Modern Slavic peoples and states.
First information about the Slavs. Veneda.
Origin of the word "Slavs"
In this book, addressed mainly to students and students Russia, There is no need to expand in detail on the topic of who the Slavs are. The largest Slavic people, Russians, constitutes in our country the so-called “titular” or state-forming nation.
Slavs live primarily in Eastern and Central Europe (as well as Siberia). As a result of immigration processes, there are Slavic diasporas even in the USA, Canada, Australia and a number of other regions of the planet.
Russians, according to the latest available data, number more than 145 million. The second largest Slavic people are Ukrainians. There are approximately 50 million of them. The third largest Slavic people are the Poles. Their number is approaching the number of Ukrainians and is about 45 million. Further, in descending order of number, Belarusians - almost 10 million, Serbs until recently there were at least 10 million, Czechs - about 10 million, Bulgarians - more than 9 million, Slovaks - 5 .5 million, Croats too - 5.5 million, Slovenes - up to 2.5 million, Macedonians - 2 million, Muslims - about 2 million, Montenegrins - 0.6 million people16.
For centuries East Slavs(Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) lived in one state, which changed names (Russian Empire, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), but united these fraternal peoples, mutually reinforcing them culturally, economically and military-politically. At the end of 1991, due to complex socio-political processes, the USSR collapsed. Since that time, Ukrainians and Belarusians have lived in their own separate and Russian national states from Russia.
On the Balkan Peninsula, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia existed for several decades, uniting almost all southern Slavs - Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Muslims and Montenegrins. Since the beginning of the 1990s, due to similar processes, Yugoslavia has gradually disintegrated. At first, the Slovenes, Croats and Macedonians separated from it almost simultaneously and proclaimed the creation of their own states. In the end, only Serbia and Montenegro remained within Yugoslavia, but recently Montenegro, as a result of a referendum, declared its independence from Serbia, and Yugoslavia as a state ceased to exist.
In 1993, the unified Czechoslovakia that had existed since 1918 broke up into two West Slavic states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Only West Slavic Poland and South Slavic Bulgaria remained within the borders they acquired after World War II.
As a result, on this moment on the planet there are Russia (capital - Moscow), Ukraine (Kyiv), Belarus or Belarus (Minsk), Czech Republic (Prague), Slovakia (Bratislava), Poland (Warsaw), Bulgaria (Sofia), Macedonia (Skopje), Croatia (Zagreb ), Slovenia (Ljubljana), Serbia (Belgrade), Montenegro (Podgorica)17.
Russian readers know what a spiritual tragedy the destruction of the USSR and the SFRY, powerful states in which people lived peacefully, creating and developing uniquely vibrant cultures, turned out to be for the entire Slavic people. At the same time, for example, the death of Yugoslavia resulted in an ethnic catastrophe.
In the early 1990s, a largely externally provoked war took place between the fraternal peoples - Serbs, Croats and Muslims - in the Yugoslav regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina18.
Many Bosnian Serbs were eventually expelled from the lands where their distant ancestors lived. Homeless people fled en masse to Serbia.
In 1999, Serbia, which had previously accepted them, itself, in turn, became a victim of aggression from a number of countries belonging to the NATO military bloc.
The pretext for the aggression was the declared intention of NATO members to “protect” the Albanians living there from the Yugoslav police in the Serbian region of Kosovo. Serbia was continuously subjected to massive bombing for 78 days, as a result of which thousands of civilians were killed, ancient cities and architectural monuments were destroyed.
Albanian gangs then, in conditions of complete impunity, staged a series of Serbian pogroms in Kosovo with numerous murders of unarmed people, as a result of which the Serbian population almost entirely fled from this region in the first half of the 2000s, abandoning their homes and property19.
At the beginning of 2008, with enormous support from the United States and some other NATO countries, Kosovo declared its “state” independence, although such a declaration was associated with a gross violation of the UN Charter and international law.
Foreign forces in the 21st century. have already repeatedly interfered in the internal affairs of Slavic countries, provoking the so-called “orange revolutions” in them.
Currently, the Slavic world is in a state of unprecedented cultural and historical separation and disintegration.
All the more important now is the task of getting acquainted with Slavic issues within the framework of the Introduction to Slavic philology course20.
The first information about the Slavs comes from Roman historians Pliny the Elder And Cornelia Tacita 21. These are brief references, with both Roman authors calling the Slavs “Vendi.”
Thus, Pliny in his “ Natural history"(98 AD) writes: “Some writers report that these areas up to the Vistula (Vistula) River are inhabited by Sarmatians, Wends, Scythians, and Hyrrians.” Somewhat earlier, Tacitus in his work “ Germany“also in the form of a passing mention says that the Wends live next to the tribes of the Pevkin and Fenn. He finds it difficult to classify them as Germans, whom he repeatedly criticizes for “barbarism,” but claims that “the Wends adopted many of their customs,” building similar dwellings and also differing in their sedentary lifestyle.
“Vends” - the Slavs themselves apparently never called themselves this word. This is an external name: that is what others called them in ancient times. In a similar way, we can recall all the well-known European people, whose representatives call themselves “Deutsch”, and other peoples call them differently - the Russians “Germans”, the French “Allemans”, the British “Jemans”, etc.
Names refracting the word “Vends” are still preserved in the Finno-Ugric languages. In Estonian, Russian is vene, Russian is vene keel.
In the II century. n. e. Claudius Ptolemy in his " Geographical guide"once again briefly mentions the Wends, who, according to his information (very vague), live “along the entire Gulf of Veneds” (meaning the Baltic Sea). From the west, the lands of the Wends are limited, according to Ptolemy, by the Vistula (Vistula) River.
Byzantine author of the 5th century. Priscus of Pannia ended up as part of the embassy sent to the court of Attila22. Narrating about the Turkic conquerors the Huns, he unexpectedly names such words of the “Hunnic” language as the name of the drink - medos and the name of the funeral feast - strava.
Since the first word is easy to guess honey, and the second meant a meal in the Old Russian language and is still found in some Slavic languages, so the Czech philologist Pavel Safarik(1795-1861), author of the work " Slavic antiquities "(1837), expressed a reasonable assumption about the presence of Slavs in the multinational horde of Attila. (By the way, Priscus also calls the drink kamos, which we have to suspect is kvass.)
The Gothic historian of the 6th century knew more about the Slavs. Jordan and Byzantine historians of the VI-VII centuries. n. e.
For the author of the essay " About the Goths" Jordanes, who wrote in Latin (he served the Romans for a long time and only at the age of sixty became the "court historian" of the Gothic king), the Slavs are hated enemies, who "now, because of our sins," "rage everywhere" and to whom, as to others ready for opponents, he regularly expresses emphasized official contempt. In particular, he calls them “a crowd of cowards”, “powerful in their numbers”, and reports that they “now have three names: Wends, Antes and Sklavins”23. However, in relation to the Antes, whose lands extend “from Danaster to Danapra” (from the Dniester to the Dnieper), Jordan makes an interesting indicative clause, calling them “the bravest” (of the Slavs).
Dig through Caesarea(VI century) in his work "War With Goths" divides the Slavs into two categories: he calls the western Slavs “Slavs”, and the eastern (our immediate ancestors) “Antes”. Procopius says:
“These tribes, the Slavs and the Antes, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times they have lived in the rule of people (democracy), and therefore they consider happiness and misfortune in life to be a common matter. And in all other respects, both of these barbarian tribes have the same life and laws.”
