Download PDF | Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450) Volume 12, (2010)
293 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has had an unusual way of coming into being. Reaching for Florin Curta’s book The making of the Slavs one slow afternoon in the Barr-Smith library of the Adelaide University bugged me so much so that I needed to write a review of it for the Croatian journal Diadora. The review, while still unpublished, was noticed by Ivan Muzi¢ who asked me to write an introduction for his new book, Hrvatska Povijest Devetog Stoljeca. That introduction was noticed by Denis Alimov, who asked me to write an article for the volume of Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana, dedicated to Curta’s book. The article was finally read by Curta himself, who proposed that I expand it into a book. The circle was finally completed, taking me into the dark and unexplored areas of post-Roman Dalmatia for the next year and a half.
It is indeed a good feeling to have this book finished, and there are quite a few people and institutions that I need to thank here. First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge Florin Curta and Brill Academic Publishers, for giving me the opportunity to publish this typescript, and to my anonymous readers for their suggestions and criticisms. Next, my former department at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, as well as my current department of Ancient History at Macquarie University in Sydney; in particular Alanna Nobbs and Andrew Gillett for their ongoing support and belief in me.
Furthermore, I wish to thank to the Australian Academy of Humanities for granting me a generous Travelling Fellowship, which enabled my trip to Kalamazoo and University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in the United States in May 2009, as well as the Australian Research Council for granting me the Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship for my project on Ancient and Medieval Identity-shifts and the Construction of Identities in Post-Yugoslav Space, of which this book is an important part.
I also wish to offer my thanks and deep gratitude to Mladen An¢i¢ (University of Zadar) and Trpimir Vedris (University of Zagreb) for reading this manuscript and suggesting improvements.
I want to thank the organisers and participants at a symposium in Zagreb entitled, “New directions in the research of identities and late antique and early medieval Illyricum,’ held in January 2009, in particular Neven Budak and Hrvoje Graéanin. I cannot forget all the help I received from the archaeology department in the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and in particular Alka Domi¢ Kuni¢, who supplied me with valuable new and old literature in the Croatian language.
In Zadar I wish to thank Smiljan Gluscevic and the Arheoloski Museum of Zadar and director Drazen MarSi¢ for organising my lecture in January 2009, but also to Miro Juri¢ for photographs and a tour of the archaeological site in Velim, and Majda Predovan for sending me her thesis.
In Split I need to thank to Ivan MuZic¢, not only for sending me literature, but also for helping me get into early medieval history.
In Sarajevo I want to thank Adnan Busuladzic¢, the director of the Zemaljski museum for permission to publish images and the warm welcome at my stay.
I also need to thank to Denis Alimov for literature and Etleva Nallbani for improving my knowledge of early medieval archaeology of western Balkan peninsula.
Ona more personal level, I want to thank my mother Ljubica Ostojic, not only for her continuing financial help, but also for showing me the way to be. To my Ariel I leave a love heart in this place (¥) to remind her that I am with her all the time, every day and every hour. Finally, I want to thank Barbara Sidwell, not only for all the efforts she has put in editing this book, but also for all her continuing love and support, which make the world a better place.
INTRODUCTION
The events known as the ‘South Slav migrations’ from the 6th and 7th centuries AD, still remain as insufficiently explained events in the historiography. The diverse ethnic identities of groups in the western part of the ancient Balkan Peninsula, known as Illyricum in Roman and post-Roman times, were transformed into new identities, such as the Croats, Serbs, Diocleans, Arentani, Zachlumi, etc. after those migrations. The prevailing metanarrative of these events explains the change that occurred through migration, that the arriving ‘Slavs’ flooded Illyricum in huge numbers and assimilated or exterminated the indigenous population, ‘romanised Illyrians’ as they were mostly referred to. This transformation of group identities was a process that has had a continuous impact on the discursive constructions of ethnic and regional identities in the area until the present times, as modern ethnic groups in this part of the world still imagine themselves in scholarly and public discourses as the successors of those ‘Slavic’ arrivals.
