One of the largest cultural, linguistic and national communities of almost all the peoples of Europe are the Slavs. If we consider the origin of the name, it is worth clarifying that scientists divide its origin into several options. In the first, the word “Slavs” comes from “slovo”, that is, from a nationality that speaks one language that is understandable and accessible to them, and others were dumb, inaccessible, incomprehensible, alien to them.
Another existing version of the origin of the name speaks of “purification or ablution,” which implies origin from the people living near the river.
An equally popular theory says that “Slavs” came from the name of the first community of the people, which gave rise to the spread of this word to other territories during the process of emigration, especially during the Great Migration.
Today there are about 350 million Slavs across all territories of various states in the Western, Southern and Eastern regions of Europe, which gave them the division into varieties. Also, Slavic communities are partially located in the territory of modern Central Europe, some parts of America and in small areas throughout.
The largest number of Slavs are Russians and the value of this figure is about 146 million people, the second place in number is occupied by the Poles, whom today experts number about 57 and a half million people, and the third place was taken by Ukrainians with a figure of about 57 million people.
Today, the Slavs are characterized only as a single linguistic family, which is partly united by religion, some cultural values and the past unity of the entire Slavic people. Unfortunately, obvious antiquities, references and relics have not been preserved. One can only feel the unity in folklore, chronicles and epics, which are still relevant for many peoples today.
Eastern Slavs
Russians
Russians - as an independent people of the entire Slavic community, they appeared in the 14-18th century. The main center of education for the entire Russian people is considered to be the Moscow State, which since its creation has united the territories of the Don, Oka, and Dnieper lands. Afterwards, expanding its borders and conquering new territories, it expanded and settled to the coast of the White Sea.
Delving into the history of life, it is important to note the location of Russian settlements. Most often, this affected their standard of living and their way of life. Mostly people were engaged in cattle breeding, agriculture, collecting gifts of nature, especially medicinal herbs, and fishing. Early peoples processed metal and wood, which helped in construction and everyday life. They also engaged in trade, expanding the routes.
Ukrainians
Ukrainians - the first mention of the word “Ukrainians” appeared around the end of the 12th century. Until the 17th century, the nation was located primarily on the steppe territory of the outskirts of Rus', in the Zaporozhye Sich, but due to the increased onslaught of Catholic Poland, the Ukrainians had to flee to the territory of Sloboda Ukraine. Around 1655-1656, Left Bank Ukraine united with Russian territories, and only in the 18th century did Right Bank Ukraine do the same, which determined the liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich and the settlement of Ukrainians right up to the mouth of the Danube.
The traditional life of Ukrainians was often determined by the clay stucco of houses and the variety of household decorations. And a rich spiritual culture is defined and maintained to this day in national clothing, songs and decorations;
Belarusians
Belarusians are a nationality formed in the Polotsk-Minsk and Smolensk lands. During the main formation of the people, the life of culture was especially influenced by the Lithuanians, Poles and Russian nationalities, making the language, history and culture close in spirit to many.
According to some legends, the nationality got its name from the hair color of the indigenous population - “White Rus'” and only in 1850 they officially began to use “Belarus”.
The life and main occupations of the population did not differ from the Russian peoples, so agriculture was predominant. Today, Belarusians have preserved a rich cultural heritage expressed in holiday songs, famous national cuisine and decorations for traditional dresses of men and women.
Western Slavs
Poles
Poles are the indigenous population of modern Poland, belonging to the group of Western Slavs. Czechs and Slovaks are considered to be closest to the Poles in terms of the history of development and formation.
Until the 19th century, there was no single Polish nation; there were only nationalities that were divided according to ethnic characteristics, dialect varieties and territorial characteristics of residence. So the nationality was divided into Velikopolians, Krakows, Mazurs, Pomorians and others.
The main occupation of the Poles was hunting to provide themselves with food and good trade raw materials. Falconry was especially valued. In addition to hunting, pottery, bark weaving and charioteering were used in everyday life.
Chronicles have survived to this day with descriptions of richly decorated houses, finds in the form of painted pottery and, of course, bright outfits made of natural fabrics with painted patterns, which are actively used to celebrate national holidays;
Czechs
Czechs - the territory of the modern Czech Republic was occupied by small Slavic tribes back in the 4th century until the 10th century. After the annexation of these lands to the then strong and powerful Roman Empire, the Czech peoples were reunited as a single whole on fertile lands and began their intensive development in agriculture and pottery. A broad Czech culture has been preserved to this day, expressed in legends, famous folklore and applied art;
Slovaks
Slovaks - at the beginning of the 4th century, isolated tribes of Slavs appeared on the territory of modern Slovakia, beginning the gradual development of these lands. Already in the 5th century, the tribes united and created the Nitra Principality, which saved them from ruin from constant attacks by the Arabs. This unification gave rise to the future Czechoslovak Republic, in the division of which Slovenia appeared into independent states.
The life and occupations of the population were completely diverse, as they were divided depending on the location of the people. These included traditional agriculture and construction, whose existence is still confirmed by archaeologists throughout the country. Small-scale livestock raising was also popular;
Lusatians
The Lusatians are the remaining Polabian-Baltic Slavs, who got their name from the location of their territories of residence, namely from the shores of the Baltic Sea and the Elbe River to the Lusatian Mountains. A certain number of Slavs emigrated to the territory of these lands, numbering only 8 thousand people.
In the new territory, the Lusatian people developed quickly and efficiently, engaging in handicrafts, fishing, farming and developing trade in many areas. The territorial location contributed to such good development. Trade routes passed to the East and Scandinavia through these fertile lands, which helped maintain trade relations and a decent standard of living for the population.
Southern Slavs
Bulgarians
Bulgarians - the first Slavic tribes on the territory of modern Bulgaria appeared in the 5-6th century. Unification and expansion began only in the 7th century thanks to the Bulgars who came from Central Asia. The unification of the two peoples by the then ruling khan made it possible in the future to create a strong state with a rich and eventful history.
The life and cultural heritage of Bulgarians was influenced by Roman, Greek and Ottoman cultures, which each left a visible mark on the history of the country in its own era. Today you can see architectural monuments from different time frames, enjoy folklore, where several varieties of cultures are mixed, which makes it unique and different from others;
Serbs
Serbs are the indigenous people of the South Slavs. It is the Serbs who are considered closest to the Croats in origin, development, and cultural values, since for a long time they were considered one common Serbo-Croatian tribe. The division of history began in the choice of faith - the Serbs adopted Orthodoxy, and the Croats adopted the Catholic faith.
The cultural heritage and development of Serbia as a whole is rich and multifaceted. In addition to folk, world-famous dances, impressive outfits, distinguished by bright colors and embroidery, in Serbia even today some pagan rituals are honored, which took their basis during the development of the people before the arrival of the main faith - Orthodoxy;
Croats
Croats - mass migration in the 6-8th century to the Adriatic coast made it possible for the Slavic peoples not only to expand the number of the first settlers who inhabited the territory of the future Croatia, but also to strengthen their position by uniting with local communities. The ancient Croatian tribes who came from the Vistula reconquered the coast, bringing their language, a different faith and radically changing the local way of life. The Adriatic Sea was considered a good opportunity for trade and expanding relations between peoples, so the area on the coast has always attracted various settlers.
In Croatia, ancient traditions and the modern rhythm of life are still wonderfully combined. Rich culture brings its own rules to modern life, decorations, traditional holidays and celebrations;
Slovenians
Slovenes - the 6th century, as a time of active migration, became the basis for the peoples of Slovenia. The Slavs who moved to the territory founded practically the first Slavic state - Carantania. Later, the state had to give the reins of government to the Franks who conquered them, but despite this they retained their history and independence, which undoubtedly influenced further development and religion. Another important step in the development of Slovenia was the writing of the first chronicle around the year 1000 in the Slovenian language.
Despite periodic wars and periodic economic losses, the country was again and again able to resume its usual way of life and way of life thanks to widely developed agriculture and applied arts, which made it possible to establish trade with neighboring communities and states.
Today Slovenia is a country with a complex but rich history, maximum security and wide hospitality for every visitor who wants to get acquainted with beautiful views in the spirit of ancient Europe;
Bosnians
Bosnians - despite the fact that the territory of the future country of Bosnia was also settled by the Slavs in the 6-7 centuries, it was the last to form an integral and unified state, government and adopted Christianity as practically a single religion. Historians claim that isolation from neighboring countries - Byzantium, Italy, Germany - was a hindrance to this. But despite this, the country flourished thanks to extensive agriculture, which was facilitated by the location of its central part on the Bosna River.
Despite its rather difficult history, the country is distinguished by its vibrant cultural heritage and its maintenance for its descendants. Having visited the country, anyone can get acquainted with it and immerse themselves in its interesting history.
Disputes about the Slavic peoples and the unity of the Slavs.
Being the largest nationality in all of Europe, scientists from different fields still argue about the true origin of the Slavic people. Some suggest their origin began with the Aryans and Germans, some scientists even suggest the ancient Celtic origin of the Slavs. One way or another, the Slavs are today an Indo-European people, who, due to resettlement, have spread over a vast territory and unite many countries and peoples with their cultural heritage, despite their differences in mentality, nationality and the versatility of the development of history.
Customs and traditions have helped to form entire states, uniting and strengthening over the centuries, which has given us cultural diversity in the modern world.
M. 1956: New Acropolis, 2010. M. Book one. History of the ancient Slavs. Part IV. Eastern Slavs.
Chapter XVII. Eastern Slavs and ethnic composition ancient population of Eastern Europe.
Territory Eastern Slavs. First neighbors: Thracians and Iranians.
About how differentiation occurred in the Slavic ancestral home, dividing the Slavs, previously linguistically almost united, into three large groups - western, southern and eastern. In the ancient Slavic ancestral home of the Western Slavs, only the Poles firmly settled, then the remnants of the southern Croats and Serbs, and in the east - part of the Eastern Slavs, who differed linguistically from other Slavs in a number of phonetic, grammatical and lexical features.
The most characteristic among them is the transition of the Proto-Slavic tj and dj in the sound “ch” and “zh”, emergence of full-voice groups wow, olo, ere, ele from Proto-Slavic or, ol, er, el. For example, a group such as tort, which in South Slavic languages is represented by trat, in Czech trat, in Polish trot, in Russian corresponds to the group torot; the tert group also corresponds to teret, and the change in the old vowels b and b (ers) in —her about . We can supplement these three facts with many others, less important and less obvious1.
The ancestral home of the Eastern Slavs there was an eastern part Proto-Slavic cradle: the entire Pripyat basin (Polesie) , then the territory on the lower river Berezina, on the Desna and Teterev, Kiev region, And all of present-day Volyn, where there were the most favorable conditions for existence. From the beginning of our era, the homeland of the Eastern Slavs was quite extensive, since in the 6th and 7th centuries we already see large number Slavs in the north, on Lake Ilmen, and in the east, on the Don, near the Sea of Azov, “’Άμετρα εθνη”, - Procopius says about them (IV.4). “Natio populosa per immensa spatia consedit,” Jordanes simultaneously notes (Get., V.34), when he writes about the conquests of Germanarich until 375. There can be no question that the ancestral home of the Russian Slavs was ever in the Carpathians. This was once tried to be proven by I. Nadezhdin, and later with even greater diligence by Professor Ivan Filevich, but to no avail2.
Initially there were no Slavs in the Carpathians at all, but in the Slavic ancestral homeland, in the closest proximity to the Carpathian Mountains, were the ancestors of the South Slavic Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians . Eastern Slavs came to the Carpathians later, after leaving Bulgarians , namely, in the 10th century . I also exclude the possibility of the Eastern Slavs coming to their homeland, the Dnieper, only in the 3rd century AD, after the departure of the Goths, as A. Shakhmatov tried to prove, or in the 5th–6th centuries, as I.L believed based on archaeological data . Peach3. Such a movement, of which there is not the slightest mention in history, is completely excluded for that era.
