The origin of the Slavs or how historians conspired. Origin of the Slavs Origin of the Slavs in ancient times

The Slavs are Europe's largest ethnic group, but what do we really know about them? Historians still argue about who they came from, where their homeland was located, and where the self-name “Slavs” came from.

Origin of the Slavs

There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Slavs. Some attribute them to the Scythians and Sarmatians who came from Central Asia, others to the Aryans and Germans, others even identify them with the Celts. All hypotheses of the origin of the Slavs can be divided into two main categories, directly opposite to each other. One of them, the well-known “Norman” one, was put forward in the 18th century by German scientists Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, although such ideas first appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The bottom line was this: the Slavs are an Indo-European people who were once part of the “German-Slavic” community, but broke away from the Germans during the Great Migration. Finding themselves on the periphery of Europe and cut off from the continuity of Roman civilization, they were very behind in development, so much so that they could not create their own state and invited the Varangians, that is, the Vikings, to rule them.

This theory is based on the historiographical tradition of “The Tale of Bygone Years” and the famous phrase: “Our land is great, rich, but there is no side in it. Come reign and rule over us." Such a categorical interpretation, which was based on obvious ideological background, could not but arouse criticism. Today, archeology confirms the presence of strong intercultural ties between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but it hardly suggests that the former played a decisive role in the formation of the ancient Russian state. But the debate about the “Norman” origin of the Slavs and Kievan Rus does not subside to this day.

The second theory of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, on the contrary, is patriotic in nature. And, by the way, it is much older than the Norman one - one of its founders was the Croatian historian Mavro Orbini, who wrote a work called “The Slavic Kingdom” at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. His point of view was very extraordinary: among the Slavs he included the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gepids, Getae, Alans, Verls, Avars, Dacians, Swedes, Normans, Finns, Ukrainians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Thracians and Illyrians and many others: “They were all of the same Slavic tribe, as will be seen later.”

Their exodus from the historical homeland of Orbini dates back to 1460 BC. Where did they not have time to visit after that: “The Slavs fought with almost all the tribes of the world, attacked Persia, ruled Asia and Africa, fought with the Egyptians and Alexander the Great, conquered Greece, Macedonia and Illyria, occupied Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland and the coasts of the Baltic Sea "

He was echoed by many court scribes who created the theory of the origin of the Slavs from the ancient Romans, and Rurik from the Emperor Octavian Augustus. In the 18th century, the Russian historian Tatishchev published the so-called “Joachim Chronicle,” which, as opposed to the “Tale of Bygone Years,” identified the Slavs with the ancient Greeks.

Both of these theories (although there are echoes of truth in each of them) represent two extremes, which are characterized by a free interpretation of historical facts and archaeological information. They were criticized by such “giants” of Russian history as B. Grekov, B. Rybakov, V. Yanin, A. Artsikhovsky, arguing that a historian should in his research rely not on his preferences, but on facts. However, the historical texture of the “ethnogenesis of the Slavs”, to this day, is so incomplete that it leaves many options for speculation, without the ability to finally answer the main question: “who are these Slavs after all?”

Age of the people

The next pressing problem for historians is the age of the Slavic ethnic group. When did the Slavs finally emerge as a single people from the pan-European ethnic “mess”? The first attempt to answer this question belongs to the author of “The Tale of Bygone Years” - monk Nestor. Taking the biblical tradition as a basis, he began the history of the Slavs with the Babylonian pandemonium, which divided humanity into 72 peoples: “From these 70 and 2 languages ​​the Slovenian language was born...”. The above-mentioned Mavro Orbini generously gave the Slavic tribes a couple of extra thousand years of history, dating their exodus from their historical homeland to 1496: “At the indicated time, the Goths and Slavs left Scandinavia ... since the Slavs and Goths were of the same tribe. So, having subjugated Sarmatia, the Slavic tribe was divided into several tribes and received different names: Wends, Slavs, Ants, Verls, Alans, Massetians... Vandals, Goths, Avars, Roskolans, Russians or Muscovites, Poles, Czechs, Silesians, Bulgarians ...In short, the Slavic language is heard from the Caspian Sea to Saxony, from the Adriatic Sea to the German Sea, and within all these limits lies the Slavic tribe.”