The aim of this study is to attempt to assess the consequences that the recently developed poststructuralist views on culture and identity might have in the interpretation of social transformations in postRoman Dalmatia, until its inclusion in the Carolingian world in the 9th century. It will be concerned with the mechanisms of formation and the reasons for transformation from the pre-Slavic group identities of Late Antiquity to those perceived as ‘Slavic’ identities in medieval times, in a time frame between c. AD 400-900. For the volume of this topic, emphasis is placed on the process of construction of the Croat identity in the post-Roman and early medieval Dalmatia, but it is also strongly suggested that similar processes, certainly with significant regional peculiarities and differences, occurred in other parts of post-Roman Illyricum with other ‘Slavic’ identities. The impact of those early medieval identities on the discursive construction of modern identities in the area, and the changing perception of these events in the modern imagination, is also briefly surveyed in Chapter 1, in order to show their ongoing contemporary importance in this region.
The author hopes that besides a narrow, specialist audience of scholars and students of late antique and early medieval history, as well as the unfortunately termed ‘Balkan studies; this study might also make amodest contribution to our understanding of the development of modern ethnic identities in the region. The perception of origins amongst current ethnic groups in the whole area today known as Southeastern Europe, or the “Balkans, has been significantly influenced by discourses on the past which were formed as part of more recent political ideologies. The outside perception was also frequently shaped by a similar relation between historical discourses and modern political ideologies in a western popular and scholarly literature which dealt with early medieval identities in this region.’ While other current research on ancient and medieval identities implicitly affected the self-understanding of contemporary European ethnic groups and nations, the politicised nature of contemporary Southeastern Europe makes the results of this study very significant to modern issues, as well as to scholarship which deals with Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Geography
Southeastern Europe is a perfect example to confirm the old Braudelian view that geography and history are inextricably intertwined; thus, when discussing history, it is always useful to say a few words about the geography of the region. The geographic terminology regarding this area is complex, as it usually reflects more recent western political and colonial constructions, but certain terms also have different meanings in the different historical periods. The terms ‘Yugoslavia’ or the ‘former Yugoslavia, are today untenable; the frequently used term “Western Balkans’ is nothing more than a remainder of the colonial discourse on the ‘Balkans’ from earlier times. Under the term ‘western Illyricum’ this book understands the space of the Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia, present-day eastern Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, western Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and the southern parts of Hungary, with their adjacent regions, in particular in relation to Istria. The term Dalmatia in this book corresponds with Roman provincial terminology, which lasted well into medieval times, rather than modern terminology that relates to the Croatian coast south of Istria. Ancient and early medieval Dalmatia encompassed the space between the eastern coast of the Adriatic almost to the river Sava, which in modern-day terminology is the southern part of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the terms ‘coastal Dalmatia’ and the ‘Dalmatian hinterland’ are used to distinguish the eco-geographical zones inside that space. The focus of this book purposely narrows from late antique Illyricum to post-Roman and early medieval Dalmatia, focusing on the early medieval Croat identity in the northern part of coastal Dalmatia. This narrowing of focus corresponds with the political, economic, and identity-fragmentation that occurred in the post-Roman period, but also with the quantity of currently available material and written evidence, which is quite scarce for the Dalmatian hinterland.
Roman Dalmatia has two distinctly different eco-geographical zones: the coast and the hinterland. A narrow eastern Adriatic coastalbelt together with the Italian coast opposite it represents a very distinctive geo-cultural unit that was linked, rather than divided, by the sea. This zone was strongly connected to the rest of the Mediterranean world, and archaeology reveals the strong impact of ancient Mediterranean global processes, even before the Greek colonisation of the central Adriatic islands in the fourth century Bc, and the subsequent Roman conquest in the first century Bc. The numerous islands in the eastern Adriatic island archipelago had a significant quantity of arable land, and the larger islands were inhabited in ancient times, in particular the central Adriatic islands of Vis, Hvar and Kor¢ula, but also the North Adriatic islands in the gulf of Kvarner, such as Cres, Krk, Rab, etc. The coast is mostly separated from the hinterland by mountain-chains, and there are only a few plains in the immediate hinterland between Zadar and Split, or the fertile and swampy alluvial plains in the lower stream of the Neretva. There are only a few passes which enable communication with the hinterland, such as the pass through the Velebit Mountain near Senj, the pass of Klis behind Solin near Split, and the valley of the river Neretva, which stretched deep inland towards the north.
