Višeslav of Serbia
Encyclopedia
Višeslav was Prince of the Serbs fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 768-814. He united various Serb tribes into an unified state.

Life

Višeslav was the great-grandson of the Unknown Archont
Unknown Archont
The Unknown Archont is a conventional name given by historians to the Serbian leader who led the White Serbs from their homeland to settle in the Balkans after 610, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius ....

, the leader of the White Serbs that settled the Balkans after an agreement with the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 Emperor Heraclius
Heraclius
Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...

 (610-641).

He ruled the Župa
Župa
A Župa is a Slavic term, used historically among the Southern and Western branches of the Slavs, originally denoting various territorial and other sub-units, usually a small administrative division, especially a gathering of several villages...

nias of Neretva
Neretva
Neretva is the largest river of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. It has been harnessed and controlled to a large extent by four HE power-plants with large dams and their storage lakes, but it is still recognized for its natural beauty, diversity of its landscape and visual...

, Tara
Tara Mountain
Tara , is a mountain located in western Serbia. It is part of Dinaric Alps and stands at 1,000-1,500 metres above sea level. The mountain's slopes are clad in dense forests with numerous high-altitude clearings and meadows, steep cliffs, deep ravines carved by the nearby Drina River and many karst,...

, Piva
Piva
Piva may refer to:* Piva , a river in Montenegro* Piva, Montenegro, a region in Montenegro and the clan* Piva language, a member of the Piva-Banoni languages* Piva , an Italian folk instrument* Piva , a Renaissance dance...

, Lim
Lim River
The Lim is a river flowing through Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. long, it's the right and the longest tributary of the Drina.- Montenegro and Serbia :...

, his ancestral lands.

Višeslav united various Serbian provinces (kneževine) and tribes of the Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 Sclaviniae in the 8th century into the Principality of Serbia (known anachronistically in western sources as Raška
Raška (state)
Principality of Serbia or Serbian Principality was an early medieval state of the Serbs ruled by the Vlastimirović dynasty, that existed from ca 768 to 969 in Southeastern Europe. It was established through an unification of several provincial chiefs under the supreme rule of a certain Višeslav,...

). In 785, Constantine VI conquers the Sclaviniae of Macedonia ('Sclavenias penes Macedoniam'), situated to the south.

He ruled Serbia as Prince (Knez
KNEZ
Knez may refer to:* Knez , translated duke or prince, used in medieval Slavic countries such as Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia* Knez , a South Slavic surname* Knez , the stage name of a Montenegrin singer Nenad Knežević...

, Archont, ἄρχοντες) fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...

 768-814 (During the rule of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

).

He was succeeded by his son Radoslav
Radoslav of Serbia
Radoslav was a Serbian Prince who ruled over the Serbs from 800 to 822, he succeeded his father Višeslav who united the Serbian tribes, resulting in the formation of Raška in the 8th century...

, who was the ruler of Serbia during the uprisings (819-822) of Ljudevit Posavski
Ljudevit Posavski
Ljudevit Posavski was a Croatian Duke of Pannonian Croatia from 810 to 823. The capital of his realm was in Sisak. As the ruler of the Pannonian Slavs, he led an unsuccessful resistance to Frankish domination. He held close ties with the Carantanian and Carniolan tribes and with the Serbian tribe...

 against the Franks. According to the Royal Frankish Annals
Royal Frankish Annals
The Royal Frankish Annals or Annals of the Kingdom of the Franks ,are annals covering the history of early Carolingian monarchs from 741 to 829. Their composition seems to have soon been taken up at court, providing them with markedly official character...

, in 822, Ljudevit went from his seat in Sisak
Sisak
Sisak is a city in central Croatia. The city's population in 2011 was 33,049, with a total of 49,699 in the administrative region and it is also the administrative centre of the Sisak-Moslavina county...

 to the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 somewhere in western Bosnia
History of Bosnia and Herzegovina (until 958)
Within the boundaries of today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, there have been many layers of prehistoric cultures whose creation and disappearance are linked to migrations of unidentified ethnic groups.-Prehistory:...

 who controlled a great part of Dalmatia
Dalmatia (Roman province)
Dalmatia was an ancient Roman province. Its name is probably derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae which lived in the area of the eastern Adriatic coast in Classical antiquity....

 ("Sorabos, quae natio magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur").

See also


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Sources

  • De Administrando Imperio
    De Administrando Imperio
    De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is...

     by Constantine Porphyrogenitus
    Constantine VII
    Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959...

    , edited by Gy. Moravcsik and translated by R. J. H. Jenkins, Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington D. C., 1993
  • J. B. Bury, History of the Eastern Empire from the Fall of Irene to the Accession of Basil: A.D. 802-867. ISBN 1605204218, 9781605204215. Google Books
  • Curta, Florin (2006). Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89452-4.
  • Ćorović, Vladimir
    Vladimir Corovic
    Vladimir Ćorović was a 20th-century Serbian historian, member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts . He is best known for his many acclaimed works on the history of Serbs and Yugoslavia.-Early:...

    , Istorija srpskog naroda, Book I, (In Serbian) Electric Book, Rastko Electronic Book, Antikvarneknjige (Cyrillic)
  • Tibor Živković, Portreti srpskih vladara (IX—XII), Beograd, 2006 (ISBN 86-17-13754-1), p. 11
  • Ferjančić, B. 1997, "Basile I et la restauration du pouvoir byzantin au IXème siècle", Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, no. 36, pp. 9–30.
  • SANU - Posebna Izdanja - Vizantijski Izvori Za Istoriju Naroda Jugoslavije Tom 2, page 31: "...(Βοίσέσθλαβοζ) и од њега Радослав (Τοδόσθλαβος) и од њега Просигој (Προσηγόης)...
  • Encyclopædia Britannica, 1954
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