Of course, such “information” was not enough for historians. Archeology, genetics and linguistics were used to study the “age” of the Slavs. As a result, we managed to achieve modest, but still results. According to the accepted version, the Slavs belonged to the Indo-European community, which most likely emerged from the Dnieper-Donets archaeological culture, in the area between the Dnieper and Don rivers, seven thousand years ago during the Stone Age. Subsequently, the influence of this culture spread to the territory from the Vistula to the Urals, although no one has yet been able to accurately localize it. In general, when speaking about the Indo-European community, we do not mean a single ethnic group or civilization, but the influence of cultures and linguistic similarity. About four thousand years BC it broke up into conventional three groups: the Celts and Romans in the West, the Indo-Iranians in the East, and somewhere in the middle, in Central and Eastern Europe, another language group emerged, from which the Germans later emerged, Balts and Slavs. Of these, around the 1st millennium BC, the Slavic language begins to stand out.

But information from linguistics alone is not enough - to determine the unity of an ethnic group there must be an uninterrupted continuity of archaeological cultures. The bottom link in the archaeological chain of the Slavs is considered to be the so-called “culture of podklosh burials”, which received its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel, in Polish “klesh”, that is, “upside down”. It existed in the V-II centuries BC between the Vistula and the Dnieper. In a sense, we can say that its bearers were the earliest Slavs. It is from this that it is possible to identify the continuity of cultural elements right up to the Slavic antiquities of the early Middle Ages.

Proto-Slavic homeland

Where, after all, was the Slavic ethnic group born, and what territory can be called “originally Slavic”? Historians' accounts vary. Orbini, citing a number of authors, claims that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia: “Almost all the authors, whose blessed pen conveyed to their descendants the history of the Slavic tribe, claim and conclude that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia... The descendants of Japheth the son of Noah (to which the author includes the Slavs ) moved north to Europe, penetrating into the country now called Scandinavia. There they multiplied innumerably, as St. Augustine points out in his “City of God,” where he writes that the sons and descendants of Japheth had two hundred homelands and occupied lands located north of Mount Taurus in Cilicia, along the Northern Ocean, half of Asia, and throughout Europe all the way to the British Ocean."

Nestor called the most ancient territory of the Slavs - the lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Pannonia. The reason for the resettlement of the Slavs from the Danube was the attack on them by the Volokhs. “After many times, the essence of Slovenia settled along the Dunaevi, where there is now Ugorsk and Bolgarsk land.” Hence the Danube-Balkan hypothesis of the origin of the Slavs.

The European homeland of the Slavs also had its supporters. Thus, the prominent Czech historian Pavel Safarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe in the neighborhood of related tribes of Celts, Germans, Balts and Thracians. He believed that in ancient times the Slavs occupied vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, from where they were forced to leave beyond the Carpathians under the pressure of Celtic expansion.

There was even a version about two ancestral homelands of the Slavs, according to which the first ancestral home was the place where the Proto-Slavic language developed (between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina) and where the Slavic people themselves were formed (according to the authors of the hypothesis, this happened starting from the 2nd century BC era) - the Vistula River basin. Western and Eastern Slavs had already left from there. The first populated the area of ​​the Elbe River, then the Balkans and the Danube, and the second - the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester.

The Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis about the ancestral home of the Slavs, although it remains a hypothesis, is still the most popular among historians. It is conditionally confirmed by local toponyms, as well as vocabulary. If you believe the “words”, that is, the lexical material, the ancestral home of the Slavs was located away from the sea, in a forested flat zone with swamps and lakes, as well as within the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, judging by the common Slavic names of fish - salmon and eel. By the way, the areas of the Podklosh burial culture already known to us fully correspond to these geographical characteristics.

"Slavs"

The word “Slavs” itself is a mystery. It firmly came into use already in the 6th century AD; at least, Byzantine historians of this time often mentioned the Slavs - not always friendly neighbors of Byzantium. Among the Slavs themselves, this term was already widely used as a self-name in the Middle Ages, at least judging by the chronicles, including the Tale of Bygone Years.

However, its origin is still unknown. The most popular version is that it comes from the words “word” or “glory,” which go back to the same Indo-European root ḱleu̯- “to hear.” By the way, Mavro Orbini also wrote about this, albeit in his characteristic “arrangement”: “during their residence in Sarmatia, they (the Slavs) took the name “Slavs”, which means “glorious”.

There is a version among linguists that the Slavs owe their self-name to the names of the landscape. Presumably, it was based on the toponym “Slovutich” - another name for the Dnieper, containing a root with the meaning “to wash”, “to cleanse”.

At one time, a lot of noise was caused by the version about the existence of a connection between the self-name “Slavs” and the Middle Greek word for “slave” (σκλάβος). It was very popular among Western scientists of the 18th-19th centuries. It is based on the idea that the Slavs, as one of the most numerous peoples in Europe, made up a significant percentage of captives and often became objects of the slave trade. Today this hypothesis is recognized as erroneous, since most likely the basis of “σκλάβος” was a Greek verb with the meaning “to obtain spoils of war” - “σκυλάο”.

