Connections between Central Asia and Mediaeval Croatia

• Main Authors: Emil Heršak, Sanja Lazanin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies 1999-06-01
• Series: Migracijske i Etniĉke Teme
• Subjects: origin; ethnicity; Croats; Eurasia; antemurale Christianitatis; Avars
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/161169

The paper analyses the development of Croat visions of self-origin, especially in relation to the Central Asian or Central Eurasian world. Located on the southern rim of the Pannonia plain, which constitutes a type of continuity of the great Eurasian steppe, the area of Croatia has many times in the past been exposed to diverse incursions of nomadic peoples from the East. True, the oldest expansions from the East in the context of initial Indo-Europeanisation (i.e. effects on the aeneolithic Vučedol culture, etc.) cannot yet be included in such a scheme. The “Scythian-Cimmerian phenomenon” in the early Iron Age marks the first appearance of this model in regard to the Croatian area. Towards the end of historical Antiquity, Yazygs and other Sarmatians arrived from the East, and later the movement of the Huns created the stereotype through which contemporaries envisioned the following incursions of Bulgars and Avars, closed connected to the Slavic migrations, the arrival of the Hungarians and later the Tatar-Mongol invasion. Although essentially different, the subsequent Ottoman Turk expansion – which was to have significant ramifications for Croatia – also constituted an aspect of the total picture of relations with Asia. At the beginning of the Ottoman invasion, the old phrase dating from the Mediaeval Crusades, antemurale Christianitatis, was applied to Croatia. This had double significance. On the one hand it confirmed ties with the Western Christendom, but on the other hand the very term antemurale (“forewall, bulwark”) implies an external position, hence a certain conceptual shift of Croatia toward the Orient. In the next part of the paper, the authors examine various legends pertaining to Croat origins. The oldest were registered by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VI Porphyrogenitus. This included the account of the invitation made by the emperor Heraclius to the Croats and the story of the arrival of the Croats under the leadership of five brothers and two sisters. The second of these two narratives most probably reflects the original concept of origin that survived in the Croatian milieu at least until the 10th century. The next series of material, recorded in the chronicles from the 12th-13th centuries, derived the origin of the Croats from the Goths. The authors claim that this was a dynastic myth of the house of Trpimir. “Gothism” must have taken root before the personal union with Hungary (the Hungarian Árpád dynasty had a different myth) and would have survived until the Renaissance, when it was replaced by other shemes – the “autochthonous” interpretation or “illirism”, and also the purely Slavic vision. Yet with the development of modern historiography from the 17th century, the attention of historians was once again to be focused on Porphyrogenitus’ text. The fact that the Croat ethnonym could not be derived from a Slavic linguistic basis finally led to the supposition that the first Croats perhaps were not of Slavic origin. The Turkic theory, implying links with the Black Sea Bulgars and Huns, was suggested quite early. Later the discovery at Tanais at the mouth of the Don of grave stones bearing names similar to the Croat ethnonym led to the development of the Iranian theory. The authors discuss this as well as the most recent attempts to derive the first Croats from a social class in the Avar kaganat. According to them, the Turkic (Avar) and the Iranian interpretation do not necessarily exclude one another.