Prince Borić

Prince of Hungary Viceroy & Ban of Bosnia Boril Borić (Borisz)
Coat of Arms of the first sovereign of Bosnia, Viceroy Borić
First Viceroy & Ban of Bosnia
Vladavina	1141-ca.1173
Prethodnik	Title created
Nasljednik	Árpád dynasty, 1168-1173
Krunidba	1141
Ban Bosne
Nasljednik	ban Kulin 1173-1204
Supružnik	princess Ana Dukaina of Byzantine
Djeca	Kulin (Koloman) 1137-1204, previously governor of Cilicia (across Cyprus)
Dinastija	Árpád, Kotromanićs
Otac	King Kálmán of Hungary
Majka	princess Euphemia of Ukraine, 1099-4.4.1139
Rođenje	1114 Kiev (in refuge from Hungary's court)
Smrt	cca.1173
Mjesto sahrane	Bosnia Stranica na bosanskom/srpskom

Coat of Arms of Hungary's founding dynasty Árpád and its cadet branches Kotromanićs and Berislavićs Doborski (who reappear as Omerbašićs from the 16th century on). In their 19th century forgery Fojnica Armorial, Franciscans in Bosnia replaced original Arpadian red in Kotromanić Coat of Arms with Anjou blue, and assigned the Coat of Arms to the non-existent family "Kotromanić Tvrtković", while at the same time renaming the Kotromanić into "Kotromanović" and replacing the original red-and-white with yellow-and-blue stripes. This was trying to hide that sovereignty (right) over Bosnia originated from Hungarian Crown, and is thus the oldest right in the Balkans under international law, with all other rights following from that right. (It is now known that Bosnian medieval Law takes roots in Hungarian and Roman Law, which is today obvious in local Common Law (first use of seal, inheritance rights over father's property, etc.), then in the setting up and organization of the Banate and Royal governments including the very functioning of the Royal Court, as well as in defining of the most important laws - the property and, more specifically, ownership relationships.) For the same reason, Borić's real identity as prince Boris Kalamanos has been hidden too, while authors of the Armorial omitted Berislavićs (as the other ruling dynasty) - though they kept the country free for a century after Bosnia "fell" in 1463. Franciscans in Bosnia are known manipulators, with forgeries such as the Ahdnama (a type of document normally issued by Ottoman sultans), a fake skeleton of the preceding king Tomaševića, etc. Franciscans abroad publicly reprimanded Franciscans in Bosnia for sectarianism and corruption. Image: Coats of Arms of Bosnia's both ruling bloodlines are derivatives from Coat of Arms of Hungarian ruling dynasty Árpád. Berislavić Coat of Arms was also derived from Árpád Coat of Arms so that the Berislavić recognize the supremacy of the Kotromanić sovereignty, but do not abdicate the right to Bosnia - which they did activate 1463-1535.

Hungarian prince Boris Kalamanos (bs. Boril Borić, hu. Borics, Borisz) was under the rules of international legal order the first (since 1141) sovereign ruler of Bosnia - the cradle of Western and other civilizations - as her first Viceroy and Ban of Bosnia.

According to historian researchers of Hungary's royalty, Borić was the oldest son of Hungary's King Coloman (1095–1116) (hu. Calamanos) , so that his Coat of Arms contains only highest royal insignia such as bend sinister as the sign of so-called illegitimate (born out-of-wedlock) princes. In Europe of that time, the extramarital illegitimacy of a royal heir had no legal weight, and bend sinister as a symbol was a cultural characteristic of the age, used for amusement purposes and bragging about king's manhood. Borić's Coat of Arms also depicts a beaver (bs. Dabar), symbolizing the ancient city of Dobor in Northern Bosnia where his dynasty was and who were thus called Berislavić Doborski. According to primary historical documents, the Berislavićs were a noble family originally from Bosnia, who fled from Ottomans to Požega County in Slavonia. Coat of Arms of the Kotromanići also has the bend sinister as they too originate from Borić.

As plans for alliance between Hungary and Ukraine-Russia (then under Borisz's maternal grandfather Prince Vladimir II Monomakh the ruler of all Ukraine and Russia) fell through, King Coloman refused to recognize unborn Borisz as his legal child and potential heir, and expelled Borisz's still pregnant mother Byzantine princess Anna Dukaina from Hungary under false accusations of adultery so she delivered Borisz at his grandfather's court.

