Nisu vladali Rasom nikada. To je bila granična utvrda pod upravom Bugara ili Bizanta, a eparhija nema veze s političkom vlašću i nastala je najvjerojatnije pod utjecajem i vlašću Bizanta.
The toponym
Ras derives from Arsa via
metathesis. A bishopric which cover parts of Serbia was founded probably in Ras in the time of major ecclesiastical events that took place around the
Council of Constantinople in 869-870 and the
Council of Constantinople in 879–880.
[3] The tenth century
De Administrando Imperio mentions
Rasa as a border area between Bulgaria and Serbia at the end of the ninth century. Newer research indicates that in the late ninth century it was part of the
First Bulgarian Empire.
[4] From that period onwards, it changed rulers several times. Byzantine Emperor
John Tzimiskes re-established control of Ras in 971 and founded the
Catepanate of Ras. The seal of
protospatharios John of Ras has been found from that era.
[5][6] By 976, the Bulgarian state had regained Ras, but
Basil II recaptured it about 40 years later in 1016–1018. In the imperial charters of Basil II from 1019 and 1020, rights and jurisdictions of the autonomous
Archbishopric of Ohrid were established. One of the bishoprics in its jurisdiction was that of Ras, with the seat at the
Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. It remained a Byzantine frontier area until
John II Komnenos lost the area as a result of the
Byzantine–Hungarian War (1127–1129). The fortress of Ras was then burnt by the Serbian army. Its last commander was a Kritoplos who was then punished by Emperor for the fall of the fortress.
[7]
Ivanišević, Vujadin; Krsmanović, Bojana (2013).
"Byzantine seals from the Ras fortress" (PDF).
Recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'études byzantines.
50 (1): 449–460.
doi:
10.2298/ZRVI1350449I.
A region called Rasa has also been mentioned in De administrando imperii, where it denotes a border area between Bulgaria and Serbia.7 Even though Constantine Porphyrogennetos did not specify within whose borders this area lay in the late ninth century (Serbian or Bulgarian), somewhat newer data indicates that the region was in fact located on Bulgarian territory.
The Byzantine Empire first conquered the Ras fortress during the reign of John I Tzimiskes (969–976), at the time when Russia and the Byzantine Empire fought in the Balkan interior to gain control over Bulgaria. The fact that the Byzantine Empire established its military hold on Ras at this time is confi rmed by a seal belonging to a certain John, the protospatharios and katepano of Ras (tou/ `Ra,sou).8 It has been assumed that the Byzantine Empire occupied the wider area surrounding the fortress in the operations carried out in the early seventies of the tenth century. This thesis is supported by the Chronicle of Dioclea, which relates the activities of Tzimiskes’ generals in the province of Rascia even after 971 – the year when the Emperor withdrew from the Balkan front.9 No data has been preserved about the fate of Ras in the period which saw the renewal of the Bulgarian state under Samuel and his successors (976–1018), but there is no doubt that Ras became a part of the new Bulgarian empire. During the reign of Basil II (976–1025), after the reorganization of rule in the Balkans (after 1018/1019), Ras once again became a part of the Byzantine Empire, as confi rmed by Basil’s second sigillion issued in 1020 in the autocephalous Archbishopric of Ohrid. It is signifi cant to note that this sigillion considers the bishopric of Ras as a former Bulgarian diocese, and not just starting from Samuel’s reign, but as early as the reign of Emperor Peter (927–969).10 The rank which Ras held after 1018/1019 in the military and administrative system of the Empire is not known, but it is worth mentioning the hypotheses about the identifi cation of Ras and the surrounding area with the strategos of Serbia, as the extant seals suggest.11 The administrative unit in question could have – presumably – existed approximately until the mid-11th century.
In addition to this, Anne Komnene, who gave detailed accounts of Alexios’ confl icts with the Rascian župan Vukan (1091, 1093–1094), does not mention Ras in any of her writings. On the other hand, the Chronicle of Dioclea states that in the 1080s Bodin conquered Rascia, the region where – with his help – župan Vukan and his brother Marko established their rule;13 however, the question remains whether the Byzantine border fortress became a part of Serbia at this time. The Serbian conquest of Ras is confi rmed at a later date, during the reign of John II Komnenos (1118–1143). John Kinnamos relates the Serbian conquest and burning down of the Byzantine Ras (circa 1127–1129), which prompted the Emperor to punish Kritoplos, the commander of the fortress.14 Recently found seals on the site The Fortress of Ras support the opinion that the Byzantine Empire held dominant (but perhaps not continuous) control over Ras during Alexios’ reign. At this location, besides the bulla of Alexios I, we also found seals which used to belong to high-ranking military commanders of the Byzantine Empire. Prosopographical identifi cation of these persons and their activities in the area surrounding Ras (and in the wider region of the Western Balkans) is not certain. However, it could be surmised that some of them were in offi ce during the reign of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos; hence, the question remains if these commanders played a role in the Serbo-Byzantine confl icts of 1091 and 1093–1094 and in the renewal of the peace treaty in 1106. Also, we should allow for the possibility that some of these seals belong to the period of Serbo-Byzantine confl icts of 1127–1129, which broke out during the reign of Alexios’ successor John II Komnenos.
Srpstvo starog Rasa je jedna od najvećih mitomanija i zabluda srpske historiografije.