What are the Slavic peoples. What peoples belong to the Slavs

The Slavs are the largest linguistic and cultural community of the peoples of Europe. Among scientists there is no consensus about the origin of this name. First ethnonym( 1 } "Slavs" is found among Byzantine authors of the 7th century. in the form of a "clave". Some linguists consider it the self-name of the Slavs and raise it to the concept of "word": "those who speak." This idea is rooted in antiquity. Many peoples considered themselves "speaking", and strangers, the language of which was incomprehensible, - "dumb". It is no coincidence that in the Slavic languages ​​one of the meanings of the word "German" is "mute". According to another hypothesis, the name "sklavins" is associated with the Greek verb "kluxo" - "I wash" and the Latin cluo - "I cleanse". There are other equally interesting points of view.

Scientists identify Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs . The eastern ones include Russians (about 146 million people), Ukrainians (about 46 million) and Belarusians (about 10.5 million). These peoples inhabit the east of Europe and widely settled in Siberia. Western Slavs - Poles (about 44 million people), Czechs (about 11 million), Slovaks (about 6 million) and Lusatians (100 thousand). All of them are inhabitants of Eastern and Central Europe. South Slavic peoples live in the Balkans: Bulgarians (about 8.5 million people), Serbs (about 10 million), Croats (about 5.5 million), Slovenes (over 2 million), Bosnians (over 2 million), Montenegrins (about 620 thousand).

Slavic peoples are close in language and culture. By religion, the Slavs are Christians, excluding the Bosnians, who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule. Believing Russians are mostly Orthodox, Poles are Catholics. But among Ukrainians and Belarusians there are many Orthodox and Catholics.

Slavs make up 85.5% of the population of Russia. Most of them are Russians - about 120 million people, or 81.5% of the country's inhabitants. Other Slavic peoples - Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles - almost 6 million people. Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats also live in Russia. However, their number is very small - no more than 50 thousand people.

(1) Ethnonym (from the Greek "ethnos" - tribe, "people" and "onyma" - "name") - the name of the people.

HOW THE EASTERN SLAVIC PEOPLES ARISED

The ancestors of the Slavs were probably Wends, in the first centuries new era settled along the banks of the Vistula and Venedsky (now Gdansk) Bay of the Baltic Sea. Byzantine authors of the 6th c. the name "sklavins" appeared, but it was applied only to the tribes living west of the Dniester. To the east of this river were placed the Ants, whom many scientists consider the direct predecessors of the Eastern Slavs. After the 6th c. the name of the Ants disappears, and the names of the East Slavic tribes become known: glade, drevlyans, vyatichi, radimichi, dregovichi, krivichi, etc. Some historians see them as real tribes, while others see them as a kind of "pre-nationality" or "proto-state". These communities were not "pure": they included racially, linguistically and culturally diverse elements. For example, in the East Slavic burials of the 10th-11th centuries. found the remains of people belonging to at least six racial types, not only Caucasoid, but also Mongoloid.

In the 9th-11th centuries. East Slavic tribes were united into one of the largest states medieval Europe- Kievan Rus. It stretched from the lower reaches of the Danube in the south of the Ladoga and Onega lakes in the north, from the upper reaches of the Western Dvina in the west to the Volga-Oka interfluve in the east. Within these boundaries, a single ancient Russian nationality arose. She was neither Russian, nor Ukrainian, nor Belarusian - she can be called East Slavic. The consciousness of community and unity among the population of Kievan Rus was very strong. It was reflected in the annals and literary works telling about the defense of the homeland from the raids of nomads. In 988 the prince Vladimir I Svyatoslavovich did Christianity the state religion of Kievan Rus. Pagan idols were overthrown, and the people of Kiev were baptized in the Dnieper. The adoption of Christianity contributed to close cultural ties with Europe, the flourishing of ancient Russian art, and the spread of writing. A new religion was sometimes introduced by force. So, in Novgorod they burned half the city. The people said: " Putyata( 2 } baptized the people with fire, and Dobrynya( 3 } - with a sword". Under the external cover of Christianity in Russia, a "dual faith" was established: for several centuries, pagan traditions were preserved.

