Slavic peoples



The Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland (most commonly thought to be in Eastern Europe) to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Many settled later in Siberia and Central Asia or emigrated to other parts of the world. Over half of Europe is, territorially speaking, inhabited by Slavic-speaking communities.

Modern nations and ethnic groups called by the ethnonym "Slavs" are considerably genetically and culturally diverse and relations between them are varied, ranging from a sense of connection to feelings of mutual resentment.

Slavic peoples are classified geographically and linguistically into West Slavic (including Czechs, Kashubians, Moravians, Poles, Silesians, Slovaks and Sorbs), East Slavic (including Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians), and South Slavic (including Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosniak, Serbs and Slovenes). For a more comprehensive list, see Ethno-cultural subdivisions.

According to a 2007 genetic study based on Y-chromosome male haplogroups, Slavic men cluster into two main groups; one encompasses all Western-Slavic, Eastern-Slavic, and two Southern-Slavic male populations (western Croats, Slovenes), whilst the other group encompasses all remaining Southern Slavic men.

Ethnonym
Excluding the ambiguous mention by Ptolemy of tribes Slavanoi and Soubenoi, the earliest references of "Slavs" under this name are from the 6th century AD. The word is written variously as Sklabenoi, Sklauenoi, or Sklabinoi in Byzantine Greek, and as Sclaueni, Sclauini, or Sthlaueni in Latin. The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest slověne to describe the Slavs around Thessalonica. Other early attestations include Old Russian slověně "an East Slavic group near Novgorod", Slovutich "Dnieper river", and Croatian Slavonica, a river.

The name is normally linked with the Slavic forms sláva "glory", "fame" or slovo "word, talk" (both akin to slušati "to hear" from the IE root *ḱlew-). Thus slověne would mean "people who speak (the same language)", i.e. people who understand each other, as opposed to the Slavic word for foreign nations, němci, meaning "mumbling, murmuring people" (from Slavic němъ - mumbling, mute). For example, the Polish word Niemcy means "Germans" or "Germany" (as do its cognates in many other Slavic languages).

However, some scholars have advanced alternative theories as to the origin of the name. B.P. Lozinski argues that the word sláva once had the meaning of worshipper, in this context meaning practicer of a common Slavic religion, and from that evolved into an ethonym. S.B. Bernstein speculates that it derives from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European , cognate to Greek laós "population, people", which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. Meanwhile Max Vasmer and others suggest that the word originated as a river name (compare the etymology of the Volcae), comparing it with such cognates as Latin cluere "to cleanse, purge", a root not known to have been continued in Slavic, although it appears in other languages with similar meanings (cf. Greek klyzein "to wash", Old English hlūtor "clean, pure", Old Norse hlér "sea", Welsh clir "clear, clean", Lithuanian šlúoti "to sweep").

Proto-Slavic language


Proto-Slavic, the ancestor language of all Slavic languages, branched off at some uncertain time in a disputed location from common Proto-Indo-European, passing through a Balto-Slavic stage in which it developed numerous lexical and morphophonological isoglosses with Baltic languages. In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic".

Proto-Slavic proper, or more commonly referred to as Common Slavic or Late Proto-Slavic, defined as the last stage of the language preceding the geographical split of the historical Slavic languages, was likely spoken during the 6th and 7th centuries CE on a vast territory from Novgorod to southern Greece. That language was unusually uniform, and on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages and Slavic borrowings into other languages, can't be said to have any recognizable dialects. Slavic linguistic unity lasted for at least 1-2 centuries more, as can been seen in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts which, though based on local Slavic speech of Thessaloniki in Macedonia, could still serve the purpose of the first common Slavic literary language.

Homeland debate
The location of the speakers of pre-Proto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic is subject to considerable debate. Serious candidates are cultures on the territories of modern Belarus, Poland, European Russia and Ukraine. The proposed frameworks are:


 * 1) Lusatian culture hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs were present in north-eastern Central Europe since at least the late 2nd millennium BCE, and were the bearers of the Lusatian culture and later still the Przeworsk culture (2nd century BCE to 4th century CE) and the later still Chernyakhov culture (2nd-5th centuries CE).
 * 2) Milograd culture hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs (or Balto-Slavs) were the bearers of the Milograd culture (700 BCE to the 100 CE) of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus.
 * 3) Chernoles culture hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs were the bearers of the Chernoles culture (750–200 BCE) of northern Ukraine.
 * 4) Tributary of Danube postulated by Oleg Trubachyov

The starting point in the autochtonic/allochtonic debate was the year 1745, when Johann Christoph de Jordan published De Originibus Slavicis. From the 19th century onwards, the debate became politically charged, particularly in connection with the history of the Partitions of Poland and German imperialism known as Drang nach Osten. The question as to whether Germanic or Slavic peoples were indigenous on the land east of the Oder river was used by factions to pursue their respective German and Polish political claims to governance of those lands.

