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Among current Balkan nations, I guess that Albanians are the oldest, considering their language, however they don't have true historical products. They were ruled by others, non-Balkan powers like Rome and Byzantium. Balkans truly became civilized as late as the 8th century. Native people got the ability to organize themselves into states and principates only back then.
And that starts obviously with the Bulgars.
The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late ...
By John V. A. Fine,
More towards central Europe, it was Avars that brought the system of being able to create a state and form a nobility to rule the state and transferred it to natives and other neighboring people. Prior to that, natives in all those areas were under tribal structures, unable to unite and create states or empires.
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