The coast has a few distinctive micro-geographical regions. From the gulf of Kvarner to the river Zrmanja lays a very narrow coastal strip where the mountain Velebit separates the coast from the hinterland area of Lika and Gorski Kotar. The Ravni Kotari plains are situated from the river Zrmanja to the river Krka, and have a significant amount of arable land, compared with the rest of the coast. This area, also known as Liburnia, was one of the most urbanised areas of the eastern Adriatic in the late Iron Age before the Roman conquest. After the conquest, it was characterised by the openness of its indigenous inhabitants for Roman imperial values (so-called ‘romanisation’). The most dominant city in the sub-region was Iader (Zadar), an indigenous city which became a Roman colony in the Ist century Bc. However, there were more important urban units in the Ravni Kotari, such as Aenona (Nin), built on the land area of c. 0.3 km’, protected by a moat and city walls and positioned in the lagoon of the bay of Nin. Between the rivers Krka and Cetina lies the central Dalmatian coast, which encompasses the Bay of Kasteli where Salona, the capital of Roman Dalmatia, was situated, between the former Greek colonies of Tragurion (Tragurium, Trogir) and Epetion (Epetium, Stobre¢). In the early 4th century, the emperor Diocletian, a native of Salona, built his famous palace between Salona and Epetium, which became the core of early medieval settlement known as Spalatum (Split). Further south, towards the river Neretva, the coastal strip was isolated from the hinterland by the Mosor-Biokovo mountain chains, and only in the valley of Neretva does it open towards the north with a significant amount of alluvial plains, which became the position for the important Roman centre of Narona (Vid near Metkovic). Further towards the south in antiquity was positioned Epidaurum (Cavtat), and towards the Albanian coast the important regional centres of Apollonia, Scodra and Dyrrachium (Durrés), in present-Day Albania.
In the hinterland begins the intermediary zone of the Dinaric Alps, which stretch in a northwest-southeast direction, parallel with the coast. The mountain chain divides the warm Mediterranean climate of the coast from the cold sub-continental climate, which dominates the hinterland. The Dinaric Alps were a major physical obstacle in premodern times and there are only a few passes, the valleys of the rivers Krka, Neretva, Bosna, Drina, Una, and Vrbas, which offered the possibility for communication between the coast and the north. The southern part of the hinterland, the present-day regions of Lika, Gorski Kotar, Herzegovina and Montenegro, are dominated by the karst - the mountainous landscape made of porous limestone, characterised by a lack of surface water and poor vegetation. The dominance of the karst was only interrupted by the more densely settled plains - poljes, which were occasional depressions between the mountains with fertile soil, such as the Sinjsko polje, Livanjsko polje, Glamocko polje, etc. The mountainous northern part, the present-day regions of Kordun, Krajina and Bosnia, was covered by thick forests and showed an abundance of vegetation. The region did not offer much opportunity for agriculture or settlement, but there were significant deposits of metal ores in this area, which the Romans were able to exploit. In the very north, in the valley of the Sava - the present-day regions of Banovina and Posavina, Dalmatia opened towards the Pannonian plains, and what is today Central and Eastern Europe.
What this book is about
Cultural and ethnic identity has become a prominent topic of discussion in recent decades amongst historians and archaeologists working in the fields of ancient and medieval history. This new interest has led to a fundamental questioning of the previous metanarratives of historical knowledge, a re-examination of the nature and meaning of the available evidence, as well as key concepts in regards to cultural interaction, such as ‘romanisation, or the ‘great migrations’ of Late Antiquity. There is a significant recent shift in scholarly attention to focus on identity-formation amongst ancient peoples in the Mediterranean, especially the Greeks and Romans. Some of these works include a re-assessment of the ethnic and cultural identity of the ‘barbarians, such as the Iron Age populations of Western, Central and Northern Europe, known as the ‘Celts’ and ‘Germans’ to our sources, and other groups outside of the ancient Mediterranean. Important work has been done regarding group identities during the breakdown of the Western Roman Empire and the nature of the Volkerwanderung in the 5th and 6th centuries Ap. The question of the disappearance, absorption and shift in ethnic identities in the late antique and early medieval period is a very active and wide field of study; there are numerous comparable studies dealing with roughly the same periods that this book intends to cover. These concern the question of RomanoBritish identities under the Anglo-Saxons, the Gallo-Romans and the Franks, the population of Italy and the Ostrogoths, etc. More recently the focus of scholarly interest has shifted towards Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the ‘other’ Europe, which was sorely missing from Anglophone general history books only a generation ago.’
