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63-475: The term does not refer to a defined region but over time in the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century it came to include the regions of Raška , Kosovo and Metohija and much of modern North Macedonia . The term Old Serbians (Serbian: Старосрбијанци , romanized:  Starosrbijanci ) were used as designations by Serb authors and later governments for Slavic populations from regions such as Vardar Macedonia . In modern historiography,

126-688: A Slav-Serbian empire in the Serb-inhabited areas of the Ottoman Empire excluded Kosovo and Old Serbia. Serbian interest in the region of Macedonia was defined in a foreign policy program named Načertanije . It was a document whose author Ilija Garašanin , a Serb politician envisioned a Serbian state that included the Principality of Serbia and territories such as Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Old Serbia. Garašanin in Načertanije

189-521: A danger. As travelogues were presented as firsthand accounts and truth, their contents aimed to get a reader to react and identify as a person with the imagined community of a nation. At the same time, songs from oral traditions, collected and catalogued from Macedonia and Kosovo (Old Serbia) began to be played in Serbia and were reworked by modern Serbian composers into Serb songs through the addition of then contemporary musical European styles. Kosovo, which

252-645: A delegation of Serbs of Old Serbia presented their request to 'liberate' and unite Old Serbia with the Principality of Serbia to the government of Serbia. They also informed representatives of the Great Powers and the Emperor of Russia about their demands. In the same year the Committee for the Liberation of Old Serbia and Macedonia was founded. Serbian nationalists envisioned Serbia as a " Piedmont of

315-528: A hereditary prince (knjaz) of the Serbian Principality. Serbia was de jure an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire , its autonomy was constrained by the presence of the Turkish army on its soil and by being forced to pay to Istanbul a yearly tribute of 2.3 million groschen , which represented about 10% of the country's budget. At first, the principality included only the territory of

378-498: A language shift. Peoples like the Turks, Turkifed inhabitants and Albanians (in several texts called " Arnauts ") were portrayed as converted inhabitants who were former Serbs. The process allowed the lands of Old Serbia to be denoted as Serbian and implied a future removal of political rights and ability for self determination from non-Slavic inhabitants such as Albanians, whom were viewed as the cultural and racial "other", unhygienic, and

441-973: A movement through time and observations by writers focused on the medieval period and landscape geography, as opposed to the reality of the day. These accounts contained portrayals and metaphors about Serb travellers in danger encountering the national cultural extinction of local Serbs or biological threats. The links travelogues drew to Old Serbia with inhabitants under threat had an important impact through discourse in connecting an emerging Serb national identity with Kosovo. Serb travelogues defined Old Serbia in its minimum extent as being Kosovo and at its wider range as encompassing north western Macedonia and northern Albania. Travellers writing about Macedonia used cultural and socio-linguistic depictions to state that local Christian Slavic inhabitants were exposed to Bulgarian propaganda that inhibited their ability to become Serbian. Efforts were devoted to interpreting linguistic and cultural information to present Macedonians as nearer to

504-596: A near identical objective. Starting from 1903, the Serbian political establishment altered the policy for Macedonia and Old Serbia. The focus switched from education propaganda toward providing Serbs in the region with arms resulting by 1904 in Chetnik bands and armed irregulars operating in Macedonia. The majority of efforts to include Old Serbia into newer Serb discourses on Serbdom and the larger narrative about Serbia

567-592: A particular area that was not part of the Principality of Serbia . After its appearance during the 1860s, the term denoted only Raška . Following the Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) , several authors began to represent the term Old Serbia as synonymous with the Ottoman Vilayet of Kosovo. From 1878 onward, the Serbian state started saying "Old Serbia" also included Kosovo . By 1912, the claims were narrowed to Kosovo only. The critical treatment of facts

630-577: A province ( pokrajina ) that was given the official name of South Serbia . To integrate the region after perceived centuries of "separation" between the area and Serbia, national, cultural and economic considerations were seen as a centre of focus in Old Serbia for some high ranking Serb officials. Institutions were founded to accelerate the regional economy such as a prominent bank in Skopje (1923) named "Old Serbia". The government of Nikola Pašić treated