The unity of Kievan Rus was not strong, and by the end of the 12th century. The state broke up into independent principalities.

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians how independent peoples developed, according to various estimates, in the 14-18 centuries.

Moscow State - the center of education of the Russian people - first united the lands in the basins of the Upper Volga and Oka, then in the upper reaches of the Don and Dnieper; even later - Pskov, Novgorod lands in the basin of the Northern Dvina and on the coast of the White Sea.

The fate of the descendants of those tribes that lived in the west of Kievan Rus was much more complicated. From the 13th-14th centuries. western regions pass under power of the Lithuanian princes . The state formation that arose here turned out to be difficult: the political power was Lithuanian, and cultural life- East Slavic. At the end of the 16th century The Grand Duchy united with Poland . The local population, first of all, the nobility, began to become more or less Polishized, but East Slavic traditions were preserved among the peasants.

In the 16th and 17th centuries on these lands, two nationalities were formed - Ukrainians and Belarusians. The population of the southern regions (the territories of modern Kyiv, Poltava, Chernigov, Vinnitsa, Khmelnytsky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil, Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Chernivtsi regions, Transcarpathia) experienced a strong influence of the Turkic peoples, with whom they fought and traded. Precisely, here they have developed as united people Ukrainians . In the Polotsk-Minsk, Turov-Pinsk and, possibly, in the Smolensk lands formed Belarusians . Their culture was influenced by Poles, Russians and Lithuanians.

Languages, culture, historical destinies of the East Slavic peoples are close. Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians are well aware of this, they remember their common roots. The Russian-Belarusian affinity is especially pronounced.

{2 } Putyata - Novgorod governor.

{3 } Dobrynya -educator and governor of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich; princely governor in Novgorod.

U K R A I N C Y

The word "Ukrainians" first appeared at the end of the 12th century. It denoted the inhabitants of the steppe "outskirts" of Russia, and by the 17th century. so they began to call mainly the population of the Middle Dnieper.

Under the rule of Catholic Poland, Ukrainians, Orthodox by religion, suffered religious harassment and therefore fled to Sloboda Ukraine ( 4 } .

Many of them ended up in the Zaporozhian Sich - a kind of republic of the Ukrainian Cossacks. In 1654, the Left-bank Ukraine united with Russia, receiving autonomy into its composition. However, in the second half of the 18th century, after the annexation of the Right-Bank Ukraine, the tsarist government sharply limited the independence of the Ukrainian lands and liquidated the Zaporozhian Sich.

After the Russian-Turkish warriors of the late 18th century. The Northern Black Sea and Azov regions were annexed to Russia. The new territories were named Novorossiya; they were inhabited mainly by Ukrainians. At the same time, the Right-Bank Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire, and in the first third of the 19th century. - Bessarabia and the mouth of the Danube (Ukrainian colonies also arose here).

Now, out of more than 45 million Ukrainians, more than 37 million live in Ukraine and over 4 million in Russia, where they are the second largest Slavic people in the country. In Russia, Ukrainians live mainly in the Russian-Ukrainian borderlands, as well as in the central regions, in the Urals, in Western Siberia; there are many Ukrainians in the Far East. In mixed Russian-Ukrainian regions, they are often called Khokhols - because of the traditional Khokhol on their heads. At first, the nickname was considered offensive, but over time it became familiar and is used as a self-name. One of the ethnologists cites the following statement from a resident of the Belgorod province: "We are Russians, only crests, turn over." Indeed, there is a rapid assimilation of Ukrainians in Russia. In 1989, only 42% of Russian Ukrainians named Ukrainian as their native language, and even less spoke it - 16%. Most of all, urban dwellers became Russified; often only surnames speak about their Ukrainian roots: Bezborodko, Paley, Seroshapko, Kornienko, etc.

