page_title: Michael of Zahumlje
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Michael of Zahumlje / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Political map of the western Balkan in 925 AD.
context_page_description: Michael of Zahumlje, also known as Michael Višević or rarely as Michael Vuševukčić, was a semi-independent, or independent Slavic ruler of Zahumlje, in present-day central Herzegovina and southern Croatia, who flourished in the early part of the 10th century. Prince Michael of Zahumlje having a common boundary with the Serbia and probably with Kingdom of Croatia, but was an ally of Bulgaria. He was nevertheless able to maintain independent rule throughout at least a good part of his reign.
  Michael came into territorial conflict with Petar of Serbia, who expand his power to the province of Narenta or Pagania, west from the Neretva River. To eliminate the threat, Michael warned his ally, the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I, about the alliance between Peter and Symeon's enemy, the Byzantine Empire. Symeon attacked Serbia and captured Peter, who later died in prison.
  Michael was mentioned together with Tomislav of Croatia in Pope John X's letter of 925. In that same year, he participated in the first church councils in Split, something that some historians have taken as evidence of Zahumlje being a vassal of Croatia.
context_section_description: Compiled in c. 950, the historical work De administrando imperio, ascribed to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, notes that Michael was a son of Busebutze (Greek: Bouseboutzis > Visevitz), but does not mention his family did descend from the "unbaptized Serbs" or was of Serbian origin, although Zahumlje belongs to the core of the oldest Serbian state (baptized Serbia). According to Constantine, or even Michael himself according to the way the subchapter was structured, his family belonged to the Litziki (Λιτζίκη), an unbaptized people on the river Vistula from the south Poland.
  The area controlled by Michael comprised Zahumlje, later known as Hum (what is now western Herzegovina and southern Croatia), as well as Travunia (now eastern Herzegovina and southern Croatia with center at Trebinje) and a good part of Duklja (modern Montenegro). His territory therefore formed a block along the southern Dalmatian coast, from the Neretva river to Ragusa (Dubrovnik), latter serving as a tributary region.
  Zahumlje belongs to the oldest Serbian principality. Most Serbian medieval dynasties originate from Zahumlje or Doclea (present day Montenegro). Bulgaria did not yet border on Zahumlje and a part of Croatia lay between both lands. For instance, the chronicler John the Deacon (d. 1009) says that in 912, a Venetian traveller who had just passed through Bulgaria and Croatia on his way home, next found himself in Zahumlje.
caption: Map of the territorial extent of Michael's Chelmia (Zahumlje) at its zenith, between the Kingdom of Croatia and the Bulgarian Empire.
exif: {}