Upcoming Research

Here is what you will see on this blog

- scanned pages from the writings of dozens of West European and Islamic historians

- scanned pages from the writings of Albanian & Croatian dissident & mainstream academics

- scanned pages from writings of ancient historians

- scanned pages from writings of physical & cultural anthropologists

- latest genetic research in electronic format

- scans of original medieval documents

- professional on-line genealogies compiled by genealogists & descendants of families in question.


Here's what you can expect to see on this blog:

-The Annals of Einhardt on Dalmatia written by the personal scribe of Emperor Charlemagne the Great, a chronicle of the events of 9th century. Earliest document we have regarding Bosnia, Herzegovina & Dalmatia as populated exclusively by Serbs.

-The Alexiad by Anna Comnena, a chronicle of the events of the late 11th century. Medieval Dalmatia was populated and ruled by Serbs.

-The Medieval Rulers of Bosnia, featuring scans of the original medieval documents
written on parchment in the 12th, 13th & 14th centuries. The rulers of Bosnia identified themselves personally, as well as their lineage and their subjects - as Serbs. There is no mention of Croats, certainly no mention of ‘Bosniaks?or any sort of independent Bosnian identity.

-Kosovo & Albania in Medieval Times 5 part series: Populated & Ruled by Serbs with only marginal participation from Albanians

-The Origin of the Albanians. Albanian ethno genesis has never been properly explained, partly as a result 4 decades of deliberate distortions from Abania's communist controlled pseudo-scholarship, which has made only slight improvements in the last decade. The theory presented here is different & more credible than others because it makes abundant use of the fossil record & physical anthropology, which are usually avoided by mainstream scholars for political reasons.


-PROJECT ANZULOVIC 2/4 - FOLKLORE & DEPRAVITY:
Anzulovic attempts to show Serbian ‘barbarity?by exploiting an old folk custom of executing elderly invalids practiced only in a small corner of eastern in the 19th century. Then I quote from the Golden Bough by James Frazer to reveal even more morbid Croatianfolk-songs, customs and stories that I link to the beginning of the firstinitial atrocities in the Balkans in WWII. Anzulovic here admits that Croatian ethnic identity is based on religion & cosmopolitanism instead of common language & culture, like most other ethnic groups. We also learn from
Anzulovic that Goethe was a Greater Serb nationalist.

-PROJECT PERPJEKJA PART 2/6 - ALBANIAN MYTHS ABOUT TH ETHNICITY OF SKENDERBEG & THE KASTRIOTI:
Quotes from 12 genealogists, a Skenderbeg descendant and 3 Albanian scholars

De Administrando Imperio: Serbs settled Dalmatia in 7th century (ORIGINAL SCANNED PAGES)

This article features scanned pages from the only available English translation of De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine scholar Gyula Moravcsik. The Serbs had been resettled from Macedonia to Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Zeta & Raska by the same Emperor Heraclius who had invited both Serbs & Croats to settle in the Balkans.


According to Porphyrogenitus, Serbs formed the original population of those regions from the early 7th century up to 955 AD considering that D.A.I was written a full 2 decades after Bosnia & Dalmatia had been first occupied by Croatia.

De Administrando Imperio is rejected by Catholic and Muslim academics in Bosnia & Croatia, although it is internationally recognized. They reject this work because it so clearly and specifically identifies Bosnia, Hercegovina & Dalmatia as exclusively Serb populated territory that it leaves no room for legitimate debate or questioning.

- Chapter 30
The River Cetina is the border between Serb land & Croatia

"From the city of Decatera begins the domain of Terbounia and stretches along as far as Ragusa, and on the side of its mountain country it is neighbour to Serbia".
[...]
"From Ragusa begins the domain of the Zachlumi (Ζαχλοῦμοι) and stretches along as far as the river Orontius; and on the side of the coast it is neighbour to the Pagani, but on the side of the mountain country it is neighbour to the Croats on the north and to Serbia at the front. From the Orontius begins Pagania and stretches as far as the River Tzentina (Cetina)" [...]

"From the River Tzentina begins the country of Croatia..." (page 145)


- Chapter 32 & 36
The Paganians/Narentans were Serbs

This is a very important point to clarify, as Paganians are constantly being misidentified as undifferentiated Slavs by Croatians pseudo-scholarship. Leo Rabaduchas, mentioned contemporaneously with Caslav Klonimirovic shows that as late as the 10th century, Pagania was populated by Serbs, not Croats...