{4 } Sloboda Ukraine - modern Kharkov and part of Sumy, Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

TRADITIONS OF UKRAINIAN CULTURE

At the same time, many Ukrainians in Russia, even those who have become Russified to some extent, retain some traditions of their native culture. Their houses in the villages are easy to recognize by clay plastered walls . In Ukrainian you can often see a traditional shirt - with a straight collar slit and rich embroidery . Of course, today they dress in a modern urban way, but on holidays, the old people, and often the young, put on national clothes.

UKRAINIAN FOOD

Russian Ukrainians have well-preserved traditions of folk cuisine. Flour dishes and products are popular: round or oval yeast bread ("palyanitsa", "khlibina"), cakes ("cakes", "platforms"), pancakes, pancakes, pies, noodles, dumplings, dumplings with cottage cheese, potatoes, cherries .

For Christmas and New Year bake "kalach" , at the meeting of spring - "larks" , at the wedding - "bumps" etc. All sorts of things are on the way porridge and something between porridge and soup - "kulish" from millet and potatoes, seasoned with onions and lard. Of the soups, Ukrainians are the most borscht made from various vegetables and often cereals ; from dairy products - "varenets" (fermented baked milk) and "cheese" (salted cottage cheese).

Ukrainians, unlike Russians, call meat only pork . Common cabbage rolls, aspic, homemade sausage stuffed with pork pieces .

Favorite drinks - herbal tea, dried fruit compote ("uzvar"), various types of kvass ; intoxicating - mash, mead, liqueurs and tinctures .

Many Ukrainian dishes (borsch, dumplings, varenets, etc.) were recognized by neighboring peoples, and the Ukrainians themselves borrowed such foods and drinks as cabbage soup and koumiss.

UKRAINIAN CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF SPIRITUAL CULTURE

The family and social life of Russian Ukrainians is devoid of originality. It everywhere reveals the features of an urban lifestyle and is distinguished by democratic orders. One indicator of this is a large number of ethnically mixed families: Ukrainian-Russian, Ukrainian-Belarusian, Ukrainian-Bashkir, etc. However, some customs are still alive today. For example, at a Ukrainian wedding in Russia, you can meet custom "viti giltse" - a branch or tree decorated with flowers and colored ribbons is stuck into the wedding loaf.

The traditions of the rich Ukrainian spiritual culture are partly preserved, in particular folk .Many of them are related to calendar and family holidays let's say Christmas caroling( 5 } , wedding magnificence, etc. Ukrainians love songs , in particular lyrical and comic, as well as (especially the Cossacks) military-historical.

The emergence of an independent Ukrainian state in the 90s. 20th century gave impetus to the revival of national identity not only in Ukraine itself, but also among Ukrainians in Russia. Cultural societies and folklore ensembles are being created.

{5 } Carols - ritual songs with the wishes of health, well-being, etc.

B E L O R U S S

The third largest Slavic people in Russia are Belarusians. Belarusian lands became part of the Russian Empire at the end of the 17th century. The names "Belaya Rus" are associated by some scientists with light color hair and white clothes of the population of the country. According to another theory, "White Russia" originally meant "free Russia, independent of the Tatars." In 1840, Nicholas I forbade the official use of the name "Belaya Rus", "Belarus", "Belarusians": the latter became the population of the "North-Western Territory".

Belarusians relatively late realized themselves special people. Only in the middle of the 19th century. Belarusian intellectuals put forward the idea of ​​Belarusians as a separate people. However, in broad sections of the population, national self-consciousness was developed slowly and finally formed only after the creation of in 1919 the Byelorussian SSR (since 1991 - the Republic of Belarus).

In Russia, Belarusians have long lived next to Russians in the Smolensk and Pskov regions, as well as in Central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia, where they moved after the Russian-Polish war of the 17th century. and subsequent violent partitions of Poland. Many peasants and artisans left for Russia voluntarily because of the scarcity of Belarusian lands. Large communities Belarusians were formed in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg.