The name “Slavs” appeared in written sources around the middle of the 1st millennium AD. It is found in the historian Procopius of Caesarea, who lived in the 5th century, in the Byzantine military treatise “Strategikon” by Emperor Mauritius (6th century) and in the works of the Scythian author of Gothic origin Jordanes (Iordanis). The latter wrote in his work “On the Origin and Deeds of the Getae” that the Slavs live “from the city of Novietun and Lake Mursia to Danaster and north to Viskla; and instead of cities they have swamps and forests.”

The Greek spelling of the word “Slav” - σκλαβηνός (sklavenos) - spread throughout Europe, undergoing minor transformations, and forming the German sklave, Italian schiavo, French esclave and English slave. In the Proto-Slavic language this word was written as slověninъ or slověne (Slovenian or Slovene), in the “Tale of Bygone Years” - as slovѣne. The origin of the name is still hidden in the darkness of centuries, which does not prevent scientists of all stripes: historians, linguists and even writers from putting forward a variety of theories.

Prince Slaven gave the name to the Slavs

It is a historical fact that in the 6th century the Eastern Slavs numbered about two hundred tribes: Krivichi, Vyatichi, Polyan, Drevlyan, Tivertsy, Ulichi, Rus, etc. However, the tribe living in Novgorod was called that way - Slovenes. The author of the Joachim Chronicle from Novgorod - monk Nestor - directly said that the name of this tribe came from the name of the prince who ruled it. According to him, in ancient times there lived two princes - brothers, the elder was called Slaven, and the younger was Scythian. These princes waged war all their lives, conquered many lands on the Black Sea coast and on the Danube River. The name of the Slavs came from the older brother. True, the author adds on his own behalf that he “would not be kind enough to say that this is what happened here, gloriously, in Novegrad...”

This version is supported by an expert on the Macedonian language, Professor at Harvard University Horace J. Lunt, who points out that the words “slovѣne”, “slovѧne” appear in written sources only in the 14th century, and believes that the name slověnji previously existed, meaning “tribe of Sloven” , and the name Sloven (Sloven) itself has the Proto-Slavic root slow- with a completely modern meaning - “glorious” or “covered with glory.” This can be indirectly confirmed by princely names that have the same root: Goreslav, Svyatoslav, Vseslav, Izyaslav, Mstislav, etc.

The hypothesis about the origin of the name of the Slavs from the word “glory” was criticized by the Soviet Slavist Alexander Mylnikov, who emphasized that in all Slavic languages, the root of the words that named the Slavic people always contained the vowel -o- (Slavs, Slovenes), and, therefore, the emergence of the root -a- was caused by the influence of Greek or Latin, which means the hypothesis is incorrect.

Slovene means "people"

Soviet Slavist Samuil Bronstein believed that the name "Slavs" comes from the Indo-European slau̯os (people) and is comparable to the Greek λᾱός. The authoritative Finnish Slavic scholar Julius Mikkola agrees with him on this.

The Slavs lived on the Slava River

The author and compiler of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language,” Max Fermer, believes that the name “Slavs” was compiled by analogy with the name “Drevlyans” or “glades”: from a certain toponym - a river, mountain or settlement, and then spread to all other tribes. It is assumed that this could be the name of the Dnieper, which in the old days was called Slovutych, the Sluja River, the Serbian Slavnica River or the Polish rivers Sɫawa and Sɫawica. However, there is no reliable evidence for this theory either.

Slavs - from “word”

Max Farmer gives two more versions of the etymology of the name: based on the Indo-European root ḱleu̯- (to hear) and the word "word". In favor of the latter assumption, the scientist cites the old name of foreign-language tribes - “Germans,” that is, dumb, languageless. In this case, the name “Slavs” can be interpreted as “those who speak our language, our language.” This version is confirmed by the presence in Old Russian of the word “language” (ѩzyk) meaning “people”.

Those who came from the Wends

The famous Soviet archaeologist, researcher of Ancient Rus' Boris Rybakov back in 1958 put forward the theory that the name “Slavs, Slavene” testifies to the family ties of the people with the Wends. He drew the attention of linguists to the presence in the names “Slavene” and “Venedi” of one root -ven- and highlighted the first part of the word: slo-, suggesting that “Slovene, Slavs” means “people from the land of the Wends” or “people from the root of the Wends " Rybakov even expressed the idea that previously Slovenes could be called “sly-vene” - reputed to be Veneds. Modern authors have supplemented this theory with the guess that “Slo-Vene” could be deciphered as “speaking the language of the Wends,” but no direct evidence has been found for this, since the ethnonym “Sloven” has not yet been found in the vastness of Europe. The ethnonym “Venedi” appears in the literary sources of Europe right up to the Late Middle Ages, and the Finns to this day call Russia Veneya (Veneya).