"Leo Rabaduchas…arrived in Pagania which was at that time under the control of Serbia..." (page 157)




"These same Pagani are descended from the unbaptised Serbs of the time of that prince who claimed the protection of the Emperor Heraclius. […] The Pagani are thus called because they did not accept baptism at the time when all the other Serbs were baptized. In pagania are the inhabited cities of Mokron, Ostrok, Slavnitza...Kourkira, Melet…another large Island Phara, another large island Bratzis". (chapter 36)

*

Chapter 32

"After some time these Serbs decided to depart to their homes and the Emperor sent them off but when they crossed the river Danube, they changed their minds and sent a request to the Emperor Heraclius" [...]

"And since what is now Serbia, Pagania, and the so-called country of Zachoulmia and Trebounia and the country of the Kanalites were under dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled those parts the Romani who now live in Dalmatia and...." (page 154)

Dyrachium) "...therefore the Emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries and they were subject to the emperor of the Romans". (page 155)

Chapter 33: Zahumlje

"The Zahumljani (Захумљани) that now live there are Serbs, from the time of the prince (archont) who fled to emperor Heraclius" (page 162)

"In the territory of the Zachoumlians are the following inhabited cities: Ston (το Σταγνον / to Stagnon), Mokriskik (το Μοκρισκικ), Josli (το Ιοσλε / to Iosle), Galumainik (το Γαλυμαενικ / to Galumaenik), Dobriskik (το Δοβρισκικ / to Dovriskik)"
[...]


Chapter 34: Travunia

"Travunia (Terbounia) and Konavli is one. Its inhabitants originate from unchristened Serbs, who lived there since the archont that fled from unchristened Serbia to Emperor Heraclius and Serb archont Vlastimir [...] "The archonts of Travunia have always been subject to the archont of Serbia" [...] "Populated cities in Travunia and Konavli are: Travunia (ηε Τερβουνια), Vrm (το Ορμος), Risan (τα Ρισενα), Lukavete (το Λουκαβεται), Zetlivi (του Ζετλεβε)." (page 163)

Rebuttal of 'Heavenly Serbia' by Serbophobic Croatian Academic Branimir Anzulovic (Part 1)

NAZIS, USTASE & PARTISANS IN WWII:

All pages I cited are scanned, uploaded and linked in all of the writings below so that even the most skeptical reader would not doubt the authenticity of the information. I have cited from numerous other works by Western & even Croatian academics who refute Anzulovic’s statements. I have pointed out unsubstantiated statements & conclusions made by Anzulovic that lack proper referencing & citation. I’ve pointed out numerous nebulous logical fallacies, as well. These articles appeared on ILLYRIA FORUMS in early 2006.

Improper citation & misrepresenting quoted statements. Anzulovic inadvertently
reveals Croatian NAZI collaboration, the fact that Tito’s Partizans were
largely composed of non-Serbs & that the communist system was not controlled
by Serbs & that the Bleiburg massacre was conducted by Croat & Slovene Partizans
to get them all on the side of the victories Allied Powers, instead of the Nazis & Fascists.



1. Spreading Rumors

In 1944 however, when Serbia was liberated from German occupation, the Partisan units began to transform into the Yugoslav army. Many Serbs including the Cetniks taking advantage of an amnesty, joined. Serbian dominance of the armed forces was thereby established and remained a feature of the Yugoslav military establishment until its end”.

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 159
New York University Press 1999

The above statement isn’t sourced.

People who already have a Serbophobic bias are going to read his book and won’t notice that the statement is deliberately un-referenced. They’ll think: ‘Aha, I read in a book that there was a Serb Chetnik conspiracy in the JNA; in a book that cited an average of 50 sources per chapter – it must be true!’ There is no other attempt to cite any other similar statements he repeats throughout the book either. Does anyone buy that? There is no evidence that the assertion Anzulovic makes in this paragraph is true.

Expecting that the Serbs would further Brittish interests, Churchill wanted them to attain the same dominant role in Yugoslavia they had played before WWII. “My unchanging objective is to get Tito to let the King come out and share his luck with him and thus unite Yugoslavia and bring in the old Serb core.”

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 160
New York University Press 1999

If Tito was actually part of the “old Serb core” then it wouldn’t have mattered to Churchill whether the King was involved or not. Anzulovic still doesn’t even bother to provide a source for the accusation he made on page 159. Regarding this quote from Churchill on page 160, Tito didn’t let the king come back and thus the old Serb core was never able to materialize. But you wouldn’t know that from the way Anzulovic carefully tries to present this as evidence that Tito was somehow pro-Serbian.

This leaves the door open to more plausible explanations on the nature of Communist Yugoslavia. Who ran that system? Who fought to bring that system to power?