Couldn't be more convenient places for a cradleEastern Slavs than on the Middle Dnieper . This is probably the most convenient place on the entire Russian Plain . There are no continental mountains here, but there are endless forests and a dense network of navigable rivers. This water network connects like remote areas the vast East European Plain, and the seas surrounding it: the Baltic, Black and Caspian. Even now, after the destruction of many forests and reclamation work, there is enough water everywhere, but a thousand years ago there was much more. Everywhere during the spring flood itself, and at other times dragged 4 boats passed from one river to another , from one large water basin to another and in this way from one sea to another. Such waterways running in all directions and connected by portages, in ancient Rus' there were a lot. But the most famous of them was the Dnieper route, connecting the Black Sea and Constantinople with the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia, that is three ancient cultural worlds: the East Slavic world, Greek and Scandinavian-Germanic.
Having entered the mouth of the Dnieper, boats with goods or people were sent along this path up to the rapids between Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhye) and Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). Then the boats swam across the rapids or were dragged around the shore, after which a clear path opened up before them all the way to Smolensk. Before reaching Smolensk, they turned along the small tributaries of the Usvyat and Kasple to the Dvina and then were dragged along the Lovat, along which they freely went to Lake Ilmen and further along the Volkhov River, past Veliky Novgorod, to Ladoga, and then along the Neva to the Gulf of Finland.
Pripyat River basin and Pinsk Polesie
Along with this direct route, boats could sometimes be directed in other ways; yes, in the west they could turn to the Pripyat and along its tributaries go to the Neman or to the Western Dvina, and along it to the Gulf of Riga or in the east go to the Desna and Seim and further to the Don 5.
From the Desna it was possible along the rivers Bolva, Snezhet, Zhizdra, Ugra,Oke to reach the Volga , which was the largest cultural artery; Finally, other routes followed the latter, connecting the Dnieper near Smolensk with the north (volok) and Volga tributaries Vazuza, Osmaya, Ugra and Oka 6.
Obvious meaning East Slavic homeland on the middle Dnieper, located on the great cultural, trade and colonization routes, at the most important junction of the intersecting trade roads. If in such a place lived a strong people who could preserve and use the advantages provided to them by the land, then great prospects opened up for the Slavic people in the future both from a cultural point of view and especially from a colonization and political point of view. The eastern branch of the Slavs, who lived for a long time on the middle Dnieper , was so strong that she could begin further expansion from ancient times without weakening the native land , which she did.
However, the successful development of the Eastern Slavs was determined not only exclusively favorable location of the area, on which they developed, but also because in their neighborhood over a very large area there were no people who would offer any noticeable resistance to their spread or he could conquer them firmly and for a long time. Thus, relative passivity and the weakness of neighbors was the second condition , which contributed to the development of the Eastern Slavs.
Only in the west there were strong and unyielding neighbors. These were Poles, who not only resisted, but also successfully, albeit later, in the 16th century, the Lithuanian and Russian lands were polonized. Russian border in the west almost hasn't changed and is currently almost in the same place where it was 1000 years ago, near the Western Bug and San 7.
In other places the neighbors of the Eastern Slavs retreated before their onslaught, Therefore, we need to get to know them and, in particular, establish their original places of settlement. We are talking about the Thracians and Iranians.
Thracian Slavs north of the Danube, in the basin of the Carpathian Mountains
Thracians , just like the Iranians, they supported close relations with the Proto-Slavs , as evidenced by belonging languages to the Satem group of languages, different from the Centum group of languages. Along with this, other data indicate that the ancestral home of the Thracians was originally located significantly to the north of their historical habitats and fit north of the Danube, in the basin of the Carpathian Mountains , and further in the mountains themselves, where the toponymy of the main mountain ranges is clearly not Slavic (Carpathians, Beskydy, Tatra, Matra, Fatra, Magura) and where Even in Roman times, there lived tribes known under the collective name of Dacians . Probably these are the ones the Thracian Dacians were the original neighbors of the Slavs, as evidenced by the presence in their languages of a certain amount of conspicuous phonetic and lexical similarities 8. As an example, I will only point out the suffix common to both language areas - hundred in the names of rivers.
Everything indicates that The southern neighbors of the Slavic ancestral home were originally the Thracians, who lived in the Carpathians and on their northern slopes. Only later, between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. e. some Gallic tribes appeared from the west, and with them Scytho-Gothic tribes who were the first to announce the movement of the Germanic wave, if only they (the Scythian-Gothic tribes) were indeed Germanic tribes. The last to penetrate the Carpathians were individual Slavic tribes, whose presence here is apparently indicated by Ptolemy’s map (Sulany, Care, Pengits), as well as the name of the Carpathians “Οόενεδικά όρη”.
The Thracians were neighbors of the Slavs to the east between the Carpathians and the Dnieper
In addition to the Carpathians, the Thracians were neighbors of the Slavs in areas extending further to the east between the Carpathians and the Dnieper. I believe that the tribes related to the Scythians - Κιμμέριοι) , who lived in this territory before the arrival of the Scythians and were forced out by them partly to the Crimea (Taurs?), and partly to the Carpathian Mountains, where Herodotus at one time knew the Thracian tribe of Agathyrsians (in present-day Transylvania), are Thracians, since simultaneously with the invasion of the Scythians at the end of the 8th and beginning of the 7th century BC. in Asia Minor there appears a people called in Assyrian sources (gimirra), and in Greek also by another name - "TriROS" — « Τρήρες ", therefore, the name of a famous Thracian tribe9. It is very likely that Himirra in Asia Minor represented part of the pushed back Scythians to Asia Minor.
Iranians. Other neighbors of the Eastern Slavs in the south of the ancient Russian ancestral home there were Iranians. The fact that it was the Iranian element that has long maintained ties with the Proto-Slavs is evidenced by the mentioned linguistic coincidences in the Satem language group 10. However historical evidence confirming this, until the 8th century BC. not available. Based on historical sources, we can attribute to this and the period that followed it the appearance of Iranians in the southern Russian steppes, who dominated here until the arrival of the Huns. These were the Scythians, and after them the Sarmatians.
The first Iranian wave to pour into these lands in the 8th–7th centuries BC. uh ., and probably even earlier, there were Scythians ; detailed description of them settlements and Scythians in the 5th century BC. e. left us in his fourth book (lived 484–425 BC) , which visited north shore (Black Sea). According to the idea, it occupied a space limited to , in the east – , beyond which the Sarmatians lived even further to the east, and in the north - a line stretching from the origins Dniester (Danastris; Tiras river) and Bug through the Dnieper rapids to Tanais (Don) (Herod., IV. 100, 101).
Pechenegs — new wave Turkic-Tatar tribes20 began its movement from the territory between Volga and Yaik , where they previously lived, already at the beginning of the 9th century, but the first raids on Slavic Rus' were made only in the 10th century, which is confirmed by the Kyiv Chronicle, where under the year 915 we read: “ The first Pechenesi came to the Russian land, and made peace with Igor, and came to the Danube.” The Pechenegs completely undermined the influence and power of the Khazar state, and from the second half of the 10th century we already read about their constant wars with the Russian princes. The ties between both peoples were so close that the Pechenegs, according to Arabic reports, learned to speak Slavic 21. The fight with the Pechenegs ended only after they were pushed out of the Russian steppes by new enemies - tribes related to the Pechenegs, the Torks, or Uzes, and then the Cumans, or Cumans . For the first time torques Pliny and Pomponius Mela are mentioned, then in the 6th century John of Ephesus, not far from Persia22, but in In 985, the Kiev prince Vladimir was already undertaking a campaign against the Bulgarians in alliance with the Torques. Thus, Torques were already on the Volga and came to Europe at the beginning of the 11th century, pressed by the Polovtsians and, in turn, displacing the Pechenegs. The Pechenegs, who suffered a serious defeat near Kiev in 1036, came to the Danube, and soon, in the middle of the 11th century, and to Bulgaria, where a huge mass followed them in 1064 torques . Another part torques under the name of Black Klobuks, she remained with the Polovtsians in the Russian steppes .
The later raids of the Cumans and Tatars go far beyond the scope of our presentation. But even from what has been said, it is clear with what difficulty the Slavs moved south. P the movement of the Slavs and their advanced colonies were constantly attacked by more and more waves of Turkic-Tatar tribes, of which the last ones are Tatars - were a dam that stopped the advance of the Slavs for a long period. True, even in these conditions and even even before the 10th century the Slavs were moving forward, however, as a result of disastrous Pecheneg and Polovtsian invasion of the Slavs in the 11th and 12th centuries fully were driven out of the area between the Dnieper and the Danube and pushed beyond the Suda River, Ros and into the Carpathian Mountains.
Finns.
On Finnish tribes lived north and east of the Slavs. We don’t know where their ancestral home was, but the latest theories establishing a close connection between and the Proto-Finns, give reasons to look for it close to European homelands of the Indo-Europeans, that is, on the eastern outskirts of Europe, in the Urals and beyond the Urals. It has been established that the Finns have lived since ancient times on the Kama, Oka and Volga, where approximately at the beginning of our erapart of the Finnish tribes separated and went to the Baltic Sea, occupying the shores Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Riga (later Yam, Estonia and Liv) . How far have we come? Volga Finns to Central Rus' and where exactly they first met the Slavs is unknown. This is a question that still cannot be answered accurately, since we do not have data from preliminary work, both archaeological (the study of Finnish graves) and philological - the collection and study of ancient Finnish toponymy of central Russia. Nevertheless, it can be said that the Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Moscow, Vladimir, Ryazan and Tambov provinces were originally inhabited by Finnish tribes and that the Finns previously lived even in the Voronezh province, but we do not yet know how far they moved to the west. IN Oryol province , according to A.A. Spitsyna, there are no traces of Finnish culture anymore 23. In the Kaluga, Moscow, Tver and Tula provinces, the Finns clashed with the Lithuanians. True, Shakhmatov assumed that in the time of Herodotus, the Finns occupied the Pripyat River basin, that they even penetrated from there and in the upper reaches of the Vistula (neuras) , however, the linguistic evidence he provided for this controversial as well as previous linguistic and archaeological theories. The latter have never been sufficiently substantiated to refute the thesis about the Slavic ancestral home between the Vistula and the Dnieper. If we accepted Shakhmatov’s point of view, then in Eastern Europe there would be no place left at all for the cradle of the great Slavic people, since where Shakhmatov places it, between the lower Neman and Dvina , it could not be both for linguistic reasons (toponymy is not Slavic) and according to archaeological data24.
Therefore I cannot help but insist that there were no Finns in Volyn and Polesie , and if the point of view of some philologists is correct, which is that there is no connection at all between the ancient Slavic and ancient Finnish languages, then the Finns during the period of proto-Slavic unity were separated from the Slavs in the north by a strip of Lithuanian tribes (from the Baltic through Smolensk to Kaluga) , and in the east either a strip of uninhabited lands, which were already mentioned by Herodotus, or most likely a wedge of Iranian, possibly Turkic-Tatar, tribes. Finnish connections with the Slavs were established only after the eastern Slavs already at the beginning of our era advanced in the north beyond the upper reaches of the Dnieper, and in the east beyond the Desna and Don, when the Finns began to move north, to the Baltic Sea. But even in this case, the Finns did not influence the entire Russian land, since the Russian language as a whole, with the exception of the northern and eastern outskirts of Russia, is not influenced by the Finnish language. However, these are all linguistic problems; We must leave judgment about them and their resolution to specialists - philologists.