693-531: A standing army to take part to the First and Second Serbo Turkish Wars of 1876-1878 , the first conflict in the nation's modern history, after which the country gained its full independence. It was succeeded by the Royal Serbian Army . In the first decades of the principality, the population was about 85% Serb and 15% non-Serb. Of those, most were Vlachs, and there were some Muslim Albanians, which were

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756-631: Is a geographical and historical region of Serbia . Initially a small borderline district between early medieval Serbia and Bulgaria (city/area of Ras ), since the mid-12th century became the center of the Grand Principality of Serbia and of the Serbian Kingdom . From that period the name of Raška became associated with the state of Serbia, eventually covering the south-western parts of modern Serbia, and historically also including north-eastern parts of modern Montenegro , and some of

819-562: The Belgrade Fortress and the country; its independence was recognized internationally in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin . In 1882 the country was elevated to the status of kingdom . The Serbian revolutionary leaders—first Karađorđe and then Miloš Obrenović —succeeded in their goal of liberating Serbia from centuries-long Turkish rule. Turkish authorities acknowledged the state by the 1830 Hatt-i Sharif , and Miloš Obrenović became

882-640: The Belgrade fortress . The only stipulation was that the Ottoman flag continue to fly over the fortress alongside the Serbian one. Serbia's de facto independence dates from this event. A new constitution in 1869 defined Serbia as an independent state. Serbia was further expanded to the southeast in 1878, when its independence from the Ottoman Empire won full international recognition at the Treaty of Berlin . The Principality would last until 1882 when it

945-722: The Kriva and Pčinja rivers, the area of the Bregalnica river, the northern zone of the river Vardar , and a section of the Morava river. For Karadžić, the Slavic inhabitants of Macedonia were Serbian, detached from its Serb past due to Ottoman rule and propaganda activities undertaken by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The term Old Serbia was used in literature and from the 1830s onward, its usage widened and denoted

1008-481: The Principality of Montenegro . In order to mark the occasion, prince Nikola of Montenegro (1860–1918) decided to name the newly formed Eastern Orthodox diocese as the Eparchy of Zahumlje and Raška ( Serbian : Епархија захумско-рашка , romanized :  Eparhija zahumsko-raška ). In the 19th century the region also became part of the wider " Old Serbia " historiographical term. In 1912, central parts of

1071-405: The Principality of Serbia . In order to mark the occasion, prince Miloš Obrenović (1815–1839) founded a new town, that was also called Raška, situated at the very confluence of Raška river and Ibar, right at the border with Ottoman territory. In 1878, some southwestern parts of the historical Raška region, around modern Andrijevica , were liberated from the Ottoman rule and incorporated into

1134-771: The Raška architectural school . They include: Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Stari Ras, and monasteries of Gradac and Stara Pavlica . Principality of Serbia The Principality of Serbia ( Serbian : Књажество Србија , romanized :  Knjažestvo Srbija ) was an autonomous, later sovereign state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian Revolution , which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Its creation

1197-534: The 1880s, Serbia saw those areas, referred to as Old Serbia, in territorial terms. The relationship with Austria-Hungary following 1881 considerably affected the Serbian state that moved it to concentrate its regional efforts toward a southerly direction. At this time, Old Serbia became integrated into the Serbian state's collective narrative about its own self identity. A process began in the same decade in Serbia, where diplomacy and foreign policy were deployed to expand Serb influence in Old Serbia, to gather data about

1260-664: The 19th century it emerged in the colloquial speech of the Serb population who lived in territories of the Habsburg monarchy after the Great Migrations . The toponym first appeared in the public sphere during the 1860s, the time of the triumph of Vuk Karadžić 's ideas. Until then the Serbs imagined the borders of their country spreading northwest. These ideas are grounded in the late-19th-century Serbian nationalism and changed

1323-576: The Balkans" that would unify certain territories they interpreted as Serbian in the region into one state, like Old Serbia. In the 1877 peace after the Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) , the Serbs hoped to gain the Kosovo Vilayet and Sanjak of Novi Pazar to the Lim River . With the 1878 Treaty of Berlin , Serbia received full sovereignty and made territorial gains around this time, acquiring