Hungary claims

From the 1120s until the end of the 1130s Borić has claimed the throne of Hungary and made several attempts to retake the country, claiming he was Coloman's legitimate heir since conceived in wedlock. The situation in Hungary became tense with the death of King Béla II (1131–1141). According to a 19th-century monk and writer Ivan Jukić, Ban Borić ruled Bosnia between 1141-1168, which coincides with King Béla's death and Béla's son, King Géza II (1141-1162), succeeding the throne. Indeed as the Hungarian historians point out, young Géza, who was a minor, got so afraid of Prince Borić retaking the throne of Hungary, that the boy and his regents arranged his coronation only three days after his father's death, without due grief period.

As the surrounding foes, primarily Poland and Russia, began taking interest in Hungary's internal affairs, Hungarian nobility stood in support of Géza. In order to stabilize the country, the young king quenched Borić's appetites by appointing him Bosnia's Viceroy but keeping his own minor brother, Prince Ladislaus II, a nominal Duke of Bosnia - the post to which their father named the latter boy in 1137, age only six. Borić accepted the offer, so that a 17th-century chronicle by a Croatian historian Ivan Švear while mentioning Borić's family ties to other noblemen of the time, places the Bosnian ban Borić in the period "probably earlier" than 1150. Later sources refer to Borić as the common ancestor to most Bosnian rulers including reigning kings from the Kotromanić dynasty extinct by the Ottomans in 1463, a name Borić coined for his Bosnian dynastic branch from Latin words coutor+romani meaning the Rome's allies.

Ruler of Bosnia

Borić thus became the first Viceroy of the newly created state known from then on as Banate of Bosnia, of which he became the sovereign ruler with the title of Ban. He was the founder of the royal House of Berislavić (sometimes called the House of Boričević), with possessions on both sides of the river Sava. Notably, "Borić was a respected ruler over a vast Bosnian banate".

A Greek historian John Kinnamos, the imperial secretary to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180), wrote:

"'Borić was not a vassal but an ally of King of Hungary. Bosnia at that time spread all the way to the river Drina, which was the border to Serbia. Bosnia was not subservient to the Serbian Grand Duke. Instead, its people were independent, it had its own customs and regulations, as well as its own separate sovereign."

That Borić's state was indeed vast is seen from the fact that it extended territorially westward all the way to Livno and Rama. At the end of the fall of 1154, Borić led his troops and assisted his liege together with some mercenaries, Palatine of Hungary and Ban Beloš Vukanović of the Serb Vojislavljević dynasty, to conquer Braničevo from the Byzantines. Emperor Manuel dispatched a squadron of troops towards Belgrade, to cross the river Sava and chase the Bosnian Army. With Hungarian help, the Bosnian Army defeated the Byzantines and ended their attempt to cut off the Kingdom of Hungary's military power.

In 1163 Borić endowed the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller with property in Slavonia. Borić's own biological brother Dominic was a Knight Templar in the Second Crusade.

Geopolitical settings

Borić's attempts to organize the first Bosnian state were largely affected by broader instability in Western Christendom. As Pope Adrian IV entered into an alliance with the Byzantines following their 1155 invasion of Sicily, Rome has seen this as a chance to win the ongoing struggle against the mercenary Normans for power over Southern Italy too. The new pact resulted in Rome losing interest in Hungary and, by extension, Bosnia, and Croatia as well.

Preoccupied with its own survival, the Holy See left Bosnia and Croatia to their destinies. Papal interest in supporting Borić has not become a priority even after the Byzantines withdrew from Sicily in 1158, as struggles over the right to papacy emerged right after that. These resulted in two successive Antipopes, unrecognized by the Church but supported by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Such prolonged internal instability in the Western Christendom then resulted in Rome losing interest in East European affairs.

The Byzantium saw this as an opportunity to gain control over Hungary. They bribed the uncles of the new child-King of Hungary Stephen_III who got crowned in 1162 at age 14. While the King's uncles were usurping Hungary to the Byzantines' benefit, the Byzantines were in a hurry while the King was still a minor and so they hired German mercenaries from the Gutkeleds tribe, led by knight Gottfried of Meinz, to depose Borić in 1163.

