as Slavic languages (or dialects) solidified the further you went from one Slavic settlement to another the harder it was for the two to understand each other. Although after that the natural continuum was broken by the Ottoman expansions which forced a lot of southern groups northwards.
It is really interesting how in this region for every bigger war fighting ditches were dug not anywhere else but directly almost always on historical sites. Vučedol was completely dug in war. And he was almost like the Paris of the Neolithic.
Looks great! Look forward to the last of the series. are you going to make them a play list? Suggestion - why not do the origins of the norse-germanic, ie the Goths and Vandals and Gepids ending with the Lombards - an show how they moved in the migration period? You might even intertwine the Wends with them.
Good job on the research. As a Bulgarian that is studying currently advanced History of the Balkans I can confirm that most of this is correct keep up the good work.
@Affentaktik But we do have accounts of Catholic and Byzantine writers who had been in contact with the brothers and had also taught many students. They would have been there 40 days according to most online info. After that they remained in the country for another 6 mounths due to knqz Kotel.
@DIAN I cannot say for sure since I haven't looked that much into it. But most dynastic clues will lead to Kubrat who was partially turkik in decent. Unfortunately the Bulgars were nomadic trybes that moved across several lands, but they do have traits like pony tails and horse riding much like the later Mongol tribes.
I'm a Serb and i can say that video is really great (and amazing that it didn't trigger neither Serbs nor Croats because those videos usually do). Just one big inaccuracy that i have to point out: Balkans weren't exactly empty. You make it look like Slavs 100% populated the area which is absolutely not the truth. Southern Slavs are the ''least Slavic'' in ethnic way, we are essentially a mix of Slavs on one side and locals on the other - main haplogroup among Serbs and Croats is the one that originated from here (''Dinaric''), with the second one being a ''Slavic'' haplogroup (the one tied to Poland and West Ukraine mostly). That's why we are a bit darker and physically different from other Slavs (we are taller, have brown hair, stronger chins, essentially we are a ''Dinaric type'' that always was living here, no matter the conquests, Slavic or other). Contrary to popular opinion, we have NO Turkish blood in us, since there is no haplogroup in our genes tied to Turks - we are dark because the original population (Illyrians, Thracians, Romans) were also darker mediteranean types. Culturally of course, we are Slavic.
Yeah, I full-on expected a Croats vs. Serbs fight in the comments but nothing came out of it for once. Though I don't 100% agree with what you said, firstly, "dinaric" is also slavic and while it is true that we have somewhat mixed with the then local population, the darker hair and eyes might simply be a result of the climate in the balkans, which is way warmer and more arid than in the rest of the slavic lands. Centuries of exposure to a specific climate and nature will change the overall appearance, habits and body composition of people, which is why north Croats and Serbs are much lighter compared to, say, a Croat from southern Dalmatia or a Serb from Niš.
One must not forget that many Illyrians or ancestors of the Albanians were assimilated during the Slavic invasion of the Balkans, hence the Dinaric type, tall and stronger chins. But in my opinion Slovenes, Croats and Bosnians look more like Slavs and Bulgarians and Serbs more like Turks.
I guess i stand out because i have blonde hair blue eyes and im light skinned what am i half viking half slav then??. Im Serbian btw so explain how im opposite of what you described we are?.
Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro make me think a bit of the Catholic and Protestant Irish. ~Look, we're the same people, our ancestors decided that this tiny difference between us was a reason for us kill each other, so we kept on disliking each other because we've harmed each other in the past.
Probably we are not the same people and we have never disliked each other through out the whole history just up until recently, Germanic people are much wilder and aggressive but they were on the right side of the history so because of their interest and interests of the other major powers it was convenient to stick that label of primitive tribes fighting each other to the Balkan people although that couldn't be far away from the truth
Awesome video, though i'm of the Danau Swab decent i do carry one line of serbian lineage and my family prior to the US lived in the balkans for several hundred years. Great video thoroughly enjoyed this one!
@LeckyBoy Maybe that's because my grand grandfather is from Stip, and my other grand grand father is from Drama region in Greece, which is also Macedonia. And that applies to at least 1/3 of Bulgarian people, because we had close to 1 million refugees after the Balkan Wars and First World War from Aegean and Vardar Macedonia. At that time Bulgaria was less than 4 million. And that is one thing that was hidden for you for many years. Among many other things.
It wasn´t Samo´s kingdom/ empire but more like Samo´s tribal federation. This is a common mistake and I really ejoy your content, continue with making more.
Slovene historiography's position is that Samo's kingdom was indeed a tribal federation of Slavic 'princedoms'. I suppose we'll never know the exact title he held among the Slavs and the nature of his position, but since Samo was a Frank himself, it's not wrong to assume he styled himself king in the Frankish way, but then again, was probably one only in name. Thanks for a great video, you have my sub!
You are walking encyclopedia of history, I realy admire the way explain the history, it shall become part of general education of my country. Like, share. If you want financial support i will glad to aid your work
Also you forgot to mention Croatian-Bulgarian Wars in which Croatia gained a lot and Raška(aka Serbia) became Byzantine vasal. Byzantine empire sent gifts and land consessions to Croatian Kingdom (Byzantines gave islands in Dalmatia, scepter and a crown to Croat king).
Check Bavaria the only name in Europe that has as a root the word Avar. I know the helens say that Albanians are of avarian origin ,and is true that in albania the last name avari exist but that should not confuse us, the name alba, or arvani or arber cannot arrive from the root avar.
Great video, the gradual transformation of the balkans culture and ethnics, mix with the political struggles of that age are visually brilliant. The question that comes in my mind is : how the albanians survived this mess ? I imagine something verry similar, were ilyrians, traces, Daces, and germans mix and migrated to the south, were they mix with local romanised illyrians, that prossus toke place between the 5th to 11th centery I imagine. I would like your take on that. Thanks for the great content ! ^^
@Eds m There is no Dacian substratum, and the Albanian language doesn't consist of Latin either. Albanian is a fully independent language, most likely the result of a partially Romanized Illyrian dialect in Moesia superior, and a large number of Latin loans has little to do with the 'formation' of a language going back to Indo-European itself. The Dacian theory is mostly rejected, since Albanian is grammatically distinct from Thracian, to which Dacian belongs. The idea that Albanian words in Romanian would make Albanians 'Dacians' originally doesn't work, as the Albanian-Romanian contact happened in Kosovo and South Serbia, not in former Dacian regions.