Earliest accounts


Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy mention a tribe of the Veneti around the river Vistula. The lands east of the Rhine, Elbe, Oder, and west of the Vistula river were referred to as Magna Germania by Tacitus in AD 98. Romans occupied the land west of the Rhine. From Romanticism, the allochthonic school theorem is that the 6th century authors re-applied this ethnonym to hitherto unknown Slavic tribes, whence the later designation "Wends" for Slavic tribes, and medieval legends purporting a connection between Poles and Vandals.

The Slavs under name of Venethi, the Antes and the Sclaveni make their first appearance in Byzantine records in the early 6th century. Byzantine historiographers under Justinian I (527-565), such as Procopius of Caesarea, Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta describe tribes emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains, the lower Danube and the Black Sea, invading the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire.

Jordanes mentions that the Venethi sub-divided into three groups: the Venethi, the Antes and the Sklavens (Sclovenes, Sklavinoi). The Byzantine term Sklavinoi was loaned as Saqaliba by medieval Arab historiographers.

Scenarios of ethnogenesis


The Globular Amphora culture stretches from the middle Dniepr to the Elbe in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. It has been suggested as the locus of a Germano-Balto-Slavic continuum (compare Germanic substrate hypothesis), but the identification of its bearers as Indo-Europeans is uncertain. The area of this culture contains numerous tumuli - typical for IE originators.

The Chernoles culture (8th to 3rd c. BC, sometimes associated with the "Scythian farmers" of Herodotus) is "sometimes portrayed as either a state in the development of the Slavic languages or at least some form of late Indo-European ancestral to the evolution of the Slavic stock." The Milograd culture (700 BC - 100 AD), centered roughly on present-day Belarus, north of the contemporaneous Chernoles culture, has also been proposed as ancestral to either Slavs or Balts.

The ethnic composition of the bearers of the Przeworsk culture (2nd c. BC to 4th c. AD, associated with the Lugii) of central and southern Poland, northern Slovakia and Ukraine, including the Zarubintsy culture (2nd c. BC to 2nd c. AD, also connected with the Bastarnae tribe) and the Oksywie culture are other candidates.

The area of southern Ukraine is known to have been inhabited by Scythian and Sarmatian tribes prior to the foundation of the Gothic kingdom. Early Slavic stone stelae found in the middle Dniestr region are markedly different from the Scythian and Sarmatian stelae found in the Crimea.

The (Gothic) Wielbark Culture displaced the eastern Oksywie part of the Przeworsk culture from the 1st century AD. While the Chernyakhov culture (2nd to 5th c. AD, identified with the multi-ethnic kingdom established by the Goths immigrating from the Wielbark culture) leads to the decline of the late Sarmatian culture in the 2nd to 4th centuries, the western part of the Przeworsk culture remains intact until the 4th century, and the Kiev culture flourishes during the same time, in the 2nd-5th c. AD. This latter culture is recognized as the direct predecessor of the Prague-Korchak and Pen'kovo cultures (6th-7th c. AD), the first archaeological cultures the bearers of which are indisputably identified as Slavic. Proto-Slavic is thus likely to have reached its final stage in the Kiev area; there is, however, substantial disagreement in the scientific community over the identity of the Kiev culture's predecessors, with some scholars tracing it from the Ruthenian Milograd culture, others from the "Ukrainian" Chernoles and Zarubintsy cultures and still others from the "Polish" Przeworsk culture. The Kiev culture was overrun by the Huns around 370 AD, which may have triggered the Proto-Slavic expansion to the historical locations of the Slavic languages.

Genetics


The modern Slavic peoples come from a wide variety of genetic backgrounds. The frequency of Haplogroup R1a ranges from 63.39% by the Sorbs, 56.4% in Poland and 54% in Ukraine, to 15.2% in Republic of Macedonia, 14.7% in Bulgaria and 12.1% in Herzegovina. Haplogroup R1a may be connected to the spread of Proto-Indo-Europeans (see Kurgan hypothesis for more information).

