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460-925 - Southern Slavs

Around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire in 460 AD, Slavic tribes, including those of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, migrated to the Balkans over many years. There is no agreement on where any of the Slavic tribes originated or why they came. However, it is thought that the migrants came from what are now Ukraine, Russia and perhaps the Nordic countries. They settled in different places throughout the region, and experienced separate development as the three cultures evolved. But - and it is to be underlined today - Slovenians, Croats and Serbs share a common ancient Slavic origin.

The Slavs, a migratory people from northeastern Europe, were subjugated by the Eurasian Avars in the 6th century, and together they invaded the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th and 7th centuries, settling in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina and the surrounding lands. More South Slavs (namely Croats and Serbs) came in a second wave, and according to some scholars were invited by Emperor Heraclius to drive the Avars from Dalmatia.

With the arrival of the Southern Slavs great ethnographic changes took place in the Balkan Peninsula. The ancient Greek inhabitants who lived principally in the eastern and southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula were pressed to the eastern and southern extremities of the Peninsula. The remnant of the ancient Illyrians who inhabited the western part of the Peninsula, were driven farther into the mountains and intermingled with the numerous Slav settlers there. The Roman colonists still remaining in the Peninsula were gradually absorbed by the Slav masses or survived to any great extent only in those regions where the Slav tide of invasion was less strong, as in Thessaly and South Macedonia (Tsintsars or Macedo-Eoumanians) and in Dacia (Eoumanians). Thus throughout the Balkan Peninsula and far to the north of it the Southern Slavs became the principal ethnic element.

Modern knowledge of the in the west Balkans during the dark ages is patchy. Upon their arrival, the Slavs brought with them a tribal social structure, which probably fell apart and gave way to feudalism only with Frankish penetration into the region in the late 9th century (Bosnia probably originated as one such pre-feudal Slavic entity). It was also around this time that the south Slavs were Christianized. Bosnia, due to its geographic position and terrain, was probably one of the last areas to go through this process, which presumably originated from the urban centers along the Dalmatian coast. The region of Bosnia had been part of the kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia, whose borders were often fluctuant.

By the time of Emperor Charles the Great (c. 800 AD), the Slavs had increasingly settled in the region and become its permanent inhabitants. The region, called the Land of the Slavs or Slavinia, became modern-day Yugoslavia. This territory is not to be confused with Slavinia (German: Slawien), the historical region in present-day Poland and Germany consisting of the western part of the region of Pomerania, specifically Hither Pomerania and Further Pomerania. The term Duchy of Slavinia is sometimes used to denote the West Slavic Duchy of Pomerania.

This whole group of Slavs, extending from the Alps to the Carpathians across the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, went by this common name of Slavs. Thus they are so called by the Greek and Latin writers both at the time of their immigration and for a long time afterwards. The territory in which they settled was called Slavinia (SicAajStviai, Sclavinia, Sclavonia, or- rarely-Sclavinica). The name of Slavs for the nation and that of Slavinia for their country, was retained by the Southern Slavs for a very long time.

The population slowly adopted Christianity, but were variously influenced by its two major sects from the outset. The Slovenes and Croats became Roman Catholics and adopted the Roman alphabet, while the Serbs became Eastern Orthodox Christians and adopted the Cyrillic alphabet to represent the same language. In 1054, the centuries-old power struggle between the Roman church and the eastern Byzantine churches (Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria), culminated in the schism between east and west, which divided Christianity into two Christian churches and empires. The schism cemented the religious border represented by the Drina River, with modern-day Slovenia, Croatia and BiH on the west, and Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia on the east.