Papal Silk Road from Pula to Kotor

- Croatian raison d'être -

( pročitaj Hrvatski "Raison d'être" na hrvatskom jeziku )

1 - Preface

The book "The South Slavic Question and the World War" written by Ivo Pilar, under whose name a reputable Croatian scientific and research institution in the field of social sciences operates today, is the basic reading for this text.

The fundamental thing about this work, which is read uncritically today (just as it is not-read, also uncritically) is that it was written in 1918, while the war was still going on, and while in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, there was a spirit of Serbian guilt for starting that war. The historical forgery in the well-known pattern "Serbs all and everywhere" that pervade the entire book, today when there is a sovereign Republic of Croatia with institutions that take care of the identity of the Croatian people, responding to such forgeries acquire, in contrast to the once rampaged ones, a completely different and much more civilized dimension.

2 - Circumstances of the creation of Croatia

From the first prince Trpimir to the conclusion of prince Branimir in 879, the meaning and reasons for the existence of the Croatian state have been spiritually determined by the Croatian people until the present day.

The Peace of Aachen, signed in 812 between the Frankish and Byzantine Empires, territorially determined the zones of interest of the two Christian empires. At the same time, the Republic of Venice experienced rapid development under the patronage of the Papal States, which maintained trade ties and thus peacetime relations between the two Christian empires. That Papal Silk Road from Pula to Kotor was conditioned by the islands in the eastern Adriatic that provided merchant ships with protection from the open sea. Our beautiful Dalmatian towns on the mainland and on the islands also originate from this period.

3 - Appearance of Croats

Croats, who also wanted their share in that merchant, appear for the first time as an important factor in such arranged relations. At the same time, it is worth noting that the theory about Croats as a tribal name for autochthonous, both Slavic and Roman natives, whose tribal name referred to the activities they were engaged in at the time - such as farming, is much more plausible and more acceptable for today's circumstances.

But farming was not what brought the first form of statehood to the Croatian tribe, whether Slavic or Roman, but rather it was banditry, rebellion and piracy that threatened the Papal Silk Road and for which Pope Ivan VIII. confirmed the independence of the Croatian prince Branimir, permanently determining the future and connection of the Croats with the Holy Seat. They would say today somewhat sarcastically - for better or for worse.

4 - Papal States of Croatia

Since then, over the years and until the arrival of the Ottomans, Croatia was formed as the main protector of the Papal Silk Road. Those first papal Croatian states, until the arrival of the Hungarians a hundred years later, spread deep into the Pannonian plain and today's Hungary, and protected that area to the east from the then strong Bulgarian Empire. In these conflicts with the Bulgarians, the South Slavic unity appeared for the first time - that later Croatian bitter wound - when, under King Tomislav, there were also the areas of Duklja and Raška, which today figure as the lands of the original origin of the Serbian people.

Protecting stability and peace on the eastern shores of the Adriatic and as a patron of the medieval Croatian state, the Papal States also got involved with their diplomacy in the conflict between Hungarians and Croats when they converted the leader of the Hungarians, Duke Gejza and his family to Christianity around 985, and Gejza's son, King Saint Stephen I, has presented as the first Christian king of Hungary. This same papal diplomacy in the following centuries will create the Austro-Hungarian military alliance in defence against the Ottomans.

Conflicts between Hungarians and Croats of course continued, primarily for the sake of lowland Slavonia, which essentially only interested the Hungarians, and not access to the sea as is commonly said. But since then the Papal State has always been a mediator and conciliator in these conflicts. These conflicts should have ended with the wedding of King Zvonimir and Jelena, daughter of the Hungarian duke Ladislav in 1063. Zvonimir was then proclaimed Croatian king in 1075. Originally therefore, the Union between Hungarians and Croats under the papal blessing was supposed to be a personal Union, under the Croatian, and not the Hungarian king.

5 - Loss of papal support

These plans were disrupted by the Croatian nobility refusal to support King Zvonimir, who was asked for support in the Crusades in the Holy Land against the Muslims, and he was overthrown in 1089 by the same nobility, driven by their own ambitions, and with significant Hungarian influence.

