The Slavic masses who, pushed and dragged by the Avars, poured in at the end of the century. VI and at the beginning of the VII in the Balkans, they did not yet have precise ethnic features or political physiognomy. Slowly, and without it being possible today to reconstruct the process, they developed, between the century. VII and IX, in different ethnic varieties, which later constituted as many political organisms, of a much faster formation the more located on the margins of the Byzantine Empire and exposed to Western influences. Just in the century. XII, after the beginning of the Crusades, in the decadence of Byzantium, and in the disintegration of the marginal states caused by Western expansion, that process of formation began to affect the central areas, previously far from the European political game and strongly subject to the control and ‘ effective exercise of Byzantine sovereignty. Then Serbia arose. The land on which it formed is the Rascia (v.), A small and mountainous region between the Lim valley and the kingdom of Dioclea (v.montenegro), dominated since the first half of the century. XI by great Giuppani of a branch of the diocletian dynasty, continually troubled by dynastic struggles, alternately subject to the Dioclea or Byzantium, with rare and very short periods of independence. To quell the struggles, emancipate the dynasty and the region from Dioclean and Byzantine subjection, and to make Rascia a permanently autonomous state with a distinct political and national physiognomy, the work of the great Giuppano Stefano intervened in the second half of the 12th century. Nemanja. He is rightly considered the founder of the Serbian state, first a modest rasciano grangiuppanato, then elevated to a kingdom in 1217, then to an empire in 1346, to decline after 1389 and reduce to despotia, canceling itself out in 1459 to give rise to a Turkish pasture, rise again in the century. XIX,
Although the Byzantine emperor Emanuele Comneno had strongly reaffirmed his empire over the Rascia in 1168 by dismissing some rebel great Giuppani, imprisoning them and placing trusted vassals on the government of the region, the political situation, due to the intersection of the forces that in those years they were active in the Balkans, she had always been propitious for maneuvers. Stefano Nemanja faces Rascian political life around 1170. He begins by exploiting the indigenous reaction to the imperial coup of force of 1168, succeeding in imposing himself, driving out and replacing the great vassal Giuppani in power. Its first successes coincide with the rivalry and the Venetian-Constantinopolitan war of 1170-1171. Nemanja takes advantage of this to graft his action into the Venetian one and to establish anti-Byzantine alliances and understandings also with Hungary and the Western Empire. His armies immediately marched north towards the Adriatic coast against the Byzantine provinces of Croatia and Dalmatia and to the east on the road from Niš to Belgrade, reporting notable successes everywhere: However, the Venetian disaster in the Aegean and death occurred to halt his action. of Stephen III of Hungary. Emanuele, freed from the other enemies, turned threateningly against the Rascia. Nemania saw the opportunity to submit to him in the fullest and most reassuring way. From 1171 to 1180 the Rascia was again a vassal of Byzantium. But as soon as after Emmanuel’s death (September 24, 1180) the Balkans fell back into chaos, the great giuppano vigorously resumed action. While his brother Miroslao was consolidated in Zaculmia, he, forged an alliance with Bela III of Hungary, went into the Morava valley and conquered a whole series of Byzantine cities. It then turned to the Dioclea and occupied Scutari, Sarda, Dagno, Drivasto, Suacia and the ports of Ulcigno and Antivari, expelled its relatives diocletic princes and constituted the Maritime Province. In 1186 he was given Cattaro. Ragusa, on the other hand, always resisted him and his successors with vigorous tenacity. In 1187, in alliance with the renewed Bulgarian empire, he occupied Niš and devastated the castles of the Timok valley. In 1189 he conquered the upper Struma and had Skoplje and Prizren. To Frederick Barbarossa, passing through Niš, in the same year he offered gifts, alliance and vassalage, if desired, in opposition to Byzantium, repeat from the West its own dignity and that of the state it was building. However, it was the Byzantine emperor who, despite having beaten him in 1190 on the Morava, and having taken the best of his territories, recognized them. From this year the Serbian state can be considered founded and Nemanja is dedicated to works of peace: he organized the religious life that was headed by the bishopric of Ras, and founded many monasteries, centers of piety and culture, guardians of the Serbian spirit. He did not neglect the West: contacts with the papacy and with the Latin states were made frequent through the Marittima and Cattaro. When he thought he had completed the work, he called a state diet in 1196, handed over power to his second son Stephen and retired to monastic life (v. through the Marittima and Cattaro, contacts with the papacy and the Latin states. When he thought he had completed the work, he called a state diet in 1196, handed over power to his second son Stephen and retired to monastic life (v. through the Marittima and Cattaro, contacts with the papacy and the Latin states. When he thought he had completed the work, he called a state diet in 1196, handed over power to his second son Stephen and retired to monastic life (v.stefano nemanja). A serious problem, however, left unsolved, having not established any firm order of succession. The Nemanja, continually swaying between the traditional principle of seniorate and that of primogeniture, filled the entire Serbian Middle Ages with dynastic struggles. It has the first episode the year after the death of the progenitor (1200), when the favorite eldest son Vukan, who had obtained only the government of the Marittima, rose up against his brother and in 1202 drove him out of the grangiuppanato. Stefano, however, with the help of the Bulgarians, was able the following year to resume power and over many years of government to perfect his father’s work. Byzantinophile at first, after 1204, following in the footsteps of Nemanja, he oriented his policy towards Venice and the papacy. Still repudiated in 1202 Eudoxia, nephew of the emperor Isaac Angelo, he married Anna Dandolo, niece of the conquering doge of Constantinople. Through Ragusa, where Giovanni Dandolo was count, and Venice, in 1217 he was able to obtain the royal crown from Honorius III and be crowned by his legate. The act marked the elevation of Serbia from grangiuppanato to kingdom and Stephen went down in history with the attribute of Primo Coronato.