Slavs are not slaves

The theory, widespread in some Western circles, that the name “Slavs” came from the word “servants”, or even from the Greek word σκλάβος (slave, slave), does not stand up to criticism. Of course, it cannot be argued that the Slavs were not slaves in the Mediterranean: when captured, yesterday’s warriors often became slaves, and pagan society had the custom of selling fellow tribesmen into slavery. However, to say that the Slavs are a people of slaves is, at the very least, absurd, since starting from the beginning of the 1st millennium, the military exploits of the Slavs are beyond doubt: this is evidenced by numerous Greek and Roman sources - from Herodotus to Ptolemy. And the Greek σκλάβος itself comes from the verb σκυλεύο (“to obtain spoils of war”) and coincidentally coincides in sound with the name “Slavs”.

S. V. Ivanov “Housing of the Eastern Slavs”

Soviet archaeologist P. N. Tretyakov wrote:

“The ancient Slavs in the light of archaeological materials is an area of ​​hypotheses, usually short-lived, constantly raising numerous doubts.”

Today, even after global work carried out by archaeologists, many works by linguists, and research on toponymy, this question remains open. The fact is that we have practically no written sources on the early history of the Proto-Slavs, and this is the stumbling block for all further reasoning. This work is based on key research on this topic.

Introduction

These were peoples about whom ancient and Byzantine authors had already heard, but now they became their restless neighbors, waging constant hostilities and carrying out devastating raids on the empire.

How could the new tribes that appeared on the northern border for a long time not only compete with the military forces of the most powerful country in Europe, but also seize its lands?

How were these peoples, unknown or little known to the Roman world just yesterday, able to occupy such vast territories? What powers and capabilities did they have, how and by whom were they involved in the worldwide migration of peoples, how did their culture develop?

We are talking about the ancestors of the Slavs, who settled over the vast expanse of central, northeastern and southern Europe.

And if about the military operations and battles of the Slavs in the VI-VII centuries. is known quite well thanks to written sources that have come down to us, archaeological sites give us important information that significantly complements the picture and helps us understand many aspects of early Slavic history.

The clash or cooperation of the Slavs with nearby peoples: the Byzantine Empire, Germanic tribes and, of course, the nomads of the Eurasian plain enriched their military experience and military arsenal.

The Slavs and their military affairs are little known to the general public; for a long time they were in the shadow of the Germanic peoples who lived in these areas, as well as the nomadic peoples who lived in the Danube region.

Origin

“After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where now the land is Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Lutichs, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians.

For a long time, this chronicle story was considered decisive in the picture of the settlement of the Slavic tribes, but today, on the basis of archaeological data, toponymy, but especially philology, the Vistula River basin in Poland is considered the ancestral home of the Slavs.

The Slavic language belongs to the Indo-European language family. The question of the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans still remains open. Anatolian, Greek, Armenian, Indo-Iranian and Thracian languages ​​independently emerged from the Proto-Indo-European language, while the Italic, Celtic, Slavic, Baltic and Germanic proto-languages ​​did not exist. They constituted a single community of the ancient European language, and their division occurred during the settlement throughout Europe.

There is a debate in the literature about whether there was originally a Balto-Slavic linguistic community or whether there were long-term contacts between the ancestors of the Slavs and Balts, which influenced the similarity of the languages. Recent research suggests that, firstly, the Proto-Slavs had contacts only with the Western Balts (ancestors of the Prussians), and secondly, they initially had contacts with the Proto-Germanic tribes, in particular, with the ancestors of the Angles and Saxons, which is recorded in the vocabulary of the latter . These contacts could only take place on the territory of modern Poland, which confirms the localization of the early Proto-Slavs in the Vistula-Oder interfluve.

This territory was their European ancestral home.

First historical evidence

“Whether the Pevkin [Germanic tribe], the Wends and the Fennians should be classified as Germans or Sarmatians, I really don’t know... The Wendians have adopted many of their customs, for for the sake of robbery they scour the forests and mountains that exist between the Pevkin and the Fenni. However, they can rather be classified as Germans, because they build houses for themselves, carry shields and move on foot, and with great speed; all this separates them from the Sarmatians, who spend their whole lives in a cart and on horseback.” .