At the end of the 6th century. He included interesting and detailed information about the Slavs in his military manual " Strategikon"a certain Byzantine Mauritius (the author of this work was mistakenly considered the Emperor of Mauritius for a long time; later the author began to be conventionally called Mauritius Strategist). He writes, for example:
“The tribes of the Slavs and Antes are similar in their way of life, in their morals, in their love of freedom; they cannot in any way be induced to servitude or subjection in their own country. They are numerous, hardy, and easily tolerate heat, cold, rain, nakedness, and lack of food. They treat foreigners who come to them kindly and, showing them signs of their affection when moving from one place to another, protect them if necessary, so that if it turned out that due to the negligence of the one who receives the foreigner, the latter suffered ( any) damage, the one who took it first begins a war (against the culprit), considering it a duty of honor to avenge the foreigner. They do not hold those in captivity in slavery, like other tribes, for an unlimited time, but, limiting (the period of slavery) to a certain time, they offer them a choice: do they want to return home for a certain ransom or stay there (where they are ) in the position of free and friends?
Here their military adversary talks about the Slavs, with the goal of familiarizing his soldiers with the methods of most effectively fighting them. Such an author will not over-praise. All the more valuable is his objective evidence of the special Slavic love of freedom (they cannot be enslaved), endurance, cordiality and hospitality, and an amazingly humane attitude towards prisoners. All of these are very informative and testify to many features of the national character.
We will repeatedly draw on information coming from Procopius of Caesarea and Mauritius the Strategist below in various sections of the “Introduction to Slavic Philology.”
The question of where the ethnonym “Slavs” comes from has been debated for centuries. As is usually the case, the Slavs romanticized and, in particular, heroized their name in various ways. A popular point of view was that they were called that because they “covered themselves with unfading glory.”
According to the philologist P.Ya. Chernykh, “in the popular Slavic consciousness the name of the Slavic tribe was first associated with in a word, and then began to contact glory. As one old Polish writer says: “that is why the peoples of our language were called Slavs, that all together and each in particular tried to earn good fame for themselves through knightly deeds”24.
The original opinion was given by I. Pervolf in the book “Slavs, their mutual relations and connections.” A certain Pole Paprocki reasoned that the Slavs “were named either from glory or from the word: they willingly fulfilled the given word to everyone... However, glory and word are not different from each other; glory to him who fulfills the word."25
In the medieval Slavic environment, the so-called “letter of grant” to the Slavic people from Alexander the Great (Macedonian) even became widespread. This curious text reads:
“To the bright generation of the Slavic for its great services for all eternity, the entire part of the land from the north to Italy itself, and the lands in the south, so that no one else except your people dares to stay and settle in them; and if anyone else were found living in those countries, then he should be your servant, and his descendants should be the servants of your descendants.”26
P.Ya. Chernykh wrote about the word “Slav”: “Since ancient times, this name has been known in written monuments since O after l and with the suffix -yenin. In the old days, with this suffix, nouns were usually formed, denoting not only belonging to a tribe or people, but also origin from a specific settlement or locality: Samaritan, Galilean. Therefore, in this case, they make the assumption that the Slavs got their name from the area rich in rivers Word or from the river Words" 27.
Still, most likely, the self-name “Slavs” was formed according to a principle widespread among world languages.
As the same P.Ya correctly wrote. Chernykh, “since slovene was associated with the word and received the meaning “people, people who own the word, speak clear language", all other people speaking not Slavic languages, but other (incomprehensible) languages, were called "silent, dumb." This concept was expressed by the word Germans (any foreigners. - YUM.).<...> So, for example, in Moscow at the beginning of the 17th century. they said: “(arrived in Kholmogory) 5000 Aglinsky German", are coming "Danish king Germans", "Spanish king Germans","...V Germans, V Golan land"28.
Peoples in ancient times very often called themselves “having a language”, “possessing a word” - in contrast to foreigners who seemed to them without languages, Germans(in fact, the foreigners, of course, had a language, but it was different, incomprehensible). Slavs (Slovenes) are “those who have a word”, speaking meaningfully.
SLAVS- the largest group of European peoples, united by a common origin and linguistic affinity in the system of Indo-European languages. Its representatives are divided into three subgroups: southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians), eastern (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) and western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians). The total number of Slavs in the world is about 300 million people, including Bulgarians 8.5 million, Serbs about 9 million, Croats 5.7 million, Slovenes 2.3 million, Macedonians about 2 million, Montenegrins less 1 million, Bosnians about 2 million, Russians 146 million (of which 120 million in the Russian Federation), Ukrainians 46 million, Belarusians 10.5 million, Poles 44.5 million, Czechs 11 million, Slovaks less than 6 million, Lusatians - about 60 thousand. Slavs make up the bulk of the population of the Russian Federation, the Republics of Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the State Community of Serbia and Montenegro, and also live in the Baltic republics, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Austria, Italy, countries of America and Australia. Most Slavs are Christians, with the exception of the Bosnians, who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule over southern Europe. Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Russians - mostly Orthodox; Croats, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians are Catholics, among Ukrainians and Belarusians there are many Orthodox, but there are also Catholics and Uniates.
Data from archeology and linguistics connect the ancient Slavs with the vast region of Central and Eastern Europe, bounded in the west by the Elbe and Oder, in the north by the Baltic Sea, in the east by the Volga, and in the south by the Adriatic. The northern neighbors of the Slavs were the Germans and Balts, the eastern - the Scythians and Sarmatians, the southern - the Thracians and Illyrians, and the western - the Celts. The question of the ancestral home of the Slavs remains controversial. Most researchers believe that this was the Vistula basin. Ethnonym Slavs first found among Byzantine authors of the 6th century, who called them “sklavins”. This word is related to the Greek verb "kluxo" ("I wash") and the Latin "kluo" ("I cleanse"). The self-name of the Slavs goes back to the Slavic lexeme “word” (that is, the Slavs are those who speak, understand each other through verbal speech, considering foreigners incomprehensible, “dumb”).
The ancient Slavs were descendants of pastoral and agricultural tribes of the Corded Ware culture, who settled in 3–2 thousand BC. from the Northern Black Sea region and the Carpathian region in Europe. In the 2nd century. AD, as a result of the movement of the Germanic tribes of the Goths to the south, the integrity of the Slavic territory was violated, and it was divided into western and eastern. In the 5th century The resettlement of the Slavs to the south began - to the Balkans and the North-Western Black Sea region. At the same time, however, they retained all their lands in Central and Eastern Europe, becoming the largest ethnic group at that time.
The Slavs were engaged in arable farming, cattle breeding, various crafts, and lived in neighboring communities. Numerous wars and territorial movements contributed to the collapse by the 6th–7th centuries. family ties. In the 6th–8th centuries. many of the Slavic tribes united into tribal unions and created the first state formations: in the 7th century. The First Bulgarian Kingdom and the Samo State arose, which included the lands of the Slovaks, in the 8th century. - Serbian state Raska, in the 9th century. – Great Moravian state, which absorbed the lands of the Czechs, as well as the first state of the Eastern Slavs – Kievan Rus, the first independent Croatian principality and state of the Montenegrins of Duklja. At the same time - in the 9th–10th centuries. - Christianity began to spread among the Slavs, quickly becoming the dominant religion.
