The claim made in the post on X that “Dalmatia is the oldest Slavic land” is incorrect and rests on anachronistic nationalist (often Serbian) mythology rather than evidence. Dalmatia, the coastal region of modern Croatia along the Adriatic, has a pre-Slavic name and long history of non-Slavic populations before Slavic settlement in the 6th–7th centuries AD.
Name and Pre-Slavic Inhabitants
The name Dalmatia comes from the Dalmatae (or Delmatae), an Illyrian tribe that lived there in classical antiquity (1st millennium BC). It has no Slavic etymology. Scholars link it to Albanian words for “sheep” (dele/delmë) or “shepherd,” reflecting the Illyrians’ pastoral culture. The Roman province took its name from this tribe and their center at Delminium.
Before Slavs: Illyrians (Indo-European but not Slavic), Greek colonies on the islands/coast (e.g., Issa/Vis, Pharos/Hvar), then full Roman control. The area was Latin/Romance-speaking in urban centers for centuries, with a later Romance language called Dalmatian spoken along the coast until it went extinct in the 19th century.
Slavs (including Croats) arrived during the Slavic migrations of the 6th–7th centuries AD, settling the hinterland and eventually mixing with or displacing earlier populations. This was part of broader movements into the Balkans under Avar influence, centuries after the region was already called Dalmatia.
No serious historian considers Dalmatia the “oldest Slavic land.” Slavic ethnogenesis and early homeland are generally placed further north (around the Carpathians, Pripyat marshes, or eastern Europe) in the centuries before their Balkan expansion. Other Slavic areas (e.g., in modern Poland, Ukraine, or Russia) have deeper roots in Slavic presence.
The “Evidence” in the Post Is Myth-Making
“St. Jerome translating the Bible into Slavic”
This is a well-known medieval legend invented by Dalmatian Glagolitic monks (13th century onward) to legitimize the Slavic liturgy in the Roman rite. St. Jerome (c. 347–420 AD, from Stridon in Dalmatia) was of Illyrian/Roman background and translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). Slavs had not yet arrived in the Balkans during his lifetime. The legend portrayed him as a “Slav” who invented Glagolitic script—pure retroactive myth-making for cultural/religious identity.
Jovan Rajić (18th century)
A Serbian Enlightenment-era historian whose History of Various Slavic Peoples reflects early romantic nationalist historiography. Such works often blended legend with history to build South Slavic identity amid Ottoman/Habsburg rule. They are not reliable primary sources for ancient or early medieval events.
The post’s images appear to quote such sources claiming Illyrians/Dalmatians were ancient Slavs speaking Slavic—this is pseudohistory. Illyrian languages are poorly attested but not Slavic; modern Slavic languages in the Balkans (Croatian, Serbian, etc.) arrived with the migrations.
Actual Slavicization of Dalmatia
Slavs settled the interior early on, but major coastal cities remained Romance-dominated for much longer (under Byzantine, then Venetian influence). Full Slavic/Croatian demographic dominance in Dalmatia, including cities, strengthened over centuries through mixing, migration (including later waves in the Ottoman period), and cultural assimilation—not because it was primordially Slavic.
In short
Dalmatia is a historically rich, multi-layered region. Its Slavic/Croatian character today is real and important, but claiming it as the “oldest Slavic land” ignores archaeology, linguistics, Roman/Byzantine records, and basic chronology. The post promotes 18th–19th century romantic myths over evidence.
