From: damir@infopls.chi.il.us (Damir Matanic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Croatia's borders
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 21:54:03 CST
Organization: INFOPLUS support, Wheeling, IL

           History of Medieval Croatia
               by Stanko Guldescu

  The Drava river throughtout the course of recorded history has marked 
the dividiing line between Croatia and Hungary.  From the Drava the Croat 
lands spread out in a north-south direction to the Adriatic Sea, while 
from west to east they reach from the Slovenian Alps to the central 
Balkans and Serbia.  It is of the greatest importance to understand that 
geographically the Croatian territories are entirely distint from Serbia. 
 At the time of the foundation of the Croat state its normal direction of 
expansion was westward to the Adriatic, whereas the Serb line of march 
was southwards and eastwards.  .......The Drina river has formed 
Croatia's natural boundary with Serbia just as the Drava has with 
Hungary.......On the other hand, formidable geographic barriers that have 
separated the Croats from the Serbs throughout the course of recorded 
history have allowed the former to develop a Central European as oppoesed 
to the latter's "Balkan" mentality.
.....South of Dalmatian or White Croatia lay Red Croatia, reaching from 
the Cetina river to the lake of Skutari in Albania.  Parts of southern 
Dalmatia, Montenegro, modern Hercegovina, in others words the lands below 
the Sara Planine, the root of the Balkan mountain system, were included 
in it.  It probably extended northwest to the sources of the Kulpa.  
Until the mid-tenth century Red Croatia probably formed a part of a 
Croatian confederation in which White Croatia was the dominant 
element....
.............that from the seventh or eighth to the eleventh and the 
first part of the twelfth centuries there were two Croat kingdoms (White 
and Red Croatia), which shared the dominion of this area.
.....Probably Mislav before him (Trpimir) had initiated the process of 
pushing the power of the Croat dukes throughout all Bosnia between the 
Vrbas and Drina.  Trpimir completed it. In so doing he involved himself 
in a war with the Bulgars.  This people perhaps intended to extend their 
sway to the Adriatic,....In 855 the CRoats and Bulgars clashed and the 
former were victorious.  This triumph put an end for the time being to 
the westward push of the Bulgars {no Serbian border}.
  .....Tomislav seems to have assumed the title of "King of the Croats" 
as early as 914.....In the course of his reign, Tomislav brought under 
his control not only Pannonian and White Croatia (Dalmatia norht of 
Cetina) but also Red Croatia (southern Dalmatia), Istria and all of 
Bosna.  .....More important than this the Byzantines were so impressed by 
his growing power that they sought his aid agianst the Bulgars.....Had a 
Bulgar-Croat alliance come into being there is little doubt that 
Byzantium, assailed on its Asiatic flanks by the Moslems, would have 
succumbled before it.
.....According to these statistic the Croat navy as a fighting power was 
only slightly inferior in numbers of shops to those of Venice and 
Byzantium itself.  .....Tomislav did not use this force, which 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus say numbered 160,000 men,... to fight wars of 
aggession or conqust.


History of Medieval Croatia
by Stanko Guldescu
Mouton & Co-The Hague
1964



Damir

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damir@infopls.chi.il.us (Damir Matanic)
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