A new study studied several Slavic populations with the aim of localizing the Proto-Slavic homeland. The significant findings of this study are that:


 * 1) Two genetically distant groups of Slavic populations were revealed: One encompassing all Western-Slavic, Eastern-Slavic, and two Southern-Slavic populations (north-western Croats, Slovenes), and one encompassing all remaining Southern Slavs. According to the authors most Slavic populations have similar Y chromosome pools — R1a, and this similarity can be traced to an origin in the middle Dnieper basin of Ukraine during the Late Glacial Maximum 15 kya.
 * 2) However, some southern Slavic populations such as Serbs and Bulgarians are clearly separated from the tight DNA cluster of the rest of the Slavic populations. According to the authors this phenomenon is explained by "...contribution to the Y chromosomes of peoples who settled in the Balkan region before the Slavic expansion to the genetic heritage of Southern Slavs..."

Northern Slavic peoples are distinguished by the presence of Y Haplogroup N in their genome. Postulated to originate from Central Asia, it is found at high rates in Finnic peoples. Its presence in Northern Russians attests to the North-eastern Slavic tribes mixing with Finnic peoples in northern Eurasia.

Slavic migrations


According to eastern homeland theory prior to becoming known to the Roman world, Slavic speaking tribes were part of the many multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia - such as the Sarmatian, Hun and Gothic empires. The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germans in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (thought 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 fleeing the Huns and their allies: 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. Perhaps some Slavs migrated with the movement of the Vandals to Iberia and north Africa.

Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers. The Byzantine records note that grass wouldn't regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers. After a military movement even the Peloponnese and Asia Minor were reported to have Slavic settlements. This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion. By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps region.

Early Slavic states
When their migratory movements ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of state organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force. Moreover, it was the beginnings of class differentiation, and nobles pledged allegiance either to the Frankish/ Holy Roman Emperors or the Byzantine Emperors.

In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo, who supported the Slavs fighting their Avar rulers, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, which, however, most probably did not outlive its founder and ruler. This provided the foundation for subsequent Slavic states to arise on the former territory of this realm with Carantania being arguably the oldest of them. Very old also are the Principality of Nitra and the Moravian principality (see under Great Moravia). In this period, there existed central Slavic groups and states such as the Balaton Principality, but the subsequent expansion of the Magyars, as well as the Germanisation of Austria, separated the northern and southern Slavs. The First Bulgarian Empire, ruled by a core of Bulgars, was founded in AD 681. After their subsequent Slavicisation, it was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world.

Slavs and their assimilation of/by other cultures
Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups. In the postulated "homeland" region (present-day Ukraine), they had contacts with Sarmatians and the Germanic Goths. After their subsequent spread, they began assimilating non-Slavic peoples. For example, in the Balkans, there were Paleo-Balkan peoples, such as Thracians, Illyrians and Greeks. Having lost their indigenous language due to persistent Hellenisation and the Roman conquest, what remained of the Thracians and Illyrians were completely absorbed into the Slavic tribes, the most notable exceptions being Romanians and Albanians. Later invaders such as Bulgars and even Cumans mingled with the Slavs also, particularly in eastern parts (i.e. Bulgaria). Despite their cultural assimilation, one source states that only 15% of modern-day Bulgarians are of Slavic genetic origin, compared to 49% Thracian.

In the western Balkans, south Slavs and Germanic Gepids intermarried with Avar invaders, eventually producing a Slavicised population. In central Europe, the Slavs intermixed with Germanic, Celtic and Raetian peoples, while the eastern Slavs encountered Uralic and Scandinavian peoples. Scandinavians (Varangians) and Finnic peoples were involved in the early formation of the Russian state but were completely Slavicised after a century. Some Finno-Ugric tribes in the north were also absorbed into the expanding Russian population. At the time of the Magyar migration, the present-day Hungary was inhabited by Slavs, numbering about 200,000, who were either assimilated or enslaved by the Magyars. In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, caused a massive migration of East Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north. In the Middle Ages, groups of Saxon ore miners settled in medieval Bosnia, Serbia and Bulgaria where they were Slavicised. Polabian Slavs (Wends) settled in parts of England (Danelaw), apparently as Danish allies; Polabian-Pomeranian Slavs are also known to have even settled on Norse age Iceland. Saqaliba refers to the Slavic mercenaries and slaves in the medieval Arab world in North Africa, Sicily and Al-Andalus. Saqaliba served as caliph's guards. In the 12th century, there was intensification of Slavic piracy. The Wendish Crusade was started against the Polabian Slavs in 1147, as a part of the Northern Crusades. Niklot, pagan chief of the Slavic Obodrites began his open resistance when Lothar III, Holy Roman Emperor invaded Slavic lands. In August 1160 Niklot was killed and German colonization (Ostsiedlung) of the Elbe-Oder region began. In Hanoverian Wendland, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lusatia invaders started germanization. Early forms of germanization were described by German monks: Helmold in the manuscript Chronicon Slavorum and Adam of Bremen in Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. The Polabian language survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of Lower Saxony.

