The development of the ideas of Serbian autochthonousness in the Balkans, according to which the Serbs were the indigenous population of the Balkans, and the Illyir, Dacian and Thracian tribes were Slavic, was the book "Troy-Serbian capital Shkoder" ("Troja srpska prestonitsa Skadar". Milutin M. Јaћimoviћ. "Peshi." and synovi ". Beograd. 2009), published in a bilingual edition (in Russian and in Serbian) in 2009 by the publishing house" Pesic and sons ".
Its author Milutin Yachimovich, comparing the area around Skadr with descriptions of the place of the siege of Troy by Homer, showed that the real Troy was located on the site of the former Serbian fortress of Skadar. Skadar, now called Shkoder, was a Serbian city for centuries and was liberated by the troops of Montenegro during the First Balkan War of 1912, but was incorporated by the decision of the London Conference of 1913 into Albania.
It is well known that many scientists still doubt that Schliemann found the true Troy, especially since his excavations destroyed a significant part of the remains of some ancient city he found.
Milutin Yachimovic, during his studies at the University of Podgorica in Montenegro, was able to personally inspect the surroundings of Skadr and Skadar Lake and published his hypothesis that Troy was on the site of Skadr in 1991 in the newspaper Komunisticka Iskra, headed by Momcilo Jokic.
The very inconsistency of modern "academic" ideas about the location of Troy, based on the description by Homer, is striking at the first comparison of the text of the Iliad and the location of Skadr itself. As Yachimovich himself writes, nowhere in the text of the Iliad is it mentioned about the overcoming of the Trojans by the allies of Gelespont, which was a difficult task for those times. For example, the crossing of Xerxes by the army of Gelespont was especially highlighted by the then historians as a difficult and difficult undertaking.
Milutin Yachimovich also writes that the Pelazgians, who, according to well-known historical sources, lived in Thessaly, arrive from the city of Larissa near Troy on foot, and not by ships. In the same way, the Thracians who lived on the territory of modern Bulgaria stay on foot to Troy, and a short sea section of their route, according to Yachimovich, describes only how they go around the Chalkidiki peninsula.
The Dardan tribe, according to the Iliad, is neighboring Troy, and this tribe, as you know, lived in the Balkans, on the territory of modern Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.
It is interesting that, according to The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume 2, Part 2. History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380-1000 BC), in the list of peoples who fought in 1300 BC R. Kh. In the battle of Kadesh, on the side of the Hittite king Muvatallis against the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, the people "Drdny" are also mentioned, which are usually understood as the Dardanians (Δαρδανoι), described by Homer.
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Milutin Yachimovic also writes that the Lycians (by the way, the historical region of Lika, inhabited by Serbs, and located in modern Croatia is known) near Troy arrive two days from the foot of Ida, which has its modern name Prokletia, only thanks to the Serbian geographer and ethnologist Jovan Tsviich, who lived in the 19th century.
Finally, Yachimovic, in his article "Academician Milan Budimir - the truth and misconceptions about Troy and the Albanians", confirms the validity of his hypothesis, and the opinion of Academician of the Serbian Academy of Sciences Milan Budimir, who wrote in his work "From Balkan Sources" ("Sa Balkan Sources". SKZ Beograd, 1969), the following: “… The American archaeologist C. Blegen by repeated and careful excavations of the remains of Homer's Troy showed and proved that Troy, which experts call Troy 6, suffered and disappeared due to the earthquake, and not from the Agamemnon Achaeans. New Troy, which Blegen calls Troy 7a, was indeed devastated, but not by the Achaean troops, but by the Old Balkan conquerors who participated in the Achaean (Aegean) invasion of Anadolia. And this is an additional plus for Ailianov's thesis about the "Iliad" of the Old Balkan brigs. This thesis is supported by the strange circumstance that the Achaean warriors under Homer's Troy contemplated the birth of the sun on the surface of the sea for nine long years (therefore the dawn is "scarlet" or "scarlet"), and not over the mountains.