We can speak more definitely about the appearance of the Finns in history only from the 1st century AD. e. Although we have a number of references and ethnic names indicating the presence of Finnish tribes in the Don and Volga regions five or six centuries before this time, it is impossible to say with certainty about some of them whether they are Finnish. Budins – the numerous tribe that lived between the Desna and Don are most likely Slavs. Finns, apparently, are also melanchlenes, androphages and Herodotus (Herod., IV.22, 23). Name comes first Fenni Tacitus (Germ., 46), followed by Ptolemy (III.5, 8, φίννοι). Otherwise, Ptolemy's map contains the same data as Herodotus. Among the peoples he listed, there are undoubtedly Finnish ones. This is also evidenced by the name Volga – “Ra” (’Ry) (cf. Mordovian rhau - water)25 - but we cannot say which of them were Finnish.
In the 4th century AD e. Jordan in the news about the peoples whom he conquered before his death, along with Lithuanians (Aestians) gives a number of names, mostly distorted and inexplicable, among which, however, there are several obvious names of later Finnish tribes.26 Thus, under the name Vasinabroncas should be understood all, and probably Permian; under names Merens, Mordens - Merya and Mordovians. This to some extent also includes the name Gothic name - Thiudos , since from it a Slavic (Russian) collective name for Finns arose - Chud 21.
Important messages about the neighborhood of Finns and Slavs , dating back to the 9th–10th centuries, are available only in the Kyiv Chronicle. The Slavs by that time had advanced to Lake Ilmen, Neva, Ladoga, Vladimir, Suzdal, Ryazan and the lower Don and everywhere they came into contact with Finnish tribes. The chronicler knows three groups of Finnish tribes: 1) near the Baltic Sea, 2) near the Volga and then 3) in the north, “beyond the portages,” in the Oka forests (Zavolochskaya Chud). Separately, the chronicle names tribes near the Baltic Sea: actually Chud and Liv in the south of the Gulf of Finland (the neighboring water is not mentioned in the Kyiv Chronicle), then eat or yam in present-day Finland; further “behind the portages” near Belozero was the entire somewhere near the Dvina in Biarmia of Scandinavian sources - Perm, and even further to the northeast - Yugra, Ugra, Pechora and Samoyad.
In the 13th century to the north of the Emi, Karelians are mentioned. They belonged to the eastern Volga group cheremisy, previously lived further west than now, mainly in the Kostroma province; Mordovians - in the Oka River basin (now further east); in the north their neighbors were Murom tribes on the Klyazma River, Merya on the Rostov and Kleshchinskoye lakes between the Volga and Klyazma and to the south of the Mordovians the Meshchera, which later ceased to exist28.
We can establish that wherever the Slavs in their advance came into contact with these tribes, the Finns always retreated and were generally very passive. Although the struggle was carried out, the Finnish element behaved passively and constantly ceded his land to the Slavs. Already Tacitus mentions the lack of weapons among the Finns, and the designation of Jordan "Finni Mitissimi" (Get., III.23) is also not unreasonable. Another reason for the weakness of the Finnish tribes was, obviously, sparsely populated , the complete absence of any strong concentration of the population around certain centers, and this was precisely the superiority of the Slavs, who had strong starting positions in the rear of their advance, organized Varangian-Russians.
Only one Finnish tribe achieved major successes, subjugating a large number of Slavs, and then probably because it was previously subject to strong influence Turkic-Tatar culture. These were Magyars - people related to the Ostyaks and Voguls from the Ob, who went south approximately in the 5th–6th centuries. At the beginning of the 9th century they appeared near the Don in the neighborhood of the Khazars, in an area called Swan . From there about 860 year Magyars moved to southern Moldova (to an area called Athelkuza) and then, after several invasions to the Balkans and Pannonia, around 896, settled for a long time in the Hungarian lowland , Where Magyars penetrated through the eastern or northern Carpathian passes. Further history Magyar is already associated exclusively with the Western and Southern Slavs.
Lithuanians.
Lithuanians have lived since ancient times by the Baltic Sea. This is indicated by linguistic data on the relationship Lithuanian language to the languages of other Indo-European peoples , then topographical nomenclature, as well as all historical data. Long-term close ties between Lithuanians and Slavs can be considered a scientifically established fact, and existence of Balto-Slavic unity during the period when the remaining Indo-European peoples had already divided into separate branches, can also be considered indisputable, despite the doubts expressed by A. Meillet29. But even if there was no absolute unity, it was only with the Slavs that they had such close relationships that led to the formation two dialect areas unified Balto-Slavic region , and the peoples of both regions understood each other well. It is difficult to say when the final division took place here. True, based on the fact that the word passed into the Slavic language from the Iranian language churn (chicken), which is absent in the Lithuanian language, or on the basis that the Finnish name for honey (Finnish hunaja) passed into the Lithuanian language (cf. Lithuanian vârias vargien, Latvian varč - honey), while the Slavic language has its own word “honey”, it was concluded that during the arrival of the Scythians in southern Rus' and even earlier, at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e., in the Bronze Age, both peoples - Slavs and Lithuanians already lived separately 30. However, such evidence for determining the date of the division of these peoples is completely unconvincing at the present time, except for the fact that at the beginning of our era this division had already occurred here. We can only say that both the Slavic tribes and the Lithuanians represented independent associations at that time.
It is also impossible to give an exact answer to the question of where the border between the two peoples originally lay. The present territory of Lithuania and Latvia is separated from the Germans, Russians and Finns by a line stretching from the sea, starting from the mouth of the Memel through Goldap, Suwalki, Grodno, Druskeniki on the Neman, Vilnius, Dvinsk (Daugavpils), Lucin (Ludza) to Lake Pskov and further through Valk (Vulka) back to the sea to the Gulf of Riga31. This territory is insignificant in comparison with the territory occupied by the Germans or Slavs neighboring Lithuania and Latvia. The population is also small: according to statistical data for In 1905, there were slightly more than 3 million Lithuanians and Latvians in Russia. But initially the Lithuanians were not so few in number. The territory they occupied once extended in the west all the way to the Vistula (Lithuanian Prussians) , and in the north before the arrival of the Finns - all the way to the Gulf of Finland; the border separating them from the Proto-Slavs and Proto-Finns also ran much further from the sea than it does now.
In 1897, Professor Kochubinsky, based on an analysis of the topographic nomenclature of present-day Belarus, tried to determine territory of prehistoric Lithuania 32. Many shortcomings were noted in his work, and indeed, Kochubinsky's knowledge of the Old Lithuanian language was insufficient to solve such a difficult problem. It should also be noted that the newest linguists were looking for Celtic nomenclature in the Neman and Dvina basin and that A.A. Shakhmatov even considered such names as Neman, Viliya, which were previously considered Lithuanian, as Celtic33.
However, despite this, it can be said with confidence that the territory of present-day Belarus was originally largely inhabited by Lithuanians, that the ancient Lithuanians penetrated to the Lomzha Polesie, to the northern part of the Pripyat River basin and to part of the Berezina River basin, and that on the Dvina they went so far east34 that somewhere in the territory of the former Moscow province they encountered the Volga Finns, which is also confirmed by numerous examples similarities in the Lithuanian language and the language of the Volga Finns. Even the famous Lyadinsky burial ground near Tambov was declared by archaeologists a monument of Lithuanian culture, which, however, is very doubtful. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt that in the 12th century on the Protva River people lived in the Moscow province of Lithuanian origin - loach, - apparently representing the remnants of the original Lithuanian inhabitants of this area, and also that back in the 13th century, Lithuanian settlements were located at the sources of the Dvina, Volga, on Vazuza and in parts of the Tver and Moscow provinces35. The appearance of loach here is explained by the fact that a wide wedge of Slavic colonization, moving forward with great effort, cut through the area occupied by the Lithuanians and separated them from the Volga Finns.
In history, Lithuanians first appear under the name “Ostiev” (Ώστιαΐοι) in Pytheas36, if, of course, we assume that the Aestii of Tacitus’ “Germany” are Lithuanians and that later their name was transferred to the Finns who came to the Gulf of Finland. This explanation, although accepted, is not at all necessary37.
Ptolemy in his map of Sarmatia (III.5, 9, 10) gives a large number of names of tribes along the Baltic Sea coast, and some of them are undoubtedly Lithuanian. However, we cannot say which of these names are indisputably Lithuanian, with the exception of two - Galinday — Γαλίνδαι and Soudinoi - Σουδινοί. Galinday identical with Russian golyad and with the name of the Galindia region, which is known to later historical sourcesin East Prussia , in the area Mazurov . Soudinoi - Σουδινοί identical to the name of the region Sudavia , located next to Galindia towards Suwalki. Finally, and Borovsky — Βοροΰσκοι , erroneously placed by Ptolemy far into Sarmatia, are Lithuanian tribe Boruski (Prussia - Borussia) . But, however, the name Oueltai - ’Ουέλται is not identical, as Müllenhoff believed, to the name Lithuania, but is Slavic name veleta 38.
After Ptolemy, a long period of time passed when there was no news of Lithuania. Only Russian chronicles, primarily the ancient Kiev one, give us a description of Lithuania as it was known Russians in the 10th and 11th centuries . During that period the Prussians lived off the coast of the Varangian Sea, occupying an area stretching east from the lower Vistula and Drvenets. Further to the east are the Lithuanians themselves, to the north of them and to the west of Polotsk zimegola , then on the right bank of the Dvina River letgoal ; south of the Gulf of Riga, by the sea, lived Korsi tribe , finally, somewhere else, in a place not exactly identified, a tribe called narova, noroma (neroma) 39. I have already mentioned above about the Golyad tribe, localized on the Protva River, separated from the rest of the Lithuanians.
In a later period, there was a further movement of tribes and a change in their names. The Prussians began to disappear from the 13th century, especially after they were finally enslaved in 1283. Even in the 16th century, the Prussian language eked out a miserable existence, and already in 1684, according to Hartknoch, there was not a single village where Prussian was understood. Lithuania was divided into two parts: Upper Lithuania (in the region of Neman and Vilia), called Aukshtot, and Nizhnyaya (west of Nevyazha) Samogitia, in Polish – zhmud. Galindia and Sudavia in East Prussia have already been mentioned above.
The last significant tribe in the 13th century wereYatvingians (in Polish Jadzwing). This tribe is known, however, in the Kyiv Chronicle from Vladimir’s campaign against them in 983 , however, where this tribe lived, only the later chronicles of the 13th century say, placing it for the Narev and Bobru rivers , to lake areas Prussia , where they had arrived shortly before from their original settlements further to the east40. Thus, Yatvingians lived in Polesie, and current Russian and Polish Poleshans (Pollexiani in the Polish Chronicle) – descendants of the Yatvingians. Drogichin on the Bug, however, was not their district, as was previously believed. There is no historical evidence in favor of this, and old archaeological finds in the vicinity of Drogichin, as far as I know, are Slavic in nature.
————————————————- ***
1. See A. Meillet, Le monde Slave, 1917, III–IV, 403.
2.I. Filevich, History of Ancient Rus', I, p. 33, Warsaw, 1896; N. Nadezhdin, Experience in Historical Geography, 1837.
3. A. Shakhmatov, Bulletin de l’Acad. imp. des sc. de St. Petersburg, 1911, 723; I. L. Pic, Staroźitnosti, II, 219, 275.
4. A portage was a low and narrow isthmus between two rivers, through which it was easy to drag a boat with goods from one river to another. In a figurative sense, a portage also called the area where there were such portages, in particular the area at the sources of the Dnieper, Dvina and Volga. Hence, in ancient Rus', the lands beyond this region were called Zavolochye.
