Željko, if you want to know if there is an update about the testing of Nikola Rašković Drobnjak, you can send private messages to НиколаВук and Јовица Кртинић. Both are active members of the forum, so you can find their messages very easily. НиколаВук answered some of my questions about the Drobnjak prince, and Јовица Кртинић has participated to the unearthing of the remains in 2018, as you can see in the video below:
https://youtu.be/wCkp28lzoPk?t=26If you want to know about the cost of an in-depth test, you can contact Praxis Genomics LLC, the American company that did the test for the remains of Matthias Corvinus’ son. Use the form on their “Contact Us” page.
https://www.praxisgenomics.com/In my opinion, I don’t think that an advanced DNA testing of Nikola Rašković Drobnjak’s remains is taken into account by the Serbian DNA Project. You can see that I did not receive any answer about the testing update. I think that the test results (especially the autosomal DNA) could challenge the belief that the Drobnjaks were a pure Serbian tribe, and many don't want this. I don’t know how this belief has originated, because in the beginning the Drobnjaks were a tribe of traveling traders in the Balkans, and some of their members were picked from the various peoples that inhabited the Balkans at that time. Eventually they became Serbs, but their genes were from the peoples from whom they originated.
There is a similar situation in Rumania. In 1920 an untouched tomb of a Wallachian voivode was discovered. See below an entire book written in 2017 about this archeological discovery.
https://www.academia.edu/51106158/AL_WA_prin%C5%A3ul_negru_al_Vlahiei_%C5%9Fi_vremurile_sale In 2012 some DNA testing was performed on the remains and the researchers said that the voivode was of possible Germanic origin on his maternal side, having the mtDNA haplogroup H3v2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_H_(mtDNA)#SubcladesThe research project was supported exclusively with money from the state budget, which is extremely important. One of the biggest controversies in Rumanian historiography is the origin of the founder of Wallachia (Radu Negru or Negru Vodă). Some historians say that he was of Cuman origin on his paternal side, because his father was named “Thocomerius” in a document written in Latin by the Hungarian king of the time.
https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negru_Vod%C4%83The voivode buried in the tomb discovered in 1920 is probably a descendant of Negru Vodă. It would have been logical to do a Y-DNA test and an autosomal DNA test and put an end to the controversy about the origin of Negru Vodă. But no, apparently there was no Y-DNA test and no autosomal DNA test. They were probably done, but the results are not public, they are kept secret. Why? Possibly because the results are not in line with the official historiography. What is the most strange in all of this, is that nobody cares. The Rumanian historians should request that the 2012 DNA test results be made public, or the tests done again now that the testing is more advanced than in 2012. But the Rumanian historians are paid by the state via the Rumanian Academy, so they take the money and keep their mouths shut in order not to derange the founding myths of the state. Of course, by doing that they reveal themselves as not being true historians, only paid servants of the state bureaucracy. It’s their choice, and history will judge them eventually.
Željko, there is another possibility to find more about the ancient Drobnjak DNA.
I exchanged some e-mails with A. Jakšić in February. In one of them I asked him the following: <<Since you say in your book [about the Drobnjaks] that Pavle Abazović is buried in Poscenje, have you tried to convince the Serbian DNA project to do a DNA test on his remains?>>
A. Jakšić responded: <<There might be big news here in the next few years, but it would likely to be a local effort, outside of “Serbian DNA project”.>>
You can contact A. Jakšić (
[email protected] ), maybe he has something new about his project to test the remains of Pavle Abazović.