Culture spheres in Balkans

[unmerged(143766)]

just name these nations as yugoslavs in the game and be done with it

To name the culture South Slavic would be sufficient becaue the term yugoslavia was used after.I mean the people didn't even knew they were of Slavic decent in that time.I know Bulgarians are too South Slavic cultured but I think that making them a seperate culture for gameplay reasons would be enough.

 

[Thracian]

To name the culture South Slavic would be sufficient becaue the term yugoslavia was used after.I mean the people didn't even knew they were of Slavic decent in that time.I know Bulgarians are too South Slavic cultured but I think that making them a seperate culture for gameplay reasons would be enough.

most people didnt identfy/know their nations as well at that time
i though yugo meant south btw

 

[DanubianCossak]

i though yugo meant south btw

Yugo (jugo) Slavia = South Slavia, South Slavs = Jugosloveni.

 

[Grubnessul]

most people didnt identfy/know their nations as well at that time
i though yugo meant south btw

The whole idea of a 'nation' wasn't invented yet. Hence why I think culture should play far less of a role than it did in EU3, that just didn't fit the era.

 

[unmerged(143766)]

most people didnt identfy/know their nations as well at that time
i though yugo meant south btw

Yes , Yugoslavia means the land of the South Slavs but the term was invented after EU IV ends , that's the reason I think it should be South Slavic , not Yugoslavian , but it wouldn't really matter.I'm ok with Yugoslavia too

 

[unmerged(143766)]

The whole idea of a 'nation' wasn't invented yet. Hence why I think culture should play far less of a role than it did in EU3, that just didn't fit the era.

Well yes and no.In the Hundred Years war , French patriotism had a big role.I meant that the South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians long after most countries had their national identities formed.

 

[Thracian]

The whole idea of a 'nation' wasn't invented yet. Hence why I think culture should play far less of a role than it did in EU3, that just didn't fit the era.

language+religion should make the difference imho. and these two are the pillars of a culture

 

[Grubnessul]

Well yes and no.In the Hundred Years war , French patriotism had a big role.I meant that the South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians long after most countries had their national identities formed.

Well, if a national myth of them being "Illyrians" had been created by 'historians' as a common ancestry, there could very well have been a Illyrian nation now. Point is the myths and ways of reinforcing them was not around. No state sponsored schools means no nation building. The point is that people mostly identified themselves with their village or valley or Christianity as a whole. Only later allegiance to the king became important. And even later the myth of belonging to a similar nation, in which the culture and state coincide and were harmonised. Before that, culture gradually shifted from village to village without a hard line in between where you could say people on the left were Serbian and people on the right Bosnian.

 

[Keanon]

As a Scandinavian, the only actual facts I've seen have been against Bosnian existing as more than at best a tiny religiously based minority that developed in the centre of actual Bosnia and existed briefly in the middle ages from Croats and Serbs and later disappears again before the Turks conquer the region and the Serbs, Croats and possible tiny group of Bosnians with their little heresy and those who when converted to Islam adopted the identity of Bosniaks, most likely because the conversion was most numerous in the region Bosnia.

No evidence have been posted, proving any sort of Bosnian culture to have existed, and it's possible existence as mentioned above is pure speculation that no evidence contradicts directly, but has only circumstantial evidence in support of it.

Making sense this far?

 

[DanubianCossak]

South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians long after most countries had their national identities formed.

Please do show me a historical reference/evidence that shows Serbs, Croats or Bulgarians thinking of themselves as Illyrians before national identities have formed?

The only instance of Illyria even being mentioned (that i know if), is from Slovenian and Croatian history (like 18th century), during their national awakening, when a group of poets (or whatever, people who were trying to standardize the language so that they could preserve the culture via books etc) gathered and made such a group, that eventually became a nationalist movement aiming to free those 2 people from Austria/Hungary, and while this was offered to Serbs, it never got accepted here (our guy Vuk Karadžić didnt become a member and moved on to create his own works etc).

 

[Talq]

The whole idea of a 'nation' wasn't invented yet. Hence why I think culture should play far less of a role than it did in EU3, that just didn't fit the era.

It has a game balancing role.

By the by, even at game start, national culture would play a role in the unity of a number of countries.

 

[Grubnessul]

It has a game balancing role.

By the by, even at game start, national culture would play a role in the unity of a number of countries.

Hardly. Even at the Congress of Vienna, the great powers dividing up the land counted in 'souls' not in their culture.

Nobility spoke French and had more in common with the nobility on the other side of Europe than with their own peasants. The only important thing was those peasants praying to the right God and pay their taxes and join the armies. People didn't travel beyond their village and communication was slow. How can there have been any notion of shared culture?

There are indeed game mechanics tied to culture, but as I argued before, those don't fit the era and should be replaced by other factors.

 

[unmerged(143766)]

Please do show me a historical reference/evidence that shows Serbs, Croats or Bulgarians thinking of themselves as Illyrians before national identities have formed?

The only instance of Illyria even being mentioned (that i know if), is from Slovenian and Croatian history (like 18th century), during their national awakening, when a group of poets (or whatever, people who were trying to standardize the language so that they could preserve the culture via books etc) gathered and made such a group, that eventually became a nationalist movement aiming to free those 2 people from Austria/Hungary, and while this was offered to Serbs, it never got accepted here (our guy Vuk Karadžić didnt become a member and moved on to create his own works etc).

The event you mentoned is the historical prove.They were not only poets , it was the educated society which was expressing their opinion in poetry.It was a movement to unite all South Slavs under one banner and unite them in language.I didn't said all South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians.If it didn't got accepted by Serbs it doesn't have to mean it wasn't South Slavic because of that

 

[Ichabod]

Hardly. Even at the Congress of Vienna, the great powers dividing up the land counted in 'souls' not in their culture.