In 1986, Vasilije Krestic a member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, asserted in his essay…that the Ustasa genocide was the realization of an idea “born in the remote past and developed for decades and centuries” which has “a rather broad base in certain segments of Croatian society.”

Actually a vast majority of Croatians were so hostile to the actions of the Ustasa regime…

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 107
New York University Press 1999

2. Croats, Ustase and WWII

In a pitiful attempt to absolve the Croats of their complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, Anzulovic quotes a letter from General Lufters to Field Marshal Lohr from 1943 telling him that the Ustase were losing support just two years after they took power. Is this supposed to vindicate the Croats? It took them 750 days and nights of living under a regime allied with NAZI Adolph Hitler to finally stop supporting the NDH?

If the Croatian people had been against the Ustase from day 1, Lufters would have written Lohr in 1941 when the Ustase took over as soon as they started massacring Serbs, Jews and Gypsies for absolutely no reason - and not 1943, conveniently when the NDH’s allies were losing the war. Anzulovic couldn’t come up with any historical document written before 1943 - two years after the massacres had already started and right when Croatia’s allies were losing the war. That actually placates the Croatian people in supporting at least 2 years of Croatian Ustasa genocide of tens of thousands of perfectly innocent and harmless civilians: mostly Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.

Here’s Anzulovic quoting Lufters on Croatians’ change of heart toward the last years of WWII:

“The aversion of all segments of the population against the Poglavnik and the Ustase gives additional strength to the insurgents, so that the pacification measures undertaken by German armed forces cannot lad to a lasting success”[29].

[29] Report 1504/43 Oublished as Document no. 38 in Zbornik dokumenata I podataka o Naronooslobodilackom ratu naroda Jugoslavije vol. 12, book 3 Dokumenti Nemackog rajha 1943 (Belgrade: Insistuite for Military History 1978), 172

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 107
New York University Press 1999

The fact that Anzulovic couldn’t find a document attesting to Croatian dissatisfaction with the NDH before Croatia’s allies began losing the war in 1943 proves that it didn’t bother the Croatian people that many of the tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were slaughtered in the frenzy and euphoria ushered in by first 2 years of the NDH’s existence.

Lufters says that among Croats, dissatisfaction with the Poglavnik , (bound as he was to Germany and Italy who were losing the war in 1943) “gives additional strength to the insurgents, so that the pacification measures undertaken by German armed forces cannot lad to a lasting success”

Who are these insurgents? Not Chetniks but Partizans. Croats actually flooded the Partizani in 1943. Croatians were switching sides in 1943 to their Communist Croatian countryman Tito. The insurgents Lufters complained about whose divisions the Croats were strengthening - were obviously the Croat/Slovene Tito’s Partizani Communists (see below part 4).

3. Croatian group-strategies

By 1943, the Germans were losing the war and it was looking like the Karadjordjevic Serbian King was going to be back in Belgrade. The tide in the war turned in that year. Croats needed a new group-strategy. Usashism wasn’t looking so good, anymore. By 1943, Croats needed a new group-strategy. That didn’t mean that less than 50 years later Croats wouldn’t still love their Poglavnik and recycle the Ustasa group-strategy they once rather quickly discarded. They switched allegiance to their other countryman, Tito. They changed group-strategies.

The Illyrian Movement was the first Croatian group-strategy:

The Croatian Illyrian Movement (1835-1848) also had a program of a unification of South Slavs (originally also including the Bulgarians) but it did not envision a Greater Croatia…

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 77
New York University Press 1999

The Croatian Illyrian Movement probably did not envision a Greater Croatia as overtly as Ante Starcevic’s Hrvatska Stranka Prava did at the time but the Illyrian Movement was a Croatian dominated movement, as even Anzulovic freely admits. Even Vuk Karadzic flirted with the Illyrianists later in his life.

Here we have an example of two separate Croatian group-strategies operating simultaneously at two different points in history spanning a century: it was Ilirci & Pravasi in the 1830s & 1840s. A century later it will be Communist Partizans & Ustase.



Croats, Partizani and WWII

In late 1943, the partisan forces numbered some 300 000 fighters arranged in 26 divisions:

2 were located in Serbia,

1 in Montenegro,

7 in Bosnia and Hercegovina,

11 in Croatia and

5 in Slovenia[36]

Reference #36. Quoted from: Sunley Sold on Serbia

Branimir Anzulovic
Heavenly Serbia: from Myth to Genocide
Page: 159

Anzulovic grudgingly admits that the largest number of Communist Partzani divisions were in places where Orthodox Serbs make up a minority population. Remember Lufters commenting on Croats swelling the Communist insurgents. Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims and Albanians followed Croatia’s lead in 1943 to Croat Tito’s Communists. It took Tito two years to defeat the Chetniks when he killed Mihailovic in ‘47. If Serbs were hiding Mihailovic from Tito and supporting him just like they’re hiding Maldic and Karadzic from The Hague, then Tito probably wasn’t pro-Serb.

