Old Serbia () is a Serbian historiographical term that is used to describe the territory that according to the dominant school of Serbian historiography in the late 19th century formed the core of the

Serbian Empire The Serbian Empire ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српско царство, Srpsko carstvo, separator=" / ", ) was a medieval Serbian state that emerged from the Kingdom of Serbia. It was established in 1346 by Dušan the Mighty, who significantly expande ...

in 1346–71. 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 The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (APKM) (; ), commonly known as Kosovo (; ) and abbreviated to Kosmet (from '' Kosovo'' and '' Metohija''; ) or KiM (), is an autonomous province that occupies the southernmost corner of Serbia, ...

and much of modern

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

. The term Old Serbians () were used as designations by Serb authors and later governments for

Slavic Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

populations from regions such as

Vardar Macedonia Vardar Macedonia (Macedonian language, Macedonian and ) is a historical term referring to the central part of the broader Macedonian region, roughly corresponding to present-day North Macedonia. The name derives from the Vardar, Vardar River and i ...

. In modern historiography, 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.

Terminology

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić VUK or Vuk may refer to: *Vuk (name), South Slavic given name ** Vuk, Ban of Bosnia (), a member of the Kotromanić dynasty ** Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864), Serbian language reformer and folklorist, often referred to simply as Vuk * ''Vuk'' (film) ...

referred to "Old Serbia" as a territory of the Serb people that was part of

medieval Serbia The medieval period in the history of Serbia began in the 6th century with the Slavic migrations to Southeastern Europe, and lasted until the Ottoman Serbia, Ottoman conquest of Serbian lands in the second half of the 15th century. The period i ...

prior to the Ottoman conquest. Milovan Radovanović claims that although the term was not attested until the 19th century it emerged in the colloquial speech of the Serb population who lived in territories of the

Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

after the

Great Migrations ''Great Migrations'' is a seven-episode nature documentary television miniseries that airs on the National Geographic Channel, featuring the great migrations of animals around the globe. The seven-part show is the largest programming event in the ...

. The toponym first appeared in the public sphere during the 1850s, the time of the triumph of

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

'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 Serbian nationalism asserts that Serbs are a nation and promotes the cultural and political unity of Serbs. It is an ethnic nationalism, originally arising in the context of the general rise of nationalism in the Balkans under Ottoman rule, ...

and changed the goal of Serbia's territorial expansion from the west to the south and were important to Serbian nationalism during the

Balkan Wars The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans, Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro, M ...

and the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

History

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 The Vardar (; , , ) or Axios (, ) is the longest river in North Macedonia and a major river in Greece, where it reaches the Aegean Sea at Thessaloniki. It is long, out of which are in Greece, and drains an area of around . The maximum depth of ...

river valley. In particular, it comprised the Kriva and Pčinja rivers, the area of the

Bregalnica Bregalnica (, ) is the second largest river in North Macedonia. It starts as a spring near the mountain city of Pehchevo and it passes through Berovo, Delchevo, near the cities of Makedonska Kamenica, Kočani, Vinica and Štip, before join ...

river, the northern zone of the river

, 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 a particular area that was not part of the

Principality of Serbia The Principality of Serbia () 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 was negotiated first through an unwritten agre ...

. After its appearance during the 1860s, the term denoted only Raška. Following the

Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878) The Serbian–Ottoman Wars (), also known as the Serbian–Turkish Wars or Serbian Wars for Independence (), were two consequent wars (1876–1877 and 1877–1878), fought between the Principality of Serbia and the Ottoman Empire. In conjuncti ...