Since in the time of Homer, apparently, the sun should have risen in the east, and not in the west, it turns out that the old author of some pre-Homeric epic about the Achaean conquests of Mediterranean cities, fenced off by solid walls, against which the primitive Achaeans did not have a special technology, did not mean the Anadol coast, but the Balkan. Thus, our philologists have revealed Homer's gross mistakes in ordinary things, as Horace said “sometimes our good Homer also sleeps …”.
Another Serbian historian Slobodan Jarcevic, in his report "Serbian footprints in the Iliad" read at the conference "At the source of culture and science" held in September 2012 in Belgrade, analyzing in detail the text of Jachimovic, noted that the Peon tribe, led by Asteropey before Troy lasts eleven days, which corresponds to the places of their supposed settlement in the Vardar valley, and, moreover, nowhere is their crossing of Gelespont described. As you know, the Roman historian Apian from Alexandria writes that the peons are a great people living on the Danube before Dardania, and if the Greeks call them peons, then the Romans are panons.
The Roman historian Strabo also writes that "… Peonia is bounded by mountains: towards the Thracian side - by the Rhodope mountain, the highest mountain after Herm, and on the other side towards the north - by the Illyrian parts, the region of the Autariats and Dardans …".
Strabo himself was perplexed by the lines of the Iliad:
Zeus and Trojan and Hector brought closer to the camp of the Achaeans, I left them before the courts, troubles and battle labors
To eat continuously; and he turned away the bright eyes of B
distance, contemplating the land of the Frakian, horse riders, Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters, and wondrous men of the Hippomolgos, The poor, who ate only milk, the fairest mortals.
He never bowed his radiant eyes to Troy;
(Thirteenth Canto of the Iliad. Translation by N. I. Gnedich)
Strabo wrote about this: “The Greeks considered the Getae to be Thracians. The Getae lived on both sides of Istria, as did the Mysians (Mυσoι), who are also Thracians and are identical to the people now called the Mesians (Moισoι). From these Mysians also came those Mysians who now live among the Lydians, Phrygians and Trojans. The Phrygians themselves are Brigians, some kind of Thracian people, as well as Migdons, Bebriks, Medovithins, Thebans, Finns and, I think, the Mariandins. All these nationalities completely left Europe, but the Mysians remained. And Posidonius, it seems to me, correctly assumes that Homer means the Mesians in Europe (exactly those in Thrace) when he says:
… and he turned his shining eyes away
In the distance, contemplating the land of the Frakian, the equestrian Misiyan riders, hand-to-hand fighters;
(Ill. 13.3-5)
for if we consider that Homer speaks of the Mysians in Asia, then this expression is absurd. Indeed, to say that Zeus turned his gaze from the Trojans to the land of the Thracians, and at the same time to connect with Thrace the land of the Mysians, who are not at all "far", but live on the border with Troas, behind it and on both sides of it and are separated from Thrace with a broad Hellespont - this means mixing continents and not understanding the poet's way of expressing; for "turned back" usually means "back"; but whoever shifted his gaze from the Trojans to the tribe, which is either behind the Trojans, or on their sides, of course, shifts his gaze further forward, but in no way "back". The next phrase of Homer is proof of the same view, because the poet connected with the Mysians the Hippemolgos, Galactophages and Abians, who are the Scythians and Sarmatians wandering in wagons " (Strabo."Geography" 7.3.2)
The ancient Serbian fortress Skadar, the construction time of which, like the builders themselves, is still unknown, rises on a terrain that fully corresponds to the described battle site in the Iliad, and even at the first glance at it is immediately associated with ancient Troy. Likewise, the Ida mountain range from the Iliad is quite associated with the Prokletius mountain range, and the Scamander river with the Boyana river. Under Troy, which Schliemann allegedly discovered, does not flow a full-flowing river, described as Scamander in the Iliad, but a small river that dries up in summer, and there is no Ida mountain range, like the one described in the Iliad, from which all of Troy and the battlefield could be seen …
Milutin Yachimovich writes on this occasion: “… In the Iliad, Troy is defined as“the steep and windy Ilion”, a large city located on a high, steep, windy hill, under which two rivers merge in branches. A great battle is being fought on a vast field between rivers that separately flow into the sea, in which 50,000 fighters are participating on the side of the Trojans, while the Achaean army is significantly superior in number. Along with the clash of infantry troops, battles are being fought in war chariots (gig cars), so the battlefield must be at least 10 km wide and long, so that almost 100,000 soldiers can move and fight on it.