Early name of the Slavs

This word has been preserved in Finnish and German, and today the Luga Sorbs or Western Slavs are called Wendel or Wende. Where did it come from?

Perhaps, some researchers believe, this was the self-name of some of the first tribal groups moving from the Vistula River basin to the west and north, to the area inhabited by the Germans, and, accordingly, the Finnish tribes.

By the 6th century The “Weneds” were clearly localized in the north of Central Europe, in the west they went beyond the borders of the Oder, and in the east - to the right bank of the Vistula.

The actual name “Slavs” appears in sources in the 6th century. at Jordan and Procopius, when both authors could actually get acquainted with representatives of this people. Procopius of Caesarea, being the secretary of the commander Belisarius, more than once observed and described the actions of the Slavic warriors.

There is also an opinion that if the word “Vends - Venets” was colloquial, then “Sklavins” or “Slavs” had a book origin, such as, for example, the term “Rosy”.

There is no exact answer as to where this name came from. Until the 19th century. it was believed that it comes from the word “glory” (gloriosi). Another version, which also circulated until the 19th century, suggested a connection between the word “Slav” and “slave,” a term identical in many European languages.

Modern theories suggest two solutions to this issue. The first links it with the places of initial residence of the Slavs, people living along the rivers. Derived from the word “flow, water flows”, hence: the rivers Sluya, Slavnica, Stawa, Stawica.

The vast majority of researchers are followers of another theory, they believe that the ethnonym comes from “word” - verbosi: to speak, “to speak clearly”, “people who speak clearly”, unlike “Germans” - cannot speak, are dumb.

We find it in the names of tribes and modern peoples: Novgorod Slovenes (Ancient Rus'), Slovaks (Slovakia), Slovenes (Slovenia and other Balkan countries), Slovenes-Kashubs (Poland).

Early Slavs and Celts

The Celts by this time had reached great heights in the development of material culture, which was reflected in the archaeological culture of La Tène (the settlement of La Tène, Switzerland). The Celtic society of Europe at this time can be defined as “heroic,” with the cult of leaders and heroes, squads and the militarization of all life, consisting of clans grouped into tribes.

The Celts made an outstanding contribution to the history of metallurgy in Europe: archaeologists discovered entire forging production complexes.

They mastered the technology of welding, hardening, made a great contribution to the production of iron tools, and, of course, . A significant fact in the development of Celtic society is the process of urbanization; by the way, it is with this that archaeologists associate a new important moment: from the middle of the 2nd century. BC e. No military equipment was recorded in Celtic burials.

We know the large Celtic cities of Alesia (97 hectares), Bibracta (135 hectares) and Gergovia (Clermont) (75 hectares) and others.

Society is moving to a new stage, in conditions of accumulation of wealth, when weapons lose their symbolic significance. It was during this period that one of the waves of Celtic migration reached the upper reaches of the Vistula in Central Europe in the 2nd century. BC e., from this moment the time of interaction between the early Slavs and the Celts began. From this period, the Przeworsk archaeological culture began to form.

The Przeworsk archaeological culture is associated with the early Slavs, although signs of habitation by both Celts and Germans are found on its territory. Archaeological monuments provide a wealth of material about the development of material culture; artifacts testify to the emergence of military affairs among the Slavs at the turn of the millennium.

An important factor in the interaction was the influence of the Celts, who were at a higher level of development, on the spiritual culture of the Slavs, which was reflected in religious buildings and burial rites. At least, what can be judged today is very likely. In particular, in the construction in a later period of a pagan temple of the Western Slavs in Arkona, on the island of Rügen, historians find features of Celtic religious buildings. But if weapons disappear in the burials of the Celts of central Europe, then on the periphery of the Celtic world they are preserved, which is completely understandable within the framework of military expansion. And the Slavs began to use the same ritual.

The participation of the Celts in the formation of the Przeworsk culture led to the first great division in the history of the Slavs: into southern (central Europe) and northern (Powisle). The movement of the Celts in central Europe, quite likely accompanied by military expansion into the Vistula region, forced some of the local tribes to begin moving to the Dnieper region. They go from the Vistula and Volhynia zone to the upper Dniester zone and especially to the Middle Dnieper region. This movement, in turn, caused an outflow of the Baltic tribes who lived here (Zarubinsk archaeological culture) to the north and east.

Although some archaeologists associate the Zarubinsk culture with the Slavs.

It was during this period that the western neighbors of the ancient Slavs began to call them “Veneti”. And here too there is a Celtic trace.

