WI/AHC: Constantinople falls to a Bulgarian, Serbian or Catholic kingdom/empire

Would the Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians and S.Macedonians end up as a single group?

Serbs, Montenegrins and some of the Slavs in Macedonia, sure - Montenegrin national identity developed in the very specific conditions of Ottoman occupation. Bulgarians - nah, can't see it happening on any large scale.
 

SRBO

Banned
Would the Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians and S.Macedonians end up as a single group?

Well seeing that Montenegrin and Macedonian identities were communist invention, i don't see why not

Back then the differences were even smaller
 
Serbs, Montenegrins and some of the Slavs in Macedonia, sure - Montenegrin national identity developed in the very specific conditions of Ottoman occupation. Bulgarians - nah, can't see it happening on any large scale.
But I mean the capital of the Empire was in Macedonia so this could let it to be central in the Slavic part probably making the various groups blend(unlike OTL where Shtokavian was the variety chosen that led to Serbo-Croatian).
By the way, in august I started a thread about Serbia and Bulgaria that might be relevant to the OP: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...minant-slavic-power-up-to-the-present.394762/
Seems a bit focused more on earlier times, I´m kinda interested about an alternative to the Ottomans in their times that is still big.
Well seeing that Montenegrin and Macedonian identities were communist invention, i don't see why not

Back then the differences were even smaller
I wonder what it would be called.
The Greeks are a whole different ballgame in comparison to the Slavs, IMHO. While the First Bulgarian Empire spread literacy and Christianity to the Slavic world, they did not necessarily unite the Slavs. According to a source, the Slavs did not like the idea of centralized authority so it might make things complicated.
I don´t mean united all the Slavs, only the southern Orthodox ones.
 

SRBO

Banned
That's a pretty ludicrous thing to say.

That doesn't make it untrue

Many westerners automatically assume all borders in Europe are sacred an just right and that meddling was only done in Africa and the near East
 

Red Orm

Banned
That doesn't make it untrue

Many westerners automatically assume all borders in Europe are sacred an just right and that meddling was only done in Africa and the near East

And you assume that I'm a westerner. Montenegrin identity has existed since at least the 16th century, as the only area of old Serbia to not fall under heavy Ottoman rule. Its location on the Adriatic, and the mountains that no large army could campaign in, gave it a unique position between Adriatic and interior Balkan. That's what makes your statement untrue. Why else would some Montenegrins rebel against unification with Serbia?

As for Macedonians, you're mostly right. They were mostly Bulgarians before becoming part of Serbia, but it was actually the Serbian monarchists that manufactured a Macedonian identity, because it was too hard for them to turn the Bulgarians into Serbians.

Not that I'm excusing the communists of anything, they engineered and carried out an even larger cultural cleansing campaign, but what did happen in Macedonia began happening long before the communists were in power.
 
And you assume that I'm a westerner. Montenegrin identity has existed since at least the 16th century, as the only area of old Serbia to not fall under heavy Ottoman rule. Its location on the Adriatic, and the mountains that no large army could campaign in, gave it a unique position between Adriatic and interior Balkan. That's what makes your statement untrue. Why else would some Montenegrins rebel against unification with Serbia?

They didn't rebel against unification as such - they rebelled against the deposition of the Petrovic-Njegos dynasty. Unification with Serbia under the Petrovic-Njegos scepter was the primary political program for centuries, and the majority of Montenegrin Slavs before 1912 considered themselves to be one branch of a larger Serbian family. The divide in Montenegrin society was about the questions of dynasty and regionalism vs unitarism...which often amounted to the same thing.

So while Communists didn't create the Montenegrin identity out of thin air, they are what allowed it to expand and develop into its modern form.

Without Ottoman expansion, there might be some separate identity in modern-day Montenegro, but it's going to be confined purely to a few Catholic communities living right along the coast. And they're not going to call themselves Montenegrin, but Diocleian, Illyrian or something else entirely.
 

Red Orm

Banned
They didn't rebel against unification as such - they rebelled against the deposition of the Petrovic-Njegos dynasty. Unification with Serbia under the Petrovic-Njegos scepter was the primary political program for centuries, and the majority of Montenegrin Slavs before 1912 considered themselves to be one branch of a larger Serbian family. The divide in Montenegrin society was about the questions of dynasty and regionalism vs unitarism...which often amounted to the same thing.

So while Communists didn't create the Montenegrin identity out of thin air, they are what allowed it to expand and develop into its modern form.

Without Ottoman expansion, there might be some separate identity in modern-day Montenegro, but it's going to be confined purely to a few Catholic communities living right along the coast. And they're not going to call themselves Montenegrin, but Diocleian, Illyrian or something else entirely.

That definition certainly makes sense, but then again so does mine. Modern Montenegro was unified by the coastal Montenegrins, very different from gorani. The princes of Montenegro should've called themselves princes of Serbia then, if that's what they aspired to. God knows that everybody else under the sun did. The Karadordevic in Beograd called himself King of Serbia, and Beograd's just as far (even farther) from Old Serbia as Montenegro.
 
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