Laonikos Chalkokondyles (circa 1430 – circa 1470) was a Byzantine Greek historian. His 10 volume history (The Histories) contains the following passages (dealing with the events of the Byzantine Civil war in 1350-1356) which give several potential sources for the origin of the Serbs:
“Süleyman [Pasha, son of Orhan Gazi] then attacked the Mysians [Moesians?]* and the Triballi.** This tribe – the oldest and largest of all of the world’s nations – took these lands either (1) by separating from the Illyrians*** or (2), as some people believe, from peoples on the other side of the Danube, at the ends of Europe, [by separating] from the Croats and Prussians on the Northern Ocean, or (3) it arrived from Sarmatia, which is now called Ruthenia. By reason of the insufferable cold they left those lands and, having crossed the Danube, they arrived in the country on the Ionian Gulf [Sea] and, having conquered them, took abode in the lands that belong to the Veneti. Perhaps it is better said that (4) they arrived from there in the land on the Ionian Sea and after crossing the Danube they found themselves on the other side of the oecumene, but we do not assert this with full certainty. But I do know that these tribes differ from one another by names but not by customs and using the same language they can understand each other even now. They spread out throughout Europe, lived in different places even in the Peloponessus, Laconia, in the mountains of the Taygetus, and on the Tainaron [Cape Matapan]. Here too lived a nation which stretched from Dacia to Pindos in Thessaly. Both of these are called the Vrachi.*** I cannot say which of these, were I to speak of them, [was the native and which] came to the other. In any event, I believe that the Triballi,** Mysians [Moesians?],* Illyrians,*** Croats, Polans and Sarmatians [that is Ruthenians as noted above] speak the same language. Were anything worthwhile to be added to this, it is only that this is one tribe.”
* Bulgarians
** Serbs
*** Western Slavs or Slovenes.
*** Wallachians
Copyright ©2018 jassa.org All Rights Reserved