For the 90s. 20th century About 1.2 million Belarusians lived in Russia. Most of them, especially the townspeople, became Russified. By 1989, only a little more than 1/3 recognized the Belarusian language as their mother tongue. According to a sample survey conducted in St. Petersburg in 1992, 1/2 of the polled Belarusians called themselves people of Russian culture, 1/4 - mixed Russian-Belarusian, and only about 10% - Belarusian. Russian Belarusians have a lot of ethnically mixed families - with Russians, Ukrainians, Karelians.

BELARUSIAN CUISINE

In the life of Russian Belarusians, little is left of their traditional culture. The traditions of national cuisine are best preserved.

Belarusians love flour dishes - pancakes, pancakes, pies, cook various cereals and cereals, kulesh, oatmeal and pea jelly.

Although, as the Belarusians say, "usyamu galava is bread," "second bread" is in great use - potato . In traditional cuisine, there are up to 200 dishes from it! Some dishes are supposed to be eaten not with bread, but with cold potatoes. Widespread potato fritters ("pancakes"), potato casserole with lard ("drachonka"), mashed potatoes with lard or milk and eggs ("tavkanitsa", "bulb egg").

Favorite meat of Belarusians - pork .

One of the highlights of the kitchen is "bleached ", i.e. dishes seasoned with milk, most often soups, and vegetable dishes are preferred stew of rutabagas, pumpkins, carrots .

Belarusian folk art

Their Belarusian folklore can be heard in everyday life "drawing" ( 6 } songs they sing at Easter. Such Belarusian dances as "hussars", "myatselitsa", "kryzhachok" and others, accompanied by "refrains", are famous.

In folk art, the traditions of patterned weaving and embroidery on bedspreads, wall rugs, tablecloths, and towels are best preserved. Patterns are mostly geometric or floral.

{6 )Name "dragging" (rite, songs) is associated with the verb "drag", in the meaning of "to go, drag, wander." On Easter Sunday, groups of men (8-10 people each) went around all the houses in the village and sang special songs in which they wished the owners family well-being and a bountiful harvest.

P O L I K I

About 100 thousand Poles live in Russia. Unlike Ukraine and Belarus, Poland does not have common borders with Russia, and therefore, there is no mixed settlement of Poles and Russians. Polish emigrants, as a rule, did not leave their homeland of their own free will. The tsarist government forcibly resettled them after the anti-Russian uprisings of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Some in search of free lands and better share voluntarily moved to Siberia. Most Russian Poles live in Tomsk, Omsk and Irkutsk regions, in Altai and in both capitals.

There are many Poles among the Russian intelligentsia. Suffice it to name K.E. Tsiolkovsky, geographer A.L. Chekanovsky, linguist and ethnographer E.K. Pekarsky, ethnographer V. Seroshevsky, artist K.S. Malevich, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky. In the tsarist army, the Poles made up more than 10% of the officer corps. Polish cultural and educational organizations existed in Russia, and in 1917 a territorial and cultural autonomy arose, which was liquidated by 1937. This intensified the Russification of the Poles: in 1989, less than 1/3 of Russian Poles called Polish their native language. In the 90s. the restoration of Polish cultural and educational organizations began.

Most Russian Poles live scattered, mostly in cities. Even those who consider themselves Poles by nationality have retained almost nothing from Polish everyday culture. This also applies to food, although certain Polish dishes (for example, "bigos" - fresh or sauerkraut stewed with meat or sausage) are widely used. The Poles are distinguished by religiosity, strictly observe church rites. This feature has become a feature of national identity.

The origin of the term "Slavs", which has been of great public interest in recent times, is very complex and confusing. The definition of the Slavs as an ethno-confessional community, due to the very large area occupied by the Slavs is often difficult, and the use of the concept of "Slavic community" for political purposes for centuries caused a serious distortion of the picture of the real relationships between the Slavic peoples.