After the overthrow of King Zvonimir, Croatia lost the favor of the Pope in favor of the Hungarians, which led to personal unification in 1102, which permanently marked Croatia's and Europe's future. It is completely wrong to interpret that the personal union of Hungarians and Croats resulted from the defeat of Petar Svacich at Gvozd by Koloman in 1097, i.e. a full 5 years before unification, but it is primarily the result of papal diplomacy and the influence of the Papal State at that time.

But the question arises as to why the document called Pacta Conventa, was found only some 260 years later, and which is obviously a forgery, of the kind that were regularly written retrograde at that time. In searching for that answer, the historical context of the Battle of Marica River from 1371 can help us, when it became clear that Europe and the papal Hungarian-Croatian Union were in great danger. After that first penetration of the Ottomans into the European continent, the Croats should have been further encouraged to fight, taking into account the disastrous consequences of the unification with the Hungarians in 1102. Disastrous consequences primarily for the Catholic Church and Catholics in the area of the medieval Croatian States.

6 - Consequences of papal diplomacy

What did the papal diplomacy produce by uniting the Croats with the Hungarians in 1102?

1 - Part of the Croatian nobility, dissatisfied with the union with the Hungarians, retreats to the hard-to-reach Bosnian mountains, switches to paganism instead of Christianity, and establishes the first medieval Bosnian State. That Bosnian state, outside the reach of the Hungarians and the Pope, still maintains close ties with the Croatian and Serbian royalties (which in the meantime, founded itself the first Serbian state under the Nemanjic family).

2 - The Serbs in the area of Duklia and Raška, today Monte Negro and Sandjak, on the very edge of the Papal Silk Road, so until then in close relations with the Pope and Catholicism, completely turn to Orthodoxy and create the long-desired state from the second attempt. The first, unsuccessful attempt at independence was after the Bulgarians, who until then had been the biggest obstacle to the creation of a state, were defeated by the army of the Croatian King Tomislav.

The Serbian Orthodox Church, which arose as a direct result of the rebellion against the papal association of Hungarians and Croats under the Hungarian crown, deserves a special chapter, just like the Serbs, who from the time of the medieval Croatian States, i.e. well before the foundation of the Serbian Orthodox Church, were the indispensable parts of the Croatian cultural and state-building inheritance.

7 - Serbian Orthodox Church

The Serbian nation, as the bearer of Orthodoxy and medieval ties with Byzantium, was an indispensable part of the Papal-Croatian Silk Road even long before the foundation of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Today's completely wrong ghettoization of the Serbian people, which is carried out in cooperation with the current government in Croatia, may serve the good-neighborly relations of the states, but it in no way serves the peoples who have lived together for centuries.

The first attempts to establish medieval Serbian states were unsuccessful, because in the environment of the then strong and great Byzantines and Bulgarians. They had nothing, like the Croatian coastal bandits, with which they could impose themselves on the big ones as a relatively small nation. The first significant attempt is recorded by some after the battles of the Croatian King Tomislav against the Bulgarians. But despite the weakening of the Bulgarian influence that followed after that, the Serbian people still lacked what a small nation in a large environment needs, which is Raison d'être. It appeared much later in the 19th century with the development of land routes and railways, that connect Europe and Asia Minor over Serbia.

8 - Achieved and then lost freedom of the SPC

But the awareness of the need to have one's own Raison d'être derived from the then fraternal Croatian experiences has been present in the Serbian people since the formation of the first medieval Croatian states. In this atmosphere, the son of the founder of the first Serbian state, Rastko Nemanjić, whom we call Saint Sava today, created the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219. So not to spread Christianity or Orthodoxy, but to create what the Serbian people lacked in order to preserve the state, which is, albeit an artificial, Raison d'être. And that's how that dominant political religious community was created where the Croats, who at that time were subordinate to the Hungarian crown by papal will and diplomacy, sincerely envied the Serbs as a symbol of the freedom that they never achieved with their papal loyalty.

