South Slavs
[2] Another name popular in the early modern period was Illyrians, using the name of a pre-Slavic Balkan people, a name first adopted by Dalmatian intellectuals in the late 15th century to refer to South Slavic lands and population.[citation needed] The Proto-Slavic homeland is the postulated area of Slavic settlement in Central and Eastern Europe during the first millennium AD, with its precise location debated by archaeologists, ethnographers and historians.[5] None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, or past Bohemia in the west.[6] Traditionally, scholars place it in the marshes of Ukraine, or alternatively between the Bug and the Dnieper;[7] however, according to F. Curta, the homeland of the southern Slavs mentioned by 6th-century writers was just north of the Lower Danube.[11] They were portrayed by Procopius as unusually tall and strong, of dark skin and "reddish" hair (neither blond nor black), leading a primitive life and living in scattered huts, often changing their residence.[16] From the Danube, the Slavs commenced raiding the Byzantine Empire on an annual basis from the 520s, spreading destruction, taking loot and herds of cattle, seizing prisoners and capturing fortresses.This meant that even numerically small, disorganised early Slavic raids were capable of causing much disruption, but could not capture the larger, fortified cities.[18] Throughout the 6th century, Slavs raided and plundered deep into the Balkans, from Dalmatia to Greece and Thrace, and were also at times recruited as Byzantine mercenaries, fighting the Ostrogoths.Seventh-century archaeological sites show earlier hamlet-collections evolving into larger communities with differentiated zones for public feasts, craftmanship, etc.[32] Subsequent information about Slavs' interaction with the Greeks and early Slavic states comes from the 10th-century text De Administrando Imperio (DAI) written by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, from the 7th-century compilations of the Miracles of Saint Demetrius (MSD) and from the History by Theophylact Simocatta (c. 630).[citation needed] By 700 AD, Slavs had settled in most of Central and Southeast Europe, from Austria even down to the Peloponnese of Greece, and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, with the exception of the coastal areas and certain mountainous regions of the Greek peninsula.[31] Traditional historiography, based on DAI, holds that the migration of Serbs and Croats to the Balkans was part of a second Slavic wave, placed during Heraclius' reign.[43] The Bogomil sect, derived from Manichaeism, was deemed heretical, but managed to spread from Bulgaria to Bosnia (where it gained a foothold),[44] and France (Cathars).[45] Dalmatia, now applied to the narrow strip with Byzantine towns, came under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, while the Croatian state remained pagan until Christianization during the reign of Charlemagne, after which religious allegiance was to Rome.[citation needed] Through Islamization, communities of Slavic Muslims emerged, which survive until today in Bosnia, south Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria.It comprises, from west to east, the official languages of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria.South Slavic standard languages are: West: Serbo-Croatian (pluricentric) (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin) Slovene East: Bulgarian Macedonian[57] The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that the Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis that places the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper".
BosnianBulgarianCroatianMacedonianMontenegrinSerbianSlovenianSouth Slavic languageWest Slavic languagesBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCroatiaMontenegroNorth MacedoniaSerbiaSloveniaEastern South SlavicWestern South SlavicSerbo-CroatianSloveneEastern OrthodoxyBulgariansMacedoniansMontenegrinsRoman CatholicismCroatsSlovenesBunjevciŠokciBanat BulgariansSunni IslamBosniaksPomaksGoraniTorbešiEthnic MuslimsSlavic peopleSouth Slavic languagesSoutheast EuropeBalkan PeninsulaWest SlavsEast SlavsAustriaHungaryRomaniaBlack SeaYugoslaviaPan-SlavicHabsburg monarchyIllyrian movementKingdom of Serbs, Croats and SlovenesState of Slovenes, Croats and Serbsbreakup of YugoslaviaYugoslavsCyrillicSlavic ethnonymSclaveniVenetiFranceYugoslavismSlavic migrations to Southeastern EuropeEarly SlavsAntes (people)homelandCentralEastern EuropeVolga RiverDinaric AlpsBalkan MountainsBohemiaDnieperLower DanubeJordanesProcopiuslate RomanleaderhenotheisticfoederatiDanubecentral SerbiaVia MilitarisbarbariansJustinian IOstrogothsdivide and conquerDaurentiuscrop rotationtranshumantDalmatian city-statesDe Administrando ImperioConstantine VII PorphyrogenitusMiracles of Saint DemetriusTheophylact SimocattaRoyal Frankish AnnalsFranksSaqalibaFrankish EmpireSlavictribesbulgarsKhan AsparuhGreat MoraviaSaints Cyril and MethodiusGlagolitic scriptOld Church SlavonicGlagoliticCounter-ReformationChristian BulgariaEarly Cyrillic alphabetPreslav Literary SchoolDukljaPreslavliterary productionBulgarian EmpireBogomilCatharsCarinthiaCharlemagneKurjakovićKačićŠubićIbn al-FaqihPan-SlavismSlavic languagesWest SlavicEast Slavic