Modern Slavic peoples were formed over a long time. They had many ancestors. These include the Slavs themselves and their neighbors, who significantly influenced the life, culture and religion of these tribes, when they still lived according to the foundations of the tribal community.
Antes and sklavins
Until now, historians and archaeologists put forward a variety of theories about who could be the ancestors of the Slavs. The ethnogenesis of this people took place in an era from which there are almost no written sources left. Specialists had to restore the early history of the Slavs to the smallest grains. Byzantine chronicles are of great value. It was the Eastern Roman Empire that had to experience the pressure of the tribes, which eventually formed the Slavic people.
The first evidence of them dates back to the VI century. Slavic ancestors in Byzantine sources were called Antes. The famous historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote about them. At first, the Ants lived in the interfluve of the Dniester and Dnieper in the territory of modern Ukraine. In their heyday they lived in the steppes from the Don to the Balkans.
If the Antes belonged to the eastern group of Slavs, then they lived to the west of themtheir related Slavs. The first mention of them remained in Jordan's Getica, written in the middle of the 6th century. Sometimes the Sclaveni were also called Veneti. These tribes lived on the territory of modern Czech Republic.
Social order
The inhabitants of Byzantium believed that the Slavic ancestors were barbarians who did not know civilization. It really was. Both the Slavins and the Antes lived under democracy. They did not have a single ruler and statehood. The early Slavic society consisted of many communities, the core of each of which was a certain clan. Such descriptions are found in Byzantine sources and are confirmed by the findings of modern archaeologists. The settlements consisted of large dwellings in which large families lived. In one settlement there could be about 20 houses. Among the Slavs, a hearth was common, among the Antes - a stove. In the north, the Slavs built log cabins.
Customs corresponded to cruel patriarchal mores. For example, ritual murders of wives were practiced at the grave of a spouse. Slavic ancestors were engaged in agriculture, which was the main source of food. Wheat, millet, barley, oats, rye were grown. Cattle were bred: sheep, pigs, ducks, chickens. The craft was poorly developed compared to the same Byzantium. It mainly served household needs.
Army and slavery
Gradually, a social stratum of warriors emerged in the community. They often organized raids on Byzantium and other neighboring countries. The goal was always the same - robbery and slaves. Ancient Slavic squads could includeseveral thousand people. It was in the military environment that governors and princes appeared. The first ancestors of the Slavs fought with spears (less often with swords). Throwing weapons, the sulica, were also widespread. It was used not only in combat, but also in hunting.
It is known for certain that slavery was widespread among the Ants. The number of slaves could reach tens of thousands of people. Mostly they were prisoners captured in the war. That is why there were many Byzantines among the Antes slaves. As a rule, the Antes kept slaves in order to get a ransom for them. However, some of them were employed in the economy and crafts.
Invasion of the Avars
In the middle of the VI century, the lands of the Ants were under attack from the Avars. These were nomadic tribes whose rulers bore the title of kagan. Their ethnicity remains a subject of controversy: some consider them to be Turks, others to speak Iranian languages. The ancestors of the ancient Slavs, although they were in a subservient position, noticeably crowded the Avars in their numbers. This relationship has led to confusion. The Byzantines (for example, John of Ephesus and Constantine Porphyrogenitus) completely identified the Slavs and Avars, although such an assessment was a mistake.
The invasion from the east led to a significant migration of the population, who had previously lived in one place for a long time. Together with the Avars, the Antes first moved to Pannonia (modern Hungary), and later began to invade the Balkans, which belonged to Byzantium.
Slavs became the basis of the Kaganate's army. The most famous episode of their confrontation with the empire was the siegeConstantinople in 626. The history of the ancient Slavs is known from brief episodes of their interaction with the Greeks. The siege of Constantinople was just such an example. Despite the assault, the Slavs and Avars failed to take the city.
Nevertheless, the onslaught of the pagans continued in the future. Back in 602, the Lombard king sent his shipbuilding masters to the Slavs. They settled in Dubrovnik. The first Slavic ships (monoxyls) appeared in this port. They took part in the already mentioned siege of Constantinople. And at the end of the 6th century, the Slavs laid siege to Thessaloniki for the first time. Soon thousands of pagans moved to Thrace. Then the Slavs appeared on the territory of modern Croatia and Serbia.
Eastern Slavs
The unsuccessful siege of Constantinople in 626 undermined the forces of the Avar Khaganate. Slavs everywhere began to get rid of the yoke of strangers. In Moravia Samo raised an uprising. He became the first Slavic prince known by name. At the same time, his fellow tribesmen began their expansion to the east. In the 7th century, the colonialists became neighbors of the Khazars. They managed to penetrate even into the Crimea and get to the Caucasus. Where the ancestors of the Slavs lived and their settlements were founded, there was always a river or a lake, as well as land suitable for cultivation.
