They developed out of their tribal state
more quickly, while the Serbs, further inland and amid more difficult
surroundings, developed more slowly. The people who lived along the Save
aspired to control the Dalmatian coast which military and geographical
authorities claim can best be held from the mainland. The people who lived
in Montenegro or along the Morava, which was the gateway to the peninsula,
would naturally expand south and east toward the other cultural center,
Constantinople, and thus seek to dominate the Balkan peninsula. In both
cases, the attraction proved too much for feudal kings and led to the
formation of cosmopolitan empires instead of strong national monarchies.
The kingdoms of Croatia and Serbia thus parted company politically. The
former became a separate kingdom attached to Hungary in 1102 and to the
Habsburg dynasty in 1527, while the Serbs began their expansion under
the Nemanja dynasty late in the twelfth century and almost realized the
dominion over the Balkans under Stephen Du[s]an in the fourteenth century.
This political, geographical, and economic dualism became still greater
when in 1219 the Serbs cast their lot with orthodoxy. The Croats, like the
Slovenes, adopted Roman Catholicism, the Latin alphabet, and the culture of
Rome. The Serbs accepted Greek Orthodoxy, the Cyrillic alphabet, and the
culture of Constantinople.
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