@San Jalig The dorian part of the language has vocabulary of trading items which probably came into proto albanian by an intermidiate. I dont think proto albanians had direct contact with greeks as the language would have been much more influenced by it if that be the case. They either sat at the Jireck line or farther north of it. There is shared Dacian substratum in albanian and romanian (I think 60-80 words in albanian and 120-150 in romanian approx) which indicates a form of contact. I've read that Moesians spoke an intermidiate language between Thracian and Dacian sometimes reffered to by linguists as "Daco-Mysian". The Thracians have been conquered by the Dacians in the past (see King Burebista) so that would also support Moesia as an origin. About the latin, I know that the albanian latin has very early Christian vocabulary, and is a mix of the latin spoken in dalmatia and eastern romance. Albanian has also some Germanic loanwords. To give some historical perspective, Moesia didn't have any large settlements. When romans came they found only big villages with some 100 people max. Moesia became part of the Limes during barbarian raids and was heavily struck by war. It is normal to think that a native population would flee because of its geostrategical positioning. There are toponyms in balcans which follow albanian phonetic shifts, like Nish (Naissus), Shkupi (Scupi; modern Skopje). I think this is enough indication to at least give the Moesian theory some credit. I maybe don't know much about Illyrian or am biased, but the Illyrian theory doesnt ring many bells for me. I thank you sir, because this is a very interesting topic but sadly it is very difficult to discuss in an unbiased matter because of the modern political landscape.
@Eds m It's unfortunate that these people didn't write much. I like taking an detective aproche, moesia is a good clue. The other clues that are suggested from the albanian language is that you have 2 types of Latin influences, one of the Republic era. Which indicates the west and then a later influence of the empire era. The dorian part of the language indicates the south. So my supposition is that the modern albanian language formed some were in south West moesia. That the other moesians in the north and the plains around the danub mixed and integrated themselves with the slaves. It explains also why albanians have such an unique mountainous vocabulary, slaves mostly took the plains. But I don't understand why you mention the dacians, they are situated in the north on the otherside of the Danube, Moesia is the place of the dardans in intersection between the illyrians and the tracians. Dacians were not touched by the influance of the Republic era but later. And then they were crushed and assimilated to the goths and the huns. It doesn't make much sense to me. Albanians seems to be some kind of retrogenesis of an older tongue, less latinised, who manages to influence some kind of latinised sister language in the south and delatinses it in the middle ages. It explains the two different dialect and why their split is older than the slavic invasion. It all points out to the south west balkan alps. I'm just talking of language here of cours, these groupe of people certainly mixed with the different invaders. Nevertheless, the mountain top preserved the language long enough to not become entirely latinised so that they could, when the time was right, "re-semi-albanise" theire romanised sister language on the coasts and plains in the south. It explains also why they spread so fast through the south in the middle ages. With this in mind, it makes more sense that they were some kind of "post-dardanians" than dacians. Thanks for your comment, you made me think of lots of things. Good night.
It is impossible to say because the thracians, illyrians and other early balcanites had no writing so we can't compare anything. But giving that the albanian language is mostly compromised of latin and has a dacian substratum as well as dorian greek words compromising trading goods, and given the toponyms in balcans, it is theorised that the albanian language formed before or during the slavic migration in Moesia Superior.
1st gen American.of CZ& Hungarian heritage ..love this stuff ..ever single one i see i pass on to kids n grands ..so much was lost from WW1&2 that without folks like you would never be able to sort thru all the B.S.
I wonder, how can the Greek have so much lands but so little Population? I would decree minimum of 3 children per family so Greek populate would expand and settle the frontiers with Greeks.
Fantastic video mate! Can you please send a link for the map image you used for this video, I see it is very high quality and depicts all the topography correctly.
Good video but a lot of the facts are not taken in the consideration. There is a lot of resources that Bysantine actually used Slavs as keepers of their borders.
The big picture I gathered from this video is: The Byzantines clashed with the invading Avars and the main beneficiaries turned out to be the other invading group, the Slavs. It almost sounds like a leaderless mass was given a free pass into Byzantine territory without any battle.
Pretty much accurate. I must admit . and in accord of latest historical researching of that. Only ....it will add more light on history of this region if you mentioned first Croatian King Tomislav who was very successful ruler and warrior and won several battles against Magjars and Bulgars,
Great video!!!! As a suggestion, for non native English speakers (such as myself) you could probably speak a little slower. Some words I had trouble understanding
Před pár dny jsem objevil tvůj kanál a zamiloval jsem si ho. V jednom videu máš obrovské množství informací. Anglicky umím relativně dobře, ale tak velké množství informací by se mi lépe vstřebávalo v tvém rodném jazyce. Mám rád historii a miluju mapy, takže takže tvůj kanál je přesně pro mě.
I'll translate it for you: I discovered your channel a couple of days ago and I love it. You have lots of information in just one video. I speak English relatively well, but I could digest this huge amount of information better in my mother tongue. I love history, including maps and your channel is great for me.
Great video man. Really thorough! Your effort really shows.
This was the best explanation of how the Balkans became Slavic that I have encountered. Much better than the many books I have read on the subject and superman myths. Awesome.
Hahahah
Sheit history of Balkans is like 1000 seasons of game of thrones
*of Europe
Keep in mind that this is just early south Slav history, this doesn't mention anything about ancient Greece, the Ottoman empire and ofc the Balkan wars. Also the Byzantine empire is briefly mentioned ofc because the point of this video is the Slavs not the Greeks.
bruh, you have no idea :D
Wow, never heard that Bulgarian people lived originally in other side of the sea which is called "Great Bulgaria".
Really interesting video!
@Aleksandar be together not the same mongolian ? did you buy ur history class in the chinese market ? trolls everywhere
@WindWaker1985 bulgarian are asparux mongolian
wait untin you found out for Volga Bulgaria there were 2 country with "Bulgaria " name 1 at danube and 1 at volga
Why you don't tell anything about bulgarian-franks war, and that in 10th century Bulgarians conquer Serbs for about 150 years?
Your maps are not exact
Actually, the origins of the Bulgars are largely unknown. There are sources from Armenian writers telling us Old Bulgarians inhabited the Caucasuses for a period of time and that they had great stoneworking abilities and built stone houses when they migrated to the area. Because of all the evidence there is a newer theory regarding the origins of the Proto-Bulgarians, that states they are from Iranian descent and the Turkic elements we see in their culture were picked up later on, as many Turkic tribes migrated from Asia into the lands inhabited by the Old Bulgarians and vise versa.
from river volga i think
@M. Laser History That's the case with all theories about Proto-Bulgarian history of origin, sadly. We just don't have the evidence to make some kind of a solid conclusion.
Could be, but I think more research has to be done in to that as the current facts do present a valid argument but not necessarily a closed case.
