Serbia, Moravian

Most historians believe that the Croats are a purely Slavic people who probably migrated to the Balkans from present-day Ukraine.

A newer theory, however, holds that the original Croats were nomadic Sarmatians who roamed Central Asia, migrated onto the steppes around 200 BCE, and rode into Europe near the end of the fourth century CE, possibly together with the Huns.

The Sarmatian Croats, the theory holds, conquered the Slavs of northern Bohemia and southern Poland and formed a small state called White Croatia near present-day Kraków.

The Croats then supposedly mingled with their more numerous Slavic subjects and adopted the Slavic language, while the subjects assumed the tribal name "Croat."

A tenth-century Byzantine source reports that in the seventh century Emperor Heraclius enlisted the Croats to expel the Avars from Byzantine lands.

The Croats had overrun the Avars and Slavs in Dalmatia around 630, then drove the Avars from today's Slovenia and other areas.

In the eighth century, the Croats lived under loose imperial rule, and Christianity and Latin culture recovered in the coastal cities.

The Franks subjugated most of the Croats in the eighth century and sent missionaries to baptize them in the Latin rite, but the Byzantine Empire continued to rule Dalmatia.

Croatia emerges as an independent nation in 924.

Tomislav (910-ca. 928), a tribal leader, establishes himself as the first king of Croatia, ruling a domain that stretches eastward to the Danube.

The Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Macedonians, and Albanians have virtually independent histories.

The Slovenes will struggle to define and defend their cultural identity for a millennium, first under the Frankish Kingdom and then under the Austrian Empire.

The Croats of Croatia and Slavonia will enjoy a brief independence before falling under Hungarian and Austrian domination; and the Croats in Dalmatia struggle under Byzantine, Hungarian, Venetian, French, and Austrian rule.

The Serbs, who will briefly rival the Byzantine Empire in medieval times, will suffer five hundred years of Turkish domination before winning independence in the nineteenth century.

Their Montenegrin kinsmen will live for centuries under a dynasty of bishop-priests and savagely defend  their mountain homeland against foreign aggressors.

Bosnians will turn to heresy to protect themselves from external political and religious pressure, convert in great numbers to Islam after the Turks invade, and become a nuisance to Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.

A hodgepodge of ethnic groups will people Macedonia over the centuries.

As the power of the Ottoman Empire wanes, the region is contested among the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians and also is a pawn among the major European powers.

Finally, the disputed Kosovo region, with an Albanian majority and medieval Serbian tradition, will remain an Ottoman backwater until after the Balkan wars of the early twentieth century.

Aristocratic factions fight for control of the Bulgarian throne from 1257 until 1277.

Heavy taxation by feudal landlords causes their peasants to revolt in 1277 and enthrone the "swineherd tsar" Ivailo.

After 1300 Tatar control ends, and a new period of expansion follows under Mikhail Shishman (1323-1330) and Ivan Aleksandur (1331-1370).

As before, however, military and commercial success parallels internal disorder; the social chaos of the previous century continues to erode the power of Bulgarian leaders.

Meanwhile, Serbia has risen as a formidable rival in the Balkans, and the Ottoman Turks have advanced to the Aegean coast.

In the late fourteenth century, Bulgaria is weakened by the division of its military defenses between the two perceived threats.

Murad I (r. 1360-89) annexes most of Thrace (called Rumelia, or "Roman land," by the Turks), encircling Constantinople, and moves the seat of Ottoman government to Adrianople (Edirne) in Europe.

The Ottoman ghazis defeat the Serbs in 1389 at the Battle of Kosovo, although at the cost of Murad's life.

The joining of the Croatian and Hungarian crowns had automatically made Hungary and Venice rivals for domination of Dalmatia.

Hungary seeks access to the sea, while Venice wishes to secure its trade routes to the eastern Mediterranean and to use Dalmatian timber for shipbuilding.

Between 1115 and 1420, the two powers will wage twenty-one wars for control of the region, and Dalmatian cities will change hands repeatedly.

Serbia and Bosnia also compete for Dalmatia.

Serbia seizes the coast south of the Gulf of Kotor on the southern Adriatic around 1196 and holds it for one hundred and fifty years; Bosnia dominates central Dalmatia during the late fourteenth century.

Dalmatian cities struggle to remain autonomous by playing off one power against the others.

Most successful in this strategy is Ragusa (today Dubrovnik), whose riches and influence at times rival those of Venice.

In the fourteenth century, Ragusa becomes the first Christian power to establish treaty relations with the Ottoman Empire, which is at this time advancing across the Balkans.

Ragusa will prosper by mediating between Europe and the new Ottoman provinces in Europe and by exporting precious metals, raw materials, agricultural goods, and slaves.

After centuries as the only free South Slav political entity, the city will wane in power following a severe earthquake in 1667.

The Serbian state disintegrates as a result of the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, in which a combined army of Serbs, Albanians, and Hungarians, led by the Serb knez, or prince, Lazar Hrebeljanovic, and including a large Bosnian contingent, is crushingly defeated by the Ottomans; Lazar dies by execution; Ottoman Sultan Murad by assassination.

Montenegro achieves independence from Serbia.

The Serbian states in the north and south come under the control of petty despots who rule as Ottoman vassals.

To the north, Hungary alone is in a position to resist further Muslim advances; Moldavia falls to Polish control.

South of the Danube, after Wallachia accepts Ottoman vassalage, only Bosnia, Venetian Albania, Greece, and the Serbian fort of Belgrade remain outside Ottoman rule.

Serb despots, forced to accept the position of vassals to the Turks, continue to rule a diminished state of Raska, at first from Belgrade.

Ottoman sultan Murad I wins additional Balkan victories at Sofia in 1385 and …

…Nish in 1386.

Turkish armies, having begun raiding Serbia in the 1380s, cross into Bosnian-ruled Hum (Herzegovina) in 1388; Tvrtko's Bosnian forces halt an Ottoman Turkish invasion at Bileca.

Tradition holds that Wallachia's Prince Mircea had sent his forces to Kosovo to fight beside the Serbs; soon after the battle, Bayezid marches on Wallachia, a Hungarian vassal state, and imprisons Mircea until he pledges to pay tribute.

Wallachia thus becomes an Ottoman vassal for the first time.