Part 53

Brankovich by his “enlightened egoism” managed to maintain a precarious autonomy till after the capture of Constantinople (1453). Then, Mohammed II resolved to end what remained of Serbian independence, and to capture the famous silver mines of Novo Brdo, which, as his biographer, Kritoboulos, remarked, had not only largely contributed to the splendour of the Serbian Empire, but had also aroused the covetousness of its enemies. Indeed, the picture which the Imbrian writer draws of Serbia on the eve of the Turkish conquest is almost idyllic, with her “cities many and fair,” her “strong forts on the Danube,” her “productive soil, swine and cattle, and abundant breed of goodly steeds.” But the flower of the Serbian youth had been drafted into the corps of Janissaries to fight against their fellow-Christians, the prince was a man of ninety and a fugitive, while Mohammed, like the Germans of to-day, had marvellous artillery. Still Belgrade, then a Hungarian fortress, resisted, thanks to the skill of Hunyady and the fiery eloquence of the Franciscan Capistrano. But the nonagenarian Despot was wounded in a quarrel with the Hungarian governor, and on Christmas-eve, 1456, died. Of his sons the two elder had been blinded by the late Sultan, so that his third son, Lazar III, succeeded him. His speedy death resulted, at this eleventh hour of Serbian history, in the union of both Serbia and Bosnia by the marriage of one of his daughters with the Bosnian Crown Prince, Stephen Tomashevich—an arrangement which even Dushan, in all his glory, had never achieved. The Bosnian Despot of Serbia took up his abode at Semendria; but the inhabitants, regarding their new master with disfavour, as a Catholic and a Hungarian nominee, opened their gates to the Turks; before the summer of 1459 was over, all Serbia had become a Turkish pashalik, except Belgrade, which remained a Hungarian fortress till 1521. Four years after the fall of Serbia her last Despot, then King of Bosnia, was beheaded at Jajce, and his kingdom annexed by the Turks. Twenty years after Bosnia, the Duchy of St Sava, the modern Herzegovina, met with the same fate.

Thus the history of mediæval Serbia was closed. But members of the Brankovich family continued to bear the title of Despot in their Hungarian exile, whither many of their adherents had followed them, till the extinction of their house two centuries ago; the Serbian Patriarchate, abolished in 1459, but revived by the Turks in 1557, existed till 1767; but from the time of Mohammed II to that of Black George in 1804, when Danubian Serbia rose from her long enslavement, the noblest representatives of the Serbs maintained their freedom in the Republics of Ragusa, “the South Slavonic Athens,” and Poljitza, “the South Slavonic San Marino,” and among the barren rocks of free Montenegro.

AUTHORITIES

1. _Geschichte der Serben._ Von Constantin Jireček, Erster Band (Bis 1371); Zweiter Band, erste Hälfte (1371-1537). Gotha: Perthes, 1911, 1918.

2. _Serbes, Croates et Bulgares._ Par Louis Leger. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1913.

3. _Les problèmes serbes._ Par Stojan Novakovich. In _Archiv für slavische Philologie_, Bände XXXIII.-IV. Berlin, 1912.

4. _Listine._ By S. Ljubich. In _Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum Meridionalium_. Eleven vols. Agram, 1868-93.

5. _Acta et Diplomata Res Albaniæ mediæ ætatis illustrantia._ Ed. L. de Thallóczy, C. Jireček, E. de Sufflay. Vol. I. (344-1343); Vol. II. (1344-1406). Vindobonæ, 1913-18.

6. _Poésies populaires serbes._ Tr. by A. Dozon. Paris, 1877.