The city of Kyiv, named after Prince Kyi, appeared on the Dnieper. Here a new tribal union of Polyans was formed, which, among several other such unions, replaced the Antes. In the 7th-8th centuries, three groups of Slavic peoples finally formed, existing andtoday (western, southern and eastern). The latter settled on the territory of modern Ukraine, Belarus, and in the interfluve of the Volga and Oka, their settlements ended up within the borders of Russia.
In Byzantium, Slavs and Scythians were often identified. This was a serious Greek error. The Scythians belonged to Iranian tribes and spoke Iranian languages. During their heyday, they inhabited, among other things, the Dnieper steppes, as well as the Crimea. When the Slavic colonization got there, regular conflicts began between the new neighbors. A serious danger was the cavalry, which was owned by the Scythians. The ancestors of the Slavs held back their invasions for many years, until, finally, the nomads were swept away by the Goths.
Tribal unions and cities of the Eastern Slavs
In the northeast, the neighbors of the Slavs were numerous Finno-Ugric tribes, including Vesy and Merya. The settlements of Rostov, Beloozero and Staraya Ladoga appeared here. Another city, Novgorod, became an important political center. In 862, the Varangian Rurik began to reign in it. This event was the beginning of Russian statehood.
Cities of the Eastern Slavs appeared mainly in places where the Path from the Varangians to the Greeks ran. This trade artery led from the B altic Sea to Byzantium. Along the way, merchants transported valuable goods: ambergris, whale skin, amber, marten and sable furs, honey, wax, etc. The goods were delivered on boats. The path of the ships ran along the rivers. Part of the route ran on land. In these areas, the boats were transported by portage, as a result of which they were dragged on the groundthe cities of Toropets and Smolensk appeared.
East Slavic tribes lived apart from each other for a long time, and often they were at enmity and fought among themselves. This made them vulnerable to neighbors. For this reason, at the beginning of the 9th century, some East Slavic tribal unions began to pay tribute to the Khazars. Others were heavily dependent on the Varangians. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions a dozen such tribal unions: Buzhans, Volynians, Dregovichi, Drevlyans, Krivichi, Polyana, Polotsk, Severyans, Radimichi, Tivertsy, White Croats and Ulichi. A single Slavic script and culture for all of them developed only in the 11th-12th centuries. after the formation of Kievan Rus and the adoption of Christianity. Later, this ethnic group was divided into Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians. This is the answer to the question of whose ancestors are Eastern Slavs.
South Slavs
The Slavs who settled in the Balkans gradually became isolated from their other tribesmen and made up the South Slavic tribes. Today their descendants are Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and Slovenes. If the ancestors of the Eastern Slavs inhabited mostly empty lands, then their southern counterparts got the land, in which there were many settlements founded by the Romans. From the ancient civilization there were also roads along which the pagans quickly moved around the Balkans. Before them, Byzantium owned the peninsula. However, the empire had to give way to strangers due to constant wars in the east with the Persians and internal turmoil.
In the new lands, the ancestors of the southern Slavs mixed with the autochthonous(local) Greek population. In the mountains, the colonialists had to face the resistance of the Vlachs, as well as the Albanians. The outsiders also clashed with the Christian Greeks. The resettlement of the Slavs to the Balkans was completed in the 620s.
Neighborhood with Christians and regular contacts with them had a great influence on the new masters of the Balkans. The paganism of the Slavs in this region was eradicated the fastest. Christianization was both natural and encouraged by Byzantium. First, the Greeks, trying to understand who the Slavs were, sent embassies to them, and then preachers followed them. Emperors regularly sent missionaries to dangerous neighbors, hoping in this way to increase their influence on the barbarians. So, for example, the baptism of the Serbs began under Heraclius, who ruled in 610-641. The process went on gradually. The new religion took root among the southern Slavs in the second half of the ninth century. Then the princes Rashki were baptized, after which they converted their subjects to the Christian faith.
It is interesting that if the Serbs became the flock of the Eastern Church in Constantinople, then their brothers the Croats turned their eyes to the West. This was due to the fact that in 812 the Frankish emperor Charlemagne concluded an agreement with the Byzantine king Michael I Rangave, according to which part of the Adriatic coast of the Balkans became dependent on the Franks. They were Catholics and, during their short reign in the region, baptized Croats according to their Western custom. And although in the 9th century the Christian church was still considered one, the great schism of 1054 noticeably alienated Catholics and Orthodox from each other.
Western Slavs
The Western group of Slavic tribes settled vast territories from the Elbe to the Carpathians. She laid the foundation for the Polish, Czech and Slovak people. To the west of all lived Bodrichi, Lutichi, Lusatians and Pomeranians. In the 6th century, this Polabian group of Slavs occupied about a third of the territory of modern Germany. Conflicts between tribes of different ethnicity were constant. The new colonizers pushed the Lombards, Varins and Rugs (who spoke Germanic languages) from the shores of the B altic Sea.
A curious evidence of the presence of the Slavs on the current German soil is the name of Berlin. Linguists have figured out the nature of the origin of this word. In the language of the Polabian Slavs, "burlin" meant a dam. There are many of them in the northeast of Germany. That's how far the ancestors of the Slavs penetrated. Back in 623, these same colonists joined Prince Samo in his uprising against the Avars. Periodically, under the successors of Charlemagne, the Polabian Slavs entered into an alliance with the Franks in their campaigns against the Khaganate.
