The theme of this paper is interpretations in historiography of influences on the territory of Croatian lands in the early medieval period. Influences came from two most powerful political entities in the early medieval Europe: Byzantium and Carolingian Empire. In older Croatian historiography, on first place was problems of political history (because of the political situation in XX. st.Croatia). In a time of Nada Klaić, preoccupation for political history was slowly dying and interest in the problems of social and economic history start to grow (which is also part of politics, communistic paradigm of that time). Furthermore, political implications of some historical events are present even today. It is reasonable that history is a very important science in the country, but historians need to be objective and not included in some ideology which can lead them in wrong (and dangerous) direction: misunderstanding of historical sources and subjective interpretation. In this paper, example of misunderstanding history is two exhibitions, one dedicated to Byzantium, and another to Carolingian inheritance. The purpose of this paper is to show different ways of understandings some of substantially parts of Croatian history (the process of forming Croatian identity, the process of making Croatian state, process of Christianization, etc., and how Byzantium and Carolingian influences impact this process) in Croatian historiography from the seventies until today.