From the end of the 9th - in the first half of the 10th century, when the Poles were just forming a state, and the Serbian lands were gradually being collected by the First Bulgarian Kingdom, the advance of the Hungarian tribes (Magyars) began into the valley of the middle Danube, which intensified by the 8th century. The Magyars cut off the Western Slavs from the southern Slavs and assimilated part of the Slavic population. The Slovenian principalities of Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia became part of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 10th century the lands of the Czechs and Lusatians (the only one of the Slavic peoples who did not have time to create their own statehood) also fell into the epicenter of colonization - but of the Germans. Thus, the Czechs, Slovenes and Lusatians were gradually included in the powers created by the Germans and Austrians and became their border districts. By participating in the affairs of these powers, the listed Slavic peoples organically merged into the civilization of Western Europe, becoming part of its socio-political, economic, cultural, and religious subsystems. Having retained some typically Slavic ethnocultural elements, they acquired a stable set of features characteristic of the Germanic peoples in family and social life, in national utensils, clothing and cuisine, in types of housing and settlements, in dances and music, in folklore and applied arts. Even from an anthropological point of view, this part of the Western Slavs acquired stable features that bring them closer to southern Europeans and residents of Central Europe (Austrians, Bavarians, Thuringians, etc.). The coloring of the spiritual life of the Czechs, Slovenes, and Lusatians began to be determined by the German version of Catholicism; have undergone changes, lexical and grammatical structure their languages.
Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins formed during the Middle Ages, 8th–9th centuries, southern Greco-Slavic natural-geographical and historical-cultural area All of them found themselves in the orbit of Byzantine influence and were accepted in the 9th century. Christianity in its Byzantine (orthodox) version, and with it the Cyrillic alphabet. Subsequently, under the conditions of the incessant onslaught of other cultures and the strong influence of Islam, which began in the second half of the 14th century. Turkish (Ottoman) conquest - Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins successfully preserved the specifics of the spiritual system, features of family and social life, and original cultural forms. In the struggle for their identity in the Ottoman environment, they took shape as South Slavic ethnic entities. At the same time, small groups of Slavic peoples converted to Islam during the period of Ottoman rule. Bosnians - from the Slavic communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turchens - from Montenegrins, Pomaks - from Bulgarians, Torbeshi - from Macedonians, Mohammedan Serbs - from the Serbian environment experienced a strong Turkish influence and therefore took on the role of “border” subgroups of the Slavic peoples, connecting representatives Slavs with Middle Eastern ethnic groups.
Northern historical-cultural range Orthodox Slavs developed in the 8th–9th centuries on a large territory occupied by the Eastern Slavs from the Northern Dvina and White Sea to the Black Sea region, from the Western Dvina to the Volga and Oka. Began at the beginning of the 12th century. the processes of feudal fragmentation of the Kievan state led to the formation of many East Slavic principalities, which formed two stable branches of the Eastern Slavs: eastern (Great Russians or Russians, Russians) and western (Ukrainians, Belarusians). Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians emerged as independent peoples, according to different estimates, after the conquest of the East Slavic lands by the Mongol-Tatars, the yoke and collapse of the Mongol state, the Golden Horde, that is, in the 14th–15th centuries. The state of Russians is Russia (at European maps called Muscovy) - initially united the lands along the upper Volga and Oka, the upper reaches of the Don and Dnieper. After the conquest in the 16th century. Kazan and Astrakhan khanates, the Russians expanded the territory of their settlement: they advanced to the Volga region, the Urals, and Siberia. After the fall of the Crimean Khanate, Ukrainians settled the Black Sea region and, together with the Russians, the steppe and foothill regions North Caucasus. A significant part of the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands was in the 16th century. as part of the united Polish-Lithuanian state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and only in the mid-17th–18th centuries. found itself once again annexed to the Russians for a long time. The Eastern Slavs were able to more completely than the Balkan Slavs (who were either under Greek spiritual-intellectual or Ottoman military-administrative pressure) and a significant part of the Germanized Western Slavs, preserve the features of their traditional culture, mental-psychic makeup (non-violence, tolerance, etc.) .
A significant part of the Slavic ethnic groups that lived in Eastern Europe from Jadran to the Baltic - these were partly Western Slavs (Poles, Kashubians, Slovaks) and partly southern Slavs (Croats) - in the Middle Ages formed their own special cultural and historical area, gravitating towards Western Europe more than than to the southern and eastern Slavs. This area united those Slavic peoples who accepted Catholicism, but avoided active Germanization and Magyarization. Their position in the Slavic world is similar to a group of small Slavic ethnic communities that combined the features inherent in the Eastern Slavs with the features of peoples living in Western Europe - both Slavic (Poles, Slovaks, Czechs) and non-Slavic (Hungarians, Lithuanians) . These are the Lemkos (on the Polish-Slovak border), Rusyns, Transcarpathians, Hutsuls, Boykos, Galicians in Ukraine and Chernorussians (Western Belarusians) in Belarus, who gradually separated from other ethnic groups.
The relatively later ethnic division of the Slavic peoples and the commonality of their historical destinies contributed to the preservation of the consciousness of the Slavic community. This includes self-determination in the context of a foreign cultural environment - Germans, Austrians, Magyars, Ottomans, and similar circumstances of national development caused by the loss of statehood by many of them (most of the Western and Southern Slavs were part of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empire, Ukrainians and Belarusians - in composition Russian Empire). Already in the 17th century. among the southern and western Slavs there was a tendency towards the unification of all Slavic lands and peoples. A prominent ideologist of Slavic unity at that time was a Croat who served at the Russian court, Yuri Krizanich.
At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century. the rapid growth of national self-awareness among almost all previously oppressed Slavic peoples was expressed in the desire for national consolidation, resulting in the struggle for the preservation and dissemination of national languages, the creation of national literatures (the so-called “Slavic revival”). Early 19th century marked the beginning of scientific Slavic studies - the study of cultures and ethnic history southern, eastern, western Slavs.
From the second half of the 19th century. The desire of many Slavic peoples to create their own, independent states became obvious. Socio-political organizations began to operate on the Slavic lands, contributing to the further political awakening of the Slavic peoples who did not have their own statehood (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Poles, Lusatians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Belarusians). Unlike the Russians, whose statehood was not lost even during the Horde yoke and had a nine-century history, as well as the Bulgarians and Montenegrins, who gained independence after Russia’s victory in the war with Turkey in 1877–1878, the majority of Slavic peoples were still fighting for independence.
National oppression and the difficult economic situation of the Slavic peoples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. caused several waves of their emigration to more developed European countries in the USA and Canada, and, to a lesser extent, France and Germany. The total number of Slavic peoples in the world at the beginning of the 20th century. was about 150 million people (Russians - 65 million, Ukrainians - 31 million, Belarusians 7 million; Poles 19 million, Czechs 7 million, Slovaks 2.5 million; Serbs and Croats 9 million, Bulgarians 5 .5 million, Slovenians 1.5 million) At that time, the bulk of the Slavs lived in Russia (107.5 million people), Austria-Hungary (25 million people), Germany (4 million people) , countries of America (3 million people).
After the First World War of 1914–1918, international acts fixed the new borders of Bulgaria, the emergence of the multinational Slavic states of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia (where, however, some Slavic peoples dominated over others), and the restoration of national statehood among the Poles. In the early 1920s, the creation of their own states - socialist republics - was announced - Ukrainians and Belarusians joined the USSR; however, the trend towards Russification cultural life of these East Slavic peoples - which became apparent during the existence of the Russian Empire - was preserved.