The origin of the term "Slavs" is unknown to modern science. Presumably, it goes back to some common Indo-European root, the semantic content of which is the concept of "man", "people". There are also two theories, one of which derives Latin names Sclavi, Stlavi, Sklaveni from the ending of the names "-glory", which, in turn, is associated with the word "glory". Another theory connects the name "Slavs" with the term "word", citing as evidence the presence of the Russian word "Germans", derived from the word "mute". Both of these theories, however, are refuted by almost all modern linguists, who argue that the suffix "-yanin" unambiguously indicates belonging to a particular locality. Since the area called "Slav" is unknown to history, the origin of the name of the Slavs remains unclear.

The basic knowledge available to modern science about the ancient Slavs is based either on archaeological excavations (which in themselves do not provide any theoretical knowledge), or on the basis of chronicles, as a rule, known not in original form, but in the form of later lists, descriptions and interpretations. Obviously, such factual material is completely insufficient for any serious theoretical constructions. Sources of information about the history of the Slavs are discussed below, as well as in the chapters "History" and "Linguistics", but it should immediately be noted that any study in the field of life, life and religion of the ancient Slavs cannot claim anything more than a hypothetical model.

It should also be noted that in the science of the XIX-XX centuries. there was a serious divergence in views on the history of the Slavs between Russian and foreign researchers. On the one hand, it was caused by the special political relations of Russia with other Slavic states, the sharply increased influence of Russia on European politics and the need for a historical (or pseudo-historical) justification for this policy, as well as a backlash against it, including from openly fascist ethnographers - theorists (for example, Ratzel). On the other hand, there were (and are) fundamental differences between the scientific and methodological schools of Russia (especially the Soviet one) and Western countries. The observed discrepancy could not help but be influenced by religious aspects - the claims of Russian Orthodoxy to a special and exclusive role in the world Christian process, rooted in the history of the baptism of Russia, also required a certain revision of some views on the history of the Slavs.

In the concept of "Slavs" certain peoples are often included with a certain degree of conventionality. A number of nationalities have undergone such significant changes in their history that they can be called Slavic only with great reservations. Many peoples, mainly on the borders of traditional Slavic settlement, have signs of both the Slavs and their neighbors, which requires the introduction of the concept "marginal Slavs". These peoples definitely include the Dakoromanians, Albanians and Illyrians, Leto-Slavs.

Most of the Slavic population, having experienced numerous historical vicissitudes, one way or another mixed with other peoples. Many of these processes took place already in modern times; Thus, Russian settlers in Transbaikalia, having mixed with the local Buryat population, gave rise to a new community known as chaldons. By and large, it makes sense to derive the concept "Mesoslavs" in relation to peoples that have a direct genetic connection only with the Wends, Ants and Sklavens.

It is necessary to use the linguistic method in identifying the Slavs, as suggested by a number of researchers, with extreme caution. There are many examples of such a discrepancy or syncretism in the linguistics of some peoples; for example, the Polabian and Kashubian Slavs de facto speak German, and many Balkan peoples have changed their original language beyond recognition several times over the past millennium and a half.

Such a valuable method of research as anthropological, unfortunately, is practically inapplicable to the Slavs, since a single anthropological type, characteristic of the entire habitat of the Slavs, has not been formed. The traditional everyday anthropological characteristics of the Slavs refers mainly to the northern and eastern Slavs, who for centuries assimilated with the Balts and Scandinavians, and cannot be attributed to the eastern, and even more so to the southern Slavs. Moreover, as a result of significant external influences from, in particular, the Muslim conquerors, the anthropological characteristics of not only the Slavs, but also all the inhabitants of Europe, changed significantly. For example, the indigenous inhabitants of the Apennine Peninsula during the heyday of the Roman Empire had an appearance characteristic of the inhabitants of Central Russia in the 19th century: light curly hair, blue eyes and rounded faces.