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1386-660: The Bulgarian national movement, efforts were devoted to delineate a boundary in areas where differences among religions were nonexistent. In areas where the population was mainly Albanian, the appropriation undertaken by travel writers was reinforced through narratives of history, positions based on economic and geographic issues, at times that involved fabricating information and creating the room for discrimination on cultural and racial grounds toward non-Slavs. It would entail presenting non Orthodox Slavic inhabitants as either recent religious converts, immigrants or people who underwent

1449-553: The Byzantine Empire. As it was made the seat of the Serbian state in Latin sources of the era Serb rulers began to be named Rasciani and their state as Rascia. The name was used among Hungarians and Germans up until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1833, some northern parts of the historical Raška region, up to the confluence of rivers Raška and Ibar , were detached from the Ottoman rule and incorporated into

1512-538: The Kingdom of Serbia. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Serb publications aiming to counter Albanian interests and to justify Serbian historical claims in Kosovo and Macedonia through the recreation of Old Serbia in those territories appeared. The acquisition of new lands was interpreted by individuals such as Vaso Čubrilović , a Serb intellectual, as the realisation of Garašanin's concept. In 1914, groups within

1575-530: The Macedonian Slavs were an "amorphous" and "floating mass", and lacked national identity. By regarding northern Macedonia as "Old Serbia", he sought to legitimize Serbia's territorial claims over the territory. Cvijić continuously changed his maps to include or exclude " Macedonian Slavs ", altering the location of the boundary between Bulgarians and Serbs and readjusting the colour scheme to show Macedonia as nearer to Serbia. Ethnographic maps showing

1638-668: The Macedonian region and Old Serbia were part of a wider conflict involving similar competing maps of the region that was played out on the international scene. The ethnographic maps attempted to show and affirm various national perspectives and solutions offered by their authors, like mapping and classifying peoples according to their definitions or new borders, to geopolitical questions in the Balkans. Due to Greek and Serbian cooperation , northerly areas centred around Skopje were not shown in their maps as being part of Macedonia, as Serbia regarded those areas as Old Serbia. Serb authors viewed

1701-529: The Raška Oblast was formed with its seat in Čačak . In 1929, this administrative unit was abolished and its territory was divided among three newly formed provinces (banovinas). Within the borders of modern Serbia , post mid-12th century historical Raška region covers (approximately) the territorial span of three districts: Raška , Zlatibor and Moravica . Some of the churches in western Serbia and eastern Bosnia were built by masters from Raška, who belonged to

1764-726: The Serbian army expressed dissatisfaction with certain elements of civilian governance in Old Serbia (Macedonia) and sought to undermine the Serb government by aiding a plot to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand , the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. At the end of the First World War , Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the state placed its efforts toward speeding up the incorporation of newly acquired lands such as Kosovo, Macedonia and Sandžak . These areas deemed as Old Serbia were subsequently organised into

1827-408: The Serbs than Bulgarians. These included focusing on local customs in the area like family saint days and regarding them as part of similar traditions ( Slava ) in Serbia. Local traditional songs and epic poetry were scrutinised to met the criteria of being classified Serbian, not Bulgarian, such as folklore about medieval Prince Marko were deemed as examples of Serbian culture. Due to competition from

1890-440: The Serbs. Focusing on language and cultural aspects, the travellers sought to present and connect the Serbs of Serbia and Austria-Hungary to the inhabitants of Old Serbia as synonymous and one nation that lacked differences. Many realities of the day were bypassed such as interpreting demographics in an unclear or doubtful manner, or by digressing through subjects of geography and history. Travels through Old Serbia were presented as

1953-455: The Slavic inhabitants of Macedonia as Old Serbians or Southern Serbs, designations that were used more in the past than in modern times. Old Serbia as a term evoked strong symbolism and message regarding Serb historical rights to the land whose demographics were seen to have been altered in the Ottoman period to favour Albanians at the conclusion of the seventeenth century. Theories advanced at