Holy crap. Never even knew the story of the Bulgars and Bulgaria was so interesting. Amazing video. Regards from Lithuania!
@Aleksandar be together not the same Къде отиде буквата "Ъ, ъ", смешнико?
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Защо в кирилицата има буква "Ъ, ъ", а в "македонската" кирилица няма?
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@Aleksandar be together not the same "Makedonian History"? 😂😂😂 I am from Plovdiv. You are nowhere near where the Macedonia of Philip was. 😃 Get a map! Also "Macedonia" wasn't a country, it was Philip's corporation. He was recruiting Thracian for his mercenary army. No such thing as "Macedonians" in Plovdiv, he recruited Tracians. You are so ignorant, it is our national tragedy to have people like you.
@Julian Petkov саѓо да крадете знаете затоа ништо и немате бугарска историја мајка ти га продаваш за две црвени 😂😂😂😂😂😂
@Julian Petkov bulgaria only know to steal thats why you don't hage nothing 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@Julian Petkov there no bulgarian you are asparux tribe
Correction about Boris 1 of Bulgaria - He didn't die in 889. He abdicated that year to his firstborn son - Vladimir Rasate, who, in turn, got taken down after trying to bring back paganism. In 893 Boris called a concil with which was decided that Boris's third son Simeon would take the throne.
Also the map of the ninth century is incorrect on the Serbo-Bulgarian border
I wonder if our ancestors also wore Adidas tracksuits?
@some channel finally someone with mind and reason, I'm totally with you mate, Slavs must unite
Very nice 😂😂😂
@Timax every slavs are russians 🗿every Russian is Slav. Don’t argue just unite Slavs into ussr 2.0 and let’s finally become great inter galactic empire again
Bla blaa bla
@Filip Mac nice name
The main reason why Bulgaria was so successful is because Asparuh convinced local Slavs to join him in the battle against the Byzantines. When they won he founded Bulgaria as a country of both Bulgars and Slavs together. Bulgar nobility ruled exclusively for a few generations initially but regarded both peoples equally and they soon merged into one culture.
The early rulers practiced genuine nation building in a style reminiscent of Thracian nobility. Thracian scripts may have also been a basis for the Cyrillic script.
Ah that lovely balkan.... The place full of peace and fights, what to say, arguing is in our blood.
Slovenia is one of the most peaceful nations in the world, so it doesn't have to be this way.
U serious
That was when there were wars about a decade ago
@19 98 LOL. Dude u never existed.
Let's fight Croat! 😄
🖤🇦🇱AUTOCHTONOUS SHQIPTARIA🇦🇱🖤
One thing that I always think is important to mention about ancient settlements in the Balkans is that we have to remember that they didn't have access to the New World vegetables like potatoes which are better suited for mountainous areas.
Good presentation. South Slavic history is complicated because of how many people move into and around the area and how political the history is today.
Its funny how the world, especially "the West" only talks about frankish, english, and sometimes germanic history. And they only make TV shows, and movies about those nations/cultures. But in the balkans(and in general in every slavic country) you could find so many interesting, historicaly accurate topics that you could make an epic movie or a tv show. Just take the croatian-serbian history(i'm not talking about the 20th cenutry, but early history) there are so many interesting events, and stories.
@Atis Nicholson neither linear A, nor linear B is related to phoenician script. Like, at all. Hellenics start using it after centuries of no writings.
@The Proof I agree
Брат смотря о ком мы говорим когда используем "Запад". Обычным обывателям да всё равно на всех кроме себя, но разве так не везде?
А что касается людей образованных, то там много специалистов по востоку или славянам в частности.
@Srdjan Basaric to je moderna Grcka republika, ne Grcka kultura. To je poslije nego sto su dobili neovisnost od Osmana, koji su preuzeli Bizantsko carstvo tojest Istocni Rim koji je pricao Grcki, koji je nastao jer je Rim oborio Grcku, t.j. Makedon i ostale manje Grcke drzavice (poslije Aleksandra). I to nisu Sjeverni Makedonci. Sama anticka grcka je inspirirana od Fenicana i Perzijskog carstva i Minoanske civilizacije na Kreti.
Isto Vincani nisu Srbi samo su se nalazili na tom podrucju. Moras biti ogroman narcisist da si to umislis. Oni su postojali u jos drevnijem vremenu kad su Europljani vecinom bili u plemenima koji su i migrirali. U tom vremenu nije ni bilo slavena na Balkanu niti pismenih slavena.
Nisi ni rekao da su Vinčani (moderni) srbi ali sam svejedno to dodao ako je to implikacija.
@M VP Greeks?
A great video! In the end you say that the slavic Balkans wasn't completely slavicised and that there were a lot of non-slavic speaking groups. This is very true. I know that in Croatia, the dalmatian cities were not fully slavicised until well after the middle ages, with the last speaker of the Dalmatian Romance language having died in 1898. In parallel, many speakers of eastern romance languages lived in the hills and became Vlachs and Morlachs, leading a transhumance pastoralist life. The actual Slavs initially mostly inhabited tha pannonian part of Croatia and the fertile parts of the coast, leaving the cities, the mountains and the smaller islands to the romance speakers. The romance languages later faced a double pressure to assimilate either into slavic speakers or into Venetian/Italian, which accelerated their disapparence.
Substantial remnants of Dalmatian Romance language survive in the dialects of the Dalmatian Islands today, many of which are uninteligable to most mainland Croatians. Some ethnic Italians from Istria & central Dalmatia slavicised their names during the course of the 20th century, my mothers family included.
Many were also ETHNICALLY CLEANSED to Italy by the USTASHA.
I am really disappointed that Delmat language is dead. It looks like a pretty language
A great Comment!
wow you are the first person I've ever seen mention that part about one of the brothers taking his people to modern-day macedonia. very interesting to think about. Always assumed that the Bulgarian migration occurred after this time period when Bulgaria was more established and migrants started to move south.
@Xforex thanks for your comment xD
Yeah and macedonians still claim to be descendants of alexander
One of the brothers settled in today's Italy, hence you have last names such as Bulgaro, Bulgari, Bulgarini, Bulgarelli, etc. and a town in central Italy called Bulgare.
Where did Asparukh's portrait come from, only Byzantine miniatures have been preserved, no one knows how he looked.
sadly the video didn't go far enough for us to learn how bosnia came to be but still a lovely video about my people and our history!! And ofc i hope you make a part 2 of some sort , i would love that , the slavic history is rarely covered here on youtube
@Devil’s advocate oh God where do you people come up with this childish nonsense.