The indigenous pre-Slavic population of the western and central Balkan Peninsula, known in antiquity and medieval times as Illyricum, represented a significant portion of the ancient population of what would become Europe. Scholarship remains content with a very general assessment of their identity as ‘Illyrians, which is, in fact, a more recent pseudo-ethnic construction that relies on a generalisation from Graeco-Roman written sources and is paralleled by similar models of ‘Indo-European; ‘Germanic; or ‘Celtic’ pseudo-ethnic cultural blocs. The awareness of ‘Illyrian’ heterogeneity has increased significantly in the last generation or two of scholars, but the general perception of ‘Tllyrianness’ as a loose cultural/ethnic framework is still not fully broken in scholarly and popular perceptions. This region was conquered by the Roman Empire in a series of mostly unconnected conflicts with the indigenous groups, ending in the early Ist century ap. Life inside imperium Romanum offered the indigenous population different ways for reconstructing their existing identities inside the frameworks offered by Roman imperial ideology; different ways in which they “became Roman”.* Instead of maintaining earlier identities from preRoman times, the indigenous inhabitants of Illyricum formed different identities, which was the consequence of negotiating their identities on social or even individual scale inside a basic provincial identityframework. These identities were formed through an ecological and regional basis, in particular sub-regions, such as the Adriatic littoral with the immediate hinterland, the Dinaric Alps, and the Pannonian plains. This process continued with the arrival of Christianity, which took different forms relating to regional circumstances, from early cosmopolitan Christianity in the coastal cities, to the specific religious forms in the hinterland, which became more substantially Christianised only in the mid-6th century ap.
More recent accounts of early medieval history of the region were concerned with the Slavic settlement, in particular with the re-examination of Slavic identity in the period of the ‘Slav migrations’ in the 6th - 7th centuries ap. Some of these studies introduced a new view into the nature of Slavic identity, seeing it as a recent construct of the Byzantine sources, which ethnicised the stereotypes applied to the description of heterogeneous but culturally similar migrating groups, which originally had no sense of a common identity.” However, the studies which dealt specifically with western Illyricum, or the appearance and construction of the earliest Croat identity, made no new attempt to answer the question of why the identities of an indigenous population were recast so quickly and thoroughly, and what was the impact of immigrant groups in this process. Thus, the picture remains generally very unclear and has been significantly impacted by the works of the regional scholarship, which, besides their scholarly excellence and diligence, on occasion reflect modern ethnic discourses, and primordial understanding of identity as unchangeable. On the other hand, in the rare works of Anglophone scholarship which focus on the problem, it is possible to recognise tendencies which easily dismiss and marginalize the very detailed and knowledgeable accounts of historians and archaeologists from the area.°
This problem of identity-shift between late antique and early medieval identities remains unsolved, and its importance is amplified by the fact that it still directly and indirectly impacts upon the self-perception and construction of modern ethnic identities in the region. These modern constructions often use accounts of ancient and medieval identities from the region in order to redefine existing modern identities, juxtaposing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ from the past and present, and thus significantly impacting the development of contemporary ethnic discourses.
The existing theoretical framework for understanding ethnicity and identity-change in post-Roman Illyricum is still overly influenced by an evolutionist approach, with the view of ethnicity as a primordial, permanent, social phenomenon, which changes at the surface but remains stable at its ‘core’ It understands that, once developed, ethnicity slowly evolves through historical ‘layers’ and ‘sub-layers; instead of analysing the social contexts of identity-formation and interaction, as well as the hierarchies of power and the relationships between political power and group identity.’ Furthermore, the explanation predominantly used in archaeological studies, which assumes that certain artefacts, such as fibulae or pottery, may be used as a detector of ethnicity, is not fully satisfactory today. True, some artefacts could influence the making of stereotypes and the perception of a group by the external observer, or even, in time, become an emblem of the group when and ifthe group wished to be self-defined, but they cannot be used as detectors of group identity, per se. This framework does not provide answers that would explain identity-construction in light of the more recent socio-anthropological theories, and the increased general understanding of identity-shifts, the developments of different group identities and the sudden disappearance of other groups from the historical stage.