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2016-483: The Slavic population of Vardar Macedonia as either Serbs or as Old Serbians (Starosrbijanci). Following the Second World War , Yugoslavia was reorganised as a federal state, with Serbia as one of six republics. Serbia was most affected by the internal territorial changes as it lost control of what had been defined as Old Serbia, which became the separate republic of Macedonia . The stances and opinions of

2079-496: The central and capital part of medieval Serbia, but as a separate small domain within Serbia. In the modern sense, Raška region would be an area situated in the southwestern modern Serbia (including Stari Vlah , see below). The 10th century De Administrando Imperio mentions Rasa ( Stari Ras ) as a border area between Bulgaria and Serbia at the end of the 9th century. It was not mentioned among inhabited cities of early medieval Serbia, and there's no general consensus whether Ras

2142-496: The common regional name. Under Stefan Nemanja (1166–1196), the region was finally conquered by the Serbs and fortress of Ras was re-generated as the state capital, and as such it became eponymous name for the Grand Principality of Serbia . The first attested use of the term Raška ( Latin : Rascia or Rassia ) as a designation for the Serbian state was made in a charter issued in Kotor in 1186, mentioning Stefan Nemanja as

2205-405: The concept of Old Serbia as it developed in the 19th century has been criticised as a historical myth , based often on invented or tendentiously interpreted historical events. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić referred to "Old Serbia" as a territory of the Serb people that was part of medieval Serbia prior to the Ottoman conquest . Milovan Radovanović claims that although the term was not attested until

2268-559: The difficult security circumstances of Serbs in the Ottoman Empire. Serbia also used education policy in Old Serbia to advance sentiments of a strong national identification among Orthodox inhabitants to the Serbian state. To bolster Serbian influence in Old Serbia, the St. Sava Society was established (1886) to educate aspiring teachers for the task, and later a department was created in the Serbian Education Ministry with

2331-644: The districts of Niš , Pirot , Vranje and Toplica  [ sr ] . Following the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1878) and the emergence of the Macedonian Question , Serbs were dissatisfied that Bulgaria became a rival for the region of Macedonia or "Old Serbia". Kosovo formed part of the Kosovo myth that prior to those events was viewed in spiritual and ethical terms, and an important aspect of Serbian cultural and ordinary life. By

2394-576: The early nineteenth century. Old Serbia became a topic of focus (mid nineteenth - early twentieth centuries) in Serbian travelogues by Serb authors from Serbia and Austria-Hungary. In the aftermath of the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885), several travelogues were published on Old Serbia by politicians and intellectuals seeking to counter "Bulgarian propaganda". The travel accounts through use of geography, history, philology and ethnography sought to bolster nationalist claims that those lands were for

2457-594: The early twentieth century Serbian intelligentsia have left a legacy in the political space as those views are used in modern discourses of Serb nationalism to uphold nationalistic claims. Travelogues have been republished and often lack critical analysis of the period in which they were written. This also applies to some materials such as often inaccurate "ethnic maps", that have been re-proposed in some modern academic publications by Serbian authors. Serb travelogues and their authors are: Ra%C5%A1ka (region) Raška ( Serbian Cyrillic : Рашка ; Latin : Rascia )

2520-488: The former Pashaluk of Belgrade , but in 1831–33 it expanded to the east, south, and west. In 1866 Serbia began the campaign of forging the First Balkan Alliance by signing a series of agreements with other Balkan entities in the period 1866–68. On 18 April 1867 the Ottoman government ordered the Ottoman garrison, which since 1826 had been the last representation of Ottoman suzerainty in Serbia, withdrawn from

2583-627: The fort, as attested by the work De Administrando Imperio , written by Constantine Porphyrogenitus , and also by the Byzantine seal of John, governor of Ras (c. 971–976). In the same time, Ras became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Eparchy of Ras , centered in the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul . The name of the eparchy eventually started to denote the entire area under its jurisdiction and later, thus becoming

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2646-720: The future as Albanians formed a "living wall" spanning from Kosovo to the Pĉinja area , limiting the spread of Serb influence. As a result of the Serbian-Ottoman war, the Albanian inhabited area shrank after they were expelled from the Toplica and Morava valleys by the Serbian army in 1878. Before the events of the Berlin Congress , only a small number of Serbian accounts existed that described Old Serbia and Macedonia in