Cossacks, although Slavic-speaking and Orthodox Christians, came from a mix of ethnic backgrounds, including Tatars and other Turks. Many early members of the Terek Cossacks were Ossetians.

The Gorals of southern Poland and northern Slovakia are partially descended from Romance-speaking Vlachs who migrated into the region from the 14th to 17th centuries and were absorbed into the local population. Conversely, some Slavs were assimilated into other populations. Although the majority continued south, attracted by the riches of the territory which would become Bulgaria, a few remained in the Carpathian basin and were ultimately assimilated into the Magyar or Romance speaking population. There is a large number of river names and other placenames of Slavic origin in Romania. Similarly, the populations of the respective eastern parts of Austria and Germany, and to a much lesser extent eastern Italy, are to some degree comprised of people with Slavic ancestry.

Modern Slavic history
In the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire of approximately 50 million people, about 23 million were Slavs. The Slavic peoples who were, for the most part, denied a voice in the affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were calling for nationalistic self-determination. During World War I, representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up organizations in the Allied countries to gain sympathy and recognition. In 1918, after World War I ended, the Slavs established such independent states as Czechoslovakia, the Second Polish Republic, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

One of Hitler's ambitions at the start of World War II was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all East and West Slavs from their native lands so as to make living space for German settlers. This plan of genocide was to be carried into effect gradually over a period of 25–30 years.

Because of the vastness and diversity of the territory occupied by Slavic people, there were several centers of Slavic consolidation. In the 19th century, Pan-Slavism developed as a movement among intellectuals, scholars, and poets, but it rarely influenced practical politics and didn't find support in some nations that had Slavic origins. Pan-Slavism became compromised when the Russian Empire started to use it as an ideology justifying its territorial conquests in Central Europe as well as subjugation of other ethnic groups of Slavic origins such as Poles and Ukrainians, and the ideology became associated with Russian imperialism. The common Slavic experience of communism combined with the repeated usage of the ideology by Soviet propaganda after World War II within the Eastern bloc (Warsaw Pact) was a forced high-level political and economic hegemony of the USSR dominated by Russians. A notable political union of the 20th century that covered most South Slavs was Yugoslavia, but it ultimately broke apart in the 1990s along with the Soviet Union.

The word "Slavs" was used in the national anthem of the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Yugoslavia (1943-1992) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992-2003), later Serbia and Montenegro (2003-2006).

Religion and alphabet
Most Slavic populations gradually adopted Christianity between 6th and 10th century, and consequently their old pagan beliefs declined. See also Rodnovery.

The majority of contemporary Slavs who profess a religion are Eastern Orthodox (and/or Greek Catholic) and Roman Catholic. A very small minority are Protestant, mainly in the north. In the south, Bosniaks and some minority groups are Sunni Muslim. Religious delineations by nationality can be very sharp; in many Slavic ethnic groups the vast majority of religious people share the same religion. Many Slavs are atheist or agnostic: recent estimates suggest 18% in Russia. and 59% in the Czech Republic; nevertheless some Slavs who profess no faith still may traditionally associate themselves with a particular religion in a cultural and historical sense.