The solidarity of the southern, western and eastern Slavs strengthened during the Second World War of 1939–1945, in the fight against fascism and the “ethnic cleansing” carried out by the occupiers (which meant the physical destruction of a number of Slavic peoples, among others). During these years, Serbs, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians suffered more than others. At the same time, the Slavophobes-Nazis did not consider the Slovenes to be Slavs (having restored Slovenian statehood in 1941–1945), the Lusatians were classified as East Germans (Swabians, Saxons), that is, regional nationalities (Landvolken) of German Central Europe, and the contradictions between the Croats and Serbs used to their advantage by supporting Croatian separatism.
After 1945, almost all Slavic peoples found themselves part of states called socialist or people's democratic republics. The existence of contradictions and conflicts on ethnic grounds in them was kept silent for decades, but the advantages of cooperation were emphasized, both economic (for which the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was created, which existed for almost half a century, 1949–1991), and military-political (within the framework of the Warsaw Pact Organization, 1955–1991). However, the era of “velvet revolutions” in the people’s democracies of the 90s and 20th centuries. not only revealed underlying discontent, but also brought in former multinational states to rapid fragmentation. Under the influence of these processes, which swept throughout Eastern Europe, free elections were held in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the USSR and new independent Slavic states emerged. In addition to the positive aspects, this process also had negative ones - the weakening of existing economic ties, areas of cultural and political interaction.
The tendency for Western Slavs to gravitate towards Western European ethnic groups continues at the beginning of the 21st century. Some of them act as conductors of the Western European “onslaught on the East” that emerged after 2000. This is the role of the Croats in the Balkan conflicts, the Poles in maintaining separatist tendencies in Ukraine and Belarus. At the same time, at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries. The question of the common destinies of all Eastern Slavs: Ukrainians, Belarusians, Great Russians, as well as the Southern Slavs, again became relevant. In connection with the intensification of the Slavic movement in Russia and abroad in 1996–1999, several agreements were signed, which were a step towards the formation of a union state of Russia and Belarus. In June 2001, a congress of Slavic peoples of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia was held in Moscow; in September 2002 the Slavic Party of Russia was founded in Moscow. In 2003, the State Community of Serbia and Montenegro was formed, declaring itself the legal successor of Yugoslavia. The ideas of Slavic unity are regaining their relevance.
Lev Pushkarev
Western Slavs — these are Croats, Czechs, Serbs, Obodrits, Lyutichs, Moravians, Slovenians, Slovaks, Slenzanes, Pomeranians, Polyanas, Kujaws, Sieradzians, Lencians, Dulebs, Vistulas, Mazowsans, Prussians, Jatvingians, Wolanians. The Slavs are a kind of community of different peoples.
The Slavs never represented a single whole in the full sense of the word. They, like everyone else ethnic group, there have always been somatological, cultural, linguistic and territorial differences. These initial differences were insignificant for a long time, then they increased due to resettlement and interbreeding with other ethnic groups. After the initial impulses of resettlement, the Slavic unified community broke up into a number of new formations that finally took shape over the following centuries. 
The settlement of the Slavs took place in three main directions: - to the south, to Balkan Peninsula; - to the west, to the Middle Danube and the region between the Oder and Elbe; - to the east and north along the East European Plain. The path to the north was blocked by the sea, as well as lakes and swamps. As a result of the settlement, tribes of the Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs were formed, on the basis of which numerous Slavic peoples later arose. Their fate was different. 
Some of the Slavs moved to the northeast, to the East European Plain, into the dense forest wilds, where there was no cultural heritage - this East Slavs.
They
They left in two streams: one part of the Slavs went to Lake Ilmen, the other to the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper. Others remained in Europe. Later they will get a name southern Slavs
. The South Slavs, the ancestors of the Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, went south to the Adriatic Sea and the Balkan Peninsula and fell into the sphere of influence of the Mediterranean civilization. And the third part of the Slavs - Western Slavs
- these are the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks who moved further west to the Odra and Labe and even further than this river - to the Saale, and in a southwestern direction - to the middle Danube up to present-day Bavaria.
The process of identifying the West Slavic branch began before our era and ended in general terms in the first millennium of our era. The place of settlement of the Western Slavs was the eastern half of the vast region, which from the 1st century BC. e. was called Germany and the border, which in the west was the Rhine, in the south - first the Main River and the Sudeten Mountains, and later the Danube, in the east it was established along the Vistula. The Western Slavs, who from ancient times were subject to different cultural influences than the Eastern Slavs, over time found themselves in new, even more distinctive conditions and in a new environment. The distinction between the Eastern and Western Slavs began in the 10th century, when two competing states emerged - Kievan Rus and Poland. The alienation was also deepened by the fact that in the countries there was Christianity of different rites (Catholicism and Orthodoxy). The connection with the eastern branch of the Slavs weakened also because between it and the western branch the endless and impassable Rokyten swamps stretched on one side, and the Lithuanian Prussians and Yotvingians wedged in on the other side. Thus, the western branch of the Slavs, its language, culture and foreign policy destinies began to further develop independently and independently of the southern and eastern Slavs.
A large group of West Slavic tribes at the end of the 1st and beginning of the 2nd millennium AD. e. inhabited the territory from the Laba River and its tributary the Sala River in the west to the Odra River in the east, from the Ore Mountains in the south and to Baltic Sea in the north. To the west of all, starting from the Kiel Bay, the Obodrits settled, to the south and east along the Baltic coast lived the Lyutichs, and on the island of Rügen, close to the territory of the Lyutichs, lived the Ruyans. Pomeranians related to them lived along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, approximately from the mouth of the Odra to the mouth of the Vistula, in the south along the Notech River, bordering on Polish tribes. Those Slavs who in past centuries occupied vast areas on the Baltic coast are usually called Baltic Slavs. The groups were independent of each other. Only danger forced them to unite for a while with each other or with other West Slavic tribes in tribal unions:
- Bodrichi (military-tribal union), Vagr, Glinyan, Drevani;
- Lyutichs (military-tribal union), Ratari, Ruyans, Slovintsy, Smolintsy;
- Lusatian Lusatian Serbs (military-tribal union), Milchanians;
- Pomeranians, ancestors of today's Kashubians, Slenzans, Bohemians and others.
All these tribes are still called Polabian Slavs
. They lived along the Laba River, hence their name, which was a collective name for a number of small tribes. Each of these groups consisted of smaller tribes, to which belonged the Vetnichi, or Betenchi, Pyzhichan, Volinyan, Vyzhychan, etc., who settled along the banks of small rivers. As a result of the lack of reliable relationships, small tribes were not united into an independent state association. In the second half of the 6th century, at least a third of the lands of the modern German state in the north and northeast were covered by the Polabian Slavs. The Slavs replaced the “Germanic” tribes of the Lombards, Rugs, Lugii, Chizobrads, Varins, Velets and others who lived here in ancient times and headed south from the Baltic Sea coast. The eastern half of Germany (up to the Elbe), significantly deserted with the departure of most of the Germanic tribes living there, was gradually occupied by the Slavs. Confirmation that the Slavs lived in Germany from the very first centuries of our era is the coincidence of the tribal names of the Polabian, Pomeranian and other Western Slavs with the oldest ethnic names known in this territory mentioned in Roman sources. In total, about fifteen such paired, coinciding ancient and medieval Slavic names of tribes living in a given area are known. This is evidenced by the multiple toponyms that they left behind. “German” Berlin is a distorted name for the ancient city of the Polabian Slavs, founded in the 1st millennium BC. e., and in translation meant (burlin) “dam.” 