As stated earlier, this book uses theoretical approaches which have been widely used in recent times in studies of ancient and medieval history, as well as archaeology, for the significant problem of identitytransformation in post-Roman and early medieval Dalmatia. The perpetual problem in this field was the split in research focus for textual and material evidence, which were rarely and very selectively integrated in individual studies.’ The new discoveries and methods in other fields, such as the history of cultures/mentalities/group identities which place emphasis on processes rather than on static identities, are an important part of the methodological framework that this study is based on. Especially important is the modern socio-anthropological approach to ethnicity as a fluid and changeable phenomenon, the instrument that social groups use to achieve their political or economic goals, largely determined through social interaction, self-identification of the group in question and its identification by outsiders. So, this study is part of a much wider scholarly dialogue that redefines, deconstructs, but also restructures the approach to the nature of ethnic identity in the late antique and early medieval period. The problem of identity-change requires a somewhat wider geographic perspective that would encompass the western part of Southeastern Europe,’ and its placement in a comparative perspective with areas where the process of identity-transition in this period occurred on similar grounds.
As much as some ideas expressed in this book might sound novel, no study can be developed nowadays ex nihilo. It is certainly important, and indeed my pleasure to state here that this study could not be possible without the large corpus of existing scholarship, especially the groundbreaking studies in early Croat identity and history by Walter Pohl, Neven Budak and Mladen An¢i¢, as well as the sweeping regional surveys of the Slav migrations by Florin Curta. This book in particular attempts to bridge the gap between regional history and archaeology, but also the gap between regional Late Antiquity and early medieval studies, which in more recent times have been frequently observed separately from each other, with some recent succesful attempts to put them back together.’° A general disregard of the preSlavic population of Illyricum and Roman Dalmatia has resulted in a slavenocentric picture of early medieval history of the region and the perception of Slavophone medieval polities in the region as ‘Slav. Hopefully, this study will initiate more debates about the indigenous population and their interaction with ‘Slav’ immigrants.
This book is divided into seven chapters:
Chapter 1: Croat origins in the Croatian imagination
This chapter will deal with the discourse of Croat migrations in popular, political, literary and scholarly perceptions of the Croatians and those interested in them. The change from late antique identities into Slavophone identities in Dalmatia has been explained from the Renaissance onwards, through one of two grand-narratives: the ‘migrationist’ and the ‘autochthonist, which have sometimes been combined to a certain degree. The ‘migrationist’ narrative implies that the change occurred because of the arrival/immigration of a new ethno-cultural group. The interpretations of the arrival of the Croats differed in the scholarship, whether the arriving group was seen as belonging to the ‘Slavs’ or as a separate non-Slavic group, such as the Goths, Turks or Iranians. The ‘autochthonist’ narrative emphasises the importance of a cultural continuity in Dalmatia and in wider context Illyricum, and minimises the importance of migrations, arguing that the indigenous population accepted the Slavic language(s) in the process of acculturation. This chapter will survey the changing attitudes towards this issue in relation to the processes of construction of modern identities in the region, up to the most recent times.
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework and the sources
This chapter will define the methodological framework based on multidisciplinary approaches. It will briefly discuss new developments in the general scholarship on identities and the impact of socioanthropological research on ethnicity. Also, there will be a brief survey of the poststructuralist attitudes towards history, in particular the relation of discourse and power, the habitus theory of Bourdieu, and the postcolonial literary criticism. This chapter will connect these conceptual and theoretical frameworks with the most recent research of identities in ancient and medieval history and archaeology. The discussion will review the current state of scholarship which deals with identity-transformations in Late Antiquity, as well as bringing forth current regional historical and archaeological studies dealing with this period.
Chapter 3: Identities in Illyricum before the Slavs
In order to understand the identity-shift which happened in late antique and early medieval times, it is necessary to take a small step backwards and have a more thorough look into the pre-Slavic indigenous population. This chapter will make a brief overview of the development of group identities in Roman Illyricum, from the indigenous population in the late Iron Age to the identities constructed during the Roman rule over this region, all the way to the late antique population. It will discuss the issues of acculturation, social changes and changes in identity-constructions in the region, as well as the social and political transformations which occurred in Late Antiquity.