5. The Don was connected to the Volga by a well-known portage between Tsaritsyn and Kalach.
6. See N.P. for more details on this. Barsova, Essays on Russian Historical Geography, Warsaw, 2nd ed., 1885.
7. See “Slov. star.”, III, 231.
8. On the basis of this relationship and ancient neighborhood, famous theories about the Slavic origin of the Dacians, which, of course, are erroneous if we consider the Dacians to be Slavs themselves.
9. See “Slov. star.”, I, 217.
10. You should pay attention at least to the words god, vatra, plow, chicken, poleaxe, ax etc.
11. J. Peisker, based on a number of supposed Turkic-Tatar words adopted by the Slavs even before our era, speaks of the cruel slavery from which the Slavs have long suffered while under the Turkic-Tatar yoke. The culprits of this slavery, in his opinion, were starting from the 8th century BC. e. Scythians.
12. See “Slov. star.”, I, 512. Among Russian historians we can name, for example, D. Ilovaisky, V. Florinsky, D. Samokvasov.
14. lord., Get., 119, 120.
15. Theories about the supposed Slavic status of the Huns in historiography, in fact, have already been forgotten. This theory was put forward in 1829 by Yu. Venelin in his essay “Ancient and Modern Bulgarians” (Moscow), and after him by a number of Russian and Bulgarian historians, including at the end of the 19th century V. Florinsky, I. Zabelin and Dm. Ilovaisky. The merit of refuting this theory (at the same time as the Huns, the Bulgarians and Roxolans themselves were also considered Slavs) belongs to M. Drinov, V. Miller and especially V. Vasilievsky (see his work “On the imaginary Slavism of the Huns, Bulgarians and Roxolans”, ZhMNP, 1882–1883 ).
16. Theoph. (ed. Boor), 356, 358; Nicephoros (ed. Boor), 33. In addition to these oldest sources on the history of Bulgaria, among modern works, see first of all Zlatarsky, History of the Bulgarian State, I, Sofia, 1918, 21 151.
17. B In 922 these Bulgarians converted to Islam and maintained close cultural and especially economic relations with the Eastern Slavs. State of the Volga Bulgarians was a granary for Slavic Rus' in times of crop failure and famine. As a result of these connections, there was also a significant mixing of the Bulgarians with the Slavic element, therefore Ibn Fadlan and some others erroneously declared Volga BulgariansSlavs . Arab writers, unlike the Volga Bulgarians designate Western Bulgarians by the name Burdzan .
18. See “Slov. star.”, II, 201–202.
19. Meanwhile, during the 9th century, they also passed through Southern Rus' Ugrians - tribes of Finnish origin who left the Don around 825 and around 860 they found themselves on the lower Danube, finally occupying Hungary at the end of the 9th century (896). See further, on p. 185. Between 851–868, on the way from Kherson to the land of the Khazars, the Slavic Apostle Constantine met them.
20. “The Tale of Bygone Years”, ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1950, vol. I, p. 31.
21. Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, op. op., 58.
23. Notes of the Russian Archaeological Society, vol. XI, new series, St. Petersburg, 1899, p. 188. According to archaeological data, we can currently trace traces of Finnish culture all the way to Tambov, Ryazan, Moscow and the sources of the Volga.
24. See above, p. 30–32, and what I wrote about this in the article “New theories about the ancestral home of the Slavs” (SSN, 1915, XXI, 1). However, in recent works Shakhmatov himself admitted the inadequacy of his evidence (Revue des Etudes slaves, I, 1921, 190).
25. See R. Meckelein. Finn. ugr. Elemente im Russischen. – Berlin, 1914. – 1.12.16.
26. In this place Jordanes writes (Get., 116, 117): "Habebat si quidem quos domuerat Golthescytha, Thiudos, Inaunxis, Vasinabroncas, Merens, Mordens, Imniscaris, Rogas, Tadzans, Athaul, Navego, Bubegenas, Goldas." Among the literature that has paid attention to the interpretation of this passage in Jordan, I will point out the main works: Miilenhoff, Deutsche Altertum skunde, II, 74; Th. Grienberger (Zeitschrift f. d. Alt., 1895, 154) and I. Mik kola (Finn. ugr. Forschungen, XV, 56 et seq.).
27. See Miklosich, Etymologisches Worterbuch, 357. This expression in the mouth of the Slavs originally meant stranger ; Czech cuzi , Russian stranger , Church Slavonic alien are the same word. Russians still call some Finnish Chud tribes .
28. Meshchera is usually identified with the Burtases eastern sources. In the topographic nomenclature of the Oka basin, for example in the vicinity of Ryazan, many traces of their names are still preserved.
29. Meillet, Les dialects indoeuropeens, Paris, 1908, 48 si.
30. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere (VI vyd., 324); Krek, Einleitung in die slavische Literaturgeschichte, Graz, 1887, 216.
31. F. Tetzner (Globus, 1897, LXXI, 381); J. Rozwadowski. Materiały i prace korn. jęz. – 1901.1; A. Bielenstein. Atlas der ethnol. Geographie des heute und prach. Lettenlandes. – Petersburg, 1892; L. Niederle. Slovansky svgt. – Prague, 1909. – 15.
32. A. Kochubinsky, Territories of prehistoric Lithuania, ZhMNP, 1897, I, 60.
33. See above, p. 30. A. Pogodin derives the name “Neman” from the Finnish language.
34. See E.F. Karsky. Belarusians. I. – Warsaw, 1903. – 45, 63.
35.Golyad mentioned in the oldest Russian chronicles (Lavrentievskaya, Ipatievskaya) under 1058 and 1146. See also A.I. Sobolevsky, Izv. imp. acad., 1911, 1051. Part of the lobster, of course, later under pressure from the Slavs moved west to Prussia (Galindia) .
36. Steph. byz. s. v. Ώστιωνες.
37. During that period, the Germans began to cross the name aestiev with Germanic ost (Alfred); Ostland – people in the east, region in the east. 38. See p. 151.
39. PVL, USSR Academy of Sciences, I, 13, 210.
40. N.P. Barsov. Essays on Russian historical geography. – Warsaw, 1885.–40, 234.
Slavic peoples
representatives of Slavic nations, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Yugoslavs, who have their own specific culture and peculiar national psychology. In the dictionary we consider only the national psychological characteristics of representatives Slavic peoples who have lived since ancient times on the territory of Russia.
, (see) and Belarusians (see) are peoples very close to each other in genotype, language, culture, and common historical development. The vast majority of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians live within their historically established ethnic territories. But in other states, in various regions of our country, they are settled quite widely and often make up a significant part of their population.
The Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nations are among the most urbanized. Thus, in Russia, 74 percent of the population is urban, 26 percent is rural. In Ukraine - 67 and 33 percent, in Belarus - 65 and 35 percent, respectively. This circumstance leaves its mark on their psychological appearance and the specifics of their relationships with representatives of other ethnic communities. Young people living in big cities are more educated, technically literate, and erudite. On the other hand, a certain part of them, especially in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Minsk and many other big cities, are susceptible to the vices of the urban lifestyle, such as drunkenness, drug addiction, debauchery, theft, etc. (which, certainly applies not only to representatives of these nations). City dwellers, who grew up, as a rule, in small families, in conditions of everyday comfort, are often poorly prepared for the complexities of today's life: the intense rhythm, increased psychophysiological socio-economic stress. They often find themselves unprotected in interpersonal relationships, their moral, psychological and ethical guidelines are not sufficiently stable.
The study of various sources reflecting the life, culture and way of life of representatives of Slavic nationalities, the results of special socio-psychological studies indicate that, in general, most of them currently have:
A high degree of understanding of the surrounding reality, although somewhat delayed in time from the specific situation;
Sufficiently high general educational level and preparedness for life and work;
Balance in decisions, actions and work activities, reactions to the complexities and difficulties of life;
Sociability, friendliness without intrusiveness, constant willingness to provide support to other people;
A fairly even and friendly attitude towards representatives of other nationalities;
The absence, in normal conditions of everyday life, of the desire to form microgroups isolated from other ethnic groups;
In extreme conditions of life and activity, requiring extreme strain of spiritual and physical strength, they invariably demonstrate perseverance, dedication, and readiness to sacrifice themselves in the name of other people.
Unfortunately, now that Ukraine and Belarus have isolated themselves and are not part of a single state with the Russians, we have to consider the psychology of their peoples separately from the Russians. There is a certain amount of injustice in this, since representatives of these three nationalities, perhaps, have more in common in behavior, traditions and customs than other people. At the same time, this fact once again confirms the unshakable truth: there are concepts of “we” and “they” that still reflect objective reality human existence, which we cannot do without for now.
Ethnopsychological Dictionary. - M.: MPSI. V.G. Krysko. 1999.
See what “Slavic peoples” are in other dictionaries:
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Books
- Noomachia. Wars of the mind. East Europe. Slavic Logos. Balkan Nav and Sarmatian style, Dugin Alexander Gelevich. Slavic peoples starting from the V-VI centuries. according to R.H. played a decisive role in the space of Eastern Europe. This volume of Noomachia examines the Slavic horizon of Eastern Europe, which...
General information. Ethnogenesis. Ethnic divisions.
Material production and culture
Social life and spiritual culture.
Ethnopsychology of the Eastern Slavs.
It is customary to organize the overview of the peoples of the CIS according to large historical and ethnographic regions: Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East.
We will begin our review with the East Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe. The peoples of this region, due to special historical conditions, were destined to play in both the civil and cultural history of all the peoples of the CIS.
The East European Plain, bounded from the north and south by the seas, from the east by the Ural ridge and the steppes of the southern Urals, from the west by the conditional political border with Poland. Despite its enormous extent (about 2.5 thousand km from north to south), individual parts of this region have always been connected with each other by economic and cultural, and later by political ties. In physiographic terms, Eastern Europe can be divided into two main zones: forest in the north and steppe in the south, with an intermediate forest-steppe zone between them. In each of these zones, characteristic economic and cultural types historically developed: in the north, a unique combination of forest farming with hunting and fishing, in the south, a combination of steppe agriculture with cattle breeding.
The main economic and cultural types just mentioned have emerged in Eastern Europe since the Stone Age: archaeologists distinguish here two main types of Neolithic cultures: the agricultural, pastoral and steppe Neolithic and the hunting and fishing forest Neolithic. It is very likely that the main nodes of ethnogenetic processes in Eastern Europe were tied in that distant era - in the III-II millennia BC. e. Science has written evidence about the population of the East European Plain, starting from about the middle of the 1st millennium BC: this is the news of Herodotus and other Greek, and later Roman writers about the tribes of the Scythians, Sarmatians and others who replaced each other in the territory of interest to us . Although specific historical connections between certain ancient peoples and modern ethnic groups is not so easy to establish, but the almost continuous stream of historical evidence, flowing from ancient times to the present day and supplemented in the same way by an almost continuous chain of material archaeological monuments, allows us to make one very important statement: we have before us an undoubted continuity of cultural development on the territory of Eastern Europe throughout observable history, and to a large extent the continuity of ethnic development.
Eastern Europe, as a single historical and ethnographic region, is divided into smaller parts-subregions, each with its own specifics. These sub-regions are: a) the main and central part of Eastern Europe, the territory of the original settlement of the East Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians); b) Baltic states; c) Eastern European North; d) Volgo-Kamye; e) southwestern outskirts of the USSR.