As mentioned above, information about the Proto-Slavs is known to us exclusively from ancient, and later from Byzantine sources of the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. The Greeks and Romans gave completely arbitrary names to the Proto-Slavic peoples, attributing them to the area, appearance, or combat characteristics of the tribes. As a result, there is a certain confusion and redundancy in the names of the Proto-Slavic peoples. At the same time, however, in the Roman Empire, the Slavic tribes were generally called by the terms Stavani, Stlavani, Suoveni, Slavi, Slavini, Sklavini, obviously having a common origin, but leaving a wide scope for reasoning about the original meaning of this word, as already mentioned above.

Modern ethnography rather conditionally divides the Slavs of the new time into three groups:

Eastern, which includes Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians; some researchers distinguish only the Russian nation, which has three branches: Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian;

Western, which include Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Lusatians;

Southern, which include Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnians, Montenegrins.

It is easy to see that this division corresponds more to linguistic differences between peoples than to ethnographic and anthropological ones; Thus, the division of the main population of the former Russian Empire into Russians and Ukrainians is highly controversial, and the unification of the Cossacks, Galicians, Eastern Poles, Northern Moldavians and Hutsuls into one nationality is more about politics than science.

Unfortunately, based on the foregoing, a researcher of Slavic communities can hardly be based on a different method of research and the classification that follows from it than linguistic. However, with all the richness and effectiveness of linguistic methods, in a historical aspect they are very susceptible to external influences, and, as a result, may be unreliable in a historical perspective.

Of course, the main ethnographic group of the Eastern Slavs are the so-called Russians, at least in terms of their size. However, with regard to Russians, we can speak only in a general sense, since the Russian nation is a very bizarre synthesis of small ethnographic groups and nationalities.

Three ethnic elements took part in the formation of the Russian nation: Slavic, Finnish and Tatar-Mongolian. Asserting this, however, we cannot definitely say what exactly the original East Slavic type was. A similar uncertainty is observed in relation to the Finns, who are united in one group only due to a certain proximity of the languages ​​of the Baltic Finns proper, Lapps, Livs, Estonians and Magyars. Even less obvious is the genetic origin of the Tatar-Mongols, who, as is known, have a rather distant relation to modern Mongols, and even more so to the Tatars.

A number of researchers believe that the social elite of ancient Russia, which gave the name to the whole people, was a certain people of the Rus, who by the middle of the 10th century. subjugated Slovenian, glade and part of the Krivichi. There are, however, significant differences in the hypotheses about the origin and the very fact of the existence of the Rus. The Norman origin of the Rus is assumed to be from the Scandinavian tribes of the Viking expansion period. This hypothesis was described as early as the 18th century, but was received with hostility by the patriotic-minded part of Russian scientists, headed by Lomonosov. At present, the Norman hypothesis is considered in the West as a basic one, in Russia - as a probable one.

The Slavic hypothesis of the origin of the Rus was formulated by Lomonosov and Tatishchev in defiance of the Norman hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the Rus originate from the Middle Dnieper and are identified with glades. Under this hypothesis, which had official status in the USSR, many archaeological finds in the south of Russia were fitted.

The Indo-Iranian hypothesis suggests the origin of the Rus from the Sarmatian tribes of Roxalans or Rosomones, mentioned by ancient authors, and the name of the people - from the term ruksi- "light coloured". This hypothesis does not stand up to criticism, first of all, due to the dolichocephalicity of the skulls inherent in the burials of that time, which is inherent only northern peoples.

There is a strong (and not only in everyday life) belief that the formation of the Russian nation was influenced by a certain nation called the Scythians. Meanwhile, in the scientific sense, this term has no right to exist, since the concept of "Scythians" is no less generalized than "Europeans", and includes dozens, if not hundreds nomadic peoples Turkic, Aryan and Iranian origin. Naturally, these nomadic peoples, in one way or another, had a certain influence on the formation of the eastern and southern Slavs, but it is completely wrong to consider this influence decisive (or critical).

As the Eastern Slavs spread, they mixed not only with the Finns and Tatars, but also, somewhat later, with the Germans.