He was crowned in Serbian monastery Mileševa, built by Serbian King Vladislav, at the relics of Saint Sava of Serbia.
The point was not the part of the title which says "of Serbs", but the fact that there is no part which says "of Bosnians". You see, Serbia is a country that is named by the Serbian people. Bosnia is a region (today a country) named by the river, and Bosnians are named by it, like you would be named Texan if you are from Texas. So, when crowned, given the fact that he ruled over all of Bosnia and beyond, he would be the ruler of all Bosnian people, meaning that if there was a specific group of people who considered themselves as Bosnians in the ethnic sence, he would include them (probably at the first place), in his title. Also I had quoted here part of his letter in which he de facto states that he considers Bosnia as what would be called "Serbian lands".
Moreover, there is not a single mention in the entire history, up until today, of Bosnian nation/ethnicity. For example "Dictionary of Bosnian language" from 17th century was written by the Turk, had only Arabic words significant for Islam, and in the introduction stated it is written (remember in Bosnia for Bosnian slavic population) for SERBS converting to Islam.
But given the fact that the burden of proof should be on those making an assertion, please I can't wait for the laughs of you trying to prove your nonesensical claim.
@Goran Vukšathat’s not true. Tvrtko was crowned in Bosnia. He took a title of “king of Serbs” because of his family connection. That’s nothing unusual… Germanic kings ruled over Russia, French ruled over English… etc.
@Goran Vukša Typical Serb propagandist making stuff up, disgusting. He literally was the first king of Bosnia and claimed himself as such. Nobody is denying he had distant Serbian heritage, but he considered himself Bosnian first. He had to literally be convinced to push the claim for the Serbian crown and, like I said, that was only after the Serbian lands fell into disunity. Keep coping, Bosnia will never be Serbian. Don't bother replying to me, I'm blocking you like I do with all Chetniks.
@biggie_boss That's absolute gibberish, to be honest. Tvrtko was Ban of Bosina, his first title of the King was that of Serbs, he was crowned in Serbian monastery at the grave of Saint Sava, with the Nemanjić dynasty crown (you can't get more Serbian than that).
Medieval lords and rulers were always calling themselves by the regions they've been ruling over. Small example outside of Serbs, Garibald I was known as "King of Bavaria", no one would question the fact that he was German when it comes to his ethnicity, and this was all the way back in the 6th century. Or later, Louis the Younger was also King of Bavaria, yet he was the son of Louis the German. Serbian Tzar Dušan the Mighty was "Macedonian Tzar", the founder of Nemanjić dynasty was Grand Duke of Zeta, his son was King of Raška. Yet all three were Serbs, even the central figures of Serbian history.
You must take the wider context, which includes the fact that Tvrtko himself calls him the King of Serbs, never the King of Bosnians (people) only Bosnia (region), which would be impossible if he had ruled over people who view themselves as ethnical Bosnians, and that he undoubtedly considered Bosina as part of the Serbian lands, as I have given the example. Also, when talking about history, you must take everything in the context of that historical time period, and not confuse modern nation-states and political nations with the medieval societal organizations and ethnicities.
@Goran Vukša Good job destroying your own argument. Tvrtko didn't take the title of King of Serbia until after the Serbian principalities were collapsing. His primary title he held was King of Bosnia. "A Serbian logothete named Blagoje, having found refuge at Tvrtko's court, attributed to Tvrtko the right to a "double crown": one for Bosnia, which his family had ruled since its foundation, and the other for the Serbian lands of his Nemanjić ancestors, who had "left the earthly realm for the heavenly kingdom". ". Furthermore, Bosnian as a nationality existed well before Tvrtko. Look up the Charter of Ban Kulin where he calls himself a Bosnian, not a Serbian. Stop trying to diminish our heritage. Bosnians are Bosnians and it has nothing to do with religion.
Thanks for a great overview!
Some details I've pick up for myself over the years I can share for expanded context around what constituted the First Bulgarian state:
- The tribe that gave us our Bulgarian name(or at least a tribe by that name) is mentioned in Chinese sources a heck of a long ago in BC times already; that tribe arrived in the moder-ish day lands of Bulgaria with around as little as 100 000 people, 10 000 of them as a cavalry-dominant khan’s army
- They integrated with a local populace of ~2-2.5 million people, mostly Slavic tribes but also substantial numbers (maybe up to 40%) are still Thracian tribes and romanized urban populations
- It is not exactly clear if that integration was by force or by synergy - Slavic tribes were a predominantly infantry-centered force, and vastly outnumbered the Bulgarians, yet the Bulgarian clans held the succession of titles
- Converting to Christianity was a way to both centralize power and unite the populace. The son of Boris when he took over power reverted the change, so old Boris had to step away from the monastery, grab his sword, and have a counter-revolution ending with the blinding of his son.
Thank you for this video! It provides the context for some of the things you mentioned in your western slavic history video while explaining southern slavic settlement in a straightforward way. I look forward to your eastern slavs video!
You have great videos! Very complicated topic with a lot of missing puzzle pieces, but explained in a very simple and understandable way
These are the places I'm most curious about and would most like to visit - along with Anatolia and the -stan countries. They're fascinating to me since they're kind of like border areas between multiple cultures - at least historically.
Greetings to Slavic brothers from Slovenia Serbia and Croatia. Pozdrowiena dla braci Słowian Słoweńców Serbów i Chorwatów !!!!
Slava Rodu
19
Hej, Sloveni!
👋🇷🇺
Pozdrav🇸🇮
6:34 "So the Balkans were in this constant flux of uncertain political control by various groups."
Huh, and they say history doesn't repeat itself.
Yep, especially when history is helped along the way by outside forces.
The difference between today and then was the fluxing within ethnic tribes of Europeans.
Where did you find that information
"History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes."
Said nobody ever
The actual saying is that history DOES repeat itself.
Good representation of Slovenia. Even Slovenes rarely know of the fact that we have common roots with Czechs and Slovaks. Even though we no longer share national or cultural border, we still have more in common that with our southern neighbours.
Many modern day South Slavs's ancestors came from Poland or Czech Republic
Anyway all slavs share a lot of common stuff
I really like your videos, everything is presented very clearly and reasonably. I can see the huge ammount of work you put into this. Keep up the great work. Pozdrowienia z Polski! :)
Thank you. Finding a good and unbiased video about the Balkans made by brothers usually goes south real fast.
13:48 The reason for the invention of Cyrillic script may not have been the fact that Glagolitic script was not suitable for Old Bulgarian / Old Church Slavonic, since both Glagolitic and Cyrillic script had had pretty much the same letters (for comparison visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_script#Characteristics ), including the Slavic letters such as "Yat". Perhaps the reason was more the fact that Glagolitic script is more difficult to learn / teach / read.