When the Hungarian king turned 18, his uncles did return the powers to him, but only after he promised to give away Bosnia and Croatia to the Byzantine Empire. He promised to do so, but as a devout Catholic, the inexperienced king immediately engaged the Byzantines. When he died under unexplained circumstances soon after, in 1172 aged only 24, his brother, who got raised at the Byzantine Court, succeeded the throne of Hungary.

The Church's new pope, Alexander III then assisted his new allies the Byzantines by crowning the new King of Hungary Béla III in 1173, hoping this would help Roman papacy gain a strong footing as well. To make it all work, the Byzantines provided enormous quantities of gold and silver to the new Hungarian king, thus making him one of the richest monarchs of Europe, wealthier even than monarchs of France and England. This had made the Emperor reconcile with the now widely feared pope, who was thereby allowed to return to Rome, in 1178. To honor his deal with the Byzantines, the pope immediately took interest in foreign affairs reaching as far as the Baltic, allowing for the Byzantines' territorial pretension over Eastern Europe.

So as electing of the Barbarossa's last Antipope Innocent III in Rome in 1179 got doomed, making the Emperor bound to finally reconcile with now fully stabilized Holy See, the Byzantines through their patsy King of Hungary install Ban Kulin as the ruler of Bosnia, without further ado in 1180.

Bosnian repercussions

Castle of Bosnia's founding father, Viceroy Borić, with a trench, look ca. 1250. Drinovac-Cernik at Brod.

As the firstborn son of King Coloman, Prince Borić saw the 1162-1163 internal struggles for the succession of Hungarian crown as another (his third) opportunity to reclaim his right to the throne.

However, Stephen III, son of Géza II, won. Soon after, the new King, that is his uncles as regents hire mercenaries from a German tribe under knight Gottfried to subdue King's challengers, including Borić, in 1163. Prior to that, in return for his loyalty to Hungary as the Byzantines threatened Hungary from the east, Borić with his large and experienced army was left alone to rule over Bosnia. Germans failed in deposing Borić, and so in 1167, he is on record as having provided his combat units to the Hungarian Army in a battle against the Byzantine Empire, at Zemun near Belgrade. The Byzantines defeated Hungary in that battle, however, and so the Byzantine empire subdued Bosnia and Hungary.

Life and death

Vladimir II Monomakh, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus' (1113-1125), maternal grandfather of Prince Borić.

Borić married a Byzantine princess Anna Dukaina from the great Rurik dynasty, the founders of Russia and Ukraine, and that the Romanovs as the last and later on the imperial dynasty of Russia, succeeded only in the 17th century. Borić fathered two sons with Anna: Calamanos Constantine and Calamanos Sztefan. In 1163, Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus appointed Constantine Calamanos as governor of the Byzantine province of Cilicia (mainland across from Cyprus; present-day Turkey). In 1170, Constantine lost the province to invading troops of the Armenian Prince Mleh. Although he could have easily secured the province back into his hands using available empire's legions, Constantine Colomanos returns in a hurry to Bosnia on Borić's death. There, he inherits the Bosnian throne, taking a Bosnian-localized ruling name of Kulin. Thus sources mention him as governor of Cilicia for the last time in 1173, which is then probably the year in which he took over the reign over Bosnia and the most likely year of Borić's death.

The time and circumstances of Borić's death remain unclear, as there is no evidence that he had died in battle. Most likely, he did have a say in picking Kulin as his successor because, according to historian researchers of Hungarian royalty, Kulin was Borić's son ("Banus Culinus, Borichii filius").

Historic "debate"

Cernik castle near Brod, today. Built in the footprints of the Borić's castle.

Viceroy Borić's origins and life are a matter of debate, arising largely due to many free interpretations and systematic negating of nearly all authors like friar Ivan Jukić, who place Borić in a precisely determined historic era and political context. As a result, references that claim Boris and Borić were same are often neglected as though non-existent.

Also, some modern historians arbitrarily doubt Hungarian royal court's chronicles (normally written and/or copied in Latin), while instead holding extreme views such as the one that prince Borisz Kalman never was in Hungary. Contrary to such ad hoc claims, numerous authentic court and other chronicles show such details as exact dates, Borić's routine relations with European courts and rulers, information on his political ties and intrigues, data on his highest political influence on Europe of that time, and so on. On the other hand, skeptics cite no evidence for their own mostly categorical denial, while offering interpretations instead.