German feudal lords launched an offensive against strangers in the 9th century. Gradually, the Slavs who lived on the banks of the Elbe submitted to them. Today, only small isolated groups remain of them, including several thousand people each, who have retained their own unique dialect, unlike even Polish. In the Middle Ages, the Germans called all neighboring Western Slavs Wends.
Language and writing
To understand who the Slavs are, it is best to turn to the history of their language. Once, when this people stillwas one, he had one dialect. It received the name of the Proto-Slavic language. There are no written records left of him. It is only known that it belonged to an extensive Indo-European family of languages, which makes it related to many other languages: Germanic, Romance, etc. Some linguists and historians put forward additional theories about its origin. According to one hypothesis, the Proto-Slavic language at some stage of its development was part of the Proto-B alto-Slavic language, until the B altic languages separated into their own group.
Gradually, each nation had its own dialect. On the basis of one of these dialects, which was spoken by the Slavs who lived in the vicinity of the city of Thessalonica, the brothers Cyril and Methodius created Slavic Christian writing in the 9th century. Enlighteners did this by order of the Byzantine emperor. Writing was necessary for the translation of Christian books and sermons among the pagans. Over time, it became known as Cyrillic. This alphabet today is the basis of the Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Montenegrin languages. The rest of the Slavs who converted to Catholicism use the Latin alphabet.
In the 20th century, archaeologists began to find many artifacts that became monuments of ancient Cyrillic writing. Novgorod became the key place for these excavations. Thanks to the finds in its vicinity, experts learned a lot about what the ancient Slavic writing and culture was like.
For example, the oldest East Slavic text in Cyrillicthe so-called Gnezdovo inscription, made on a clay jug in the middle of the 10th century, is considered. The artifact was found in 1949 by archaeologist Daniil Avdusin. A thousand kilometers away, back in 1912, a lead seal with a Cyrillic inscription was discovered in an ancient Kyiv church. The archaeologists who deciphered it decided that it means the name of Prince Svyatoslav, who ruled in 945-972. It is interesting that at that time paganism remained the main religion in Russia, although Christianity and the same Cyrillic alphabet were already in Bulgaria. Slavic names in such ancient inscriptions help to more accurately identify the artifact.
The question of whether the Slavs had their own written language before the adoption of Christianity remains open. Fragmentary references to it are found in some authors of that era, but these inaccurate evidence are not enough to draw up a complete picture. Perhaps the Slavs used cuts and features to convey information using images. Such letters could be of a ritual nature and used in divination.
Religion and culture
The pre-Christian paganism of the Slavs developed over several centuries and acquired independent unique features. This faith consisted of the spiritualization of nature, animism, animatism, the cult of supernatural forces, the veneration of ancestors and magic. The original mythological texts that would help lift the veil of secrecy over Slavic paganism have not survived to this day. Historians can judge this faith only by the annals, chronicles, testimoniesforeigners and other secondary sources.
In the mythology of the Slavs traced features inherent in other Indo-European cults. For example, in the pantheon there is a god of thunder and war (Perun), a god of the other world and cattle (Veles), a deity with the image of Father-Heaven (Stribog). All this in one form or another is also found in Iranian, B altic and German mythology.
Gods for the Slavs were the highest sacred beings. The fate of any person depended on their complacency. In the most important, responsible and dangerous moments, each tribe turned to its supernatural patrons. The Slavs had widespread sculptures of gods (idols). They were made of wood and stone. The most famous episode associated with idols was mentioned in chronicles in connection with the Baptism of Russia. Prince Vladimir, as a sign of acceptance of the new faith, ordered that the idols of the old gods be thrown into the Dnieper. This act was a clear demonstration of the beginning of a new era. Even despite the Christianization that began at the end of the 10th century, paganism continued to live, especially in the remote and bearish corners of Russia. Some of its features were mixed with Orthodoxy and preserved in the form of folk customs (for example, calendar holidays). Interestingly, Slavic names often appeared as references to religious views (for example, Bogdan - “given by God”, etc.).
For the worship of pagan spirits, there were special sanctuaries, which were called temples. The life of the ancestors of the Slavs was closely connected with these sacred places. Temple premises existed only among the western tribes (Poles, Czechs), while their eastern counterparts did not have such buildings. It was. Old Russian sanctuaries were open groves. Rites of worship to the gods were held at the temples.
In addition to idols, the Slavs, like the B altic tribes, had sacred boulder stones. Perhaps this custom was adopted from the Finno-Ugric peoples. The cult of ancestors was associated with the Slavic funeral rite. During the funeral, ritual dances and chants (trizna) were arranged. The body of the deceased was not interred, but burned at the stake. The ashes and the remaining bones were collected in a special vessel, which was left at a post on the road.
The history of the ancient Slavs would have been completely different if all the tribes had not adopted Christianity. Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism included them in a single European medieval civilization.