One of the hypotheses comes from the fact that the ethnonym “Veneta” was the self-name of the Celtic tribes that lived in Powiślie, but when they collided with the Germans at the beginning of our era, they retreated to the lands of the northeast and southeast of modern Poland, where they conquered the Proto-Slavs and They gave them their name: “Vends” or “Venetas”.

Armament of the Slavs in the early period

Among the Slavs, like most tribes who lived in the forest-steppe zone and embarked on the path of historical development, the main type of weapon was spears, which, naturally, owe their origin to sharpened sticks. Given the early contacts with the Celts, whose society was at a higher stage of material development, the influence in weaponry is obvious. It was even reflected in the funeral rite, when weapons or any piercing and cutting instruments were damaged. This is what the Celts did when burying male warriors.

Diodorus Siculus, (80-20 BC) wrote:

“...they [the Celts. - V.E.] they fight with a long sword, which they carry, suspended on an iron or copper chain to the right thigh... In front of them they put out spears, which they call “lankias”, with iron tips one cubit (45 cm) long or more, and width - slightly less than a dipalesta (15.5 cm).”

SLAVS, Slavs (Slavs outdated), units. Slav, Slav, husband. A group of peoples living in eastern and central Europe and the Balkans. East Slavs. Southern Slavs. Western Slavs. “Leave it alone: ​​this is a dispute among the Slavs among themselves.” Pushkin... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

SLAVS, a group of peoples in Europe: Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians), Southern Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians, Bosnians, Montenegrins). They speak Slavic... ...Russian history

Ancient, a group of Indo-European tribes. First mentioned in the 1st and 2nd centuries. in ancient Roman sources under the name of the Wends. According to the assumption of a number of researchers, the Slavs, along with the Germans and Balts, were descendants of pastoralists and agriculturalists... Art encyclopedia

Slovenian Dictionary of Russian synonyms. Slavs noun, number of synonyms: 1 Slovenes (2) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

Modern encyclopedia

Group of peoples in Europe: eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians), southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnians, Montenegrins). 293.5 million people (1992), including in the Russian Federation... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

SLAVS, yang, unit. Yanin, ah, husband. One of the largest groups in Europe of peoples related in language and culture, making up three branches: East Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), West Slavic (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians) and... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Slavs- (Slavs), group of peoples of the East. Europe, known in Ancient. Rome as the Sarmatians or Scythians. It is believed that the word S. comes from slowo (well-spoken; the word Slovenian has the same root). After the collapse of the Hunnic state in the 5th century. S. migrated to 3 ... The World History

Slavs- SLAVS, a group of related peoples with a total number of 293,500 thousand people. Main regions of settlement: countries of Eastern Europe (about 290,500 thousand people). They speak Slavic languages. Religious affiliation of believers: Orthodox, Catholics,... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

The largest group of peoples in Europe, united by the proximity of languages ​​(see Slavic languages) and common origin. The total number of glory. peoples in 1970 about 260 million people, of which: Russians over 130 million, Ukrainians 41.5 million... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Books

• , . Slavs, their mutual relations and connections / Op. Joseph Pervolf, order. prof. Warsaw. un-ta. T. 1-3A 183/690 U 390/30 U 62/317 U 238/562: 1890: Reproduced in the original author’s spelling...
• Slavs, their mutual relations and connections T. 1-3, . Slavs, their mutual relations and connections / Op. Joseph Pervolf, order. prof. Warsaw. un-ta. T. 1-3A 183/690 U 62/317 U 390/30 U 238/562: Warsaw: typ. Warsaw. textbook okr., 1893: Reproduced in...

Questions about where the Slavs came from, when and where the Slavic people arose, concern people who want to know their roots. Science studies the ethnogenesis of the Slavic tribes, relying on archaeological, linguistic and other discoveries, but does not give a clear answer to many difficult questions. There are different, sometimes opposing points of view of scientists, but their reliability is doubtful even among the authors themselves due to the insufficiency of the source material.

First information about the Slavs

It is known for certain where the first information about the Slavs came from. Written evidence of the existence of Slavic tribes dates back to the 1st millennium BC. This data deserves the trust of scientists, as it was found in the sources of Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Arab civilizations, which already had their own written language. The appearance of the Slavs on the world stage occurs in the 5th century AD. e.

The modern peoples inhabiting Eastern Europe were once a single community, which is usually called the Proto-Slavs. They, in turn, in the 2nd century. BC e separated from an even more ancient Indo-European community. Therefore, scientists attribute all languages ​​of the Slavic group to this language family.