, 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 Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

. By 1912, the claims were narrowed to Kosovo only. The critical treatment of facts 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 The First Serbian Uprising (; sr-Cyrl, Први српски устанак; ) was an uprising of Serbs in Orašac (Aranđelovac), Orašac against the Ottoman Empire from 14 February 1804 to 7 October 1813. The uprising began as a local revolt ...

and

Second Serbian Uprising The Second Serbian Uprising ( / ''Drugi srpski ustanak'', ) was the second phase of the Serbian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, which erupted shortly after the re-annexation of the country to the Ottoman Empire in 1813. The occupation was ...

had no territorial ambitions over Kosovo. A plan made during that period to create a Slav-Serbian empire in the Serb-inhabited areas of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

excluded Kosovo and Old Serbia. Serbian interest in the region of Macedonia was defined in a foreign policy program named

Načertanije The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia () describes the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology of the creation of a Serb state which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group, includi ...

. It was a document whose author

Ilija Garašanin Ilija Garašanin ( sr-cyr, Илија Гарашанин; 28 January 1812 – 22 June 1874) was a Serbian statesman who served as the prime minister of Serbia between 1852 and 1853 and again from 1861 to 1867. Ilija Garašanin was conservati ...

, a Serb politician envisioned a Serbian state that included the

and territories such as Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro and Old Serbia. Garašanin in Načertanije 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 The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of Serbia, history, and Serbian lan ...

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 a delegation of Serbs of Old Serbia presented their request to 'liberate' and unite Old Serbia with the

to the government of Serbia. They also informed representatives of the

Great Powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power ...

and the

Emperor of Russia The emperor and autocrat of all Russia (, ), also translated as emperor and autocrat of all the Russias, was the official title of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarch from 1721 to 1917. The title originated in connection with Russia's ...

about their demands. In the same year the Committee for the Liberation of Old Serbia and Macedonia was founded. Altserbien-und-Makedonien-map

Serbian nationalists envisioned Serbia as a "

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

of 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

, the Serbs hoped to gain the Kosovo Vilayet and

Sanjak of Novi Pazar The Sanjak of Novi Pazar (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Novopazarski sandžak, Новопазарски санџак; ) was an Ottoman sanjak (second-level administrative unit) that was created in 1865. It was reorganized in 1880 and 1902. The Ottoman rule ...

to the

Lim River The Lim (Serbian Cyrillic: Лим, ) or Vermosh River () is a river that flows through Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and is long. With the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Serbia received full sovereignty and made territorial gains around this time, acquiring the districts of

Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names of European cities in different languages (M–P)#N, names in other languages), less often spelled in English as Nish, is the list of cities in Serbia, third largest city in Serbia and the administrative cente ...

Pirot Pirot ( sr-Cyrl, Пирот) is a city and the administrative center of the Pirot District in southeastern Serbia. According to 2022 census, the urban area of the city has a population of 34,942, while the population of the city administrative are ...

Vranje Vranje ( sr-Cyrl, Врање, ) is a city in Southern Serbia and the administrative center of the Pčinja District. According to the 2022 census, the city itself has a population of 55,214 while the city administrative area has 74,381 inhabitan ...

and . Following the

Great Eastern Crisis The Great Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878 began in the Ottoman Empire's Rumelia, administrative territories in the Balkan Peninsula in 1875, with the outbreak of several uprisings and wars that resulted in the intervention of international powers, ...

(1875–1878) and the emergence of the

Macedonian Question The region of Macedonia is known to have been inhabited since Paleolithic times. Еarliest historical inhabitants The earliest historical inhabitants of the region were the Pelasgians, the Bryges and the Thracians. The Pelasgians occupied Em ...

, 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 the 1880s, Serbia saw those areas, referred to as Old Serbia, in territorial terms. The relationship with

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

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 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 Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

Bitola Bitola (; ) is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing ...

and

Pristina Pristina or Prishtina ( , ), . is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. It is the administrative center of the eponymous municipality and District of Pristina, district. In antiquity, the area of Pristina was part of the Dardanian Kingdo ...

and included consuls such as

Milan Rakić Milan Rakić (Serbian Cyrillic: Милан Ракић; 18 September 1876 – 30 June 1938) was a Serbian poet-diplomat and academic. He focused on dodecasyllable and hendecasyllable verse, which allowed him to achieve beautiful rhythm and rh ...

and

Branislav Nušić Branislav Nušić ( sr-Cyrl, Бранислав Нушић, ; – 19 January 1938) was a Serbian playwright, satirist, essayist, novelist and founder of Modern Rhetoric, modern rhetoric in Serbia. He also worked as a journalist and a civil ...

who chronicled 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 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 The Chetniks,, ; formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland; and informally colloquially the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist m ...