APPENDIX

THE FOUNDER OF MONTENEGRO

The parentage of Stephen Crnojevich, the founder of the like-named Montenegrin dynasty, has hitherto rested merely on conjecture. The two oldest writers on South Slavonic history, Orbini[863] and Luccari[864], identified him with Stefano Maramonte, an adventurer from Apulia, who is known from Venetian sources[865] to have been a totally different person. Subsequent writers, such as Ducange[866], Fallmerayer[867], Milakovich[868], and Lenormant[869], have usually adopted without question this identification; while the first native historian of Montenegro, the _Vladika_ Vasilj Petrovich[870], made him the son of a certain John Crnojevich, who was descended from the Serbian royal family of Nemanja. According to these respective theories, he first appeared in Montenegrin history in 1419, 1421 or 1423. Hopf[871], and Count de Mas Latrie[872], who were far nearer the truth, asserted him to have been a son of Raditch Crnoje, who is described as “lord of the Zeta and Budua and of the other parts of Slavonia” in 1392, as “baron of the parts of the Zeta” in 1393, and as having fallen in battle in 1396, after having been a “very powerful man” and an honorary citizen of Venice[873].

The Venetian documents, published by Ljubich, prove beyond all doubt that Stephen Crnojevich was the son of George Jurash, or Jurashevich—a name first mentioned[874] in a Ragusan document of 1403. Three years later George Jurashevich and his brother Alexius dominated the Upper Zeta; in 1420 they were “barons of the Zeta” and were promised the possession of Budua[875]—the very same places that Raditch Crnoje had held. These facts might have suggested that they were his next-of-kin, not, as Hopf[876] and Miklosich[877] supposed, members of a distinct clan. The identity of the two families is proved by a document[878] of 1426, which mentions for the first time _Stefaniza fiol del Zorzi Juras_, while subsequent documents prove conclusively that this Stefaniza was none other than Stephen Crnojevich. He had three brothers, one “lately dead” in 1443, and in the next year mention is made of the three survivors as _Jurassin, Stefanice, et Coicini, fratrum de Zernoievich_[879].

The exact relationship of Stephen’s father, George Jurashevich, to Raditch Crnoje can only be surmised. We know however that Raditch had several brothers[880]; if we assume that one was called George, or Jurash, this man’s son would then be called Jurashevich; thus Stephen would be Raditch’s grand-nephew—a degree of relationship which would correspond with his death[881] in 1466, two generations after that of his great-uncle. As the legitimate heirs of Raditch, the Jurashevich naturally reverted to the more distinguished surname of Crnojevich, a name found in that region in 1351, while Crnagora, the Serb name for Montenegro, occurs in a Ragusan document[882] of 1362. There is a tradition[883] that the family came originally from Zajablje in the Herzegovina.

3. BOSNIA BEFORE THE TURKISH CONQUEST[884]

I. THE HISTORY OF BOSNIA DOWN TO 1180.

The earliest known inhabitants of Bosnia and the Herzegovina belonged to that Illyrian stock which peopled the western side of the Balkan peninsula at the close of the fifth century B.C. At that period we find two Illyrian tribes, the Ardiæi and the Autariatæ, in possession of those lands. The former occupied West Bosnia, while the latter extended to the south and gave their name to the river Tara, which forms for some distance the present frontier between Montenegro and the Herzegovina. Few characteristics of these remote tribes have been preserved by the Greek and Roman writers, but we are told that the Ardiæi were noted even among the Illyrians for their drunken habits, and that they were the proprietors of a large body of slaves, who performed all their manual offices for them. Of the Autariatæ we know nothing beyond the fact of their power at that epoch.

But the old Illyrian inhabitants had to acknowledge the superiority of another race. About 380 B.C. the Celts invaded the peninsula, and, by dint of continual pushing, ousted the natives of what is now Serbia, and so became neighbours of the Ardiæi. Their next step was to drive the latter southward into the modern Herzegovina, and to seize their possessions in North Bosnia. Instead of uniting against the Celtic invaders the Illyrian tribes fell to quarrelling among themselves over some salt springs, which were unfortunately situated at the spot where their confines met. This fratricidal struggle had the effect of so weakening both parties that they fell an easy prey to the common foe. The victorious Celts pursued their southward course, and by 335 B.C. both Bosnia and the Herzegovina were in their power, and the Illyrians either exiles or else subject to the Celtic sway. This is the first instance of that fatal tendency to disunion which has throughout been the curse of these beautiful lands. The worst foes of Bosnia and the Herzegovina have been those of their own household.