That's not to say that Glagolitic script is worse (but it is more difficult). It is arguably one of the most beautiful scripts, similar to the current Georgian script, and also, a lot of the letters that sound the same, e.g. "G" and "H", also have similar looking letters (Ⰳ and Ⱈ), which is not the case in, for example Latin alphabet.
I love your animation skills. And I love the use of very detailed map, very very detailed map with detail rivers and mountain heights showed in colours; with such map you can see different layers of history.
I live in Istria the most western part, my hometown was founded by the romans and remained roman until the 9th centuary. There is a very important document called the Risana Placit (Rižanski Placit or Placito di Risana) from 814th that regards slavic imigrations and problem with the new frankish rule, the towns and cities that are complaining are still very much latin. Another thing, we still speak a dialect that is officially croatian, but it could easily pas as a Slovenian dialect, as we have many words from old slavic..
Small corection - Boris the First died in 907 not in 887. I see why you may have been cnofused since he abdicated the throne to his firstborn and the thirdborn son (hella of a infighting)
Good stuff, would love a video more focused on Bulgaria
your video is great! You cover a period that was totally unknown by me, but actually it helps quite a bit to explain where we stand today. Thank you!
Honestly, that was the best video on this subject I have ever seen! Congratulations!
Thanks for not only painting these maps, but also mentioning what information sources we have, and which we dont have. Also, using the geographic map as underlying base is a very good idea!
Thank you for your effort to picture one of the most dynamic areas in the Medieval Europe. Still the origins of the bulgarian ethnic people was under a discussion in science, but there were two independent scientific researches that tried to test all the possible variations. They used bones and teeth for this task. Scientists were barely able to isolate the thracian genome back in 2012 and finally reached to the conclusions that the bulgarians/proto-bulgarians/ have nothing common with turkic / altay ethnic groups. /With all due respect to this culture/. The bulgarian genome is mostly closer to the people from Croatia and Slovakia today. Although I do not accept that we are slavic people, still it is very difficult to state how common we have with the slavs genetically, because slavs tribes used to burn the dead and left no remains and necropolises.
It is said that croatians are the most slavic people in the balkans, with 65% slavic lineage, the servs are only 50% , what about bulgarians or westbulgarians ?
Amazingly well-researched, and I love the graphics! It filled in a lot of gaps that the History of Byzantium, just by virtue of its mission statement, didn't have time to fill in.
You are just amazing. Telling us the history just like it is, not like some little Balkan countries wish it was.
Great video.
With so much information, I know that it is impossible to mention everything. I do have a couple of small details that were not mentioned as it pertains to Croats settling the area. The first being that there was some kind of treaty or offer of settlement (contingent on Christianizing) from either Rome or Byzantium extended to Croats to settle the region after it was largely vacated due to raids and economic ruin. For the life of me, I can't recall the name of the document or where it can be found. A similar situation may have occurred with Serbs, given that they entered the area around the same and managed to unify the Slavs who were there before them.
The other thing I would mention was that the Croatian Kingdom allied with Byzantium during one of their wars with the Bulgarian empire. As such, they were rewarded with Southern Dalmatia, which demographically, had already become largely Slavic any way. The Adriatic coast remained largely Slavic demographically until later Venetian colonization which brought back some Latin populations.
Its pretty funny, Cyril and Method created Hlaholika for the Western slavs, then Svatopluk started leaning towards Frankia and they instead started using latin so Cyril and Method turned to another slavic country and gave them the alphabet lol
Croatia has a big history of "You are not gonna own us, we are gonna break free" a LOT
It's always a blessing seeing my country Slovenia mentioned anywhere. I know it's corny, but we are always forgotten by everyone.
@Frosty we are also tatars and mongols snd gypsies abd turks
@Frosty yes we are facist occupators
@Xforex 5? Try 100 and also it was occupied by you guys but never urs
@Frosty maybe because your “country” started existing 5 years ago and has been historically always a part of bulgaria yet now you are descendants of alexander from thousnads of years ago
Bruh same for macedonia
Easily one of the best videos covering such an all-encompassing and impossibly complex topic. I want MOAR!
Thank you so much for your work in putting these videos together.... I have learned a great deal and look forward to more of your videos Again thank you
by accident I found ur channel, with the very first video, you won a subscriber. the way u showed the information is remarkable - very distinctly and accurate, subaltern on facts, no sci-fi, straight on the point.
Pretty good video! Must've taken an eternity to research. The Balkans is a rough historical vacuum to cover, well done! Way better than most other videos about the subject.
I just have one genuine question; I keep seeing this everywhere, but nobody seems to know what the actual evidence is apart from invoking a nationalist historian:
What is the evidence that there were any Serbs west of the Drina river and any Croats east of the Una river before 897 CE, or that either of the two countries had borders inside of Bosnia? (I mean archaeological or written evidence, or something concrete, or at least circumstantial, deductive and identifiable)
From what I know, there is archaeological evidence for an unknown culture with strange huts with an unidentified architecture in the vicinity of Sarajevo (found by Irma Cremosnik in the 1970's), dated back to around 551 CE, and is thought to be the wave of Slavs that Procopius wrote about arriving to Dalmatia in the spring of 551 CE. And during the synods of Salona in 530 & 535 CE, the region between today's Tomislavgrad up to the Sava river and east to the Drina river (judging by the borders of Dalmatia and the surrounding bishoprics' locations) was named "Bestoensis" which was under the supervision of Andreas the bishop, whose supervisor was the archbishop of Salona called Honorius. There's also mention of a small part of the Herules crossing the Danube and entering into Dalmatia before that, and an Illyrian governor from "Gratiana"(Gradiska on the Sava river) warning Amalasuntha about invading "his city" Gratiana. So there were non-Croat, non-Serb Slavs, Illyrians, some Herules and probably descendants of retired Roman soldiers there in 551 CE. Anonymus Ravennatis wrote around 700 CE that there are different countries in the middle of Dalmatia.