1. General information. Ethnogenesis. Ethnic divisions.
The Russian ethnic group, together with its closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian ones, not only historically played the most important role among other peoples of Eastern Europe (as well as other regions and countries), but also, purely geographically, has long occupied a middle place between other peoples of Eastern Europe. Ethnically, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians form a group of so-called East Slavic peoples. The East Slavic group of peoples is part of the family of Slavic peoples. This family is divided into three main branches: Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs. The South Slavic branch includes Bulgarians with Macedonians, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The West Slavic branch includes, not counting the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian tribes, the Poles and the adjacent but independent small group of Kashubians, then the Lusatian Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks. As for the East Slavic group (branch) of languages or peoples, this group consists of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.
However, the commonality of the Eastern Slavs is not only linguistic. Also culturally, there are very characteristic elements - we will see them later - that create the unity of the East Slavic peoples, in contrast to other Slavic and non-Slavic peoples. But, of course, one cannot imagine the existence of some kind of impenetrable wall between the East Slavic and other Slavic peoples. There is significant commonality between them and there are a number of transitional forms.
The question of the origin of the Slavs. The unity of origin of the Slavic peoples does not raise any doubts. But the question of the origin of the Slavs, despite the huge number of books and articles devoted to it, still cannot be considered completely resolved.
In the past, many scientists, mostly German, tried to prove the Asian origin of the Slavs, linking them with the Sarmatians, Huns and other steppe nomads. Much more serious is the “Danube” (or “Pannonian”) theory, based on the legend about the settlement of Slavic tribes from the Danube, set out in the chronicles. Supporters of the theory of the initial settlement of all Slavs on the Middle Danube also substantiate it with folklore data: “Danube” is mentioned in the songs of all Slavic peoples. However, many European Slavists have long expressed doubts about the correctness of this “Danube” theory and believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought north of the Carpathians, in the Vistula basin, even in the Baltic states.
The work of researchers in the USSR formed the basis of modern concepts about the origin of the Eastern Slavs. These are the following provisions:
that the East Slavic peoples form an inseparable part of the Slavic circle of peoples and, together with the Western and Southern Slavs, are included in the Indo-European family of peoples;
that they were formed in Europe, on the East European Plain, and did not come from somewhere in Asia;
that they have historical roots with the ancient peoples of Eastern Europe.
East Slavic peoples were formed on a heterogeneous ethnic basis.
For the first time in history, the Slavs appear in written sources, not counting controversial and semi-legendary reports, in the first centuries AD. e. under the name of the Wends. The Weneds lived in the Vistula basin and along the shores of the “Wened (Gdansk) Bay” of the Baltic Sea. They write about them in the 1st-2nd centuries. Pliny, Tacitus, Ptolemy; the latter calls them “a very numerous people.” Archaeologists identify the Wends with the bearers of the so-called “Przeworsk” culture of the Vistula and Oder basins. These were, apparently, semi-sedentary farmers and cattle breeders. That the Wends were the ancestors of the Slavs is recognized by almost all scientists. The name “Vends” is probably a Latinized form of the ethnonym “Vend” (“Vent”), “Wind”, which has survived to this day: the Germans still call the remnants of the West Slavic Polabian tribes (Serbian Luzhians) “Vends”, a region formerly inhabited by the Slavs in the lower reaches Elbe-"Wendland"; Slovenes were formerly called “Winds”; Finns call Russians “Vene”.
The name “Slavs” appears in sources for the first time in the 6th century. -writers of that time reported about them: Procopius of Caesarea, Jordan, etc. But only the Western Slavic tribes were then called Slavs, or “Sclavinians.” The Eastern Slavic tribes were called Antes.
Different opinions have been and are still being expressed about who the Ants were and what their relationship was to the later Slavic tribes. There is no doubt that the Antes were Slavs. The Byzantine historian Procopius (VI century) directly writes that the Antes and Slavs, although they often quarrel with each other, speak the same language, and in appearance and in their way of life they do not differ from each other. Both the Slavs and the Antes come, according to Procopius, from the same people - from disputes. Many people associate the name “ant” with the earlier name of the Slavs “Vend” “vened”. Jordan directly indicated that Antes, Slavs and Vinids are different names for one people. After the 6th century the name of the Antes disappears from written sources. Some believed that they were exterminated in the wars with the Avars, but it is more correct that the Antes disappeared among the East Slavic tribes.
East Slavic tribes IX-X. centuries known to us only in the Tale of Bygone Years, supplemented by some other written sources. The chronicle will give a list of the dead tribes and indicate their geographical location. The East Slavic tribes mentioned by the chronicler were distributed in approximate order from south to north as follows: Ulichs, Tivertsy, Croats, Volynians (formerly Dulebs), Polyans, Drevlyans, Northerners, Vyatichi, Radimichi, Dregovichi, Krivichi, Novgorod or Ilmen Slovenes. Among the listed East Slavic tribes, there were apparently groups of a real tribal type, and more complex and larger formations that formed during the collapse of the tribal system, during resettlement. The first could include, for example, the Ulichs, Tivertsy (about these two tribes, already in the 11th century, only vague memories were preserved), Dulebs (even earlier, probably, dissolved in purely geographical associations of Volynians and Buzhans), Radimichi (patronymic name); to the second - the mentioned Volynians and Buzhanians, the later Polovtsians, etc. Many “tribes” of the Kievan Chronicle have behind them long history, and their names indicate connections with the southern and western Slavs (they are probably older than the division of the Slavic main branches), even with non-Slavic ethnic groups.
Kievan Rus and Old Russian people. In the 9th-10th centuries, the East Slavic tribes were united under the rule of the Kyiv princes into the state of Rus (Kievan Rus). Its formation was accompanied by the collapse of old tribal ties. Already in the 11th century. the names of almost all former tribes disappear from the pages of the chronicle; The Vyatichi were mentioned for the last time in the 12th century. By this time, instead of tribes, there were regional groups corresponding to the feudal principalities: Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Smolyan, Kuryan, Galician, Vladimir.
There is absolutely no doubt that in the era of Kievan Rus there was national unity: there was a Russian nationality, which modern Soviet historians prefer to call “Old Russian nationality” to avoid misunderstandings. These were neither Great Russians, nor Belarusians, nor Ukrainians.
The question of the origin and existence of the Old Russian ethnos is still largely unclear. Most researchers share the conclusions of Academician B.A. Rybakova. In his research, he showed, first of all, the presence of a consciousness of unity (self-awareness) of the “Russian land” both in the era of the Kievan state and even later, in the Golden Horde era. The concept of “Russian land” covered the entire East Slavic territory, from the lower reaches of the Danube to Lakes Ladoga and Onega, from the Upper Western Dvina to the Volga-Oka interfluve inclusive. This “Russian land” was the area of settlement of the ancient Russian people in the 9th-14th centuries. But it is very interesting that at the same time, in the same era, there was a narrower meaning of the term “Rus”, corresponding only to the southeastern part of the Russian (East Slavic) ethnic territory - the Middle Dnieper: Kyiv, Chernigov, Pereyaslav and Seversk lands; this territory in many cases was contrasted as “Rus” proper to all other East Slavic lands. According to the very plausible opinion of B.A. Rybakov, this narrower meaning of the term “Rus” was preserved from the previous era, more precisely from the 6th-7th centuries, when there was a strong tribal union just in the Middle Dnieper region; this is proven both by written information about the Rus Rus tribe in the 5th-6th centuries, and by archaeological data. This tribe included not only Slavs, but most likely also descendants of Iranian-speaking Sarmatian-Alan tribes.
The origin of the ethnonym Rosrus remains unclear, but there is no doubt that it is not Slavic. All the names of the East Slavic tribes have Slavic formants: Ichi (Krivichi, Radimichi) or –ane –yane (Polyane, Drevlyane). The initial “r” is not characteristic of the Turkic languages, so the Turkic origin of the ethnonym Rosrus is incredible (the ethnonym Russian in the Turkic languages took the form Orosurus). The term Rus is clearly not Scandinavian; it is closely related to the southern geographical and ethnic nomenclature and has appeared in Byzantine sources since the beginning of the 9th century. It remains to assume the Iranian origin of the tribal name in question. Obviously, the ethnic name of the local Iranian-speaking population was adopted by the Slavs in the process of its Slavicization. The latter has been convincingly proven by anthropology (two different anthropological types) and funerary biritualism (two different methods of burial that existed simultaneously). By the end of IX in the glade, the descendants of the Ros finally mixed with each other, while the ethnonym Ros Rus turned out to be more tenacious and subsequently spread to all the Eastern Slavs.
The collapse of the Old Russian nationality and the formation of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples. All-Russian national unity was dealt a blow first by the feudal collapse of Kievan Rus in the 11th-12th centuries, and then by the Tatar-Mongol raid and vassalage to the Golden Horde in the 13th-14th centuries. The political and economic decline, the reshuffling of the population, especially in the southern, steppe and forest-steppe parts of the country, all this caused a sharp weakening of the previous ties.
The formation of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples took place at a later time. This was the creation of new ethnic ties. Between individual East Slavic tribes of the 9th century. and there is no direct continuity between the contemporary East Slavic peoples, for already in the era of Kievan Rus the old tribal ties disappeared. The formation of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples took place in a completely different historical situation: in connection with the formation of the Moscow-Russian and Lithuanian-Russian states.
From the beginning of the 14th century. under the rule of Moscow, the principalities located in the Upper Volga and Oka basin began to unite one after another; already by the beginning of the 16th century. Lands in the south and southwest - along the upper reaches of the Don and along the Desna, and in the west along the Upper Dnieper, and in the northwest, north and northeast of the regions of Pskov and Novgorod, the Northern Dvina and the White Sea, and the Vyatka land - were merged into the Moscow state. Along with political unification, economic ties strengthened and interregional trade grew. The Moscow dialect began to gradually replace local dialects. Political unification, the fight against external enemies, cultural growth - all this contributed to the development of a new all-Russian ethnic identity, which hardly existed in the previous era of feudal collapse and the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Residents of Ryazan, Suzdal, Novgorod, and Muscovites were getting used to feeling like a single Russian people. Russified non-Slavic, predominantly Finno-Ugric elements also joined its composition.
A parallel process of formation of a nationality on the basis of regional feudal groups also took place in the Western Russian regions. They began to unite in the 14th century. under the rule of Lithuanian princes. But in the Lithuanian state the dominant cultural element was East Slavic. The state and literary language until the 16th century. was Russian. Unification with Poland (Union of Lublin 1569) led to an increase in Polish dominance in Lithuania and weakened the cultural role of the ancestors of the Belarusians: the dominant pan-szlachta elite began to gradually Polonize, while the masses of the peasantry remained Belarusian.
In the southern, Ukrainian lands of Lithuania, especially in the western Ukrainian regions, Polish influence was even stronger. At the same time, these southern regions, open from the south to raids by Tatars, Nogais, and Turks, lived a special life, always under martial law or under the threat of invasion, but at times in peaceful communication with these southern neighbors. This is the difference in the historical destinies of the northern and southern lands Lithuanian Rus' and led to the fact that in them, although within the framework of a single state, two closely related ethnic groups emerged - Belarusian and Ukrainian. Three close nations thus developed in parallel.
One of the important questions of the ethnogenesis of the East Slavic peoples is the question of the historical and ethnic ties of these peoples with the non-Slavic population of Eastern Europe. Many points of view have been expressed in historical literature, two of them reflect extremes in their opposites: the first - the non-Slavic, including the Finno-Ugric and Turkic population, did not take any part in the formation of the Russian people and Russian culture (Zelenin D.K.); the second - “at least 80% of Finnish blood flows in the veins of modern Russians” (Pokrovsky M.N.). They are one-sided and probably just as wrong. Most researchers adhere to the average position - the formation of the Great Russian people is associated with the colonization of the Oka and Upper Volga basin by the Slavs from the Dnieper region and was the result of a mixture of Slavic and local Finno-Ugric elements.