From the 10th century, German feudal lords began a systematic attack on the Polabian Slavs, first for the sake of receiving tribute, and then with the aim of spreading their power on their lands by establishing military regions (marks). The German feudal lords managed to subjugate the Polabian Slavs, but as a result of powerful uprisings (983, 1002), most of them, with the exception of the Lusatian Serbs, again became free. The scattered Slavic tribes could not provide adequate resistance to the conquerors. The unification of individual tribes under a single princely authority was necessary for their joint protection from the aggression of the Saxon and Danish feudal lords. In 623, the Polabian Serbs, together with the Czechs, Slovaks, Moravians, Black Croats, Dulebs and Horutans, united under the leadership of the merchant Samo to resist the Avars. In 789 and 791, together with the Czechs, the Polabian Serbs again participated in the campaigns of Charlemagne against the Avar Kaganate. Under the successors of Charlemagne, the Polabian tribes several times came out from under Saxon rule and again fell into dependence.
In the 9th century, part of the Polabian Slavs submitted to the Germans, the other part became part of the Great Moravian Empire that emerged in 818. In 928, the Polabian Slavs united to provide successful resistance to the Saxon king Henry the Fowler, who seized the territory of the Polabian-Serbian tribe of Glomacs and imposed tribute on the Luticians. However, under Otto I, the Lusatian Serbs were again completely enslaved by the Germans, and their lands were given into fief ownership to knights and monasteries. In the Polabian lands, German feudal lords were appointed small-scale princes. In 983, the Polabian Slavs rebelled. Their troops destroyed the fortresses built by the Germans and devastated the border areas. The Slavs regained their freedom for another century and a half. 
The Slavic world, both evolutionarily and under the pressure of the Roman Empire, has long passed the stage of tribal structure. It was, although not clearly organized, a system of proto-states. Long wars with the German feudal lords had a detrimental effect on economic development Polabian Slavs, slowed down the process of their formation of relatively large early feudal states. Vendian power
- the early feudal state of the Polabian Slavs: Bodrichi, Lyutich and Pomeranians, existed from the 1040s to 1129 on the Baltic Sea coast between the mouths of the Laba and Odra rivers. It was headed by Gottschalk (1044-1066), the prince of the Bodrichis. Trying to unite the emerging alliance of the Polabian Slavs in the fight against the Billungs and their allies, Gottschalk chose Christianity as the dominant religion for the Obodrites and Lutichians. As a result of his reign, churches and monasteries were revived on the lands of the Obodrite tribes, and departments were restored: in Stargard among the Wagers, in Veligrad (Mecklenburg) among the Obodrites, and in Ratibor among the Polabs. Liturgical books began to be translated into Vendian. The process of Christianization undermined the local power of the Polabian tribal nobility, which was actually removed from governance on the lands of the Vendian state. A conspiracy arose against Gottschalk's policies among members of his family, representatives of the tribal nobility, pagan priests and the Lutichs he conquered. At the head of the conspiracy of the tribal nobility stood Bluss, whose wife was Native sister Gottschalk. In 1066, simultaneously with the removal of Archbishop Adalbert from power and his loss of political influence, an uprising against Gottschalk began in Slavonia, the center of which became the city of Retra, located in the land of the Luticians. “Because of loyalty to God,” the prince was captured and killed in the church by the pagans. They also killed the Mecklenburg Bishop John, whose arms and legs were cut off, and his head was stuck on a spear as a sign of victory and brought as a sacrifice to the gods. The rebels devastated and destroyed Hamburg, as well as the Danish border lands in the Hed region. The popular uprising was suppressed by Prince Henry (son of Gottschalk), he called back the German bishops and ruled as a vassal of the Saxon Billungs. Some tribes, for example, the wounds did not recognize Henry and, together with the Polish princes, continued to fight against German aggression. Weakened by territorial losses and internal dynastic turmoil, the Vendian state finally collapsed around 1129. In the 12th century. The final stage of the struggle of the Polabian Slavs, led by the Bodrichi prince Niklot, began against German aggression, the organizers of which were Henry the Lion and Albrecht the Bear, who sought to finally enslave the Slavs beyond Laboi by the forces of the unique crusaders.
Bishops took part in the campaign, and above all bishops of the Slavic regions, forced after the Slavic uprisings of the late 10th and early 11th centuries. leave their dioceses. These bishops, led by the Bishop of Havelberg, who was appointed papal legate to the crusaders, dreamed of returning the lost tithes and other incomes and lands once granted to them by Otto I. The Danes, who suffered from Slavic raids, and even the Burgundians, Czechs and Polish also joined the campaign. feudal lords. After failure in the first Crusade against the Slavs in 1147, Henry the Lion managed, as a result of subsequent campaigns to the east, to capture almost the entire territory of the Bodrichis and become the owner of a vast territory east of the Elbe. Thus, from 1160, the possessions of the Slavic princes in Mecklenburg became fief-dependent to the Germans. In 1167, the lands of the Bodrichis, with the exception of the County of Schwerin, were returned to Niklot's son Pribislav, who converted to Christianity and recognized himself as a vassal of Henry the Lion. In 1171 he founded the Doberan monastery, allocated funds for the bishopric of Schwerin and accompanied Henry to Jerusalem in 1172. Christianization was for the German feudal lords only a plausible pretext for theft in the Slavic lands beyond the Laba.
The Slavs did not have the organizing politics that the Germans became acquainted with in the south - in the former Rome, having adopted Christianity, and in fact having adopted many of the principles by which the Roman Empire was built. Since the second half of the 12th century, the Polabian-Baltic Slavs have been under German citizenship. This meant for them not only the loss of political freedom, their faith and culture, but also their nationality, since those who were not destroyed began to undergo increased Germanization, consolidated by the reverse colonization by the Germans of those areas in which they once lived in the beginning ad.
From the Oder to the Vistula, those who were named according to their coastal place of residence settled, occupying the territory east of the Oder and to the border of the Prussian region: Pomeranians.
The exact boundaries of the settlement of the Pomeranians are unknown. The border between the Lutichians and the Pomeranians ran along the Oder and separated these hostile tribes. After the collapse of the Lyutich union, some lands of the Lyutichs west of the Oder passed to the Pomeranians, and the territory of their settlement changed. There were other neighbors from the east - the Prussians. The Prussians crossed the borders of this region only in the 12th century, conquering the so-called Pomezania, located between the Vistula and Drwenza. In the 13th century, the lands of the Prussians were captured by the Teutonic Order. A massive influx of Lithuanian and Polish populations into the region began. As a result, at the beginningThe 18th century saw the complete disappearance of the Prussians as a separate nation. In the south, the border between the Pomeranian and Polish regions was the Warta and Notec rivers, but this was only in name, since the actual border was a vast impenetrable virgin forest. Only along the lower reaches of the Vistula did the Poles advance to the areas of Kocevo and Chelmno, and soon they began to advance to the sea...