In fact, Croats are the only ethnicity to contribute in the double-digits to Communist Partizani military divisions. Croats contributed almost 4 TIMES MORE to Tito’s divisions of armed men than both Serbia AND Montenegro.

If you divide the number of Partizani as a whole by the number of its composite divisions and then multiply that number by the number of divisions each republic contributed, here’s what you get: Catholic Croatia and Slovenia contributed 184 615 the Communist troops to Tito’s Partizani.

So Croats better wake up and realize that when Bleiburg happened way up there in Austria - it was largely Catholic Slovenian Partizani Communists killing Catholic Croat Ustase for political power.

Facts do not support Serb-dominated Communist Yugoslavia



A “Serb-dominated Yugoslavia” would never have given Montenegrins and Muslims their own ethnic status when they didn’t need to.



Rankovic never would’ve been removed or punished. In a Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia, he would’ve been president for life, despite his excesses, which I denounce.

No Serbian-dominated government would’ve ever have granted Vojvodina and Kosovo ANY KIND of autonomy as even the current government in Belgrade refuses to do so to this day. Those things damage the Serbian people’s interest immensely.

The only two Serb founding members of the Communist Partizani: Milovan Djilas and Aleksandar Rankovic, were both expelled from the Party when they tried to change the system after they eventually realized that Croat Tito’s Yugoslav Communism was all about keeping Serbs weak and divided. So was Dobrica Cosic, who is nevertheless widely considered to be traitor in Serbia these days on account of his term in office.

No ‘pro-Serb’ Communists would have ever killed Draza Mihailovic and yet allow Ustasa leader Serb-killer Poglavnik Ante Pavelic to live in Spain and South America.

It’s worth noting that ‘Muslim’ as an ethnicity was introduced only after census results consistently showed more Muslims declaring Serb ethnicity rather than Croatian, although some did opt for Croatian.

Taken with Anzulovic’s data regarding Lufters and the distribution of Croat/Slovene Tito’s military divisions in 1943, these facts decisively contradict the possibility of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. The above events couldn’t have occurred in a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia if people like Milosevic had the kind of power in Tito’s time that they had in the 90s.

Also, If you watch the 6-part documentary “Fall of Yugoslavia” which appeared on PBS, you even see Milosevic getting threatened with expulsion for the ‘Nobody is allowed to beat you’ comment in 1987. That’s why he had to undertake the Anti-bureaucratic Revolution with support from the people - to purge the party of old-school communists like his ex-mentor Ivan Stambolic who Milosevic killed later in the 90s. The fact that Milosevic had to fight party leadership and then purge the very same Communist Party in order to come to power also nullifies the possibility of a “Serb-dominated” Yugoslavia anytime before 1987.

Origin of the Albanians 2: Caucasus --> Sicily --> Balkans

This excerpt from Robert Elsie shows that Albanians presence in Italy predates the Arberesh migration of the 15th century.

What is odd is that Albanians are not mentioned living being in the Balkans on the territory Albania until a century later.

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts15/AH1038.html

1038, 1042, 1078
Michael Attaleiates:
The First Byzantine References


Michael Attaleiates was a Byzantine lawyer and historian who rose to high office under the emperors Romanus IV (r. 1067-1071) and Michael VII (r. 1071-1078). His 'History', covering the years 1034-1079, is a largely eyewitnessed account of political and military events in the Byzantine Empire. It was during this period that the Byzantine Greeks first took note of the Albanians as a people.

When the Emperor Michael (1), who passed away in piety and whose home is known to have been the province of Paphlagonia, took up the sceptre of the Byzantine Empire, the Agarene (2) people in Sicily in the West were defeated by Byzantine naval and land forces.

And had not the well-known George Maniakes, who had been entrusted with the general command, been eliminated on the slanderous accusation that he was hungry for power, and had not the military command of the war been transferred to others, that large and renowned island, blessed with large cities knowing no lack of precious goods, would still be under Byzantine control. Now, however, jealousy has destroyed not only the man and his endeavours, but also that enormous undertaking (3). For when subsequent commanders made base and shameful plans and decisions, not only was the island lost to Byzantium, but also the greater part of the army. Unfortunately, the people who had once been our allies and who possessed the same rights as citizens and the same religion, i.e. the Albanians and the Latins, who live in the Italian regions of our Empire beyond Western Rome, quite suddenly became enemies when Michael Dokenianos insanely directed his command against their leaders...

