Slavs
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|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 300 million (2014) See § Population | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Slavic languages, local sign languages | |
| Religion | |
| Mostly Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy · Roman Catholicism · Protestantism · Spiritual Christianity) Minorities: Irreligious · Islam · Judaism · Slavic paganism (neo-paganism) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Indo-European-peoples, especially Balts |
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout regions of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Northern Asia, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia,[1][2] and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, Western Europe, and Northern Europe.[3]
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Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized. By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus', South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire, the Principality of Serbia, the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra, Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Poland.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, a pan-Slavic movement has emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The movement was particularly influential in the Balkans. While the Russian Empire’s stance toward the movement was complex and sometimes cautious, many Pan-Slavists looked to Russia for support rather than viewing it as an outright opponent.
The Slavic languages belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Present-day Slavs are classified into three groups:[4][5][6][7][8][9]
- West Slavs (Czechs, Kashubians, Moravians, Poles, Silesians, Slovaks, and Sorbs);
- East Slavs (Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians);
- South Slavs (Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Gorani, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Pomaks, Serbs, Slovenes and Torbeši).
Though the majority of Slavs are Christians, some groups, such as the Bosniaks, mostly identify as Muslims. Modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably diverse, both genetically and culturally, and relations between them may range from "ethnic solidarity to mutual feelings of hostility" — even within the individual groups.[10]
Ethnonym
The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius, writing in Byzantine Greek, used various forms such as Sklaboi (Σκλάβοι), Sklabēnoi (Σκλαβηνοί), Sklauenoi (Σκλαυηνοί), Sthlabenoi (Σθλαβηνοί), or Sklabinoi (Σκλαβῖνοι),[11] and his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin.[12] The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic, dating from the 9th century, attest the autonym as Slověne (Словѣне). Those forms point back to a Slavic autonym, which can be reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural Slověne.
The reconstructed autonym *Slověninъ is usually considered a derivation from slovo ("word"), originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", meaning "people who understand one another", in contrast to the Slavic word denoting "German people", namely *němьcь, meaning "silent, mute people" (from Slavic *němъ "mute, mumbling"). The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and sluh ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος (kléos "fame"), as in the name Pericles, Latin clueō ("be called"), and English loud.
In medieval and early modern sources written in Latin, Slavs are most commonly referred to as Sclaveni or the shortened version Sclavi.[13]
History
Origins
First mentions
Ancient Roman sources refer to the Early Slavic peoples as "Veneti", who dwelt in a region of central Europe east of the Germanic tribe of Suebi and west of the Iranian Sarmatians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD,[15][16] between the upper Vistula and Dnieper rivers. Slavs – called Antes and Sclaveni – first appear in Byzantine records in the early 6th century AD. Byzantine historiographers of the era of the emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), such as Procopius of Caesarea, Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta, describe tribes of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains, the lower Danube and the Black Sea to invade the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire.[citation needed]
Jordanes, in his work Getica (written in 551 AD),[17] describes the Veneti as a "populous nation" whose dwellings begin at the sources of the Vistula and occupy "a great expanse of land". He also describes the Veneti as the ancestors of Antes and Slaveni, two early Slavic tribes, who appeared on the Byzantine frontier in the early-6th century.
Procopius wrote in 545 that "the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Sporoi in olden times". The name Sporoi derives from Greek σπείρω ("to sow"). He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy and believed in one god, "the maker of lightning" (Perun), to whom they made sacrifice. They lived in scattered housing and constantly changed settlement. In war, they were mainly foot soldiers with shields, spears, bows, and little armour, which was reserved mainly for chiefs and their inner circle of warriors.[18] Their language is "barbarous" (that is, not Greek), and the two tribes are alike in appearance, being tall and robust, "while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blond, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts..."[19]
Jordanes describes the Sclaveni as having swamps and forests for their cities.[20] Another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly-impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes.[21]
Menander Protector mentions Daurentius (r. c. 577 – 579) who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Daurentius declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons".[22]
Migrations
The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (thought[citation needed] to be in conjunction with the movement of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns, and later Avars and Bulgars) started the great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes who had fled from the Huns and their allies. Slavs, according to this account, moved westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe-Saale line; southward into Bohemia, Moravia, much of present-day Austria, the Pannonian plain and the Balkans; and northward along the upper Dnieper river. It has also been suggested that some Slavs migrated with the Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even to North Africa.[23]
Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in large numbers.[24] Byzantine records note that Slav numbers were so great, that grass would not regrow where the Slavs had marched through[citation needed]. Military movements resulted in even the Peloponnese and Anatolia being reported to have Slavic settlements.[25] This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion.[26] By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps regions.[27]
Pope Gregory I in 600 AD wrote to Maximus, the bishop of Salona (in Dalmatia), expressing concern about the arrival of the Slavs,
Latin: Et quidem de Sclavorum gente, quae vobis valde imminet, et affligor vehementer et conturbor. Affligor in his quae jam in vobis patior; conturbor, quia per Istriae aditum jam ad Italiam intrare coeperunt.
English: I am both distressed and disturbed about the Slavs, who are pressing hard on you. I am distressed because I sympathize with you; I am disturbed because they have already begun to arrive in Italy through the entry-point of Istria.[28]
Middle Ages
When Slav migrations ended, their first state organizations appeared, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force. In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo supported the Slavs against their Avar rulers and became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, Samo's Empire. This early Slavic polity probably did not outlive its founder and ruler, but it was the foundation for later West Slavic states on its territory.
The oldest of them was Carantania; others are the Principality of Nitra, the Moravian principality (see under