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BALKAN PENINSULA
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Chifllik persists. The begs and agas, and Greek landowners of Thessaly, the former being descendants of the landowners who adopted the creed of the conquering race, own the ground culti- vated by the kmets or chiftshiye and impose heavy taxes upon them.

The western European countries and the Balkan world came early into contact. The Romans crossed the Adriatic and Latin- ized the old Illyrian tribes up to a line from Alessio on the Adri- atic to Ratiaria on the Danube, south-east of which the Greek language prevailed. Later, the House of Anjou in Albania, the Franks in Constantinople, and the maritime and commercial empires of Genoa and Venice hardly carried Occidental in-


FIG. 3.

fluences over the main ranges into the interior of the peninsula. But the Mediterranean type is conspicuous in Dalmatia and in Constantinople, and the Latin is less noticeable on the planinas. Occidental architecture may be noticed in a Serbian church of the i3th and isth century at Detchain. From that time, in consequence of these commercial and intellectual relations, a few words of Latin origin were introduced into the Serbo-Croatian language. After the i8th century it was a principle of Austrian policy to carry Central European influences far southwards; the Austrians brought their habits of city life, their methods of trade, their engineering, and their house furniture, but did not make their mark on intellectual development. North of the Shar Planina and of the Balkans, except on the coast and in the Serbian plains, the patriarchal type of civilization prevails. It is also noticeable in Albania. Its main characteristics are the organization of the tribes in Montenegro, northern Albania and Rashka, and that of the Zadruga from the Adriatic to the river Iskar. In the latter three or four families live together, obeying the oldest member of the group, and cultivating ground which is owned in common. The Zadruga is chargeable for the taxes, controls the expenditure, is responsible by law for, and makes profit on the work of, each member. Some groups con- sist of as many as 70 members. The ground, except forests or pastures (stojer), becomes more and more divided up. The nu- cleus of the tribes is made up of old families related together and enlarged by the admission of foreign groups, or by conquest of new territories. The Montenegrin tribes hardly made a liveli- hood on the barren karst and had to keep small in number; while the Rascian tribes, in an area full of resources, became more and more important. On account of geographical isolation and the prevention of exogamy amongst the old tribes, tribal life developed into particularism, but the wars against the Turks united those tribes which, when not fighting, were occupied only in pastoral pursuits or the leading of convoys.

The distribution of civilization has been greatly influenced by metanastasic movements. The invasion of the Turks in the i4th

century determined local migrations, especially among the Serbs. The Dinaric Serbs from Montenegro and Herzegovina moved eastward and settled in the forest glades of Shumadya, or north- wards along the Dinaric ranges as far as Istria and Carniola. People from Kosovo and Prizren moved northwards and settled in the plains and valleys of eastern Shumadya. The Macedo- nians moved along the Vardar and Morava valleys and, with the Serbians of the old districts, crossed the Sava and Danube and settled in Styria, southern Carniola and Croatia. Among the Bulgarians, the Balkanyi alone left their mountains for the lower Danubian or the fertile Thracian plains. The Albanians often changed place. Pushed back from the Black Drin by the Slavs in the 6th and 7th centuries, most of them adopted the creed of the Turks in the Middle Ages, and travelled freely through the whole peninsula; the half-Serbian, half-Albanian Malissores settled at Novibazar; a few Mirdites pushed up to Kosovo; the central Albanians to near Skoplye and Tetovo; the southern Albanians to the Peloponnesus. Along the main roads are Greek commercial colonies and Turkish military posts. The gradual clearing of the peninsula caused metanastasic movements of the Turks back towards Constantinople and Asia, and of the Christians back to the homes of their ancestors. The Turkish domination was responsible for many migrations: after revolts, and every fourth year as one-fifth of the young Christians entered the Sultan's service as Yenitsheri, entire families took refuge in the high massifs. During the wars between the Turks and the Austrians in the i8th century, the Serbian insurgents, to avoid reprisals, had to follow the retreating Austrians. During the liberation wars led by the Kara George vitch in 1804 and by Milosh Obrenovitch in 1815 many Serbians migrated from Novibazar and Nish into Shumadya. Economic conditions also played their part in those movements: entire families left overcrowded cultivated areas for rich but less inhabited areas. Scarcity of food pushed 10,000 Montenegrins eastward into Serbia in 1890. Many kmets, trying to escape bad conditions of tenure, obtained land in the newly liberated territories. Those metanastasic movements brought about the redistribution of ethnic and religious groups, and extended the Orthodox Church into the domain of the Roman Catholic, north of the Sava and Danube. In the same way, the Dinaric dialect pushed back the Croatian, and the Kosovo dialect was spoken farther and farther northward. Everywhere the immigrants adapted themselves to the life of the inhabitants among whom they had to live, but also brought new customs and a new mentality.

Races. Owing to the continual movement of the population, the ethnological boundaries do not coincide with those of the great natural regions. The Greeks came from Asia Minor in early historic times and settled in the coastal area, including the islands between Varna and Corfu. They assimilated the Romans in Byzantine times, the Slavs in and after the Middle Ages, the Aramuni from the i2th to the i5th century, and the Albanians after the I4th century. But even now their range does not extend far from the sea, its northern boundaries being the southern border of Albania, the river Bistritsa and Lake Beshik. Farther east, mixed up with Turks and Bulgars, and with many Greeks in such commercial centres as Constantinople, Adrianople and Salonika, they occupy Thrace equally with the Turks. In the peninsula and adjacent islands they probably number 4,500,000.

Declining since the i7th century, the Turkish population has disappeared from the northern towns and from the Rhodcfpe and Balkan mountains, where names given by Yuruk shepherds are, however, still retained. The Turkish element is nowhere found in compact masses except in the east Balkanic regions, where the dry climate is similar to that of Asia Minor. Else- where, it exists only in isolated districts in eastern Bulgaria, in Thrace, on the left bank of the Vardar and in the Bujak Kajlar basin. The total Turkish population of the peninsula scarcely exceeds 1,800,000.

The Albanians or Shkilpetar, representatives of the primitive Illyrian tribes, were not Slavized like the Dalmats or Liburns. They live in the mountainous Pindus and Prokletye, encom- passed by Yugoslavia and Greece, while, among them, the Slavs