Thus in the modern view, Prince Borisz (Borics; Borić) is largely veiled by secrecy, despite the fact that his biography has too much overlapping and similarities that make it impossible to discard as coincidences. Some of the most striking proofs that demonstrate that Borisz and Borić were one person, are: (i) the same name, (ii) the same geographic region, (iii) the same historical era, (iv) identical closeness to the Byzantine imperial court as well as (v) highest rank at the Hungarian royal court, (vi) a son of practically the same name (hu. Kalman; bos. Kulin), where "both" sons had earlier gubernatorial experience (over Cilicia; and Bosnia), (vii) partaking in same wars, (viii) allegedly unknown circumstances of death, where the prince "dies" in 1154 while the ban "appears in historic texts for the first time" in 1154, (ix) Bosnian Franciscans' forgery by creating Fojnica Armorial where they omitted Borić's dynastic royal branch of Berislavićs (though they held Bosnia free between 1463-1527), as well as replaced the Arpad red with Anjou blue in the insignia of his other royal branch, the Kotromanićs, (x) highly cautious interpretations insisting on the mysterious instead of on sources, and so on. Thus a most often note attached next to "both" the prince's and the viceroy's name is that "biography a matter of debate". This despite primary sources, such as Hungarian royal court's chronicles that unequivocally point to the fact that (xi) Kulin was Borić's own son, or the new evidence such as (xii) the coat of arms of Bosnian ruling dynasty Berislavićs, discovered in the archives of Mirogoj cemetery in Croatia's capital Zagreb (main photo in infobox), and which contains only highest royal insignias along with a rare bend sinister as an exclusive symbol of bastard princes. The true identity of Borić as Hungarian Prince Borisz as seen in royal court chronicles was always clear to Hungarian historians, so much so in fact that they felt the thing required no references at all. For instance, the famous Hungarian historian and politician from the period between two World wars, Bálint Hóman, states explicitly:

Hungarian rulers since Béla II had a valid claim over the Bosnian Princedom given by King Géza II to Prince Borisz."

Austro-Hungary's colonel and historian of Serbian historiography Simeon Bogdanović–Siniša (Sima Bogdanović, 1833-1909), has also concluded in his research that Ban Borić and Hungarian prince Boris Kalamanos were one person. He also claims that the princess consort of Serbia's foremost ruler Prince Nemanja, St. Anastasia, was in fact Borić's daughter Ana. The manuscript of Bogdanović's lifetime work - The History of Serbs - got destroyed or hidden by Croatian fascist puppet state during World War 2.

Why the Big Lie?

The above-noted interpretations and debates mostly appeared in waves i.e. in an organized fashion. This means they are most likely false responses (for pulling curtains over a historic stage) to important discoveries of first-rate sources. Not less importantly, most such activities were severely biased and in favor of Vatican's geopolitical interests as they continue renting Illyria to foreigners (going on for the past two millennia, ever since Rome occupied it in 9 A.D.). Then as ever, and particularly in Middle Ages, the creation of a state and the origin of its statehood as well were/are a legal matter, not a historical one. This means that Bosnia (B-H) has a precisely known legal beginning and that its origin is due to the Hungarian Crown and not some ad hoc meetings like communists-staged ZAVNOBiH, the Dayton Accords signed under duress, etc.

It also means that Serbia and Croatia have no legal claim over Bosnia. The obvious forgery about legal beginning of Bosnia, by separating Boris's Hungary claim from his Bosnia rule, along with savagely censoring the fact that Bosnia's second ruler Kulin was his own son, constitute a hellish plot for making Serbia and Croatia the West's (Rome's) puppets for constant fighting (for keeping the region strategically exhausted) over that which never was and never will be theirs.

Vladarske titule
Prethodnik: Title created	Ban of Bosnia 1141-after 1168	Nasljednik: Ban Kulin 1173-1204
Prethodnik: Title created	Viceroy of Bosnia 1141-1173

Plemićke titule
Prethodnik: Árpád dynasty	Prince of Hungary nakon 1120-1141	Nasljednik: Árpád dynasty

See also

• Ova stranica na bosanskom/srpskom
• The Bosnian Royal Family's website

References