Constantine IX Monomachos (4) proved to be more benevolent on the imperial throne than his predecessor. He conveyed imperial honours and gifts to almost everyone with ambition, and delighted his subjects. Suddenly storm clouds gathered in the West and threatened him with nothing less than destruction and expulsion from the throne. The aforementioned George with the surname Maniakes, thirsting for blood, began an uprising in the Italian part of the Empire with Byzantine and Albanian soldiers there

(1) Michael IV (r. 1034-1041).
(2) i.e. the Arabs.
(3) i.e. the recapture of Sicily in 1038-1040.
(4) Constantine IX (r. 1042-1055).


[Extracts from: Michaelis Attaliotae: Historia, Bonn 1853, p. 8, 18, 297.
Translated by Robert Elsie.
First published in R. Elsie: Early Albania, a Reader of Historical Texts, 11th - 17th Centuries,
Wiesbaden 2003, p. 4-5.]

In later posts, we will cite numerous credibly sourced examples identical Albanian-Caucasic toponyms, surnames and even vocabulary.

Origins of the Albanians 1: Illyians & Albanians - Skeletally & Linguistically Different

I have scans of every page cited below. You are welcome to email me and I will send them to you.


Work done in Yugoslavia and Albania in the late 1980s and early 1990s and compiled by John Wilkes helped to bring an end to Illyrian-Albanian myth…

In the matter of physical character, skeletal evidence from prehistoric cemeteries suggests no more than average height (male 1.65 m; female 1.53). Not much reliance should perhaps be placed on attempts to define an Illyrian anthropological type as short and dark-skinned similar to modern Albanians.
John Wilkes
The Peoples of Europe: The Illyrians
Page: 219
1992
Blackwell Publishers

In other words, Illyrians & Albanians are morphologically different people - so they cannot represent an evolutionary continuity from one to the other. The basis on which continuity is claimed for these two different ethnic groups is purely linguistic:

The evidence for (llyrian origin) is primarily linguistic; its significance has become clear only with the development of the (modern) science of historical linguistics.
Noel Malcolm
Myth of Albanian National Identity: Some Key Elements
Quoted from:
Albanian Identities: Myth and History
Edited by: Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers & Bernd J. Fischer
Page: 74

The linguistic associations between Illyrian & Albanian rest on the few associations between Illyrian toponyms & Albanian vocabulary.

But Albanian & Illyrian languages belong to two different linguistic branches of Indo-European: Illyrian - centum; Albanian - satem, making them mutually exclusive of one another. Wilkes elaborates:

In the case of Illyrian, the problems appear to be multiplying: if Illyrian belongs not to the satem group but to the centum, the common etymology of Gentius and gens must be discarded. There is no evidence in fact that Illyrian belongs to the satem group but the argument that it does is crucial to the case that modern Albanian is descended from Illyrian.
John Wilkes
The Peoples of Europe: The Illyrians
Page: 73
1992
Blackwell Publishers

Below, Colin Renfrew shows that Albanian and Illyrian belong to two linguistic branches of the Indo-European family:

Table XIII The centum/satem subdivision
Centum Satem
Germanic Baltic
Venetic Slavic
Illyrian Albanian
Celtic Thracian
Italic Phrygian
Greek Armenian
Tochar Iranian/Indian

Taken from Renfrew, Archaeology & Language, pg: 107

A centum language cannot evolve into a satem language anymore than Swedish can evolve into Sanskrit. Illyrian could not possibly evolve into Albanian on the exact same grounds. Albanian is a satem language, transplanted to the Balkans at approximately 1300 BC, when the culture bearers of Albanian ethno-tribal identity & language settled along the Thracian-Illyrian border.

John Wilkes concludes his book with a caustic condemnation of the state of Albanian Archaeology, accusing Albanian scholars of deliberately distorting the facts:

On the other hand, it is hoped that the unfortunate distortions which have marred outstanding progress in Albanian Archaeology will soon be corrected. As new guidebooks are demonstrating, the Albanian culture, as fascinating and varied as any in that quarter of Europe, is an inheritance from several languages, religions and ethnic groups known to have inhabited the region since prehistoric times, among whom were the Illyrians.
John Wilkes
The Illyrians
Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians
Page: 280
Blackwell Publishers
1992