But between then and the mention of Pribina of Nitra fleeing from the Franks to Ratimir across the Sava river in 838 CE, there's no mention of any rivers, landmarks, cities or such inside of the whole of Bosnia. And then Anastasius Bibliothecarius designated Bosnia as an independent country in 876 CE (Tibor Zivkovic, De Conversione Croatorum Et Serborum, 2012). Then Steven Runciman found some evidence that Petar Gojnikovic invaded and conquered Bosnia around 900 CE but was unable to conquer Zachumlia, John V.A. Fine thinks it was in 897 CE (Magyars destroyed Slavonia in 895 CE), and in 950 CE the De Administrando Imperio is written, Porphyrogenitus copies the terms from Anastasius when he writes about Bosnia as a "country within a country" and doesn't list its two ecumenical centers Desnik and Katera as just another 2 centers belonging to the Serbian state, and then some time after Porphyrgenitus' death, around 960 CE Caslav is drowned in the Sava or Drina by the Magyars, and Bosnia is independent again up until 968 CE when they lose the Battle of Vrbas against the Croats and that's the first time I know of Croatia having Bosnia as part of its territory. (Osman Karatay, 2003, "In Search of the Lost Tribe: The Origins and Making of the Croatian Nation")
So between 551-897 CE, how do we know that Serbia and Croatia had any land at all inside of Bosnia, let alone reaching that far inside?
Judging by the circumstantial evidence, it seems like the Hungarian destruction of Lower Pannonia / Slavonia made it easy for Serbia to conquer Bosnia, which implies that Bosnia might have been part of Lower Pannonia up until 897 CE rather than Serbia and/or Croatia. Especially since Braslav was the last duke of Lower Pannonia, and he disappears in 896 CE. The Slavs of Lower Pannonia have craniometrically different skulls than contemporary Croat craniums (Hrvoje Gracanin, 2008), they also seem to have been pagan from what I could gather, which coincides with the story of Theophanes Continuatus that many Slavs in the region left Christianity in reaction to Frankish oppression, and there are inscriptions of Frankish missionaries from the 9th century in a church or monastery near the spring of the Bosna river.
Also, I don't know of any evidence that the Serbs and Croats were present in the Balkans before 750 CE when there is archaeological evidence near Zlatibor in Serbia and in Croatia there's the font of Viseslav and such from that time. But they're not mentioned anywhere as being in the Balkans until 822 CE (The Royal Frankish Annals / Annales Regni Francorum). There are some letters from the pope to an Aquilean or Istrian governor, worrying about the advances of Slavs into Aquilea and their possible entrance into Italy, but they're still not mentioned by name, and nothing really seems to imply that they're Serbs or Croats.
I know this is unrelated, but how did you make those maps? Also, I love all the detail you put into a subject people tend to generalize!!
Proud to be South Slavic
AHH FINALLY THE DAY HAS COME,I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH THIS.
EDIT : I love you,it was worth waiting more then half a year for this video,and you managed to stay perfectly unbiased.Seriously you deserve a fucking medal for this video.
The Iranian influence is visible in some of the names mentioned in this video. Asparukh sounds very Iranian, even Persian as even today asb means horse and rukh could eigher mean face or some sort of miss-pronounciashion of rakhsh which means "lightning or spark", considering that the Bulgar's were nomadic people we can assume that horses played a HUGE role in their society so naming your child after horses would be reasonable. Like "man with a horse as bright as lightning". Also Avars, Avare in modern Persian means "homeless immigrant" like war immigrants or immigrants who's entire city got destroyed by an earthquake, considering that they were nomads it would be reasonable to assume that avare was a pejorarive term used by persians to call them and then the romans also called them by the Persian name and the name stuck, also them signing an alliance with Persia vs Rome could possibly mean that they were somehow related and were aware of that.
Everything i have said is just speculation.
I think I heard that when slavs were still in their original place a Persian tribe (or just from iran, I'm not sure) migrated to where the slavs were and that's the reason slavs pull a resemblance to iranians and have similar words
Aryan
Erian
Eran
Iran
Great, accurate and unbiased video great job and greetings from Bulgaria!
Dude, I have studied Bulgarian history quite extensively and I still learned new things about our own history, really impressive! Great overview of the region's history, gives great perspective and I love the animations - thank you for the great work!
Great video! Its was surprisingly well actually! One of the best videos on this subject, good job!
The language called "Serbo-Croatian" didn't exist until the 19. century when Croats and Serbs under the banner of pan-slavism created a standard language based on the Eastern Herzegovian and Dubrovnik dialects for their future Yugoslav state. I would argue that modern standard versions of Serbian and Croatian are how each country now calls that language (also sometimes called Bosnian or Montenegrin in their respective countries).
First written documents of Croatian in the littoral part (Dalmatia) are based on what's today called The Chakavian Dialects which can be mostly unintelligible with normal Serbo-Croatian, same with it's cousin group Kajkavian in Pannonian Croatia which is the closest dialect group to Slovenian and even shares some underlying similarities with Slovak due to it's proximity and late magyarisation of West Pannonian Slavs which probably formed one of the last bridges between West and South Slavs. These two Croatian dialect groups covered a much wider area of early Croatia if not almost it's entirety.
Just like it was mentioned in the video, there was a Slavic dialect continuum from Carinthia to Thrace. In the later medieval period as Slavic languages (or dialects) solidified the further you went from one Slavic settlement to another the harder it was for the two to understand each other. Although after that the natural continuum was broken by the Ottoman expansions which forced a lot of southern groups northwards.
It is really interesting how in this region for every bigger war fighting ditches were dug not anywhere else but directly almost always on historical sites. Vučedol was completely dug in war. And he was almost like the Paris of the Neolithic.
Looks great!
Look forward to the last of the series. are you going to make them a play list?
Suggestion - why not do the origins of the norse-germanic, ie the Goths and Vandals and Gepids ending with the Lombards - an show how they moved in the migration period? You might even intertwine the Wends with them.
This is great content! Would you like to do some on Turkic, Iranic or Uralic(Hungarians mainly) groups next?
But Croatian women were so cute for 1000 years...a MILLENNIUM of love making with foreign troops ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I have learned more about the history of my country from a 19 min youtube video than I have from 4 years of history class in school
Good job on the research. As a Bulgarian that is studying currently advanced History of the Balkans I can confirm that most of this is correct keep up the good work.
@Affentaktik But we do have accounts of Catholic and Byzantine writers who had been in contact with the brothers and had also taught many students.
They would have been there 40 days according to most online info.
After that they remained in the country for another 6 mounths due to knqz Kotel.
@Affentaktik That can very depending on who you ask.
We wouldn't have many accounts from back then because writing was still not practiced by many
@DIAN I cannot say for sure since I haven't looked that much into it.
But most dynastic clues will lead to Kubrat who was partially turkik in decent.
Unfortunately the Bulgars were nomadic trybes that moved across several lands, but they do have traits like pony tails and horse riding much like the later Mongol tribes.
Do you agree that the bulgar nomads were of turkic descent? There are many theories and very little evidence
Red Fox Emperor if you are studying it can you please tell me why or for how long cyril and his brother were exiled in moravia?