The presence of a non-Slavic element is absolutely certain in the composition of the Ukrainian people. There are a number of features even in the material culture of Ukrainians, borrowed from Turkic ethnic groups or common to both. As for the Belarusians, their origin is obviously more homogeneous; but the Belarusian population also contains non-East Slavic elements.
The name “Belarusians” is of not entirely clear origin. The term “White Rus'” was first used only by Poles and Lithuanians (the first mention was in a chronicle of 1382). Since the 17th century “Belaya Rus” is also used in Russian documents. Various assumptions were made about the origin of this name: some associated it with the predominant white color of clothing and with blond hair among Belarusians; others believed that “white” Rus' meant “free”, that is, not paying tribute to the Tatars; still others derived the name “Belaya Rus” from the ancient toponymy of the river basin. Bug (Belovezh, Bialystok, Bielsk, Byala), from where the name subsequently spread to a wider area.
The name “Ukraine” originally meant (XVI-XVII centuries) the southern outskirts of the Moscow state: “Northern Ukraine” - Kursk and Chernigov regions, “Slobodskaya Ukraine” - Kharkov and Poltava regions. To the south was a “wild field” desolate from the Tatar pogroms. Other parts of present-day Ukraine bore their own names: Volyn, Podolia, Podlasie, Galicia, Zaporozhye, Novorossiya. Instead of “Ukraine” they sometimes said “Little Rus'”, “Little Russia” - a name that, in a narrower sense, also applied only to the Chernigov, Poltava and Kharkov provinces. Only in the 19th century, in connection with the growth of national self-awareness, the term “Ukraine”, “Ukrainians” acquired a broad, national meaning.
Despite all the national unity of the Russian people, some local groups stand out within it, more or less unique and isolated. The formation of some of these groups is associated with the history of the settlement of the Russian people in the territory they occupied or with later movements; some of them represent mixed or assimilated ethnic entities, although they are Russian in language.
In the indigenous territory of their settlement, Russians (Great Russians) are divided primarily into northern Great Russians and southern Great Russians. This division is basically linguistic - it is associated with the division of the Russian language into the North Great Russian and South Great Russian dialects (each with a subdivision of slander). Northern Great Russian dialects are called okaya, and southern Great Russian dialects are called Akaya. The Central Russian (Moscow) dialect combines the features of these two dialects. In addition to purely linguistic differences, there are also noticeable differences in cultural appearance between the northern and southern Great Russians.
Among the southern Great Russians, the following regional groups stand out most noticeably: “Polekhs” - residents of the Kaluga-Orlov-Bryansk Polesie, obviously descendants of the ancient population of this forest strip, who did not leave with the inhabitants of the steppe to the north from the attack of nomads; "Meshchera" - the population of the so-called " Meshcherskaya side", i.e. the northern forest part of the Ryazan region (left bank of the Oka). A peculiar group is made up of “odnodvortsy” - descendants of service people whom the government in the 16th-17th centuries. settled along the southern edge of the state to protect the steppe border. These service people came from the majority of Northern and Middle Great Russians, and carried with them to the south the characteristic Northern Russian cultural and everyday way of life. How social class odnodvortsy occupied an intermediate position between peasants and small landowners, not merging with either one or the other, and this explains their preservation of peculiar features in costume, type of housing, etc.
Among the northern Great Russians in the indigenous areas of their habitat there are fewer isolated cultural groups and names, because there was less movement of the population: mainly local groups are distinguished, known under purely geographical names: “Onezhans”, “Kargopolshchina”, “Belozers”, “Poshekhontsy”, “Sitskari”, “Tebleshan”, Ilmen “Poozers” - direct descendants of ancient Novgorodians, etc.
On the outskirts of the indigenous Russian territory and in places of later colonization, much more unique and isolated cultural and geographical types of the Russian population developed. Among them are primarily the Pomors on the shores of the White and Barents Seas. These are the descendants of Novgorod and “Nizovsky” immigrants who appeared here back in the 12th century. Finding themselves in unusual conditions, they developed a completely unique cultural and economic type, based on the predominance of a commercial coastal economy (fishing and sea hunting); brave sailors, enterprising industrialists, Pomors are distinguished by special character traits; but their material culture retained a pure North Great Russian imprint.
Smaller groups of the same “Pomeranian” origin are also distinguished: such as, for example, the “Ust-Tsilema” and “Pustozery” on Pechora.
The Trans-Volga Old Believers retained a somewhat isolated position, settling the forests along Vetluga and Kerzhenets, escaping persecution in the 17th-18th centuries. Their conservative, closed life, which retained purely national characteristics in material culture.
Even more unique in terms of cultural and everyday life are the Cossacks, individual geographical groups of which were formed in connection with the colonization of the southern and eastern outskirts of the country, colonization partly free, partly governmental, for the armed defense of borders. The earliest in origin and at the same time the largest group is the Don Cossacks, whose origins date back mainly to the 16th-17th centuries. and which was made up mainly of the runaway peasantry and for a long time retained its political and, especially, cultural and everyday independence. Various local and alien ethnic elements took part in the formation of the Don Cossacks: Great Russian elements predominated among the “Verkhovsky” Cossacks, and Ukrainian elements predominated among the “Nizovsky” Cossacks. The Don Cossacks had archaic features in clothing and other aspects of life.
The Ural Cossacks, formerly called the Yaik Cossacks, began to take shape at the end of the 16th century, mainly from people from the same Don. A strip of villages stretched along the right bank of the river. Ural, former Yaik. The long struggle with the nomads of the steppe left its sharp imprint on their entire culture and way of life. The emergence of the “Grebensky” (Terek) Cossacks, partly made up of the same Don immigrants, dates back to the same time. Previously, there were also “Orenburg”, “Siberian” and “Semirechensk” Cossacks - the villages of these Cossacks stretched in a narrow strip along the southern outskirts of the former. Orenburg province, in the north of the former Akmola and Semipalatinsk regions, approximately from Orenburg to Omsk and up the Irtysh to the Altai Mountains. Now these groups of Cossacks have dissolved among the mass of the Russian population, although among the Orenburg Cossacks there were also Bashkirs, Tatars, Kalmyks, etc. Somewhat more unique features of life developed among the Transbaikal Cossacks, settled along the Russian-Chinese border in the 2nd half of the 18th century. The Transbaikal Cossack Army (officially formalized only in 1851) also included non-Russian units—Buryat and Tungus Cossack regiments.
The Amur Cossack army was formed even later, after the annexation of the lower Amur region to Russia (1860). At the same time (1858-1862) the Ussuri Cossack army began to be created. Both were made up of the same Transbaikal Cossacks, whom the government transferred to the new border. At the very end of the 19th century. Another group of Don and Orenburg Cossacks was resettled in Ussuri. The Amur and Ussuri Cossacks did not manage to develop a special cultural and everyday way of life. Before the revolution, they did not have time to settle down in the new desert lands, in the harsh conditions of nature.
The Russian population in Siberia as a whole was formed only in modern times: Russians began to penetrate into Siberia from the end of the 16th century. The modern Russian population of Siberia, however, is far from representing a single whole, either in terms of the time of origin or the composition of the elements included in it. The so-called old-timer population, that is, the descendants of the early settlers of the 16th-18th centuries, was comparatively more established and developed unique features of life and character. The main source from which waves of colonization of Siberia came in the early period were the regions of the Russian North and the Northern Urals. Traces of this have been preserved in the Siberian old-timers' dialects, and in cultural and everyday characteristics, and even often in the surnames widespread in Siberia: Kholmogorovs, Dvinyaninovs, Ustyuzhaninovs, Mezentsovs, Permyakovs, etc. From the southern Great Russian provinces, a flow of immigrants to Siberia began generally later, in the second half of the 19th century, and from these elements the groups of “new settlers”, or “Russians”, as the Siberian old-timers called them, were composed predominantly. There was discord between the old-timers and the new settlers in Siberia based on the struggle for land; it worsened during the civil war. Common Siberian features in language and way of life are extremely few: these include some archaisms in dialects and partly unique character traits developed by settlers in the conditions of a difficult struggle with harsh and unusual nature, and partly with the native population. Such character traits usually include the Siberian’s special practicality, determination and perseverance, courage and endurance, but also a certain severity, isolation and distrust towards outsiders. This type of Siberian “chaldon” peasant has been described more than once in fiction. But there are still much more local differences in Siberia. They are explained both by the heterogeneity of origin of the settlers and by the influence of the local population, with whom the settlers mixed to one degree or another. In terms of material culture, Russians in Western and Eastern Siberia differ quite noticeably. Smaller local groups stand out even more clearly. Of these, we should note, first of all, the descendants of exiles and fugitive Old Believers, who still maintain their isolation from the surrounding population: these are the “Kerzhaks” in Altai, that is, the descendants of people from Kerzhezza, who were previously also called “masons” (for they took refuge in “stones”, in the mountains) and geographically close to them “Poles” who moved in the 18th century. from liquidated Old Believer hermitages on the river. Vetka (in what was then Poland, hence the name); in Transbaikalia, a closed group is made up of the “semeiskie” - descendants of the Old Believers exiled here in the 18th century. with families; In terms of language, the Semeis belong, in contrast to the Altai Kerzhaks, to the South Great Russian group.
A completely special cultural and everyday way of life developed among the Russians who came to the north: these are the “trans-Tundren” peasants in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, who speak Yakut and in their everyday life are no different from the indigenous population; Russian peasants in Yakutia, especially along the Lena (driver settlements) and on the Amga; they became very close to each other in language and way of life. Kolyma residents have even fewer Russian national traits, whose language is greatly distorted and their national Russian self-awareness is weakened: “What kind of Yusskis we are, we are Koyim nayod”). On the contrary, the inhabitants of the Russian Ustye on Indigirka better preserved their national Russian characteristics. Finally, the “Kamchadals” - the mixed population of Kamchatka from Russified natives and Russian settlers - are strongly distinguished by their dialect and way of life, and by their mestizo anthropological type. A mixed group also consists of “Markovites”, residents of the village of Markova in Anadyr, largely Russified Chuvans. Now this old-time Russian population of the northeastern outskirts calls themselves “local Russians.”
With the exception of the last, very small groups, all local groups of the Russian population, even the most isolated and closed, everywhere retain a strikingly clear consciousness of national unity. They consider themselves Russian everywhere and in most cases retain original Russian characteristics in their material culture, customs and legends.
Ukrainians, their units. As for the Ukrainian people, they are much more homogeneous in cultural and geographical composition than the Russian people. This is sufficiently explained by the fact that the territory it occupies is more limited. However, differences in historical destinies and partly geographical conditions gave rise to a certain disparity in the cultural and everyday life. Some cultural differences exist between left-bank and right-bank Ukraine: the latter has experienced more Polish influence. In Western Ukraine, the former Galicia and Bukovina, where the Ukrainian population was under foreign rule for a long time and where Polish influence was especially strong, the bulk of the Ukrainian population nevertheless retains its national culture. It considers and calls itself Russians (“Rusky”, “Rusyn”), and in literature is often referred to as “Rusyns”, or (among the Germans) “Ruthens”. The Ukrainian population of Transcarpathian Rus', which has long been under Hungarian rule, is somewhat more isolated in culture. The Magyar influence there is very strong, and many groups of the Carpatho-Ukrainian population have become “Magyarized” to a certain extent. However, the bulk of the population retained their nationality and native language.
