Today the political aspirations of this compact mass of Serbians are centered around the independent kingdom of Serbia, which is regarded as the nucleus around which a greater Serbia comprising all the Serbian-speaking inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula will group. This Serbo-Croatian element is estimated to comprise at least 10,300,000 individuals.[182] The southern Slav question centers chiefly around the fate of those unredeemed populations. The Near Eastern Question cannot be settled without cutting away from Austria-Hungary, and uniting with Serbia and Montenegro, all the southern Slav provinces of the Hapsburg crown. It is stated of Metternich that he had openly proclaimed his belief in the necessity of annexing Serbia to either Turkey or Austria. That was in the day, however, when popular claims counted for little.
Southern Slav unity and independence are both necessary to Europe. Serbia, or rather Serbo-Croatia or “Jugoslavia,” is reared on a land-gap that provides Europe with a gateway to the east. The freedom of Balkan peoples and to a great extent the freedom of Europe depend upon the power of the southern Slavs to hold the gate. It is therefore to the advantage of European countries to strengthen the southern Slavs by every means in their power. A partial unity that would leave any considerable portion of Jugoslavia unredeemed would but divert southern Slav energy into irredentist channels and deflect it from its chief mission.
The ties which unite Serbians and Croatians have led writers to consider the two peoples as one under the name of Serbo-Croatians.[183] In the eleventh century Skilitzer, a Byzantine writer, alludes to the “Croatians, who are called Serbians.” Little distinction was made between their tribes when they first made their appearance in Balkan lands. Both peoples are Slavs and it is not unlikely that they are derived from a common stock. The location of the territory they occupied affords a clue to the origin of differences between them. Their homelands lie on the confines of the two Roman empires which ruled respectively over eastern and western Europe. It was natural that some groups of the Serbo-Croatian element should follow the religious leadership of Rome while others rallied to the Orthodox teachings of Byzantium. The main distinction between Serbians and Croatians is found in this diversity of religious views.
From a geographical standpoint the area of Serbian speech presents excessive diversity of features. National unity within its bounds is therefore apt to be sorely hampered. Dalmatia, teeming with islands and fiords, enjoys the advantage of easy access to all its districts by way of the sea. The Dinaric Alps separate it, however, from the land of the ancient kingdom of Serbia which arose on the basins of the Save and Morava. The two areas form in reality isolated compartments. A capital suitable to both cannot be located. Belgrade or Nish is appropriate enough for the valley of the Danube, Spalato or Ragusa for the coastland. Uskub is perhaps more centrally situated on the road connecting the Danube to the Adriatic. But this city also belongs to the eastern watershed of the isolating mountains. Whatever be the political destiny of this linguistic area, it is bound to be divided into two parts with outlets respectively on the Adriatic and the Danube.
Between the sixth and thirteenth centuries, the Serbian invaders of the Balkan peninsula grouped themselves into a number of independent tribes. The Serbian state to which the smaller units adhered politically came into being in the thirteenth century. That it was inhabited by a prosperous people is proven by numerous works of art which are still preserved in the churches of the land. A hundred years later the kingdom of Serbia attains its widest extension. Under Stephen Dushan, the country spreads from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Danube and Save valleys to the Ægean. In 1346 Dushan is crowned emperor at Uskub. He is about to march on Constantinople, but death puts an end to this project. Henceforth Serbian power is to be on the wane. The appearance of the Turks in the Balkans in the last decade of the fourteenth century marks the end of Serbian independence. In the ensuing four hundred years, Serbian lands and their inhabitants are the prey of merciless Asiatics. The devastating grip of Turkish oppression begins to be relaxed in 1815 when, under the leadership of Miloch Obrenovitch, the Serbians laid the foundation of their modern independence by forcing the Turks to grant them a partial self-government. Thence to the year 1867 political emancipation from Turkey progressed steadily.
The Adriatic Sea alone provides the Serbo-Croatian peoples with a definite boundary. The line of the Drave on the north once formed a frontier for the twin group. In modern times a number of Croatian settlements have pushed forward along the Raab valley toward Slovak territory. Here they stand in danger of becoming lost in the midst of the Hungarian population, as were the Serbian settlements which in the seventeenth century were scattered as far as Budapest. On the southwest, the boundary of the Serbian linguistic area presents many obstacles to accurate delimitation. There was a time when all northern Albania was part of the Serbian empire. In the eleventh century the Serbian kingdom, established in the Lake Scutari district, comprised Albanian populations within its boundaries. Immediately before the Turkish conquest Serbian language and customs had advanced as far south as Epirus. The coming of the Asiatics caused profound changes in the distribution of Balkan populations through the conversions to Mohammedanism by which it was attended. Many Serbians who had penetrated to the south and a large number of Albanians became followers of the Prophet. Their descendants became “Turks” and as such endured the vicissitudes which marked the decline of Ottoman power. The Serbian element lost its individuality in the midst of Albanians. A record of its former advance in northern Albania subsists in the Serbian villages which are scattered in the region.
Small areas of Serbian are found at Zumberak and Mariondol on the southern slope of the Uskok mountains in Croatia near the Carniola boundary. These Serbian groups occur on the border line separating Croats from Slovenes. They were founded by refugees from the south and east who had settled in the military confines of the Empire previous to 1871. In 1900 the population of Mariondol consisted of a few hundred inhabitants, many of whom have since emigrated to the United States. In Zumberak for the same year the number of inhabitants was estimated at 11,842, of whom 7,151 were “uniats” and 4,691 Catholics.[184] The conversion of these Serbians from Greek orthodoxy was accomplished in the eighteenth century.
Scattered Serbian settlements are found between the Danube and Theiss valleys as far north as Maria-Theresiopel and farther south at Zombor and Neusatz. The rich corn-growing districts southeast of Fünfkirchen (Pechui) contain some of the most important Serbian centers in Hungary. Serbian is the language of the entire district of confluence of the Theiss and Danube as well as of many colonies in the Banat of Temesvar. Religious diversity alone has prevented fusion of these Serbians with the Hungarian majority of the land. Whenever they come into contact with Rumanians of the same religion the Serbians lose ground and become merged in the bosom of the Latin population. “A Rumanian woman in the house,” says the Serbian proverb, “means a Rumanian home.” Such Rumanian households are now solidly established north and south of the Danube valley in the northeastern angle of Serbia where a century ago they were practically non-existent.[185]
Among these Serbian settlements of southern Hungary those in the Banat of Temesvar are the most important. Temesvar itself although an ancient seat of Serbian voivodes[186] contains fewer Serbians than Germans and Hungarians. The Slavs however occupy the western part of the Banat and form majorities between Zombor and Temesvar, Becherek and Panchova. Around Maria-Theresiopel (also known as Subotica or Szabadka) the Serbian element contains many Roman Catholics—the so-called Bunjevci, who were emigrants from former Turkish provinces, mainly Herzegovina.