The Celtic supremacy left few traces behind it. While in the south a powerful Illyrian state was formed, which offered a stubborn resistance to Rome herself, the Celtic and Illyrian inhabitants of Bosnia and the Herzegovina remained in the happy condition of having no history. But when the South Illyrian state fell before the Romans, in 167 B.C., and the legionaries encamped on the river Narenta, upon which the present Herzegovinian capital stands, the people who dwelt to the north felt that the time had come to defend themselves. One of their tribes had already submitted to the Romans, but the others combined in a confederation, which had its seat at Delminium, a fortress near the modern town of Sinj, in Dalmatia, from which the confederates took the common name of Dalmatians. The first struggle lasted for nearly a century, in spite of the capture and destruction of Delminium by Scipio Nasica in 155 B.C., and it was reserved for Caius Cosconius in 78 B.C. to subdue the Dalmatian confederates and bring Bosnia and the Herzegovina for the first time beneath the Roman sway. Those lands were then merged in the Roman province of Illyricum, which stretched from the Adriatic to the western frontier of modern Serbia and from the Save into North Albania. But the spirit of the brave Dalmatians was still unbroken, and they never lost an opportunity of rising against their Roman masters. Aided by their winter climate, they resisted the armies of Cæsar’s most trusted lieutenants, and the Emperor Augustus was twice wounded in his youthful campaign against them. One of their revolts in the early years of the Christian era was, in the words of Suetonius, “the greatest danger which had threatened Rome since the Punic wars.” Under their chiefs Bato and Pines they defied the legions of Tiberius for four long years, and it was only when their last stronghold had fallen, and Bato had been taken captive, that they submitted. Their power as an independent nation was broken for ever, their country was laid waste, and in A.D. 9 finally incorporated with the Roman Empire. North Bosnia became part of the province of Pannonia; the Herzegovina and Bosnia south of a line drawn from Novi through Banjaluka and Doboj to Zvornik, were included in the province of Dalmatia. The Romans divided up the latter in their usual methodical manner into three districts, grouped round three towns, where was the seat of justice, and whither the native chieftains came to confer with the Roman authorities. Thus Salona, near Spalato, once a city half as large as Constantinople, but now a heap of ruins, was made the centre of government for South Bosnia, while the Herzegovina fell within the jurisdiction of Narona, a fortress which has been identified with Vid, near Metkovich.

