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Red Croatia

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Red croatia


Red Croatia (Latin: Croatia Rubea, Croatian: Crvena Hrvatska), is a historical term used for the southeastern parts of Roman Dalmatia and some other territories, in including part of present-day Montenegro, greater part of Albania, the Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and southeastern Croatia, stretching across the Adriatic Sea.

Contents

The term was first used in one version of the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea, which is as a whole dated to have been written in 1298-1300. It had been then mentioned by a number of sources that referenced the Chronicle across the ages in various languages and by a number of people of different backgrounds, until becoming in the 19th century during the Age of Romantic Nationalism a central point of hot discussion and research, often a component part of Croatian nationalism and the national myth, in which Red Croatia was sometimes popularized as a historical state of the Croatian people and thus should become part of a Greater Croatia.

White and red croatia wmv


Etymology

Red Croatia was first mentioned in the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea which was written by a Roman Catholic priest in Doclea. His work is not preserved in original, but only in copies since the 16th and 17th century, and has been dated from as early as the late 13th century to as far as the 15th century. It is most likely that it was written ca. 1300. There were numerous erroneous guesses and other plain errors regarding the identity of the writer, the most known being referring to him as "Archbishop Gregory" of a non-existent Archbishopric.

Most recent and detailed research identifies him as a member of the Cistercian order by the name of Rudger, of Bohemian ethnic origins, working in the Archbishopric of Split and for Croatian Ban Paul Šubić who was from 1298 to 1301 Archbishop of Bar. If the Priest of Doclea didn't take the term from some unknown and unpreserved source while rewriting his work for a second edition and he is its inventor, it is believed that he did partially in political aspirations of the Šubić family over all Croat lands, which would also explain the lack of Red Croatia in the first version, which centered on Bosnia, the second one being written after Paul had taken the title "Lord of Bosnia".

Croatian linguist Petar Skok has defined that this misinterpretation on the Priest's part is a result of transliteration of the Crmnica - Crvnica area in Montenegro, which also translates to Red Land.

According to the Dioclean priest imaginary kingdom of Slavs was divided into two regions: Maritima ( Littoral ) between Dinaric mountains and the Adriatic sea which was also defined as the area where the rivers from the mountains flow south into the sea and Serbia which encompassed everything between Dinaric mountains and the river Danube or as defined in the chronicle as the region where the rivers flow from the mountains to the north into the mighty river of Danube . Thus the Maritima encompassed only the areas in the Adriatic sea drainage basin while Serbia encompassed areas in the Black sea ( Danube ) basin . Maritima was further divide in two areas: White and Red Croatia with latter encompassing present day Hercegovina, southern portion of Montenegro and northern Albania. On the other hand, Dioclean's Serbia would encompass most of present-day Serbia, northern part of Montenegro, most of the Bosnia and Croatia north of the Dinaric mountains.

Use in the 19th and 20th century

Crvena Hrvatska was the name of a weekly Croatian Party of Rights political paper that spread the ideology of Ante Starčević in Dubrovnik, Dalmatia and that existed in 1890-1899 Austria-Hungary, edited by Frano Supilo.

The term has come up in the discussion of the history of Montenegro. Croatian historian Ivo Pilar thought that Duklja arose from the lands of "Red Croatia" in the 10th century. Serbian historian Slavenko Terzić criticized Savić Marković Štedimlija for his references to "Red Croatia" used for separating Montenegrins from the Serbs.

When Jevrem Brković formed the Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts, its research was dedicated to the study of "Red Croatia".

References

Red Croatia Wikipedia