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 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 Jovan Cvijić ( sr-Cyrl, Јован Цвијић, ; 1865 – 16 January 1927) was a Serbs, Serbian geographer, Ethnology, ethnologist, university professor and academic. He was the president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, S ...

, 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 Debar ( ; , sq-definite, Dibra or Dibra e Madhe) is a city in the western part of North Macedonia, near the border with Albania, off the road from Struga to Gostivar. It is the seat of Debar Municipality. Debar has an ethnic Albanian majorit ...

Kumanovo Kumanovo ( ; , sq-definite, Kumanova; also known by other #Etymology, alternative names) is the second-largest city in North Macedonia after the capital Skopje and the seat of Kumanovo Municipality, the List of municipalities in the Republic ...

Prilep Prilep ( ) is the List of cities in North Macedonia, fourth-largest city in North Macedonia. According to 2021 census, it had a population of 63,308. Name The name of Prilep appeared first as ''Πρίλαπος'' in Greek (''Prilapos'') in 1 ...

and

Tetovo Tetovo (, ; , sq-definite, Tetova) is a city in the northwestern part of North Macedonia, built on the foothills of Šar Mountain and divided by the Pena (river), Pena River. The municipality of Tetovo covers an area of at above sea level, wit ...

. In 1906–1907, Cvijić wrote 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 Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Macedonia * Mac ...

", altering the location of the boundary between

Bulgarians Bulgarians (, ) are a nation and South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and its neighbouring region, who share a common Bulgarian ancestry, culture, history and language. They form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, ...

and Serbs and readjusting the colour scheme to show Macedonia as nearer to Serbia. Ethnographic maps showing 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 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 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 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 At the Congress of Berlin (13 June – 13 July 1878), the major European powers revised the territorial and political terms imposed by the Russian Empire on the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878), which had ended the Rus ...

, only a small number of Serbian accounts existed that described Old Serbia and Macedonia in 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 The Serbo-Bulgarian War or the Serbian–Bulgarian War (, ''Srăbsko-bălgarska voyna'', , ''Srpsko-bugarski rat''), a war between the Kingdom of Serbia and the Principality of Bulgaria, erupted on and lasted until . Despite Bulgaria's statu ...

(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 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 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 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 Marko Mrnjavčević ( sr-Cyrl, Марко Мрњавчевић, ; – 17 May 1395) was the ''de jure'' Serbia in the Middle Ages, Serbian king from 1371 to 1395, while he was the ''de facto'' ruler of territory in western Macedonia (region) ...

were deemed as examples of Serbian culture. Due to competition from the Bulgarian national movement, efforts were devoted to delineate a boundary in areas where differences among religions were nonexistent. File:Iglesia de San Pedro, Novi Pazar, Serbia, 2014-04-15, DD 07.JPG, Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul of

Stari Ras Ras ( sr-Cyrl, Рас; ), known in modern Serbian historiography as Stari Ras ( sr-Cyrl, Стари Рас, "Old Ras"), is a medieval fortress and area located in the vicinity of former market-place of ''Staro Trgovište'', some west of modern ...

in Raška, today a

UNESCO World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

File:Свети Ѓорѓија Село Нагоричани.jpg, Church of St. George in North Macedonia, founded by

Stefan Milutin Stefan Uroš II Milutin ( sr-Cyrl, Стефан Урош II Милутин, Stefan Uroš II Milutin; 1253 – 29 October 1321), known as Saint King, was the King of Serbia between 1282–1321, a member of the Nemanjić dynasty. He was one ...