I'm a Serb and i can say that video is really great (and amazing that it didn't trigger neither Serbs nor Croats because those videos usually do).
Just one big inaccuracy that i have to point out: Balkans weren't exactly empty. You make it look like Slavs 100% populated the area which is absolutely not the truth. Southern Slavs are the ''least Slavic'' in ethnic way, we are essentially a mix of Slavs on one side and locals on the other - main haplogroup among Serbs and Croats is the one that originated from here (''Dinaric''), with the second one being a ''Slavic'' haplogroup (the one tied to Poland and West Ukraine mostly). That's why we are a bit darker and physically different from other Slavs (we are taller, have brown hair, stronger chins, essentially we are a ''Dinaric type'' that always was living here, no matter the conquests, Slavic or other). Contrary to popular opinion, we have NO Turkish blood in us, since there is no haplogroup in our genes tied to Turks - we are dark because the original population (Illyrians, Thracians, Romans) were also darker mediteranean types. Culturally of course, we are Slavic.
Yeah, I full-on expected a Croats vs. Serbs fight in the comments but nothing came out of it for once. Though I don't 100% agree with what you said, firstly, "dinaric" is also slavic and while it is true that we have somewhat mixed with the then local population, the darker hair and eyes might simply be a result of the climate in the balkans, which is way warmer and more arid than in the rest of the slavic lands. Centuries of exposure to a specific climate and nature will change the overall appearance, habits and body composition of people, which is why north Croats and Serbs are much lighter compared to, say, a Croat from southern Dalmatia or a Serb from Niš.
One must not forget that many Illyrians or ancestors of the Albanians were assimilated during the Slavic invasion of the Balkans, hence the Dinaric type, tall and stronger chins. But in my opinion Slovenes, Croats and Bosnians look more like Slavs and Bulgarians and Serbs more like Turks.
Not true. Dinaric is also Slavic.
I guess i stand out because i have blonde hair blue eyes and im light skinned what am i half viking half slav then??.
Im Serbian btw so explain how im opposite of what you described we are?.
It is true, we are very tall people
Good and accurate video! Keep up the good work and greetings from Bulgaria! :)
Laser, You are great! What detail! Fantastic story/history telling! вообще отлично! я поражён! великолепно!
Awesome video! I wish you do make a video about the bulgarian history .
Keep it going !
Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro make me think a bit of the Catholic and Protestant Irish.
~Look, we're the same people, our ancestors decided that this tiny difference between us was a reason for us kill each other, so we kept on disliking each other because we've harmed each other in the past.
Well before the ottomans fucked it all up for us
We have difrent r1a subclades of slavic haplogrups so no
Probably we are not the same people and we have never disliked each other through out the whole history just up until recently, Germanic people are much wilder and aggressive but they were on the right side of the history so because of their interest and interests of the other major powers it was convenient to stick that label of primitive tribes fighting each other to the Balkan people although that couldn't be far away from the truth
But the Troubles ended up working out brilliantly for Ireland, unlike our trashy system of banana-republics
Awesome video, though i'm of the Danau Swab decent i do carry one line of serbian lineage and my family prior to the US lived in the balkans for several hundred years. Great video thoroughly enjoyed this one!
Your channel is simply amazing and very underrated
@thatrandomquietdudewhodoesn'tgiveafuck you are blind or stupid
You are stupid
😉
@Nedim Istan Ojén hahahaa
Who no that ?
History change face
Day by Day
@kim a hellens was just a small tribe
@UNS GUS Patria is a greek word
there is so many versions..
Very cool video. A video about albania and their pre-medival history would be nice.
Great video, but you could've covered the Slavic presence in Greece too
Great Video...and really accurately presented the Bulgarian part
@LeckyBoy That's one of the most accurate parts.
@LeckyBoy pov you 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Ah, Bulgarians, the people who assimilated their own conquerors, also took their Turkic name but didn't give a single fuck like a boss lol
@LeckyBoy Maybe that's because my grand grandfather is from Stip, and my other grand grand father is from Drama region in Greece, which is also Macedonia. And that applies to at least 1/3 of Bulgarian people, because we had close to 1 million refugees after the Balkan Wars and First World War from Aegean and Vardar Macedonia. At that time Bulgaria was less than 4 million. And that is one thing that was hidden for you for many years. Among many other things.
@LeckyBoy македония е българска.
for an english speaking guy, you are very good at saying Bulgarian names. Normally our languange is hard.
The author, many errors in the English text.
@Martin Zvara english speaking
He is Slovakian
Informative and highly interesting. Спасибо большое!
Thank you for this informative and unbiased presentation.
It wasn´t Samo´s kingdom/ empire but more like Samo´s tribal federation.
This is a common mistake and I really ejoy your content, continue with making more.
Slovene historiography's position is that Samo's kingdom was indeed a tribal federation of Slavic 'princedoms'. I suppose we'll never know the exact title he held among the Slavs and the nature of his position, but since Samo was a Frank himself, it's not wrong to assume he styled himself king in the Frankish way, but then again, was probably one only in name. Thanks for a great video, you have my sub!
You are walking encyclopedia of history, I realy admire the way explain the history, it shall become part of general education of my country. Like, share. If you want financial support i will glad to aid your work
I can't wait for your later histories of the Slavs! Молодец!
Southern Slavs are so cool to me, love from an Eastern Slav!
Also you forgot to mention Croatian-Bulgarian Wars in which Croatia gained a lot and Raška(aka Serbia) became Byzantine vasal. Byzantine empire sent gifts and land consessions to Croatian Kingdom (Byzantines gave islands in Dalmatia, scepter and a crown to Croat king).
Ne moze da pomene nesto sto se nikada nije desilo .Posalji nam Romejski izvor tvoje tvrdnje ,posto su Romeji sve evidentirali .
Wow, great video! Very detailed and informative, thanks for your work, you earned yourself a new sub :)
A video about the avars would be great. Really liked this video
Check Bavaria the only name in Europe that has as a root the word Avar. I know the helens say that Albanians are of avarian origin ,and is true that in albania the last name avari exist but that should not confuse us, the name alba, or arvani or arber cannot arrive from the root avar.
Great video, the gradual transformation of the balkans culture and ethnics, mix with the political struggles of that age are visually brilliant.
The question that comes in my mind is : how the albanians survived this mess ?
I imagine something verry similar, were ilyrians, traces, Daces, and germans mix and migrated to the south, were they mix with local romanised illyrians, that prossus toke place between the 5th to 11th centery I imagine.
I would like your take on that.