But the greatest isolation and originality are revealed by the mountain Ukrainians living in the Carpathians: Hutsuls, Boykos and Lemkos. The Hutsuls are a completely unique group, perhaps a remnant of some special tribe; The origin of the name “Hutsul” itself is unclear. Apparently, this is a Romanian word, at least its ending is the well-known Romanian postpositive term. The Boyks are the western neighbors of the Hutsuls, living in the mountains. The word “Boiki” is a mocking nickname from the word “Boy” (“only”) and is somewhat offensive to the population (“How smart I am! I’m the same Rusin, like you”). Now they are more often called Verkhovinians. The Lemkos live further west, in the upper reaches of the Sapa. Their name is also a mocking nickname (from “lem” - “only”).
One of the isolated Ukrainian groups of newest origin is the Kuban Cossacks. The core of this group was the Zaporozhye Cossacks, who settled in the lower reaches of the Kuban at the end of the 18th century. (in 1792), after the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich by Catherine II. They were then called “Black Sea Cossacks”, later (1860) Kuban. In the 1st half of the 19th century. To increase the number of this Cossack group, over 10 thousand people from Ukrainian provinces were resettled there. But in recent times, many Great Russians have appeared in the Kuban, especially in its upper reaches, so that the modern population of the Kuban region is mixed in national composition.
During the 19th century. and the first half of the 20th century, as a result of socio-economic experiments in the Russian Empire and especially in the USSR, Ukrainian settlements appeared far beyond the borders of Ukraine - in the Trans-Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the Far East. There is no special cultural type among these Ukrainian immigrants.
Belarusians. The Belarusian people of all three East Slavic peoples are the most united and monolithic due to the compactness of the territory they occupy. The dialects of the Belarusian language - southwestern and northeastern - differ very little from each other. The culture of the Belarusians is homogeneous, although on the outskirts of the Belarusian territory, naturally, there is the influence of neighboring peoples or even an admixture of them: in the east - Great Russian, in the south - Ukrainian, in the west - Polish and Lithuanian. But these influences do not give rise to special ethnic types, but only intermediate and transitional groups.
Such transitional groups are, in particular, the “Pinchuks” and “Poleschuks”, inhabitants of Pinsk and Chernigov Polesie in the southern part of the Belarusian SSR. Their transitional dialects were formed on the basis of Ukrainian dialects, which is why on old dialectological and ethnographic maps they were usually classified as Ukrainians. However, economically and culturally they gravitate towards the Belarusian territory and are now part of the Belarusian nation.
2. Material production and culture
The ethnography of the East Slavic peoples is one of the relatively well-developed areas of our science.
Main features of the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are peoples of an old agricultural culture. These peoples inherited agricultural traditions from their pre-Slavic ancestors: the cultivation of grain plants was known in Eastern Europe back in the Neolithic era, in the 3rd millennium BC. e. East Slavic tribes at the end of the 1st millennium AD. e. were real farmers. Even the northern forest Slavic tribes were engaged in agriculture, only it was of a different type - slash-and-burn. With the development of cities, agriculture remained the occupation of the vast majority of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples. Next to agriculture, other branches and areas of the economy were of secondary, although sometimes important, importance for the East Slavic peoples. Breeding domestic animals is no less ancient than plant culture. Fishing, hunting and other forestry industries still retain their importance in the northern regions.
Agriculture. The first place in the agricultural economy of the East Slavic population has always been and continues to be occupied by grain crops. Of these, for Russians and Belarusians the main one is rye, for Ukrainians it is wheat. In Russian life, rye has always been considered as folk, peasant bread, and wheat as lordly bread. In the northern regions, where rye does not ripen well, barley played the main role in peasant farming. In some walled areas, especially among the Ukrainians, corn became important. IN vernacular reflected this difference in the relative weight of different cultures. People usually call the prevailing bread in a given area “zhit” (from the root “to live”): in the northern regions (Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, etc.) “zhito” is barley, in other Great Russian regions, as well as among Belarusians and Ukrainians, “ Zhito means rye.
Both in the northern and southern zones, a lot of oats are sown, mainly for livestock feed. Buckwheat is also common in the northern zone, and millet, one of the oldest types of grain plants, is common in the southern zone. From the end of the 18th century. Sunflower began to spread in the southern regions. At first it was used only as an ornamental plant and was used for “seeds” (instead of nuts); it was sown in small quantities; but since the 1840s, when they began to produce sunflower oil, the sunflower culture quickly became widespread among Ukrainians and southern Great Russians. In the northern regions, the fate of the potato crop was somewhat similar. The superstitious population, especially the Old Believers, considered potatoes to be “devil’s apples.” Only from the 2nd half of the 19th century. Potatoes became firmly established in peasant farming, especially among Russians and Belarusians. However, its recent introduction into everyday life was reflected later in the fact that, unlike bread, potatoes are not associated with a single ritual or belief among the people.
Traditional industrial crops include flax (especially in the north and Belarus) and hemp (in the central regions). Tobacco growing has long been developed among Ukrainians.
Farming systems. Farming systems refer to different ways of using land for crops. In the agriculture of the Eastern Slavs, one can trace all stages of the development of farming systems, from the most primitive to the most advanced.
In the northern, forested and sparsely populated areas, until very recently, remnants of the so-called slash-and-burn or slash-and-burn economy remained. It consists in the fact that the area of the forest where it is planned to sow grain is cut down, and the felled trees are burned next spring, and the ash from the fire richly fertilizes the land. On such a “lyadina” (“lyada”), sometimes even without plowing, barley, rye, flax, etc. were sown, covering up the scattered grain. Such well-fertilized land produced, despite poor cultivation, good harvests for several years. When a site was depleted, it was abandoned and moved on to another. Such a very extensive, barbaric economic system was possible, of course, only with an extremely sparse population, an abundance of forests, and, in addition, it required the united labor of large collectives, usually patriarchal family communities. From the middle of the 19th century. slash-and-burn farming in the northern regions of Russia began to gradually disappear, being replaced by more advanced methods.
A similar, very extensive form of agriculture developed in the steppe zone of southern Russia, partly in Ukraine and Siberia, while its population remained sparse and land was plentiful. This is the so-called fallow (or fallow) system. The owner plowed up any part of the steppe he liked and sowed the same or different plants on it for several years in a row, without fertilizer and without a specific order, and when the area was exhausted, he abandoned it and moved on to the next one. Chernozem soil produced good harvests, but manure fertilizer was even considered harmful. As the steppe zone became more densely populated, the fallow farming system also fell out of use. In Siberia it persisted until the 80s and 90s of the 19th century.
More cultural farming systems are “fallow”, based on the correct alternation of crops and “fallow” and on the use of fertilizer. Of these, the most common among Russians was the three-field system. Under it, the entire area of arable land was divided into approximately equal parts; of them, one was sown with winter grain - rye, wheat, the other with spring grain - oats, the third remained fallow, that is, it rested and received manure fertilizer; the next year, the winter “wedge” turned into spring, spring into fallow, and the fallow was plowed under winter. This system has been known from written data since the beginning of the 16th century, and by end of the 19th century V. it dominated almost the entire Russian territory. This system turned out to be stable, but very conservative - it hardly allows the introduction of new crops and produces low yields. The preservation of this system was supported by a community organization with striping and mandatory crop rotation.
Land cultivation technology. Arable tools. East Slavic agriculture has long been based on plowing (arable farming). The main cultivation of the land is carried out with arable implements using livestock labor. The Russian plow comes in many varieties, allowing us to trace its evolution; If you add to this the Ukrainian and Belarusian forms of arable tools, then the variety will be even greater. To give an idea of this diversity, it is enough to say that in one former Vyatka province, according to the research of D.K. Zelenin, up to 30 species of plow could be counted, and they all had their own local names.
According to the design of the working part, arable implements are divided into plows with a skid (sole, heel) and plows and plows that do not have one. The majority of Western and Southern European plows belong to the first group. Their opener is mounted on a horizontal “runner” - the lower part of the implement, on which it can stand stably; the runner rests on the ground, and when working, the plowman only guides the plow. All East Slavic arable tools - plows, etc., belong to the type of implements without a runner (unstable). When working, the plowman leans on the plow with his hands so that it goes deeper into the ground, which is impossible with a plow with a runner. Unstable arable tools without a skid are divided into single-blade (single-bladed, single-toothed) and double-bladed (double-bladed, double-toothed) tools: the former included the ancient Ukrainian “ralo”, the Russian single-toothed “cherkusha”, the Belarusian single-toothed “bipod”, etc.; Double-edged weapons are different types of Russian and Belarusian plows.
According to the method of movement, arable implements are divided into implements with a wheeled limber (plows) and those without a wheeled limber (plow). Arable tools by type of action: tools of the “scooping” type are the most primitive, which only slightly furrow the soil; tools of the “plowing” type - more advanced ones, which, during their movement, loosen the soil and carry its particles along with them; and tools of the “screaming” type, the most developed, which cut and turn over a layer of earth. These three types can be considered as three stages of development. Among East Slavic arable tools, the majority belong to the second and third types.
The Ukrainians, inhabitants of the steppe with its heavy and thick black soil, developed other types of tools. In the old days, a primitive “ralo” was used, which consisted of a long drawbar and a rake attached to it at an acute angle; sometimes he did not even have an iron ploughshare. But since ancient times, the Ukrainians have also used a heavy wheeled plow with two asymmetrically located coulters, which went deep, but required a lot of draft power - up to 8 pairs of oxen. This plow was adapted for deep plowing. According to some archaeologists, the plow, moreover with a runner, appeared on the territory of Ukraine back in the pre-Kiev period - in the 6th-8th centuries.
Harrowing and sowing. The second stage of land cultivation is harrowing. Northern Great Russians say “boronit”, southern Great Russians say “borodit”, Belarusians say “baranavac”, “skarodzits”, Ukrainians say “boronuvati”, “drag”.
The harrow, as already mentioned, may be a more ancient tool than the plow, at least in the northern forest belt. Among the Eastern Slavs, in some places it retained a primitive form until recently. The most primitive of them is the “Vershalina” harrow, which was used here and there in ancient times in Belarus and the North. This is just the top of a tree with branches sticking out in all directions, which was dragged across the field by its thin end. A somewhat more complex type is the “knot” harrow, or “smyk”, used in the northern regions. These are several pieces of a spruce trunk split lengthwise with stumps of branches; they were tied together with transverse bars, so that the branches all stuck out in one direction. The most common was a wooden or wicker harrow in a lattice frame with inserted wooden or iron teeth.
Previously, they sowed everywhere by hand, from a basket. The sower walked along the arable land and scattered the grain with his right hand, trying to distribute it evenly. This required great skill and experience. This work was always performed by an adult man, usually an old man, the head of the family.
Before the introduction of harvesting machines, grain crops were harvested using sickles or scythes. In the northern Great Russian and Belarusian regions they used sickles. The East Slavic sickle has a serrated notch along the working edge, in contrast to the Central European smooth sickle. Sometimes they also reaped with a sickle in more southern regions. But the southern Great Russians, and especially the Ukrainians, used mowing bread much more often. The scythe used for this was equipped with a special rake, the fingers of which were directed parallel to the blade of the scythe. This is the so-called “hook”, or “rake” (among Belarusians). The mown bread is knitted into sheaves using pre-prepared "svyasly" ("overlying") from bundles of the same straw. Before transporting them from the field, the sheaves are piled up.
In the old days, grain was ground using hand millstones. The dominant method of grinding everywhere is mills. There are two types of traditional mills: water and wind. The former are common both in the southern, middle and northern zones, although in the north they are less profitable due to the long winter freeze-up. The most primitive type of water mill is the "whorl" mill, where a small water wheel and millstones are mounted on a common vertical axis. Windmills - "wind turbines" - are common in both the southern and northern parts of the country. They appeared later, from the 17th century. In some places, for example in the Arkhangelsk region, the windmill gradually almost replaced the water mill. The flour mill is the most common folk way of using the power of the wind. To install the wings of the mill against the wind, the mill body can be rotated either entirely (“German” type, or “post-type”), or only its upper part with wings (“Dutch”, or “tent” type).
