Pomorje or Primorje is a term used in historical contexts to describe one of the two geographical divisions that constituted Serbia in the Middle Ages. It had parts of present-day Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

 and Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

.

It included most of modern Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

, the southern halves of Herzegovina

Herzegovina

Herzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...

 and Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

, while the other georgraphical division, the Zagorje (hinterlands or behind the hills) included most of modern Bosnia

Bosnia (region)

Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...

, the western half of the modern Kingdom of Serbia

Kingdom of Serbia

The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...

, and the northern portions of Montenegro and Herzegovina. Croatia lay to the north of Pomorje and Zagorje, covering all the country between the Pomorje and Sava.

The term was used in royal and religious titles; Serbian monarchs and their heirs (Uroš I, styled himself "King in Christ, God faithful, King of Serbia and Maritime Lands", and Patriarchs (Saint Sava III

Saint Sava III

Sava III was the Archbishop of Serbs from 1309 to 1316. He is venerated as a saint, Saint Sava III.He began as a hegumen in the Chilandar, then became the Bishop of Prizren. During his office as bishop, he worked on the Bogorodica Ljeviška church in Prizren. In 1309 he becomes the Archbishop.Sava...

, "Archbishop of All Serbian and Maritime Lands")

History

The terms are first used in the De Administrando Imperio

De Administrando Imperio

De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is...

, a work by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII

Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959...

 (l. 905-959) dedicated to his son, Romanus II, as a domestic and foreign policy manual.

• Duklja
  Duklja
  Doclea or Duklja was a medieval state with hereditary lands roughly encompassing the territories of present-day southeastern Montenegro, from Kotor on the west to the river Bojana on the east and to the sources of Zeta and Morača rivers on the north....
  
  
• Travunia
  Travunia
  Travunia was a medieval region, administrative unit and principality, which was part of Medieval Serbia , and in its last years, the Bosnian Kingdom . The county became hereditary in a number of noble houses, often kin to the ruling dynasty. The region came under Ottoman rule in 1482...
  
  
• Zahumlje
  Zahumlje
  Zachlumia or Zahumlje was a medieval principality located in modern-day regions of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia...
  
  
• Pagania

Use in royal titles

• Desa, styled himself "Prince of Pomorje (Maritime Lands)"
• Vladislav, styled himself "King of all the Serbian and Maritime Lands"
• Uroš I, styled himself "King in Christ, God faithful, King of Serbia and Maritime Lands"
• Uroš IV Dušan, "King of all the Serbian and Maritime Lands"
• In 1377 Tvrtko I crowned himself King of "Serbia, Bosnia, Pomorje, and the Western lands."

Sources

• Vladimir Ćorović, Ilustrovana istorija Srba, knjige 1–6, Beograd, 2005–2006.
• Sima M. Ćirković, Srbi među evropskim narodima, Beograd, 2004.
• Tim Judah, The Serbs, Belgrade, 2000/2003