Chapter 4: ‘The history of Illyricum in Late Antiquity 378-600: a very brief overview
The transformation of identities in the post-Roman region of Dalmatia took place in very specific historical contexts within Late Antiquity. In order to understand these contexts this chapter looks briefly into the political and social changes which occurred in the region, detectable through the narratives in the written sources. It also explores the evidence which emerged from the material sources, in particular the change in settlement pattern and the appearance of the earliest rowgrave cemeteries in Dalmatia in the 5th and 6th centuries.
Chapter 5: Written sources on the Slav migrations in the 6th and 7th centuries
This chapter will survey the primary written sources which deal with the arrival of the groups known as the Sclavenes in Illyricum, such as Procopius or Jordanes, as well as the later mediaeval sources on the sack of the largest Dalmatian city of Salona, such as the Historia Salonitana by Thomas, the Archdeacon of Spalatum. However, the most significant attention will be placed on the work De Administrando Imperio (DAI), written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the most frequently used written source which deals with the arrival of the Croats and Serbs. Previous scholarship has attempted to establish that certain parts of the arrival story in this work can be used as a more or less reliable source. This chapter will argue that the DAI is, at its core, an insufficiently reliable source for events from the 7th century. It reflects different historical narratives, in particular Byzantine ‘orientalism, the construction of “Hellenism” by the Macedonian dynasty of Constantine VII, and a mixture of historical memories, political ideology and oral legends from the region, but also their misconceptions by the outside Byzantine observer.
Chapters 6 and 7: “The Dark Ages’
These chapters will discuss social and identity-transformations in postRoman Illyricum, following the period of Sclavene movements in the 6th and 7th centuries. Focus will be placed upon the development of ‘Roman’ and ‘Slav’ identities in the Dalmatian coastal cities and hinterland. As this is an exceptionally poorly documented period, historically and archaeologically, parallels will be drawn with similar areas in Western Europe, such as early Anglo-Saxon England or postRoman Gaul, especially in respect to more recent studies of relations between mortuary customs and the construction of social and personal identities. These chapters will look into the evidence from the Dalmatian cities and cemeteries, as well as the language-shift and influences from the Pannonian-based Avar qaganate. It will emphasise the existence of different models of acculturation in different regions of Dalmatia, which produced different ways of identity-construction that resulted ultimately in an internal change of identity, but also with the external perception of the population who ‘became Slavs’ in this period. The chapters also deal with the intertwining of structures of power between the indigenous population and the ‘Slav arrivals, as well as the extreme political fragmentation which started to rebuild from the bottom up, through kin-based units, regions and which finally resulted in the establishment of more complex political institutions in Dalmatia, such as the Croat duchy and the later Croat kingdom.
Chapter 8: The 9th century: Chroati ex machina
This chapter will deal with the appearance of Croat identity in Dalmatia in the 9th century. It will place formation of the earliest Croat identity in the context of regional political and social transformation. It will also link this new identity with major political events of the period, such as the expansion of the ideologically charged western Christianity and the interaction of regional political structures with more complex contemporary political institutions, such as the Carolingian Empire and the recovered Byzantine Empire, which encouraged the appearance of new political identities and new ideological discourses. These global changes enabled the population to ‘become Croats; to accept the identity of the elite from the Ravni Kotari region and to construct a new identity, which unified the existing identities of the arrivals and the indigenous population.
Conclusion
The most important conclusion is that there were two separate processes. The first was the process of acculturation, ‘becoming Slavs, which resulted in the transformation of the cultural habitus that was perceived by outside observers as ‘Slav, but in fact hid a heterogeneous patchwork of overlapping identities. Thus, we can see ‘becoming Slavs’ as an extremely complex process of transformation of cultural habitus in specific political circumstances, which separated Illyricum from the Mediterranean and repositioned it towards the continent, yet still on the periphery of Avar influence. Extreme political fragmentation and the absence of political forces in the neighbourhood did not require the development of political entities that would produce new identities - the population of post-Roman Dalmatia had no reason to construct and better define their identities before the 9th century. Another process was the development of complex political entities, ‘becoming Croats, which in changed political circumstances, after the disintegration of the Avar qaganate, the foundation of thema Dalmatia and the building of the Carolingian Empire, caused a formation of political institutions. New identities developed in the cultural habitus of the region, known to outside observers as the ‘Sclavinias.
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