2709-478: The goal of Serbia's territorial expansion from the west to the south and were important to Serbian nationalism during the Balkan Wars and the First World War . In the early nineteenth century, Old Serbia as a concept was introduced by Vuk Karadžić in his ethnographic, geographic and historical publications. Karadžić defined Old Serbia as including the Morava - Vardar river valley. In particular, it comprised

2772-469: The historical Raška region were liberated from the Ottoman rule, and divided between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Kingdom of Montenegro , with eponymous medieval fortress of Stari Ras belonging to Serbia. Between 1918 and 1922, Raška District was one of the administrative units of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . Its seat was in Novi Pazar . In 1922, a new administrative unit known as

2835-506: The mainly unknown territory and make preparations for future armed conflict with the Ottoman Empire. As such, Guidelines for Establishing Serbia's Influence in Macedonia and Old Serbia were made part of the Serbian government platform in 1887. Over several years, a number of consulates were opened by the Serbian state in Salonika , Skopje , Bitola and Pristina and included consuls such as Milan Rakić and Branislav Nušić who chronicled

2898-494: The monastery of Đurđevi stupovi , with an inscription showing that the end of the construction was in 1170-1171. It became a royal residence, but it was not permanent residence or that of his successors as the ruling dynasty also ruled over other such palatial centres in its territory. Byzantine intervention continued until the end of the 12th century and the Serb feudal rulers of the region were often under Byzantine suzerainty. The full independence of Serbia including Raška's region

2961-424: The most eastern parts of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina , and its southern part also corresponds to the modern region of Sandžak . The name is derived from the name of the region's most important fort of Ras , which first appears in the 6th century sources as Arsa , recorded under that name in the work De aedificiis of Byzantine historian Procopius . By the 10th century, the variant Ras became common name for

3024-487: The north at Čačak . In 971, the Byzantine Catepanate of Ras was established, but in 976 Bulgarian control was restored. Basil II recaptured it in 1018, and by 1032 overall commander of the region was strategoi and doukes Constantine Diogenes , as part of a defensive line of Byzantine watchtowers alongside Lipjan , Zvečan , Galič , Jeleč south of Ras and Brvenik north of Ras, watching to

3087-643: The overwhelming majority of the Muslims that lived in Smederevo , Kladovo and Ćuprija . The new state aimed to homogenize its population. As a result, from 1830 to the wars of the 1870s in which Albanians were expelled from the country , it has been estimated that up to 150,000 Albanians that lived in the territories of the Principality of Serbia had been expelled. In 1862 more than 10,000 Muslims were expelled to Ottoman Bulgaria and Ottoman Bosnia. During

3150-514: The ruler of Rascia . Without any evidence and support in the historical sources, the early historical region of Raška is commonly misidentified and misunderstood as a synonym for Serbian state before the mid-12th century (influenced by semi-mythical 14th century Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja which anachronistically calls the Principality of Serbia as Raška). The high medieval chronicle's also give an impression that Raška wasn't considered as

3213-550: The time like those by Cvijić referred to the Albanians in the area as a result of metastasis and due to a "great Albanian campaign to the east". The more prominent theory stated that Ottoman aims were to split the Serbian principality from Old Serbia that involved installing Muslim Albanians into the area. It claimed that the evidence lay in the settlement pattern of Albanians as dispersed and not compact. The theory concluded that Serbian abilities were diminished for liberation wars of

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3276-432: The watchtowers was a countermeasure against their commanders who ravaged Serbian eastern frontiers. The Byzantine border fort of Ras was most likely burnt c. 1120-1122 and this is probably the reason why John II Komnenos undertook a punitive campaign against the Serbs, during which many Serbs from the region of Raška were deported to Asia Minor . The alliance between Hungary and the Serbian rulers remained in place and Ras

