Džino Danijel. Early Medieval Hum and Bosnia, ca. 450-1200: Beyond Myths

Routledge, 2023. — 284 p.This book explores social transformations that led to the establishment of medieval Hum (future Herzegovina) and Bosnia in the period from ca. 450 to 1200 AD using the available written and material sources. It follows social and political developments in these historical regions from the last centuries of Late Antiquity, through the social collapse of the seventh and eighth centuries, and into their new medieval beginnings in the ninth century. Fragmentary and problematic sources from this period were, in the past, often used to justify modern political claims to these contested territories and incorporate them into the ‘national biographies’ of the Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), or to support the ‘Yugoslavizing’ and other ideological discourses.The book goes beyond ideological and national mythologies of the past to provide a new historical narrative that brings more light to this region placed on the frontiers of both the medieval West and the Byzantine empire. It provides new views of the period between ca. 450 and 1200 for the parts of Western Balkans and Eastern Adriatic, brings the most recent local historical and archaeological research to the Anglophone readership, and contributes to the scholarship of the late antique and early medieval Mediterranean study of this very poorly known area.The book is intended for academic audiences interested in the history and archaeology of the Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, but also to all those interested in the general history of Herzegovina, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and the Balkans.Danijel Džino is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His publications include: From Justinian to Branimir: the making of the Middle Ages in Dalmatia (2021), Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman Dalmatia (2010), and Illyricum in Roman Politics, 229 BC-AD 68 (2010).