The problem isn't that at this time there is cultural awareness or there isn't. The problem is that modern people tend to generalize "Culture would play a defining role in this time" or "Culture wouldn't play a defining role in this time."
Culture wasn't the mass movement it became in the 19th century, but there was cultural awareness at this time. It just wasn't a mass awareness. Some people identified with their culture, some people didn't.

You can read the Divine Comedy and point to instances of strong Italian "nationalism" in 1300, but you can't generalize that to "Italians were nationalists!" Likewise, you could read De Monarchia and point to instances of no Italian nationalism in 1300, but you can't generalize that to "No Italians were nationalists!"

Culture existed. For some people those differences were important (the whole reason we have the word barbarian, of course), for others they weren't.

 

[DanubianCossak]

The event you mentoned is the historical prove.They were not only poets , it was the educated society which was expressing their opinion in poetry.It was a movement to unite all South Slavs under one banner and unite them in language.I didn't said all South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians.If it didn't got accepted by Serbs it doesn't have to mean it wasn't South Slavic because of that

It was a movement in the 18th (or whatever) century, so first it wasnt a historical (beginning of EU3 time frame) movement, it was a concept born our of romantic ideals during romantic times (Croats and Slovenes never dropped their own nationality and took up Illyrian instead), and you said, and ill quote it again: "South Slavic people were thinking they were Illyrians long after most countries had their national identities formed." You never said "some South Slavic people", and since both Serbs and Bulgarians are South Slavs, they both had their national states way before 18th (or whatever) century, and since they make about half of all South Slav population (or actually more than half) i dont see how you could claim that what 2 people's claimed is valid for the whole group, it simple isnt true.

 

[Arizael]

I'll pretend to be an outsider who has no clue about history of the Balkans, and here I am asking, based on what facts have you concluded that Bosnian identity didn't emerge prior to the conversions to Islam?

Good lord did you even read any of my previous posts?

Okay once more, the most simplified viewpoint of an outsider, not being an "expert" on the history of Balkans, on the earliest history of Balkans.
1) Cca 700 AD great number of various slavic tribes tribes settle an area, which includes regions between Istria and Thrace (map). At this time we can easily claim that all these tribes shares the same culture.

2)Over the course of next 3 centuries these tribes are exposed to dramatic regional instability. Due to this they are split on the western and eastern parts, depending of what branch of christianity they follow. The vast number of catholic tribes could be identified as croats and the "orthodox" tribes could be identified as serbs (based on the two major tribes). Two maps here and here I've found show the borderlines the christian shcism (at those times).

3) As the power of Byzantine empire was shrinking over next 4 centuries, the influence of catholicism slowly expanded east (but realy slowly). Number of realms emerged and their borders were changing very often(no need map we all remember how EU3 startup looked like). The slavs living here still shared only one major distinction - influence of Roma or influence of Constantinople. True there probably were differencies between inhabitants of i.e. Zeta and inhabitans of i.e. Hum, but there were minor and could be compared to differencies between the russian inhabitants of i.e. Tver and i.e. Pskov.

4) What happened after year 1400 is absolutely unimportant for our discussion.

Conclusion: At the the time EUIV starts, there were only two major slavic culture groups - the catholic one which we name Croats (as calling them "catholic south slavs" would make as much sense as calling Austrians "south-eastern germans") and the "orthodox" one which we call Serbs. There were no Istrians, Dalmatians, Ragusans, Montenegrians, Dukljans and of course no Bosnians.

And the end of the post allow me to cite my personal opinion what is realy the problem here. I believe that if both Kingdom of Bosnia and Kingdom of Serbia had both "orthodox south slavic" culture this thread wouldn't exist. The one and only problem here is the term "Serbian", which you as Bosnian nationalists can't accept. This is understendable, but from historic point of view absolutely redundant.

 

[Bezborg]

Yugo (jugo) Slavia = South Slavia, South Slavs = Jugosloveni.

Well, yeah, but context matters. "Yug/Jug" means "South", and "Slavia" is, well, a land of where SLavs live, but together they form a word that has a specific political context. If you want to say "South Slavs" then you would say "Južni Slaveni". If you want to say "Yugoslavs" then you would say "Jugoslaveni". There is a difference that has to be considered. A Swastika is ok in India, but in Europe not so much, if you'll agree with me that context matters in linguistic/symbolic (or any other) considerations.

So South Slavic would be the optimal choice Just sayin'

EDIT: actually, I'm speaking from the perspective of the Croatian language I think Serbians actually do say "Jugosloveni" and actually mean "South Slavs" I feel silly now DAMN BALKANS!

 

[unmerged(25822)]

I think Balkans wise culture shouldn't be an issue at all , till the end of the 20th century religion was much more important.
If you take mixed areas like Eastern Romilia , Macedonia, Thrace, Banat and Dobrutsa you won't see any short of nationalism till the last part of 19th century, the division was between Christians, Jews and Muslims .

 

[Ichabod]

I think Balkans wise culture shouldn't be an issue at all , till the end of the 20th century religion was much more important.
If you take mixed areas like Eastern Romilia , Macedonia, Thrace, Banat and Dobrutsa you won't see any short of nationalism till the last part of 19th century, the division was between Christians, Jews and Muslims .

Did even read what I wrote, like, 5 posts up??

 

[mikeydoritos]

Bosnian national identity is a new thing. That doesn't make it any less legitimate than older identities, it just means that in 1444 people in that region only had two non-heretical options of where to go to pray to the same God rather than the three they have today.