However, despite all the similarities in languages ​​and culture, there are also great differences between the Slavic peoples. Anthropologists say so. So are we from the same tribe?

Where is the habitat of the Slavs?

According to scientists, in ancient times there was a certain community, an ethnic group. These people lived in a small area. But experts cannot name the address of this place or tell humanity where the Slavs came from in the history of European states. Or rather, they cannot come to an agreement on this issue.

But they are united in the fact that the Slavic peoples took part in the mass migration of the population, which occurred in the world later, in the 5th-7th centuries, and was called the Great Migration of Peoples. The Slavs settled in three directions: in the south, on the Balkan Peninsula; in the west, to the Oder and Elbe rivers; in the east, along the East European Plain. But where?

Territory of central Europe

On a modern map of Europe you can find a historical region called Galicia. Today, part of it is located in Poland, and the other in Ukraine. The name of the area gave scientists the opportunity to assume that the Gauls (Celts) previously lived here. In this case, the area of ​​initial residence of the Slavs could be the north of Czechoslovakia.

And yet, where did the Slavs come from? The description of their habitat in the 3rd-4th centuries remains, unfortunately, at the level of hypotheses and theories. There are almost no sources of information for this time. Archeology is also unable to shed light on this period of time. Experts are trying to see the Slavs as carriers of different cultures. But there is a lot of controversy in this even for the professionals themselves. For example, the Chernyakhov culture was classified as Slavic for a long time, and many scientific conclusions were made on this basis. Now more and more experts are inclined to believe that this culture was formed by several ethnic groups with a predominance of Iranians.

Scientists have made attempts to determine the place of residence of the Slavs by analyzing their vocabulary. The most reliable could be to determine where the Slavs came from by the names of the trees. The absence of the names beech and fir in the Slavic lexicon, that is, ignorance of such plants, indicates, according to scientists, the possible places of formation of the ethnic group in the north of Ukraine or the south of Belarus. Again, reference is made to the fact that the boundaries of growth of these trees may have changed over many centuries.

Great Migration

The Huns, a nomadic warlike tribe that moved throughout the Far East and Mongolia, had been at war with the Chinese for a long time. Having suffered a crushing defeat in the 2nd century BC, they rushed west. Their path ran through populated areas of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. They entered into battles with the tribes inhabiting those places, carrying with them along the way from Mongolia to the Volga peoples of a different ethnic group, primarily the Ugric and Iranian tribes. This mass approached Europe, no longer ethnically homogeneous.

The tribal union of Alans, who lived on the Volga at that time, put up powerful resistance to the advancing force. Also a nomadic people, seasoned in battle, they stopped the movement of the Huns, delaying them for two centuries. However, at the end of the 4th century, the Alans were defeated and cleared the way for the Huns to Europe.

Wild warlike tribes crossed the Volga and rushed to the Don, to the habitats of the tribes of the Chernyakhov culture, causing horror among them. On the way, they defeated the country of the Alans and Goths, some of whom went to the Ciscaucasia, and some rushed with a mass of victors to the west.

Result of the Hun invasion

As a result of this historical event, significant population movements, mixing of ethnic groups and displacement of traditional habitats occurred. With such a change in guidelines, scientists cannot attempt to formulate reliably and briefly where the Slavs came from.

Migration affected steppe and forest-steppe areas most of all. Presumably, the Slavs retreating to the east peacefully assimilated the peoples of other tribes, including local Iranians. A mass of people of complex ethnic composition, fleeing from the Huns, reached the middle Dnieper in the 5th century. Scientists support this theory with the appearance in these places of a settlement called Kyiv, which translated from one of the Iranian dialects means “town”.

The Slavs then crossed the Dnieper and advanced into the Desna River basin, which was called by the Slavic name "Right". You can try to trace where and how the Slavs came to these places by the names of the rivers. In the south, large rivers did not change their names, leaving the old, Iranian names. The Don is just a river, the Dnieper is a deep river, Russia is a bright river, etc. But in the north-west of Ukraine and almost throughout Belarus, rivers have purely Slavic names: Berezina, Teterev, Goryn, etc. Undoubtedly, this evidence of the habitation of ancient Slavs in these places. But it is very difficult to determine where the Slavs came from here and to establish the route of their movement. All assumptions are based on very controversial material.