Thanks for the great content ! ^^
@Eds m There is no Dacian substratum, and the Albanian language doesn't consist of Latin either. Albanian is a fully independent language, most likely the result of a partially Romanized Illyrian dialect in Moesia superior, and a large number of Latin loans has little to do with the 'formation' of a language going back to Indo-European itself.
The Dacian theory is mostly rejected, since Albanian is grammatically distinct from Thracian, to which Dacian belongs. The idea that Albanian words in Romanian would make Albanians 'Dacians' originally doesn't work, as the Albanian-Romanian contact happened in Kosovo and South Serbia, not in former Dacian regions.
@San Jalig The dorian part of the language has vocabulary of trading items which probably came into proto albanian by an intermidiate. I dont think proto albanians had direct contact with greeks as the language would have been much more influenced by it if that be the case. They either sat at the Jireck line or farther north of it. There is shared Dacian substratum in albanian and romanian (I think 60-80 words in albanian and 120-150 in romanian approx) which indicates a form of contact. I've read that Moesians spoke an intermidiate language between Thracian and Dacian sometimes reffered to by linguists as "Daco-Mysian". The Thracians have been conquered by the Dacians in the past (see King Burebista) so that would also support Moesia as an origin. About the latin, I know that the albanian latin has very early Christian vocabulary, and is a mix of the latin spoken in dalmatia and eastern romance. Albanian has also some Germanic loanwords. To give some historical perspective, Moesia didn't have any large settlements. When romans came they found only big villages with some 100 people max. Moesia became part of the Limes during barbarian raids and was heavily struck by war. It is normal to think that a native population would flee because of its geostrategical positioning. There are toponyms in balcans which follow albanian phonetic shifts, like Nish (Naissus), Shkupi (Scupi; modern Skopje). I think this is enough indication to at least give the Moesian theory some credit. I maybe don't know much about Illyrian or am biased, but the Illyrian theory doesnt ring many bells for me.
I thank you sir, because this is a very interesting topic but sadly it is very difficult to discuss in an unbiased matter because of the modern political landscape.
@Eds m It's unfortunate that these people didn't write much. I like taking an detective aproche, moesia is a good clue. The other clues that are suggested from the albanian language is that you have 2 types of Latin influences, one of the Republic era. Which indicates the west and then a later influence of the empire era. The dorian part of the language indicates the south. So my supposition is that the modern albanian language formed some were in south West moesia. That the other moesians in the north and the plains around the danub mixed and integrated themselves with the slaves. It explains also why albanians have such an unique mountainous vocabulary, slaves mostly took the plains. But I don't understand why you mention the dacians, they are situated in the north on the otherside of the Danube, Moesia is the place of the dardans in intersection between the illyrians and the tracians. Dacians were not touched by the influance of the Republic era but later. And then they were crushed and assimilated to the goths and the huns. It doesn't make much sense to me.
Albanians seems to be some kind of retrogenesis of an older tongue, less latinised, who manages to influence some kind of latinised sister language in the south and delatinses it in the middle ages. It explains the two different dialect and why their split is older than the slavic invasion. It all points out to the south west balkan alps. I'm just talking of language here of cours, these groupe of people certainly mixed with the different invaders. Nevertheless, the mountain top preserved the language long enough to not become entirely latinised so that they could, when the time was right, "re-semi-albanise" theire romanised sister language on the coasts and plains in the south.
It explains also why they spread so fast through the south in the middle ages.
With this in mind, it makes more sense that they were some kind of "post-dardanians" than dacians.
Thanks for your comment, you made me think of lots of things.
Good night.
It is impossible to say because the thracians, illyrians and other early balcanites had no writing so we can't compare anything. But giving that the albanian language is mostly compromised of latin and has a dacian substratum as well as dorian greek words compromising trading goods, and given the toponyms in balcans, it is theorised that the albanian language formed before or during the slavic migration in Moesia Superior.
Great video! Such detail. I really enjoyed this!
I hope there will be another video because balkan history is very complex and a lot of other kingdoms form and get involved.
1st gen American.of CZ& Hungarian heritage ..love this stuff ..ever single one i see i pass on to kids n grands ..so much was lost from WW1&2 that without folks like you would never be able to sort thru all the B.S.
wonderfully nuanced approach to the Slavic migrations
I wonder, how can the Greek have so much lands but so little Population? I would decree minimum of 3 children per family so Greek populate would expand and settle the frontiers with Greeks.
Much of the land is mountainous and people mostly settled around the mountains
Really good video, my man! Great job, keep it up!
Fantastic video mate! Can you please send a link for the map image you used for this video, I see it is very high quality and depicts all the topography correctly.
@M. Laser History Thank you very much!
Good video but a lot of the facts are not taken in the consideration. There is a lot of resources that Bysantine actually used Slavs as keepers of their borders.
The big picture I gathered from this video is: The Byzantines clashed with the invading Avars and the main beneficiaries turned out to be the other invading group, the Slavs. It almost sounds like a leaderless mass was given a free pass into Byzantine territory without any battle.
Heavy on the information, light on the propaganda - thank you for the great video!
I really like your videos because they are accurate and you talk about things we actually learn in school
@LeckyBoy ive seen you comment twice on this video and both times has been about this
@LeckyBoy But they are?
Mostly true, except for the part where it says that Macedonians and Bulgarians are the same and are 'brothers'
I had to pause several times so that the narrator could catch breath.
Pretty much accurate. I must admit . and in accord of latest historical researching of that. Only ....it will add more light on history of this region if you mentioned first Croatian King Tomislav who was very successful ruler and warrior and won several battles against Magjars and Bulgars,
Great video!!!! As a suggestion, for non native English speakers (such as myself) you could probably speak a little slower. Some words I had trouble understanding
Před pár dny jsem objevil tvůj kanál a zamiloval jsem si ho. V jednom videu máš obrovské množství informací. Anglicky umím relativně dobře, ale tak velké množství informací by se mi lépe vstřebávalo v tvém rodném jazyce. Mám rád historii a miluju mapy, takže takže tvůj kanál je přesně pro mě.
I'll translate it for you: I discovered your channel a couple of days ago and I love it. You have lots of information in just one video. I speak English relatively well, but I could digest this huge amount of information better in my mother tongue. I love history, including maps and your channel is great for me.
Great video! Could you do one about Romanians?
Very informative and useful thank you
GREAT Video..Do you know if there are any vital records from Montego between 1600 and 1800?
Thank you. I enjoyed that. Being part Slovene is confusing.
This is really e good video that shows the migration of Slavs into the Balkan or Illyrian Peninsula.
You did your homework bro, thats a hard history to follow good job.