Niš, in the south central part of Serbia, has its greatest claim to fame as the birthplace of Constantine, the first Byzantine emperor. Located near the confluence of the Nišava and Morava rivers, the valleys have always made for a natural thoroughfare since ancient times. By Constantine’s time, the Via Militaris or Carigradski Drum was a well travelled route for both trade and conquest. Continue reading
Bosanska Krajina is a term referring to the northern portion of Bosnia, bounded by the rivers Vrbas and Sava, and the Dinaric alps in the west. It was a region that for centuries represented the frontier of the Ottoman Empire, abutting directly against the Austro-Hungarian Military Frontier (Vojna Krajina). The word kraj means the end of something, or a region, and “Krajina” is used to designate a number of districts and micro-regions historically inhabited by Serbs (Timočka Krajina, Bela Krajina, Kninska Krajina etc). It is found in other Slavic languages as well; for example, Ukraine is a toponym derived from the Russian v’krajina, “in the outskirts”. Krajina, when applied to any area, has that connotation of being the outskirts, an outlying or remote area. The mountainous terrain of Bosanska Krajina certainly made it difficult to traverse and settle, and in that sense remained remote for a very long time. Continue reading
The Požarevac Morava district (Požarevačka Morava, Požarevačko Pomoravlje) gets its name from the city of Požarevac, found at the lower end of the Morava river valley, near the Danube. The city arose on the ruins of the Roman city of Margus, best known as the site of a treaty between the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius and the Huns, led by the brotherly duo of Attila and Bleda. It was part of the medieval Serbian kingdom of King Dragutin Nemanjić, until its Ottoman conquest in 1459. Apparently destined to be a place of peacemaking, it was also the site of the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz (because, Austrians mangle every single Serbian town name they attempt to pronounce) which led to a short-lived peace between the Ottomans and their two western adversaries, the Austrian Empire and Venetian republic. Continue reading
Свилен конац Silken Thread 