Expansion of Slavic territory

The Huns were not interested in where the Slavs came from in these parts, and where they were retreating under the onslaught of nomads. They did not seek to destroy the Slavic tribes; their enemies were the Germans and Iranians. Taking advantage of the current situation, the Slavs, who had previously occupied a very small territory, significantly expanded their habitat. By the 5th century, the movement of the Slavs to the west continued, where they pushed the Germans further and further towards the Elbe. At the same time, the colonization of the Balkans took place, where the local tribes of Illyrians, Dalmatians and Thracians were fairly quickly and peacefully assimilated. We can speak quite confidently about a similar movement of the Slavs in an eastern direction. This gives some idea of ​​where the Slavs came from in Russian lands, Ukraine and Belarus.

A century later, with the local population of Greeks, Volokhs and Albanians remaining in the Balkans, the Slavs increasingly play the main role in political life. Now their movement towards Byzantium was directed both from the Balkans and from the lower reaches of the Danube.

There is another opinion of a number of experts who, when asked where the Slavs came from, briefly answer: “Out of nowhere. They have always lived on the East European Plain." Like other theories, this one is supported by unconvincing arguments.

And yet, we will assume that the once united Proto-Slavs were divided in the 6th-8th centuries into three groups: southern, western and eastern Slavs under the pressure of a migratory mass of people of mixed ethnicity. Their destinies will continue to touch and influence each other, but now each branch will have its own history.

Principles of settlement of the Slavs in the east

Starting from the 6th-7th centuries, more documentary evidence about the Proto-Slavs appears, and therefore more reliable information on which experts are working. Since that time, science has known where the Eastern Slavs came from. They, leaving the Huns, settled the territory of Eastern Europe: from Ladoga to the Black Sea coast, from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga region. Historians count the habitats of thirteen tribes in this territory. These are the Vyatichi, Radimichi, Polyan, Polotsk, Volynians, Ilmen Slovenes, Dregovichi, Drevlyans, Ulichs, Tivertsy, Northerners, Krivichi and Dulebs.

Where the Eastern Slavs came from on Russian lands can be seen from the settlement map, but I would like to draw attention to the specifics of choosing places of settlement. Obviously, geographical and ethnic principles of settlement took place here.

Lifestyle of the Eastern Slavs. Management issues

In the V-VII centuries, the Slavs still lived under the conditions of a tribal system. All members of the community were related by blood. V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote that the clan union rested on two pillars: the power of the clan elder and the indivisibility of the clan property. Important issues were resolved by the people's assembly, the veche.

Gradually, clan relationships began to disintegrate, and the family became the main economic unit. Neighborhood communities are being formed. Family property included a house, livestock, and equipment. And meadows, water, forests and land remained the property of the community. A division began to occur into free Slavs and slaves, who became captured prisoners.

Slavic squads

With the emergence of cities, armed squads appeared. There were cases when they seized power in those settlements that they were supposed to protect, and became princes. There was a merger with tribal power, as well as stratification of ancient Slavic society, classes and a ruling elite were formed. Over time, power became hereditary.

Slavic occupations

The main occupation of the ancient Slavs was agriculture, which became more advanced over time. Tools of labor improved. But agricultural labor was not the only one.

The inhabitants of the plain raised livestock and poultry. Much attention was paid to horse breeding. Horses and oxen were the main draft force.

The Slavs were engaged in hunting. They hunted elk, deer, and other game. A trade in fur-bearing animals appeared. In the warm season, the Slavs were engaged in beekeeping. Honey, wax and other products were used for food, and in addition, they were valued in exchange. Gradually, an individual family could already manage without the help of the community - this is how private property was born.

Crafts developed, initially necessary for conducting economic activities. Then the opportunities of artisans expanded; they moved further and further away from agricultural labor. Craftsmen began to settle in places where it was easier to sell their labor. These were settlements along trade routes.

Trade relations were of great importance in the development of ancient Slavic society. It was in the 8th-9th centuries that the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” was born, along which large cities arose. But he wasn't the only one. The Slavs also explored other trade routes.

Religion of the Eastern Slavs

The Eastern Slavs practiced a pagan religion. They revered the power of nature, prayed to many Gods, made sacrifices, and erected idols.

The Slavs believed in brownies, goblins, and mermaids. To protect themselves and their home from evil spirits, they made amulets.

Slavic culture

Slavic holidays were also associated with nature. We celebrated the turning of the sun into summer, farewell to winter, and welcome to spring. Compliance with traditions and rituals was considered mandatory, and some of this has survived to this day.

For example, the image of the Snow Maiden, who comes to us on winter holidays. But it was not invented by modern authors, but by our ancient ancestors. Where did the Snow Maiden come from in the pagan culture of the Slavs? From the northern regions of Rus', where in winter they built amulets from ice. The young girl melts with the arrival of warmth, but other amulets appear in the house until the next winter.