Early Croatian History - Illyria
The geographical extent of Illyria are Bosnia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, the modern states or provinces with which it most nearly coincided. The name Illyrian is also used in three other significations. In the 17th and 18th centuries it was used to indicate those Slavs who were members of the non-united Greek Church—i.e. principally the Servians or Razans. In the 19th century the terms Illyrian and Illyrian peoples were used in connection with the idea of the union of the Southern Slavs—the Servians, Croatians, and Slovenians— into a revived Illyrian kingdom, an idea which seems to have been first made current by Gai about 1835. Illyrian literature is sometimes used when Servian literature is meant; and Servian literature in this sense includes Dalmatian or Ragusan literature. The scene of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is laid in Illyria.
Illyrium (Lat. Illyricum), in ancient times the country that stretched along the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea, from Epirus northwards. It was not a homogeneous territory, but varied in extent at different periods of its history. The region was inhabited by numerous tribes, who seem seldom to have been held together by any sort of political cohesion. From 1300 to 750 BC a large migration of Indo-European peoples from northern Europe to the south - the emergence of Illyric tribes on the territory of Croatia. About 600 BC saw the beginning of the Greek colonialisation of the Adriatic coast.
From some cause or other — probably the mountainous character of the region they inhabited was the principal cause — they were the last of the peoples of the Balkan peninsula to be brought within the fold of civilisation. The single Greek colony of Dyrrhachium or Epidamnus, in the south, was the only point whence the rays of Greek enlightenment could penetrate the darkness of Illyrian barbarism.
The Illyrians are described as resembling the savage Thracians in their manners, as tattooing their bodies, as offering human sacrifices to their deities, but as honouring women, who even held chieftainships amongst them. For many years they seem to nave kept up a series of incessant attacks upon the early kings of Macedonia; they levied tribute from Amyntas II., and slew Perdiccas (3o9 B.C.). But they were subdued by Philip II. and Alexander, who annexed their country to Macedonia. In the 3d century, after the breaking up of the Macedonian monarchy, they caused much annoyance to Greece and Italy by their piratical excursions. At length the patience of Rome was exhausted, and in two short wars (229 and 219 B.C.) she succeeded in subjugating the refractory Illyrians. Fifty years later they provoked a third war with Rome, which resulted in their defeat and the incorporation of their territories in the all-victorious republic. Nevertheless, the Illyrians only consented to be civilised at the sword's point, they frequently rose in revolt against their conquerors; but in 35 B.C. Illyria was made a Roman province.
During the empire they served faithfully in the Roman armies, and even gave half-a-dozen emperors to the state, as Claudius II., Aurelian, Diocletian, Probus, and some others. Under the rule of the emperors the political importance of Illyria, or Illyricum, as the Romans called it, was greatly increased. In the 2d century Illyria extended as far north as the Danube, and even beyond it, and included Noricum, Pannonia, Mcesia, Thrace, and Dacia. Constantino still further enlarged its boundaries, and made it one of the four chief divisions of his empire. But when the empire was divided between East and West, Illyria was also divided. Noricum, Pannonia, Mcesia, &c. were designated as Illyris Barbara, and incorporated with the empire of the West; Illyris Grseca, embracing Greece, Macedonia, Epirus, &c., was attached to the eastern empire.
In the period of the final dissolution of the western empire Illyria was successively overrun by the Goths, the Huns, and several Slavic tribes, and nearly all traces of civilisation disappeared. The Illyrians themselves partly amalgamated with the Huns and their Slavic conquerors, and partly were driven southwards, where one of their tribes, the Albani, survive, at all events in name, in the modern Albanians. As the several Slavic states became consolidated and rose to power, the political importance of Illyria, and even its name, gradually died away.
From 1767 to 1777 Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia were collectively named Illyria, and governed from Vienna, but each of these divisions was subsequently declared a separate kingdom, with a separate administration, while the military frontier remained under military rule. In 1776 the Croatian seaboard, which had previously been under the same administration as the rest of the Austrian coast, was annexed to Croatia, but three years later Fiume was declared an integral part of Hungary. These administrative changes, and especially the brief existence of united "Illyria," stimulated the dormant nationalism of the Croats and their jealousy of the Magyars. The name was revived in quite modern times, when Napoleon, in 1809, formed the territories he had wrested from Austria into the Illyrian provinces. In 1816, when they were restored to Austria, this power constituted out of them and the provinces of Carinthia, Carniola, Grirz, Gradisca, and Istria the kingdom of Illyria. But the designation was dropped in 1849, and the territories included in it were reorganised as provinces.
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