Magyar News, 1992. szeptember-1993. augusztus (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1993-07-01 / 11-12. szám

Not so long ago people, in general, did know little about Dalmatia. It was merely a geographical concept determining some distant place in Europe; or at best, they knew it as a pleasant place for summer holiday. Quite recently Dalmatia made headlines in the news in connection with the civil war raging between parts of former Yugoslavia. Still, there arc probably many Hungarian-Americans who are unaware of the role which Dalmatia played in the history of Hungary several centuries ago.

The long coastal landstrip extending along the eastern coast of the Adriatic from the Croatian seashore in the North down to the border of Albania in the South, and the archipelago of several hundreds of islands before the coast, is called Dalmatia. Its early inhabitants were the Illyrians, people probably of Celtic origin, related to the early Albanians and Macedonians. It was Greek mariners who established their first colonies in the islands and the mainland of Dalmatia as far north as Tragurion (Trau or Trogir). The Greek colonization soon gave way to the influence of Rome. Its expansion to the East was a rather slow process, but in the first two centuries of our era the whole territory south from the Dan ube was brough t under Roman control. The inhabitants of this huge territory, which included Dalmatia, shared the cultural and civic life-style of the Roman-Latin West. When in the late fifth century Italy succumbed to the invading Goths and Longobards, the whole eastern part of the empire, including Dalmatia, came under the rule of the eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople but the Dalmatian cities still retained their Roman-Latin character.

It was the arrival of the Slavs, around the turn of the sixth and the beginning of seventh century, which changed radically the ethnic character of the area. The Slavs were driven out from upper Pannónia, the western part of the present Hungary, by the Avars, who towards the end of the sixth century took possession of the central Carpalho-Danubian basin and started from there to launch marauding campaigns across the Danube into the territory of the Byzantine empire. Thus, the Slavs entered the Balkans first as fugitives from the Avars, but frequently also with the Avars as their associates, and established permanent settlements in the Byzantine territory of the Balkans. One group, the forebears of the Serbs, occupied mainly the southern part of Bosnia and the mountainous region of Montenegro, called Rascia. They became subjects of the Byzantine empire and gradually were converted to Greek-Orthodox Christianity by Byzantine missionaries and also by the missionary work of Cyrill and Method, two priests of Macedonia, who even constructed a special alphabet combined with the ancient Greek, for the newly converted Slavs.

The other group of the invading Slavs, the Croats, who spoke an identical language with the Serbs, took a south-western direction and occupied largely the territory between the Sava river and the Adriatic Sea, gradually extending their occupation in the coastal land of Dalmatia. Here the Croats, unlike the Serbs, entered not a wilderness, but found in the Dalmatian cities an already established civilized society, continuing the old Roman patterns, following Latin Christianity of Rome, and speaking a local dialect based on vulgar Latin. Fortified cities and islands, after an earlier armed resistance, generally arrived to an agreement with the Croats, whereby the cities could retain their local government responsible to the imperial court in Constantinople, since Dalmatia nominally still was a Byzantine province. The Croats lived outside the cities in the countryside, and in the northern part of the country, under their elected local rulers, s.c. zupans or dukes. After an earlier contact with eastern Christianity of Cyrill and Method, the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia were gradually converted to Roman Catholicism in the north through the work of Frankish missionaries and in the south exposed to the influence of Latin Christianity of the Dalmatian cities. Pope John IV, himself of Dalmatian origin, also sent missionaries to the Croats from Italy.

Thcproliferation of the Slav ethnic group in Dalmatia and the development of a Croatian state received new impulse at the beginning of the tenth century with the appearance of new Creation leader, Tomislav (910-928). Hehad under his rule the whole area between the Sava and the Adriatic, and successfully defended the north-eastern border territories of his realm against the Hungarians, who after the conquest of Pannónia, crossed the Drava river and invaded Slavonia, between the Drava and the Sava rivers. Tomislav recognized the suzerainty of the Byzantine emperor and in recognition of this the emperor appointed Tomislav as imperial proconsul over the Byzantine province and the cities of Dalmatia. Now Tomislav, the imperial proconsul with the title of “the Emperor’s friend,” had the whole Dalmatia and the old historical Croatian lands andeven the northwestern part of Bosnia under his rule. While these territories politically still remained in Byzantine orbit, from ecclesiastical and cultural points of view the historical development of Croatia and Dalmatia under Tomislav’s rule took a decisive turn towards the Latin West. His imperial governorship notwithstanding, he was crowned with the blessing of Pope John X as“king of the Croats.” At the same time, around 925, a council convoked by a papal legate to

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by Ana

Split declared the whole Dalmatian coast land under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the pope. The council also prohibited the Old Slavonic church service which since the time of Methodius still had been used in some Croatian communities. It ordered instead the use of the Latin language and Roman rites in all churches. The major significanceof this council was that through its decisions the religious and cultural ties with eastern orthodox Christianity had been severed and henceforth the adherence of the Croat people to western, Latin Christianity and culture had become manifest.

The successors of Tomislav continued his policies, calling themselves kings of the Croats but accepting at the same time the overlordship of the Byzantine emperor; at certain periods they were able to extend their authority even over the northern parts of Bosnia, but the center of gravity of the Croatian state remained in Dalmatia. This inevitably led to mixing of the city population speaking the vulgar-Latin dialect and the Slav population of the surrounding areas. There were intermarriages, more and more Croats entered and settled down in the cities, and although the architecture and look of the cities of Zara or Spalato reflect the strong Italian influence, the ethnic character of the cities gradually changed. This trend was in several occasions reversed by the intervention of the city-republic of Venice which had strategic and commercial interests in the control of the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Such occasion occurred in 997 when a fratricidal rivalry broke out among three sons of the defunct king for the succession. In the ensuing anarchy of the dose of Venice, Peter Orseolo, himself a vassal of the Byzantine empire, with his warships took possession of the whole Dalmatian coast and the cities, almost without encountering any opposition. This was the first such intervention and occupation of Dalmatia by the Venetians, followed on several occasions again in the future. After the death of Peter Orseolo the Dalmatian cities and the coast land were retaken by an energetic Croatian ruler, with the emperor’s approval, sixty years later. Soon, however, a new competitor appeared in the area of the north-eastern Adriatic; it was the new kingdom in the Carpatho- Danubian basin, Hungary.

In 1074 the local rulers of the Croat people and the Catholic clergy elected as king of Croatia and Dalmatia Zvonimir,

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