Pomeranians - this is a union of tribes, which included tribes that differed significantly from each other - these are the Kashubians, who occupied the area from the mouth of the Vistula to Lake Zarnow, extending to the line of Bytov, Lenbork, Miastko, Ferstnow, Kamen, and the Slovinians, who settled near Lake Łebski. In the west, their lands border on Germany. In the Middle Ages, the Kashubians settled in the western regions of Pomerania, in the Parsenta River basin near the city of Kołobrzeg. In the 13th century, Western Pomerania was called Kashubia. The Kashubians are descendants of the ancient Pomeranians, currently living on the Baltic Sea coast, in the northeastern regions of Poland.
The only Pomeranian language that has survived to this day is Kashubian; speakers of other Pomeranian languages have switched to German. The preservation of the Kashubian language was facilitated by the fact that the part of Pomerania west of Gdańsk maintained ties with the Polish state and long time was part of it. Regarding the language of the Pomeranian Slavs, there is still a debate about whether to classify it as a Polish language and consider it only as a dialect of the Polish language, or to classify it as a group of independent languages.
Each region included in Pomerania had its own political center - a city, with the territory surrounding it. Further on there were other, smaller cities.
In the 9th century, some Slavic settlements near the mouth of the Odra, such as Szczecin and Wolin, as well as Kolobrzeg, were transformed into densely built-up settlements, surrounded by fortifications, with trading centers in which auctions were held, for example in Szczecin twice a week. The population - artisans, fishermen, merchants - was mostly free, burdened only by appropriate tributes and duties in favor of public authorities. In some places, aliens settled and enjoyed considerable freedom of action.
Already in the 10th century. from the fortified points around which many Slavic villages were originally located, cities grew up, representing the military-administrative centers of individual tribes or their alliances: Branibor - the center of the Gavolian tribe, Retra - the main point of the four Lutean tribes, Michelin or Mecklenburg - in the land of the Obodrites. These cities in the X-XI centuries. conducted brisk trade with Saxony, Denmark, Sweden and Russia, exporting grain, salt and fish. Gradually, handicraft production also developed in Slavic cities: weaving, pottery, jewelry and construction. The buildings in Slavic cities were distinguished by their beauty, which amazed their contemporaries. Numerous cities of the Western Slavs were built of wood, as later in Rus'. The word “city” itself meant “enclosed space.” Most often, the fence consisted of ditches filled with water, a stream with a changed bed, and ramparts. Shafts are logs covered with earth, into which powerful stakes pointed at the ends were inserted, pointing outward.
Such protective structures reached a height of five (and above) meters, and the same amount in width. It was precisely such settlements that were excavated by German archaeologists. For example, Tornov on the banks of the Spree. In total, a dozen and a half fortifications of the 9th–11th centuries have been excavated to the west of the Oder in the lands of the Polabian Slavs, but this is only a small part of the cities that once existed here.
In the 40s - 60s of the 12th century, Pomerania was a federation of Slavic principalities, headed by the Slavic city of Szczecin, whose decisions were significant for other principalities and cities. Szczecin represented the interests of Pomerania before the Polish prince, seeking a reduction in tribute. The supreme body - the People's Assembly - VECHE met in the city, but the Slavic population also participated in it from the rural surroundings of the city. The will of the prince was adamant for all the Pomeranians: when the prince of the Pomeranians in the winter of 1107-1108, upon meeting with the Polish prince Boleslav Wrymouth, approached Boleslav, bowed before him and declared himself a loyal knight and servant, the Polish prince, without a single battle, was able to annex almost the entire Principality of Pomerania.
The annexation of Pomerania and the Serbian-Lusatian lands contributed to the strengthening of the Slavs in these lands and their subsequent resistance to Germanization. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the princes of Pomerania made campaigns against Poland.
Like all Slavs, the basis of the Pomeranian economy was agriculture and cattle breeding, supplemented by forestry, hunting and fishing. Pomeranians sowed millet, rye, wheat, barley, and at the beginning of the Middle Ages, oats. In the 7th-8th centuries, beef predominated in the diet, but in subsequent centuries it was almost completely replaced by pork. Forestry and hunting were well developed in the spacious forests. Many rivers and lakes and the sea contributed to the development of fishing. In Kołobrzeg, Pomeranians had been brewing salt since the 6th-7th centuries.
Around 1000, Pomeranian saltworks became famous far beyond the borders of Pomerania. Salt was one of the most important items of trade, both imported and exported, depending on its availability in a particular Slavic region. There were areas inhabited by the Slavs where there was no salt, but there were areas rich in this mineral, where the salt trade developed. Salt was known to the Indo-Europeans, who had a common name for it, and from this it follows that the Slavs also knew and used salt already in prehistoric times. We do not know how it was mined in those days, since there are no reports about it; perhaps it was obtained, like other northern peoples, by pouring salt water on burning firewood, from which the ashes mixed with salt were then collected.
The first reports of the Slavs using salt in food and as an item of trade appear only in the 9th century AD. e.; At that time, the Slavs were already using several methods of obtaining salt, depending on the conditions of its location. The coasts of the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seas were dominated by ancient saltworks, where water was evaporated by the sun. They also evaporated water in large iron frying pans, called sartago in Latin sources, and chren, cheren in Slavic sources. To this day, salt is produced this way in Bosnia or Galicia, where salt-bearing raw materials are dug out of pits. Pieces of salt were removed from the frying pans like loaves of bread, then these pieces were divided into parts, for which several ancient terms have been preserved, for example: golvazhnya, pile. Boiled salt was an expensive commodity, so the Varangian salt makers were well armed and united to protect their product on the road, which they traded everywhere. Initially, the Varangians were entirely Slavic, and later their number began to include passionate youth from Scandinavia. The word “Varangian” itself meant “salt maker” from the word variti, that is, to evaporate and cook salt. Hence the name mitten - varega, which was used by salt workers to protect their hands from burns, and later the mitten was also useful in the northern regions in winter to protect their hands from frost. There is another interpretation of the word “Varangian” - from the Sanskrit meaning of the word water - “var”. In this case, “Varyags” means people living near the water, Pomors.
In the 10th century, long-distance trade flourished there. Free tribes of the Pomeranians by the 10th century AD. e. gradually merged into larger unions. Pomorie has contacts with almost everyone European countries. From here grain was exported to barren Scandinavia, and salted herring was exported to the interior of Poland. In addition to connections with Scandinavia, which were supported by the cities of Wolin, Szczecin, Kamen, Kolobrzeg, Gdansk, stable relations were established with Russia and other Slavic lands, among which the internal Polish regions should be especially highlighted. In addition, relations with the Prussians, Byzantium, some Arab countries, England and Western Europe are being improved. Connections with the Prussians manifested themselves not only in the appearance of imported Prussian products, but also in the formation of some new cultural features, for example, the spread of metal frames for knife sheaths, and also, perhaps, in the appearance of some pagan idols. On the other hand, the Prussians adopted the forms of Pomeranian pottery. The influence of Pomeranian ceramic production also spread to Scandinavia. Large shopping centers in Szczecin and Wolin appeared, in which auctions were held in Szczecin, for example, twice a week.
Local production is booming. Quite early, amber beads began to be made here on a lathe. By the 6th or 7th century. refers to a find in Tolishchek: in a clay vessel there were silver rings and beads made of glass, amber and clay, a necklace made of glass beads, and another made of amber, including polished ones. Excavation materials, for example, in Kołobrzeg-Budzistowa indicate that in subsequent centuries, work on amber, bone and horn was carried out by the same artisans or in the same workshops.