There is a place in the Iliad where the location of Ilion (Troy) is accurately described: Hera and Athena begged Zeus on Olympus for permission to help the Achaeans in battle on the bank of the ford, since Ares (the god of war) constantly helped the Trojans. To get to Troy, they fly from Olympus in a divine carriage:
To the Three brought to them and to the rivers flowing together, Where Simois and Skamander drain fast-rolling waters, There the horses were kept by the lily-frame Hera
And, having removed from the yoke, surrounded by a dark cloud;
Simois spread them sweet ambrosia to the flock"
(The Iliad, Canto V, verses 773-777)
The only place in the Mediterranean where rivers merge and flow to the sea so that between them there is a wide field with several hills, which is mentioned in the Iliad, is Skadar …
… According to the text of the Iliad, the Scamander River is located on the left side of the Ahai troops attacking from the seashore with their 1,164 ships pulled out onto a huge sea beach. This is the Bojana water current - Lake Skadar - Moraca, and on the right side the Simois river flows, i.e. Dream. As precisely indicated in the Iliad, under Troy, the rivers merge into a shallow branch, which should have crossed when leaving the fortress Trojan troops, marching on the battlefield. This is the very ford on Scamander (Xanthus).
The Scamander itself is a fast and deep river and, at the same time, a river god, the lord of the abyss, for the simple reason that the river is full-flowing and in it, in addition to small funnels, there is also one huge funnel - Lake Skadar, which during the Trojan War was on several kilometers (up to 5 km) already. However, as a result of river sediments, especially the Dream River, its level increased by 3-4 meters.
In the close geological past, Lake Skadar was a sea strait, while the hill on the Troyan Plain, together with the hill on which Ilion was located, were small islands. During the Trojan War, the seashore was 5 km closer to the city, which is the length of the shallow lagoon, which is still under the water of the Boyana (Skamander) River. Today the coast is at a distance of 20 kilometers from the city. The Trojan sacred mountain is the windy mountain Ida or, as it is also called in the Iliad, hilly Ida (Prokletije). It is a mountain range covered with forests and meadows suitable for livestock raising. From the peaks of Ida, the defender of the Trojans Apulnus, Polon, Apollo - the god of the Sun and beauty (but also the god of death, who sent the plague to the Achaeans), looks at the battlefield, facing the Achaeans. He watches the Trojans from the top of Gargano, or from the hill of Kalikolona,towering near the Trojan Field northeast of Ida. This is an absolutely accurate determination of the position of the summer rising sun in relation to Skadar (Troy, Ilion). The god Apollo, together with another Illyrian god Poseidon, by order of Zeus himself, the “father” of Sardanus (Dardanus), served at one time the king of the Trojans - Laomedont … …
So, the god of the sea built the Holy City by the sacred river Scamander, and the god Apollo grazed the royal herds of cattle on the hilly Ida:
“I erected high walls for the inhabitants of Troy, A strong, glorious firmament, an indestructible hail defense.
You, Apollo, he has, like a mercenary, steep-horned oxen
Pass through the valleys of the hilly, oak groves of the crowned Ida"
(Iliad, Canto XXI, verses 446-449)
Thus, a clear description of Mount Ida is given. Other Ides, which appear in Crete and Asia Minor, are just copies of it by name, since the name of the sacred mountain was carried by the people who migrated from Chelm (Balkans) long before the Trojan War. It is interesting to note that at present, 32 centuries after the Trojan War, on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, near Foggia, there is the Gargana Mountain (Monte Gargano), as well as the town of Troy. In the same way, much later, the city of Bari in Italy got its name from the Montenegrin city of Bar, which apparently bore the name Ismar during the Trojan War, i.e. the city of kikones (translated as highlanders). The city of Bar was founded at about the same time as the city of Troy, and Ulcinj, as we will see later, before the Trojan War was called Colchidium. On his return from Troy, Odysseus made a predatory raid on the Kikons.
