On the Serbian-Bulgarian border in the 9th and the 10th centuries

The paper analyzes the information concerning the border between the Serbs and the Bulgarians in the 9th and the 10th centuries found in the work De administrando imperio by the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. It is made clear that there were no clearly established borderlines between the political entities in the Early Middle Ages, and that those political entities during that period functioned not on the basis of territorialy organized states, but of ethnic communities, whose authority rested upon the people, not the territory. The functioning of the early medieval Bulgarian Khanate is one of the best examples for that. Therefore, it is necessary that the information on the Serbian-Bulgarian border in the Porphyrogenitus‘ work be analyzed in a new and different light. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]