Animal husbandry. Breeding domestic animals is an important, but secondary branch of the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Livestock farming is no less affected by the cultural community and ethnic characteristics of the East Slavic peoples.
Horses, cattle, small livestock such as goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry are raised almost everywhere. The horse is used by Russians and Belarusians as a working and transport animal, and by Ukrainians only as a transport animal. In this regard, the presence and number of horses on the farm of a Russian and Belarusian peasant could serve in the past as one of the most accurate indicators of the degree of his economic power. Russians and Belarusians have long kept cattle for milk and manure. For work, cattle (oxen) are used only in the steppe zone by the Ukrainians, and among the Russians only by the Cossacks, on the Don.
Small livestock—goats and sheep—are ubiquitous, but in small numbers. A peasant family held, rarely more. There is a sharp difference here from the life of the steppe nomads, whose flocks of sheep reached hundreds and thousands of heads. Sheep are bred for wool and meat and are not milked.
Hunting, fishing and sea hunting. In ancient times, hunting for animals and birds played a major role in the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Its products, especially furs, were exported. As the population grew, forest area decreased and animals were exterminated, the importance of hunting fell. In the central and southern regions, hunting has become a sport. Fishing in the central and southern regions, like hunting, has lost its former economic importance and turned into an amateur activity. Fishing has become large-scale industrial in the North, in the Northern Dvina basin, in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don, in the Caspian, Barents, and White seas, in the large rivers of Siberia and on the Pacific coast. Fishing was practiced there using large seines reaching several hundred meters in length. The seine was also used for winter ice fishing: it was pulled on poles through ice holes. On the coasts of the Barents and other seas, on some lakes, fishing was supplemented by sea animal hunting.
Waste trades. In addition to handicraft industries, various latrine trades were very developed in the Russian village, as well as in the Belarusian and Ukrainian ones. They took on a particularly wide character in the same non-chernozem zone.
Many latrine trades were associated with handicrafts: such were carpentry, stoves, roofing, painting, plastering and other trades. The masters of these industries left their villages, mostly from the North Great Russian, from the Upper Volga region, to work in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other cities, some in one season, some over a longer period of time, and having saved a little money, returned to their homeland. Many worked in artels. This type of seasonal otkhodnik artisan was one of the very characteristic images of the Russian pre-revolutionary ethnic environment.
Other waste trades were associated with small-scale trade. Particularly characteristic is the type of “peddler”, or “ofeni”, a seller of small haberdashery goods, who traveled with his “box” on his shoulders around the villages. Most of these peddlers came from the villages of the Yaroslavl province.
Before the construction of a network of railways and the development of shipping in Rus', the coachman and hauler crafts were widely developed. Yamskaya driving along postal routes and transporting various goods by horse-drawn route fed many thousands of coachmen who came from land-poor villages.
Finally, begging was a kind of latrine trade. It was widespread, but very heterogeneous. Among the beggars who were begged in the name of Christ in villages and cities were the crippled, the disabled, the elderly, and orphans, for whom this was a permanent or long-term livelihood. But there were also fire victims who were temporarily forced out of the economy, who suffered from crop failure, etc., for whom begging was only a way to survive in difficult times.
Types of settlements. The ethnographic study of the types of East Slavic settlements has not yet been sufficiently developed. Some ethnic differences can be established in their types, but they are mainly related to landscape conditions and the history of settlement of the Eastern Slavs. These types are as follows: 1) northern valley type (approximately north of 58° N): settlements are stretched along the valleys of rivers and lakes, which served as the main routes of communication in ancient times (the watersheds in the north are swampy and unsuitable for settlement); 2) central and northwestern watershed type with two subtypes - moraine and ridge: the population spreads evenly across moderately irrigated areas, populating watersheds; 3) southern valley type (in the area of dominance of chernozem and feather grass steppes) with two subtypes - valley-ravine and purely valley: the population is drawn to rare reservoirs in this zone, avoiding irrigated watersheds.
In addition to different locations on the ground, rural settlements differ in type and shape. There are two main types: single-yard (single) and multi-yard (group, village). Single-yard settlements do not constitute a historically single type: this includes very ancient “pochinki” and “zaimki” in the North, which appeared there during the initial development of the northern forest belt, and later grew into “cemeteries” and “villages”; and the newest single-yard settlements such as farmsteads, which arose mainly in the 19th century, most of all among the Ukrainians and Cossacks.
Multi-yard (group, village) settlements differ in their form, in which ancient ethnic traditions are most clearly manifested. For northern and southern Great Russians, and partly for both Belarusians and northern Ukrainians, a street or linear village plan is typical, in which the estates are stretched out in one or two lines along the road. This type, which remains extremely stable wherever there is a Russian population, has very ancient roots and can also be traced among other Slavic peoples: among the eastern Poles, among the Slovaks, and in some places among the Slovenes and Croats. The linear settlement plan itself is very ancient in Eastern Europe and is probably associated with the colonization of the northern part of the country, heading along the river of streams. However, the modern “street” type of village with the regular arrangement of estates on both sides of the street, on the contrary, developed late, under the direct pressure of government decrees, starting from the era of Peter I (the first such decree was 1722), during the 18th and 19th centuries.
In the south of our country, among the majority of Ukrainians, another type predominates: cumulus, or disorderly, in which estates are located without apparent order, separated by crooked and confusing streets. This type, characteristic of open steppe areas, is also found among other Slavs: among the southern Poles, on the Balkan Peninsula. An extremely rare type for the Eastern Slavs is the so-called circular village plan, well known among the Western Slavs.
Construction equipment and materials. From the point of view of material and construction technology, significant unity is found throughout the East European Plain, a unity beyond which only the southern part of Ukraine remains: a variety of materials are used there, stone, adobe and wicker buildings are found. But in Northern Ukraine, in Belarus and all Great Russians use the same construction equipment and the same material.
In all these areas, log houses made of logs laid horizontally and tied into “crowns” dominate. The technique of connecting logs into crowns varies somewhat. Of the various methods of joining logs, the most widely predominant is the so-called method of cutting “into the corner” (“into the oblo”, “into the cup”): not far from the end of the log, a semicircular depression is cut out in it, into which the end of another log is inserted across. A more advanced (and later) version of this method is cutting out a depression not on the upper, but on the lower surface of the log, which is superimposed by this depression on the lower log. The ends of the logs protrude somewhat. In addition, there is a more complex and less widely used method of cutting “in the paw”, when the logs are connected at the very ends, one end is hewn flat and placed on the other. There are several other, purely local methods of cutting the corners of a log house.
The log buildings of the Eastern Slavs are characterized by certain features. The material is usually round, unhewn logs, rather than rectangular hewn beams, as in Central Europe. A groove is usually cut along the top of the log, into which moss is placed to insulate the building. There is no foundation; the lower crown is placed directly on the ground or large stones or short pillars dug into the ground are placed at the corners. The bottom of the building is covered with earth for warmth, especially in winter. This is the so-called zavalinka, for Ukrainians it’s prizba, for Belarusians it’s prizba.
Ukrainian housing appears almost universally to be very monotonous in appearance: it is the well-known “hut” with white plaster walls. Unpainted log buildings are found only in the northernmost part of Ukraine, on the border of Polesie, and on the other hand, in the Carpathians, especially among the Hutsuls. In other places there are whitewashed huts everywhere, which are considered a characteristic feature of Ukrainian folk housing. But this feature is not only not related to constructive technology, but rather masks the differences in this technology. In fact, the design of Ukrainian buildings can be very diverse.
Underwear and outerwear. The basis of the folk costume of the Eastern Slavs, both women's and men's, was a shirt made of homespun canvas. Unlike a city women's shirt, it has sleeves. It is recognized that the ancient cut of the shirt was “tunic-like,” in which one or two panels are folded over the shoulders, with an opening for the head, and the sleeves are directly sewn to them.
A man's shirt is usually tunic-shaped. Its more ancient type, with a straight cut collar, was preserved by the Ukrainians (the collar is covered with embroidery). Among the Russians, the “kosovorotka” prevailed, with a collar slit on the left side, but this type of shirt spread no earlier than the 15th century, apparently from Moscow. The oblique cut of the collar is known among the Slovaks, but not on the left, but on the right side of the chest.
For girls, the shirt previously served not only as underwear and indoor clothing, but also as weekend clothing; in the summer, nothing was worn over it. On the contrary, a married woman always wore some kind of outerwear. Its types differ among individual East Slavic peoples.
Archaic forms are found in women's belt clothing. The skirt came to the Eastern Slavs relatively late. Among Russians it appears only in the 19th century, in some places only in last decades. Among Ukrainians, the skirt (“spidnytsia”) appeared several centuries earlier, coming from the West. Belarusians too; there, the very name of the skirt (“andarak”) indicates, perhaps, its Western origin, although there are other explanations for the etymology of this word.
The most primitive form of women's original belt clothing was preserved in some places among the Ukrainians: this is a “derga” - a long piece of fabric simply wrapped around the waist. Derga was worn mainly as work clothes. Previously, a “plakhta” with a woven or embroidered ornament served as a festive one. The plakhta is made from two pieces of fabric, narrow and long (2 m), which are sewn halfway along the length; at this point the scaffold is folded over and worn so that the sewn part covers the back and sides, and the unsewn ends hang from the sides or are tucked under. The front is covered with a special apron (“front”). Clothing similar to the plakhta was recently used by the southern Great Russians (in some places it still exists today) - this is the so-called “poneva”.
Among the northern Great Russians, the ponevu is replaced by a sundress. The sundress is considered a purely national Russian costume, but it appeared with us not so long ago. Its name is Persian (“serapa” - “from head to toe”), but the cut is more likely of Western origin. It spread around the 15th-16th centuries.
The sundress, although a shoulder-length garment, has supplanted and replaced the waist-length garment. It has spread everywhere in the North, but in some places it is also found among the southern Great Russians, probably brought there by members of the same palace.
Men's waist clothing is pants. Men's trousers are known in two types: with a narrow step and with a wide step. The latter have a wedge-shaped or even rectangular insert in step and are sometimes very wide. Such wide trousers spread among Ukrainians during the Cossack times under Tatar influence. Wide trousers are worn with a “spectacle” - a special strap that tightens them with ruffles. Some Western Ukrainians and all Belarusians and Great Russians have tight pants. The way the shirt is worn also differs: over the pants (untucked) or tucked in. The first method, which is more ancient, has been preserved by Russians and Belarusians. Ukrainians tuck their shirt into their pants - this is also influenced by nomads.
SLAVS- the largest group of European peoples, united by a common origin and linguistic proximity in the system 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 through verbal speech each other, 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 to 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 the types of dwellings 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; The lexical and grammatical structure of their languages underwent changes.
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 and cultural range Orthodox Slavism developed in the 8th–9th centuries on a large territory occupied by the Eastern Slavs from the Northern Dvina and the 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 various 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 the Russians - Russia (called Muscovy on European maps) - 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 of the 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 part of the 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. rapid growth national identity Almost all previously oppressed Slavic peoples expressed themselves 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 the cultures and ethnic history of the southern, eastern, and 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 to the USA and Canada, and to a lesser extent to 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 tendency towards Russification of the cultural life of these East Slavic peoples - which became obvious during the existence of the Russian Empire - persisted.
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 latent discontent, but also led 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 ones emerged. Slavic states. Besides 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 the 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