The Roman domination, which lasted till the close of the fifth century, has left a permanent mark upon the country. The interior, it is true, never attained to such a high degree of civilisation as the more accessible towns on the Dalmatian coast, and no such magnificent building as the palace at Spalato in which Diocletian spent the evening of his days adorned the inland settlements. But the conquerors developed, much as the Austrians have done in our own time, those natural resources which the natives had neglected. Three great Roman roads united Salona and the sea with the principal places up country. One of these highways skirted the beautiful lake Jezero, traversed the now flourishing town of Banjaluka, which derives its modern name, “the Baths of St Luke,” from the ruins of a Roman bath, and ended at Gradishka, on the Save. Another connected Salona with the plain of Sarajevo, even then regarded as the centre of the Bosnian trade, and the valley of the Drina, while a branch penetrated as far as Plevlje, in the _sandjak_ of Novibazar, then a considerable Roman settlement. The third, starting also from Salona, crossed the south of the Herzegovina, where traces of it may still be seen. Then, too, the mineral wealth of Bosnia was first exploited—the gold workings near the source of the river Vrbas and the rich deposits of iron ore in the north-west. The natives, hitherto occupied in fighting or farming, were now forced to work at the gold diggings. Roman authors extolled the Bosnian gold, the “Dalmatian metal” of Statius, of which as much as 50 lbs. were obtained in a single day, and a special functionary presided at Salona over the administration of the Bosnian gold mines. The salt springs of Dolnja Tuzla, now a busy manufacturing town, were another source of wealth, and the numerous coins of the Roman period discovered up and down the country show that a considerable amount of money was in circulation there. Many a Roman colonist must have been buried in Bosnian soil, for numbers of tombstones with Latin inscriptions have been found, and the national museum at Sarajevo is full of Roman cooking utensils, Roman vases, and Roman instruments of all kinds. Most important of all, it was during the Roman period that the first seeds of Christianity were sown in these remote Balkan lands. The exact date of this event, which was to exercise paramount influence for evil as well as good upon the future history of Bosnia, is unknown, but we may safely assume that the Archbishopric of Salona was the seat of the new doctrine, from which it rapidly spread throughout the Dalmatian province. Several bishoprics, which are mentioned as subordinate to the archiepiscopal See of Salona in the sixth century, are to be found in Bosnia, and one in particular, the bishopric of Bistue, lay in the very heart of that country.

But the power of Rome on the further shore of the Adriatic and in the mountains behind it did not long survive the break-up of the Western Empire in 476. Bosnia and the Herzegovina experienced the fate of the provinces of Pannonia and Dalmatia, of which they had so long formed a part. Twenty years earlier Marcellinus, a Roman general, had carved out for himself an independent principality in Dalmatia, and his nephew and successor, Julius Nepos, maintained his independence there for a short space after the fall of the Empire. But Odoacer soon made himself master of the old Roman province, and in 493 the Ostrogoths under Theodoric overran the country, and for the next forty years Bosnia and the Herzegovina owned their sway. This change of rulers made little difference in the condition of the people. The Ostrogoths did not interfere with the religious institutions which they found already in existence. Under their government two ecclesiastical councils were held at Salona, and two new bishoprics founded, bringing the total number up to six. Theodoric, like the Romans before him, paid special attention to the mineral wealth of Bosnia, and a letter is extant in which he appoints an overseer of “the Dalmatian iron ore mines.” But in 535 began the twenty years’ war between the Ostrogoths and the Emperor Justinian. These lands at once became the prey of devastating armies, the battle-field of Gothic and Byzantine combatants. In the midst of the general confusion a horde of new invaders appeared, probably at the invitation of the Gothic King, and in 548 we hear of the Slavs for the first time in the history of the country. Further Slavonic detachments followed in the next few years, and before the second half of the sixth century was far advanced there was a considerable Slav population in the western part of the Balkan peninsula. Even when the war had ended with the overthrow of the Gothic realm, and Bosnia and the Herzegovina had fallen under the Byzantine sway, the inroads of the Slavs did not cease. Other savage tribes came too, and the Avars in particular were the terror of the inhabitants. This formidable race, akin to the Huns, whom they rivalled in ferocity, soon reduced the once flourishing province of Dalmatia to a wilderness. During one of their marches through Bosnia they destroyed nearly forty fortified places on the road from the Save to Salona, and finally reduced that prosperous city to the heap of ruins which it has ever since remained, while the citizens formed out of Diocletian’s abandoned palace the town which bears the name of Spalato, or the Palace, to this day. But the Avars were not to have an unchallenged supremacy over the country. In the first half of the seventh century the Emperor Herakleios summoned to his aid two Slavonic tribes, the Croats and Serbs, and offered them the old Illyrian lands as his vassals if they would drive out the Avars. Nothing loth they at once accepted the invitation, and, after a fierce struggle, subdued the barbarians, whose hands had been as heavy upon the Slavonic as upon the Roman settlers. The Croats, who came somewhat earlier than the Serbs, took up their abode in what is still known as Croatia, and in the northern part of Dalmatia, as far as the river Cetina; the Serbs occupied the coast line from that river as far south as the present Albanian town of Durazzo, and inland the whole of modern Serbia (as it was before 1912), Montenegro, Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and the _sandjak_ of Novibazar. From that time onwards these regions have, under various alien dominations, never lost their Slavonic character, and to this day even the Bosniaks who profess the faith of Islâm, no less than their Orthodox brothers, are of Serbian stock.

