As a Serb, I find Chakavian no less difficult to read than Bulgarian. With a slightly earlier PoD, I suspect integration between Bulgarians and Serbs would have been far easier than between Serbs and Croats. But that's not really the topic.
Grassroots solidarity is a vital ingredient in these matters, at least as important as common literature and aspects of nation-building from above. Which is where the whole common enemy thing really would come in handy.
I think the French Illyrian Provinces might have been useful even if France was still defeated and pushed back like in OTL. As long as Napoleon manages to seize Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia for a few years.
French governance would get Serbs and Croats in touch with modern-nationalist ideas, while generally ignoring their differences in favor of a pan-Yugoslav (Illyrian) context - very useful for establishing the roots of a common Yugoslav identity. France's abolition of feudalism would also help matters, allowing the Austrian/Hungarian, Ottoman and (to a lesser extent) native landlords to play the role of the common enemy. And their status as a common enemy would be cemented even further when Austria and/or the Ottomans reconquer the region and bring back feudalism and denationalization.
Fast forward to 1848, and maybe the Serbs and Croats would launch a genuine joint revolution instead of OTL's dodgy, disunited and partly pro-Habsburg undertaking.
What if Napoleon, instead of incorporating the Balkan lands he conquered into the French Empire, turned this Illyria into a kingdom of its own, seven years before the institution of the Habsburg crown land by the same name, while giving Slovenia (and the Kajkavian-speaking lands?) a similar status, as the Kingdom of Carniola?
ⰍⰓⰀⰎⰉⰅⰂⰋⰐⰀ ⰋⰎⰋⰓⰋⰉⰀ
Flag of the napoleonic Kingdom of Illyria: the white band represents Catholicism, the green band Islam, and the purple band Orthodoxy; their placement on the flag mirrors that of the three religions in the Kingdom: Catholicism in the north, Orthodoxy in the south, and Islam between them. The Glagolitic alphabet was revived as the official (and only) writing system of the Kingdom, owing to its status as the oldest known Slavic alphabet; the country was subdivided into departments modeled on the French ones, but based on dialectal rather than geographical borders; and freedom of religion was enforced throughout the whole kingdom, of which Sarajevo - the only major European city to have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox church and synagogue within the same neighborhood - became the capital.
The flag was eventually adopted by the Republic of Illyria - minus the crown on top of the coat of arms - in 1848
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