During the Turks' most powerful era, the Serbs fought as vassals on the Turkish side against the Croatians in places like Krbavsko Polje, Siget, Sisak, Jajce, etc. This was during the 15th and 16th centuries.
The arrival of the Vlachs (who were later Serbianized) was due to the fact that the Croatian population was wiped out in many parts of Croatia due to defending Europe from Islam.
Yeah, the guy is a Slovene professional historian, Professor Maher is an American professional historian -- and they ALL have it "wrong" and you have it "right". Of course, Dio! Would like fries with that?
The fact is that ultimately Croats couldn't hold the border against the Turks alone and called in Austro-Hungary to do it -- the Krajina (military frontier) was virtually empty of Croats, many were killed off and the rest escaped to the interior. No Croat who was sane and prosperous wanted to die there, given a choice.
So the Empress Maria Theresa invited Serbs from Ottoman conquered Bosnia to inhabit the deserted Krajina in Croatia. She promised the Serbs that they could keep their religion and way of life, as long as they defended against the Turks -- so they did. This is how Serbs would up in what was the old Krajina of Croatia in the first place. Huge numbers of Serbs died there, defending the Croatian border.
But once the Turks were no longer a threat, and the Krajina was eventually abolished, the Croats wanted the Serbs to either convert to Catholicism or get out. Croatians wanted their land back from those Serbs and the only way they could get it was to drive those Serbs out or kill them off -- so during WWI, WWII, and the last war, Croats did both.
This is what the Slovenian was referring to about Croats "thanking the Serbs for defending them from Islam".
As for the rest of it, had Croatia not been allowed to join the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later called Yugoslavia) post-WWI, Croatia would have been hacked up into little pieces at Versailles instead of preserving and even ultimately increasing its territory. On that, the Slovene is also right.
The WW II CROs used to tell their Nazi dinner guests that Croats are really not Slavs, but Goths. And Slovenes are “alpski Hrvati” Alpine Croats. And Asterix was Tudjman’s great-grat grandfather.
BTW, read the Catholic Encyclopedia (it’s on line), in the article “Albania”. There you’ll find that Holy Mother Church writes about “the westernmost Serbs, who are called HROATS”...
Diocletian recites and recites. He recites the Ustasha schoolboy primer about “Vlachs”, not Serbs, being the settlers in Austria’s Military Frontier /Militaergrenze/ Vojna Krajina. How these Latin-Speakers became Serbianized Dio does not explain. (He recites.) Although Krajina Serbian and Croatian dialects have loads of Venetian words, I’d be interested to see the internal evidence from there that reflects Vlach language. After Dio finishes reciting, let’s wait for him to adduce the scholarly evidence. — Latin-speaking populations bear the same name, from Wales to Wallachia (Rumania) — the Romanized. In Greece the Vlakhi are ‘hillbillies , shepherds”. VLACH ~VLAH is a Slavic word, borrowing of a Germanic word, itself the borrowing of the name of a Romanized Celtic tribe (VOLCAE, singular VOLCA) then bordering the Germani to the south. The name was laid on other Romanized peoples in the course of Germanic migrations. In Britain the term covered both Romanized and un-Romanized Britons, the Welsh. —In Ireland Walsh and Welch are descendants of the Anglicized Normans who invaded Ireland from Wales. In Scotland there’s Wallace. Anglo-Saxon wealh meant ‘foreigner, slave, Briton (Welshman)’. In Austria and Switzerland it means ‘Italian’. In Serbia it includes Rumanians. Hungarians took it over from the Serbs: Olasz-orszag is ‘Vlach-land’ = Italy; Czech Vlachy, Polish Wlochy mean ‘Italy’. Serbian placenames near Sarajevo reflect Serbianized Roman populations (Vlasotince, Vlasenica, Romanija). —
Is my little scribble mere Serbian or Serbophile propaganda? Read the scoop on the following Austrian site.
Where in the world did you get this steaming mess of er, veggies?
Aw, please don't tell me you're one of those "all the Serbs are really Vlachs" nuts? I might have to start a sheep ranch or something.
Seriously, Dio, I never thought you were one of those. Please say it ain't so. Say you just posted this to get somebody's goat.
Smooches,
wonders