3339-459: The west over a "no-man's-land" named Zygos mountains beyond which was Serbia. Recent archaeological research supports the notion that the Byzantines held control of Ras during Alexios I Komnenos 's reign (1048–1118), but possibly not continuously. In the time of Alexios, Ras was one of the northern border military strongholds which was fortified. His seal which dates to the period 1081–1092

3402-536: Was burnt again by the Serbian army in 1127–1129. Its last commander was a Kritoplos who was then punished by the Emperor for the fall of the fortress. In 1149, Manuel I Comnenus recovered the fortress of Ras and Galič, and next year continued to successfully fight off Serbians and Hungarians, with the Serbs swearing loyalty to the Byzantines. Somewhere in the next decades, Serbians conquered and started to fully control Ras, with Stefan Nemanja in celebration building

3465-477: Was damaged by the invocation of the past for the justification of present and future claims, and by the mixture of history and contemporary issues. The core myth of Serbian identity became the idea Kosovo was the cradle of the Serbian nation. Serbian rebels of the First Serbian Uprising and Second Serbian Uprising had no territorial ambitions over Kosovo. A plan made during that period to create

3528-447: Was found in 2018 near the site. It is possble that Vukan, Grand Prince of Serbia have temporarily taken Ras and other watchtowers in the early 1090s, but although John Ducas regained most of them, in 1093 Vukan "ravaged the neighbouring towns and districts. He even got as far as Lipjan, which he deliberately burnt down", but when Alexios came close, Vukan escaped to Zvečan and started peace negotiations, and reportedly his attack on

3591-600: Was listed as "Old Serbia", was classified as an "unredeemed Serbian" region by the Black Hand , a secret society formed by Serb officers that generated nationalist material and armed activity by bands outside Serbia. In Serbian historiography , the First Balkan War (1912–1913) is also known as War for Liberation of Old Serbia . Later, in 1913 the Sandžak , Kosovo and Metohija and Vardar Macedonia became part of

3654-600: Was negotiated first through an unwritten agreement between Miloš Obrenović , leader of the Second Serbian Uprising , and Ottoman official Marashli Pasha . It was followed by the series of legal documents published by the Sublime Porte in 1828, 1829 and finally, 1830—the Hatt-i Sharif . Its de facto independence ensued in 1867, following the evacuation of the remaining Ottoman troops from

3717-510: Was not clear about the southern confines of this larger state and neither was Kosovo nor Old Serbia mentioned directly. This program responded to the need to spread propaganda among Serbs within the Ottoman Empire. Serbian engagement with the region started in 1868 with the establishment of the Educational Council (Prosvetni odbor) that opened schools and sent Serb instructors and textbooks to Macedonia and Old Serbia. In May 1877

3780-595: Was on the Serbian or Bulgarian side of the border, as well whether in DAI was meant a fortress or an area. The consideration that the Serbian border was further to the Southeast of Ras is poorly substantiated. Newer research indicates that the principal settlement of Ras and its region in the 9th and 10th century was part of the First Bulgarian Empire . Bulgarian borderline was at Pešter plateau and to

3843-420: Was raised to the level of the Kingdom of Serbia . The principality was divided into seventeen districts known as Okrug which were then divided into a number of cantons, known as Sres , according to the size of the district. The Principality had a total of sixty-six Sres . The Armed Forces of the Principality of Serbia was the armed forces of the Principality of Serbia. Founded in 1830, it became

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3906-477: Was recognized by the Byzantines in 1190 after an indecisive war between Isaac II Angelos and Stefan Nemanja . However, the Bulgarian-Serbian border in the late 12th and early 13th century probably was still "very fluid". The town which had developed near the fortress of Ras and the territory which comprised its bishopric were the first significant administrative unit which Serb rulers acquired from

3969-538: Was undertaken by people outside the bounds of the Serb state, such as artists, composers, writers, scientists and other members of the intelligentsia. A prominent example was Jovan Cvijić , a Serb academic who made ethnographic maps depicting the Balkans that aimed to advance Serb claims to Kosovo and his publications influenced later generations of historiographers. Cvijić defined Old Serbia as including Kosovo and Metohija, spanning southward and encompassing Debar , Kumanovo , Prilep and Tetovo . In 1906–1907, Cvijić wrote

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