King of Serbia This is an wiktionary:archontology, archontological list of Serbs, Serbian monarchs, containing Monarch, monarchs of the Serbia in the Middle Ages, medieval principalities, to heads of state of modern Serbia. The :Serbian monarchy, Serbian mona ...

File:Kalaja e Novoberdes Qyteti Mesjetar i Novobërdës 1.jpg,

Novo Brdo Fortress Novo Brdo Fortress (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Тврђава Ново Брдо, Tvrđava Novo Brdo) is a medieval Serbian fortress in Kosovo. Its ruins are located near the town of Novo Brdo, about east of Pristina. The fortress was built in the late 13 ...

, a medieval Serbian fortress in Kosovo File:Patrikana e Pejës.jpg,

Patriarchal Monastery of Peć Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

in Kosovo, the seat of the

Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...

from the 14th century when its status was upgraded into a patriarchate, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site 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 a language shift. Peoples like the Turks, Turkifed inhabitants and Albanians (in several texts called "

Arnauts Arnaut () is a Turkish language, Turkish ethnonym used to denote Albanians. ''Arvanid'' (), ''Arnavud'' (), plural: ''Arnavudlar'' (): modern Turkish language, Turkish: ''Arnavut'', plural: ''Arnavutlar''; are ethnonyms used mainly by Ottoman ...

") 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 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 was listed as "Old Serbia", was classified as an "unredeemed Serbian" region by the

Black Hand Black Hand or The Black Hand may refer to: Extortionists and underground groups * Black Hand (), 1919–1924 Mexican-American raiders of the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant * Black Hand (anarchism) (), a presumed secret, anarchist organization based ...

, a secret society formed by Serb officers that generated nationalist material and armed activity by bands outside Serbia. In

Serbian historiography Serbian historiography ( sr-Cyrl, српска историографија, srpska istoriografija) refers to the historiography (methodology of history studies) of the Serb people since the founding of Serbian statehood. The development can ...

, the

First Balkan War The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League (the Kingdoms of Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Greece, Greece and Kingdom of Montenegro, Montenegro) agai ...

(1912–1913) is also known as ''War for Liberation of Old Serbia''. Later, in 1913 the

Sandžak Sandžak (Serbian Cyrillic: ; ) is a historical and geo-political region in the Balkans, located in the southwestern part of Serbia and the eastern part of Montenegro. The Bosnian/ Serbian term ''Sandžak'' derives from the Sanjak of Novi Paza ...

and

became part of 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 Vaso Čubrilović ( sr-Cyrl, Васо Чубриловић; 14 January 1897 – 11 June 1990) was a YugoslavВладимир Дедијер, ''Сарајево 1914'', Просвета, Београд 1966, стр. 568 and Bosnian Serb scholar an ...

, a Serb intellectual, as the realisation of Garašanin's concept. In 1914, groups within 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. Serbia after Balkan Wars

At the end of the

, Serbia became part of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

and the state placed its efforts toward speeding up the incorporation of newly acquired lands such as Kosovo, Macedonia and

. These areas deemed as Old Serbia were subsequently organised into 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 Nikola Pašić ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Пашић, ; 18 December 1845 – 10 December 1926) was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat. During his political career, which spanned almost five decades, he served five times as prime minis ...

treated the Slavic population of Vardar Macedonia as either Serbs or as Old Serbians (Starosrbijanci). Following the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

was reorganised as a federal state, with

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

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 North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

. The stances and opinions of 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.

Notes

References

Serb Travelogues and associated material

* (Public domain) * (Public domain) * * (Public domain) * * *

External links

{{coord missing, Serbia Political history of Serbia History of Kosovo Historical regions in Serbia History of Macedonia (region) Medieval history of Serbia Serbian irredentism Principality of Serbia Kingdom of Serbia History of the Serbs Vardar Macedonia (1918–1941)