That original freedom of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which lasted only for the first 250 years, is confusing today because it simply no longer exists. The Ottoman conquests made the SPC a vassal and no longer a libertarian creation, torn between serving its own people and its own interests, which are too often in conflict with each other. The SPC, as an Ottoman vassal and a "non-threatening" religious community with a privileged position under the Ottoman Empire, converted to its side a large number of believers and material goods captured by the Ottoman conquests. And that is so disproportionately and megalomaniacally large that it is simply need to look for a great master. With the failure of the siege of Vienna and the beginning of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the SPC turned in search of a new great master, this time Austria-Hungary. A great empire that is also later falling apart. Today, the SPC is looking for a new great master and as such, essentially a vassal and not a libertarian creation, it is completely focused on the greatness offered by the Russian social community, which is essentially, completely unknown in these region.

And knowing the fate of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, that should concern primary those, who sincerely care about Russia.

9 - Medieval Bosnian State

We are interested in the fate of medieval Bosnia, that indivisible hinterland of the Papal Silk Road. Although both Bosnia and Serbia were originally founded as an expression of rebellion against the papal association of Croats and Hungarians under the Hungarian crown, for the Serbs who, having turned to Orthodoxy, still retained their Christian faith, Bosnian Godliness was a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church of that time. Similar to the status of infidels in the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Bosnia by executing the remaining Croatian (Bosnian) nobility in Jajce in 1463.
It remains questionable why a large part of the people of medieval Bosnia converted to Islam, although as a survival option they had the option of converting to Serbian Orthodoxy, which in the meantime received the status of a "non-disturbing" religious community of the Ottoman Empire. One of the possible answers lies in the presumed intolerance towards papal Christianity, which exiled the dissatisfied people to the Bosnian mountains, but it is equally possible that somewhere in the collective memory, it was recorded that the initial reason for their departure to the Bosnian mountains, was to refuse to fight against the Muslims in the Holy Land.

Medieval Bosnia is important to us today also on a symbolic level. It symbolizes the second attempt to unify and cooperate between Croats and Serbs (that known Croatian bitter wound) after the first, unsuccessful attempt under Croatian King Tomislav. But this time under the Bosnian king Tvrtko, without the mediation of the church. But of course the church intervened and just like the fable about the frog and the scorpion, both Bosnian Croats and Serbs sank under the onslaught of the Ottomans. It can be assumed that the communists were once well educated, so they tried to resurrect what was killed in Jajce in 1463 in the same Jajce in 1943. But Croatia's bitter wound did not heal even in 1943. And again the church intervened.

1o - Creation of the Republic of Croatia

And it was doubtedly a problem in the relationship of the church to communism. Known are, the words of the istrian priest Bože Milanović  - "Regimes passes, the people remain". The problem was more likely in the symbolism of the Croatian royal city of Jajce. For Tito, it was a symbol of brotherhood and unity of medieval Bosnia, for the church, it was a symbol of the exclusion of the church from social presence. And it took a long time for these relations to be reconciled. Until the end of the 60s of the last century.

I deeply believe that Croatian springers and Serbian liberals from the 70s, overestimate their role, that the constitutional amendments and the subsequent Constitution from 1974, are directly connected to the Vatican's recognition of Tito's federalism, which after 1102 and long 872 years, was confirmed resurrected formal medieval Croatian statehood by that same 1974 constitution. This time as the Republic.

As such, it was of course not perfect, but it was ours, Croatian Republic. After it, came the second, internationally recognized Croatian Republic of Franjo Tuđman, and then came the third, which we will remember for the frantic struggle for the acquired positions of the elites created in the first Republic against the elites created in the second Republic, which shamefully competed in devaluing the creators of the first two.

Our time is therefore not for the third, but for the fourth Republic. A Republic that treats the creator of the first two with dignity.

Written by:  Petar Bačić in Pula, March 25, 2024.