The history of Bosnia and the Herzegovina from this Slavonic settlement in the first half of the seventh down to the middle of the tenth century is very obscure. We have few facts recorded, and nothing is gained by repeating the names of mythical rulers, whose existence has been disproved by the researches of critical historians. But it is possible to form some general idea of the state of the country during this period of transition. Nominally under the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire, much in the same sense as modern Bulgaria was till 1908 under that of the Sultan, Bosnia and its neighbouring lands were practically independent and formed a loose agglomeration of small districts, each of which was called by the Slavonic name of _jupa_ and was governed by a headman known as a _jupan_. The most important of these petty chiefs was awarded the title of great _jupan_, and the various districts composed a sort of primitive confederation under his auspices. Two of the districts received names which attained considerable importance in subsequent history. The Slavonic settlers in the valley of the Upper Bosna adapted the Latin designation of that river, Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna and themselves Bosniaks, and the name of the river was afterwards extended to the whole country, which from that time onwards was known as Bosnia—a term first found in the form “Bosona,” of Constantine Porphyrogenitus[885]. Similarly Mount Hum, above the present town of Mostar, gave its name to the surrounding district, which was called the Land of Hum, or Zahumlje, until in the middle of the fifteenth century it was re-christened the “Land of the Duke,” or the Herzegovina, from the German _Herzog_. These derivations are much more probable than the alternatives recently offered, according to which Bosnia means the “land of salt” in Albanian, and the Herzegovina means the “land of stones” in Turkish[886].

The Slavs, with the adaptability of many other conquerors, soon accepted the religion which they found already established in these countries. The Serbs, who settled at the mouth of the Narenta, alone adhered to paganism, and erected on the ruins of the old Roman town of Narona a shrine of their god Viddo, from whom the modern village of Vid derives its name. Here heathen rites were celebrated for more than two hundred years, and as late as the beginning of the last century the inhabitants of Vid cherished ancient idols, of which the original significance had long passed away.

The political history of Bosnia was determined for many generations by its geographical position on the boundary line between the Croatian and Serbian settlements. It was here that these two branches of the Slavonic race met, and from the moment when two rival groups were formed under Croatian and Serbian auspices Bosnia became the coveted object of both. That country accordingly submitted to Croatian and Serbian rulers by turns. Early in the tenth century it seems to have acknowledged the sway of Tomislav, first King of the Croats, and was administered as a dependency by an official known as a _ban_, the Croatian name for a “governor,” which survived to our own day. A little later the Serbian Prince Tchaslav incorporated it in the confederation which he welded together, and defended it against the Magyars, who now make their first appearance in its history. Under a chieftain named Kés these dangerous neighbours had penetrated as far as the upper waters of the river Drina, where the Serbian Prince inflicted a crushing defeat upon them. But, in his zeal to carry the war into the enemy’s country, he perished himself, and with his death his dominions fell asunder, and Bosnia became for a brief period independent. But Kreshimir, King of the Croats, recovered it in 968, and for the next half-century it belonged to the Croatian crown. But about 1019 the Emperor Basil II restored for a time the dormant Byzantine sovereignty over the whole Balkan peninsula. After the bloody campaigns which earned him the title of “the Bulgar-slayer” and ended in the destruction of the first Bulgarian Empire, he turned his arms against the Serbs and Croats, forcing the latter to receive their crown from Constantinople and reducing Bosnia to more than nominal subjection to his throne.