Metallurgy and blacksmithing are developing. The basis for the growth of metallurgy was created by swamp, meadow and partly lake ores. The main centers of iron mining were located mainly in villages. Kritsy (kritsa is a loose, spongy iron mass impregnated with slag, from which kritsa or steel is obtained through various treatments) were smelted in furnaces. Charcoal was used for heating. Processing of raw materials took place in the settlement centers; forges also appeared there. In the towns of Radaszcze in Kendrzyno, Wolin, Szczecin, Kolobrzeg and Gdańsk, production workshops producing tin and lead appeared. Rich deposits of silver were discovered in the lands of the Slavs. Among the silver jewelry there are forms that were undoubtedly made in Pomerania.
The territory of free Pomerania passed several times to the power of Poland or Germany, which at that time was part of the Roman Empire. Only in 995 did Pomerania recognize its dependence on the Polish prince Boleslav the Brave. At the beginning of the 11th century (1018), Boleslav the Brave annexed Lusitia to Poland, but already in 1034 it again fell under German rule. During the same period, the Pomeranian lands regained independence for some time. In 1110, the Polish king Boleslav Wrymouth again annexed the Pomeranians, who retained Slavic paganism, to Poland, while the Pomeranian princes did not lose their inheritance.
Polish rule over Pomerania did not last long. The Pomeranians resisted Polish power and raised uprisings over and over again, especially since the Poles not only tried to have political power over the Pomeranians, but also to Christianize them, which caused particular indignation among the latter. In 1005 Wolin rebelled, but by 1008 Boleslav managed to restore his power over Pomerania. But as a result of a new uprising of the Volinians after 1014, Poland’s position in Pomerania weakened again. The previously founded bishopric in Kołobrzeg was liquidated and the process of Christianization of Pomerania was interrupted.
The annexation of Pomerania to Poland in the second half of the 10th century had far-reaching socio-political consequences for these lands. Many cities were destroyed, and some of them, which served as castellan centers in the 12th century, were expanded. Bolesław the Brave located his main church center in Kołobrzeg. In the 12th century, Boleslav Wrymouth managed to subjugate eastern Pomerania with the city of Gdansk to his power, and bring the princes of western Pomerania into political dependence. The emerging Pomeranian principality of Wartislaw largely imitated the structure of the Polish Piast monarchy, borrowing many elements of its system, which was manifested in the functioning of the system of tributes and duties, the organization of the court, administration, courts, etc.
From the end of the 13th century, German feudal lords resumed the consistent seizure of the lands of the Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs, accompanied by their Germanization. In cities it is forbidden to speak the Slavic language, all office work is translated into German, German training is conducted in schools; it is possible to engage in any privileged craft only if you speak German. Such conditions forced the Serbian population to adopt the language and culture of the Germans. Slavic dialects are preserved almost only in rural areas. Due to the devastating wars with the Danes, the Pomeranian feudal lords welcomed the settlement of the devastated lands by the Germans. The most active process of Germanization took place in the western lands of the Polabian Slavs. During the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), more than 50% of the Serbs died here, as a result of which the area of distribution of the Slavs in Germany was significantly reduced. The language of the Slavs and their customs were maintained longest in the Duchy of Mecklenburg and Hanoverian Wendland.
The Western Slavs preserved the pagan tradition for a long time. It received particular development among the inhabitants of Polish Pomerania. The new king of Poland, Boleslav Wrymouth, realized that in order to annex Pomerania to Poland, it was necessary to eliminate religious differences. Bishop Otto of Bamberg volunteered to preach in Pomerania after Boleslav approached him with this request. At first, the pagans show some resistance, but the planting of the new cult is carried out very aggressively, using cruel measures against the adherents of the old days. Having traveled through several cities, Otto arrived in Wolin in 1127. Before that, he visited Shchetin. To discuss the issue of accepting Christianity, countless people were convened in Szczecin - pagans from villages and towns. Some of the noble people of the city, who were already inclined towards Christianity, decided to expel the pagan priests “from the borders of the fatherland” and follow the leadership of Otto in religion. After this, Otto did not meet any resistance in Wolin. The city followed the example of Shchetin, as was customary there, and Otto continued on his way. This was the beginning of the Christianization of Pomerania. Among the Pomeranians it spread along with the adoption of Christianity by Great Moravia and Poland, among the Polabian Slavs - along with the spread of German (Saxon) power. Among the Pomeranians, their discontent with the Poles weakened - now they had one religion.
The main sanctuary of the Pomeranians was located in Szczecin. There were four continuations in the city of Szczecin, but one of them, the main one, was built with amazing diligence and skill. Inside and outside it had sculptures, images of people, birds and animals protruding from the walls, so faithful to their appearance that they seemed to breathe and live. There was also a triple statue here, which had three heads on one body, called Triglav.
Triglav is a three-headed statue whose eyes and mouth are covered with a golden bandage. As the priests of idols explain, main god has three heads, because he oversees three kingdoms, that is, heaven, earth and the underworld, and covers his face with a bandage, because he hides the sins of people, as if not seeing or talking about them. They also had other gods. They worshiped Svyatovit, Triglav, Chernobog, Radigost, Zhiva, Yarovit. Temples and groves were dedicated to the gods. To this day, in the lands inhabited by the Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs, evidence of pagan culture is found. One of them is the Zbruch idol, as well as Mikrozhin runic stones.
The inhabitants of Kolobreg worshiped the sea as the home of some gods. Like other pagans, the Pomeranians brought sacrifices to the gods. But they did not practice human sacrifice.
All Baltic Slavs had priests. But unlike the Lyutichs and Ruyans, the power and influence of the priests among the Pomeranians was not significant. Important information about the level of medicine of that time is provided by Slavic bodily burials of the 10th-12th centuries. Of greatest interest are the most complex operations on the skull—trepanations. They are known in much earlier times - for example, skulls with trepanations are also known from the megalithic culture in Mecklenburg. And if their purpose is not completely clear, and it is assumed that they had a mystical and cult character, then it is unnecessary to talk about the complexity of such operations. The end of Slavic paganism in Polabye was the destruction of the Svyatovit sanctuary in Arkona.
In addition to trepanation itself, symbolic trepanation is also known among the Baltic Slavs. In this case, part of the patient’s skull was not completely removed, but only the top layer of bone was cut or scraped off.
It is believed that head wounds could be “treated” in this way. It is most likely that the operations were carried out by pagan priests. There is no direct medieval evidence of such practices among Slavic priests, but it is known that the Celtic priests were skilled in such healing. The technique of performing such complex operations as trepanation disappeared immediately with the adoption of Christianity - when the priesthood was destroyed. The Slavs maintained the belief that pagan idols could cure diseases. When a plague epidemic broke out in the Pomeranian city of Szczecin, which had just converted to Christianity, the city residents perceived it as the revenge of Triglav, whose idol had been overthrown by Christians shortly before. The widespread epidemics that have plagued Europe since the Middle Ages are directly linked to the fact that, along with the destruction of paganism in Europe, the medical knowledge of the priests, accumulated over thousands of years, was also lost.
Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs by now almost completely assimilated by the German and Polish peoples. Of the numerous tribes that inhabited the vast territories of Polabia in the 6th – 11th centuries AD, only the Lusatians (Federal Republic of Germany) and the Kashubians (Polish Republic) now associate themselves with the Slavs. Currently, Western Pomerania is part of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the rest is Polish territory.