Ida, or the Idskie Mountains, is the Prokletije mountain range, the most powerful mountain range in the Balkans, 80 kilometers long and 2,694 meters high. This is the sacred mountain of the ancient Serbs. It was named after Prokletije by Jovan Tsvijich, a Serbian geographer of the 19th-20th centuries, based on the popular name "Cursed Mountains". The people adopted this name due to the height and rockiness of these mountains, Christians called them that because of the many ancient, pagan sanctuaries located here. The old Serbian Patriarchate was also located here.
The Skadar Fortress is the largest and most significant mountain-type fortress in the Mediterranean, the construction time of which is still unknown. It is probably dated back to the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC, and possibly even earlier. Due to its obvious grandeur, its construction was associated with the gods. The Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia gives the fact that the fortress was built by Thracian tribes, but the time of its construction is unknown. The fortress walls surround an area of about 2 hectares, their length corresponds approximately to the length of the walls of the city of Budva. In contrast, "Schliemann's Troy" covers an area of 60 are, that is, is four times less.
The city is located at a sufficient distance from the sea that the described battle of the two great armies could take place on a wide field with many hills between two rivers. One of the hills - the one that rises between the sea coast and the city and which can only be reached by crossing a small branch connecting the Bojana and Dream rivers (i.e. Scamander and Simois) is called Batia. None of this can be found in The Three Schliemann. According to the Iliad, Batia is a hill next to Troy, on the north-eastern side, opposite the fortress gate - the Dardan gate.
This territory, which is recognizable as the location of Troy, contains all the rivers described in the Iliad, as well as all the Trojan allies and the Trojans themselves, which can be recognized in the inhabitants of Zeta:
“In the potion of husbands who lived, at the foot of the hilly Ida, Rich citizens drinking Esep's black waters, The Trojan tribe the most excellent archer led the Lycaonides,
Pandarus, whom Phoebus bestowed with a crushing bow"
(Iliad, Canto II, verses 824-828)
It should be pointed out that, due to the slow current and the presence of algae, the water in the Zete River is still dark at present. The Iliad calls her Esep, and the valley through which Esep flows, Zelia. It is quite understandable that the Esepa Valley is actually the valley of the Zeta River, which flows along the lowest slope of the Damnation (the lowest slope of Ida). This is further evidence of where to look for Troy.
Aeneas leads the Dardanians, the Dardanians are to the east of Dream (Simois), the Peonians from Axia (Vardar), the Thracians to the east of the Dardanians, the Pelazgi from the fertile Larissa, the Brygians (Phrygians) to the south of Ohrid. All of them are only a few days away on foot. The Peonets approach Troy in eleven days. According to the Iliad, they all approach Troy by land and are closely spaced around it. The Thracian prince Res alone, for some time, sailed by sea from Thrace around the Chalkidiki peninsula in the Gulf of Solon and from there went by land to Ilion.
Aeneas himself, who, according to legend, left after the war with a part of the Trojans (Sardanians, Dardanians) to Latium, could easily have done this in this territory, but in Asia Minor he would not have succeeded."
Interestingly, the famous scene about the meeting of Odysseus with the Cyclops can only be explained if the Odyssey were written in Serbian. When Odysseus asks the Cyclops what his name is, he answers "nobody", which in Serbian sounds like "niko", which at the same time can mean the Serbian name Niko, known even before the adoption of Christianity by the Serbs.
From this point of view, even Virgil's Aeneid looks quite logical, for where else could the Illyirs of Troy have fled to, if not to their kindred Messapes of Southern Italy? As mentioned above, ancient historians often mixed Illyrs with Pelasgians, and Pliny wrote that writing was brought to Latinum by Pelasgians.
Roman legends say that Rome was once a Pelasgian city, and Herculanium and Pompeii were also founded by the Pelasgians.
In the “Aeneid” (Book 8.600) it is written: “… There is a cool thick grove near the Tsereiskaya river, It has long been revered as a shrine; it is surrounded by slopes of steep hills, overgrown with dark coniferous spruce. The grove and the festivities in it, as legend says, to Sylvanas, the God of arable lands and herds, were dedicated in the old days to the Pelasgians, who were the first in ancient days to own the land of Latin."
Aerial view of the Skadar fortress.
Skadar fortress.
Milutin Yachimovich.
Oleg Valetsky