Mainly Eastern    Orthodox:
 * Belarusians
 * Bulgarians
 * Macedonians
 * Montenegrins
 * Russians
 * Serbs
 * Ukrainians
 * Rusyns
 * Pannonian Rusyns

Mainly Roman    Catholic:


 * Bunjevs
 * Croats
 * Kaszubians
 * Krashovans
 * Moravians
 * Poles
 * Silesians
 * Slovaks
 * Slovenes

Mainly Muslim:
 * Bosniaks
 * Gorani
 * Pomaks
 * Torbesh (Macedonian Muslims)
 * Sandžak
 * Muslims by nationality

Mainly Atheist or agnostic:


 * Czechs
 * Yugoslavs

Religious mixtures:

(Catholic/Protestant)
 * Sorbs

The Orthodox/Catholic religious divisions become further exacerbated by the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by the Orthodox and Greek Catholics and of the Roman alphabet by Roman Catholics. However, the Serbian language (including Montenegrin) can be written using both the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets. There is also a Latin script to write in Belarusian, called the Lacinka alphabet. The Bosnian language has at times been written using the Arabic alphabet (mostly in Muslim documents), but today it exclusively uses the Roman alphabet, although the Cyrillic alphabet is, in theory, available as an alternative.

Ethno-cultural subdivisions
Slavs are customarily divided along geographical lines into three major subgroups: East Slavs, West Slavs, and South Slavs, each with a different and a diverse background based on unique history, religion and culture of particular Slavic group within them. The East Slavs may all be traced to Slavic-speaking populations that were loosely organized under the Kievan Rus' empire beginning in the 10th century A.D. Almost all of the South Slavs can be traced to ethnic Slavs who mixed with the local European population of the Balkans (Illyrians, Dacians/Thracians, Greeks); with some Slavs of modern-day Bulgaria mixing with later invaders from the East, the Bulgars. They were particularly influenced by the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church, although Catholicism and Latin influences were more pertinent in Dalmatia. The West Slavs and the Slovenes do not share either of these backgrounds, as they expanded to the West and integrated into the cultural sphere of Western (Roman Catholic) Christianity around this time also mixing with nearby Germanic tribes.

In addition there has been a tendency to consider the category of Northern Slavs. Presently this category is considered to be of East and West Slavs, in opposition to South Slavs, however in 19th century opinions about individual languages/ethnicities varied.

Some of the following subdivisions remain debatable, particularly for smaller groups and national minorities.

East Slavs

 * Russians
 * Goryuns
 * Kamchadals
 * Lipovan Russians
 * Polekhs
 * Pomors


 * Ukrainians
 * Bojko
 * Hutsuls
 * Lemko 4
 * Poleszuks 2
 * Rusyns 3
 * Pannonian Rusyns 1
 * Lemko 4


 * Belarusians
 * Poleszuks 2

Czech-Slovak group

 * Bohemians


 * Czechs


 * Moravians 6


 * Slovaks

Lechitic group

 * Poles
 * Masovians
 * Polans
 * Vistulans


 * Silesians 5


 * Pomeranians
 * Kashubians 5
 * Slovincians†


 * Polabians †


 * Sorbs (Serbo-Lusatians)
 * Milceni (Upper Sorbs)
 * Lusatians (Lower Sorbs)


 * Obodrites/Abodrites
 * Obotrites proper†
 * Wagrians†
 * Warnower†
 * Polabians proper†
 * Linonen†
 * Travnjane†
 * Drevani†


 * Veleti (Wilzi, later Liutici)†
 * Kissini (Kessiner, Chizzinen, Kyzziner)†
 * Circipani (Zirzipanen)†
 * Tollenser†
 * Redarier†
 * Ucri (Ukr(an)i, Ukranen)†
 * Rani (Rujani)†
 * Hevelli (Stodorani)†
 * Volinians (Velunzani) †
 * Pyritzans (Prissani) †

Eastern group

 * Bulgarians
 * Pomaks (Muslim Bulgarians)
 * Palćene (Banat Bulgarians)
 * Bessarabian Bulgarians
 * Anatolian Bulgarians†
 * Shopi7
 * Torlaks


 * Macedonians
 * Torbesh (Muslim Macedonians)
 * Aegean Macedonians
 * Yugoslav Macedonians
 * Gorani 11
 * Torlaks

Western group

 * Slovenes
 * Carantanians†
 * Carinthian Slovenes
 * Upper Styrian Slovenes
 * Istrians
 * Hungarian Slovenes
 * Resians


 * Serbs
 * Torlaks8
 * Shopi7
 * Gorani 11
 * Užičans
 * Krajisniks


 * Montenegrins9


 * Croats
 * Janjevci (Catholic Slavs in Kosovo)
 * Burgenland Croats (in Austria)
 * Molise Croats (in eastern Italy)
 * Krashovans (Croats in Romania)
 * Bunjevci 10
 * Šokci 10


 * Bosniaks
 * Gorani 11
 * Muslims by nationality 12


 * Yugoslavs 13