The Slavs are perhaps one of the largest ethnic communities in Europe, and there are numerous myths about the nature of their origin.
But what do we really know about the Slavs?
Who the Slavs are, where they came from, and where their ancestral home is, we will try to figure it out.
Origin of the Slavs
There are several theories of the origin of the Slavs, according to which some historians attribute them to a tribe permanently residing in Europe, others to the Scythians and Sarmatians who came from Central Asia, and there are many other theories. Let's consider them sequentially:
The most popular theory is about the Aryan origin of the Slavs.
The authors of this hypothesis are the theorists of the “Norman history of the origin of Rus',” which was developed and put forward in the 18th century by a group of German scientists: Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, for the substantiation of which the Radzvilov or Königsberg Chronicle was concocted.
The essence of this theory was as follows: the Slavs are an Indo-European people who migrated to Europe during the Great Migration of Peoples, and were part of some ancient “German-Slavic” community. But as a result various factors, who broke away from the civilization of the Germans and found himself on the border with wild eastern peoples, and having become cut off from the advanced Roman civilization at that time, it fell so far behind in its development that the paths of their development radically diverged.
Archeology confirms the existence of strong intercultural ties between the Germans and the Slavs, and in general the theory is more than respectable if you remove the Aryan roots of the Slavs from it.
The second popular theory is more European in nature, and it is much older than the Norman one.
According to his theory, the Slavs were no different from other European tribes: Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gepids, Getae, Alans, Avars, Dacians, Thracians and Illyrians, and were of the same Slavic tribe
The theory was quite popular in Europe, and the idea of the origin of the Slavs from the ancient Romans, and Rurik from the Emperor Octavian Augustus, was very popular with historians of that time.
The European origin of peoples is also confirmed by the theory of the German scientist Harald Harmann, who called Pannonia the homeland of Europeans.
But I still like a simpler theory, which is based on a selective combination of the most plausible facts from other theories of the origin of not so much the Slavic, but the European peoples as a whole.
I don’t think I need to tell you that the Slavs are strikingly similar to both the Germans and the ancient Greeks.
So, the Slavs, like other European peoples, came after the flood from Iran, and they landed in Illaria, the cradle of European culture, and from here, through Pannonia, they went to explore Europe, fighting and assimilating with the local peoples, from whom they came acquired their differences.
Those who remained in Illaria created the first European civilization, which we now know as the Etruscans, the fate of other peoples depended largely on the place they chose for settlement.
It’s hard for us to imagine, but virtually all European peoples and their ancestors were nomads. The Slavs were like that too...
Remember the oldest Slavic symbol that fit so organically into Ukrainian culture: the crane, which the Slavs identified with their the most important task, reconnaissance of territories, the task is to go, settle and cover more and more new territories.
Just as cranes flew into unknown distances, so the Slavs walked across the continent, burning out forests and organizing settlements.
And as the population of the settlements grew, they collected the strongest and healthiest young men and women and sent them on a long journey, as scouts, to explore new lands.
Age of the Slavs
It is difficult to say when the Slavs emerged as a single people from the pan-European ethnic mass.
Nestor attributes this event to the Babylonian pandemonium.
Mavro Orbini by 1496 BC, about which he writes: “At the indicated time, the Goths and Slavs were of the same tribe. And having subjugated Sarmatia to his power, Slavic tribe was divided into several tribes and received different names: Wends, Slavs, Ants, Verls, Alans, Massetians... Vandals, Goths, Avars, Roskolans, Polyans, Czechs, Silesians....”
But if we combine the data of archaeology, genetics and linguistics, we can say that the Slavs belonged to the Indo-European community, which most likely emerged from the Dnieper archaeological culture, which was located between the Dnieper and Don rivers, seven thousand years ago during the Stone Age.
And from here 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.
Around four thousand years BC, it again split into three conditional groups: the Celts and Romans in the West, the Indo-Iranians in the East, and the Germans, Balts and Slavs in Central and Eastern Europe.
And around the 1st millennium BC, the Slavic language appeared.
Archeology, however, insists that the Slavs are carriers of the “culture of subklosh burials,” which received its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel.
This culture existed in the V-II centuries BC between the Vistula and the Dnieper.
The ancestral home of the Slavs
Orbini sees Scandinavia as the original Slavic land, referring to a number of authors: “The descendants of Japheth, the son of Noah, moved to the north of 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 the 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 calls the homeland of the Slavs the lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Pannonia.
The prominent Czech historian Pavel Safarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe in the vicinity of the Alps, from where the Slavs left for the Carpathians under the pressure of Celtic expansion.
There was even a version about the ancestral home of the Slavs, located between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina, and where the Slavic people themselves were formed, in the 2nd century BC, in the Vistula River basin.
The Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis about the ancestral home of the Slavs is by far the most popular.
It is sufficiently confirmed by local toponyms, as well as vocabulary.
Plus, the areas of the Podklosh burial culture already known to us fully correspond to these geographical characteristics!
Origin of the name "Slavs"
The word “Slavs” came into common use already in the 6th century AD, among Byzantine historians. They were spoken of as allies of Byzantium.
The Slavs themselves began to call themselves that in the Middle Ages, judging by the chronicles.
According to another version, the names come from the word “word”, since the “Slavs”, unlike other peoples, knew how to both write and read.
Mavro Orbini writes: “During their residence in Sarmatia, they took the name “Slavs”, which means “glorious”.
There is a version that relates the self-name of the Slavs to the territory of origin, and according to it, the name is based on the name of the river “Slavutich”, the original name of the Dnieper, which contains a root with the meaning “to wash”, “to cleanse”.
An important, but completely unpleasant version for the Slavs states that there is a connection between the self-name “Slavs” and the Middle Greek word for “slave” (σκλάβος).
It was especially popular in the Middle Ages.
The idea that the Slavs, as the most numerous people in Europe at that time, comprised greatest number slaves and were a sought-after commodity in the slave trade, this is the case.
Let us remember that for many centuries the number of Slavic slaves supplied to Constantinople was unprecedented.
And, realizing that the Slavs were dutiful and hardworking slaves in many ways superior to all other peoples, they were not just a sought-after commodity, but also became the standard idea of a “slave.”
In fact, through their own labor, the Slavs ousted other names for slaves from use, no matter how offensive it may sound, and again, this is only a version.
The most correct version lies in a correct and balanced analysis of the name of our people, by resorting to which one can understand that the Slavs are a community united by one common religion: paganism, who glorified their gods with words that they could not only pronounce, but also write!
With words that had sacred meaning, and not by the bleating and mooing of barbarian peoples.
The Slavs brought glory to their gods, and glorifying them, glorifying their deeds, they united into a single Slavic civilization, a cultural link of pan-European culture.
Noun, number of synonyms: 1 Slavic (5) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary
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Books
- Series "Millennium of Russian History" (set of 18 books), . How much do we know about history? own country? The country we live in? The books in the series “Millenniums of Russian History” present the history of our country as a series of riddles and secrets, each volume…
- Educational and methodological complex on the history of the Middle Ages. In 5 books. Book 4. Author's course program. Seminar lesson plans. Reader, Edited by V. A. Vedyushkin. The purpose of the program is to give teachers the opportunity to structure work in such a way that students receive the most complete understanding of the subject being studied. The purpose of the anthology is to provide…