Main ethnographic group modern Ukraine are the so-called little Russians, living on the territory of the Middle Dnieper and Slobozhanshchina, also called Cherkasy. Two ethnographic groups are also distinguished: Carpathian (Boikos, Hutsuls, Lemkos) and Polissya (Litvins, Polishchuks). The formation of the Little Russian (Ukrainian) people took place in the XII-XV centuries. based on the southwestern part of the population of Kievan Rus and genetically differed little from the indigenous Russian nation that had formed by the time of the baptism of Rus. In the future, there was a partial assimilation of a part of the Little Russians with the Hungarians, Lithuanians, Poles, Tatars and Romanians.

Belarusians, calling themselves so by the geographical term "White Russia", are a complex synthesis of Dregovichi, Radimichi and partially Vyatichi with Poles and Lithuanians. Initially, until the 16th century, the term "White Russia" was applied exclusively to the Vitebsk region and northeastern Mogilev region, while the western part of the modern Minsk and Vitebsk regions, together with the territory of the present Grodno region, were called "Black Russia", and the southern part of modern Belarus - Polissya. These areas became part of "Belaya Rus" much later. Subsequently, the Belarusians absorbed the Polotsk Krivichi, and some of them were pushed back to the Pskov and Tver lands. The Russian name for the Belarusian-Ukrainian mixed population is Polishchuks, Litvins, Rusyns, Ruthenians.

Polabian Slavs(Wends) - the indigenous Slavic population of the north, northwest and east of the territory occupied by modern Germany. The composition of the Polabian Slavs includes three tribal unions: Lutichi (velets or Velets), Bodrichi (encouraged, rereki or rarogs) and Lusatians (Lusatian Serbs or Sorbs). At present, the entire Polabian population is completely Germanized.

Lusatians(Lusatian Serbs, Sorbs, Wends, Serbs) - the indigenous Mesoslavic population lives on the territory of Lusatia - the former Slavic regions, now located in Germany. They originate from the Polabian Slavs, occupied in the 10th century. German feudal lords.

Extremely southern Slavs, conditionally united under the name "Bulgarians" represent seven ethnographic groups: Dobrujantsi, Khartsoi, Balkanji, Thracians, Ruptsi, Macedonians, Shopi. These groups differ significantly not only in language, but also in customs, social structure and culture in general, and the final formation of a single Bulgarian community has not been completed even in our time.

Initially, the Bulgarians lived on the Don, when the Khazars, after moving to the west, founded a large kingdom on the lower Volga. Under the pressure of the Khazars, part of the Bulgarians moved to the lower Danube, forming modern Bulgaria, and the other part to the middle Volga, where they subsequently mixed with the Russians.

The Balkan Bulgarians mixed with the local Thracians; in modern Bulgaria, elements of the Thracian culture can be traced south of the Balkan range. With the expansion of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, new tribes entered the generalized people of the Bulgarians. A significant part of the Bulgarians assimilated with the Turks in the period of the 15th-19th centuries.

Croatians- a group of southern Slavs (self-name - hrvati). The ancestors of the Croats are the tribes of Kachichi, Shubichi, Svachichi, Magorovichi, Kroats, who moved along with other Slavic tribes to the Balkans in the 6th-7th centuries, and then settled in the north of the Dalmatian coast, in southern Istria, between the Sava and Drava rivers, in northern Bosnia .

Actually, the Croats, who form the backbone of the Croatian group, are most of all related to the Slavons.

In 806, the Croats fell under the rule of Thrace, in 864 - Byzantium, in 1075 they formed their own kingdom.

At the end of the XI - beginning of the XII centuries. the main part of the Croatian lands was included in the Kingdom of Hungary, resulting in significant assimilation with the Hungarians. In the middle of the XV century. Venice (back in the 11th century, seized part of Dalmatia) took possession of the Croatian Primorye (with the exception of Dubrovnik). In 1527, Croatia gained independence, falling under the rule of the Habsburgs.

In 1592, part of the Croatian kingdom was conquered by the Turks. A military frontier was created to protect against the Ottomans; its inhabitants, the frontiers, are Croats, Slavonians and Serb refugees.

In 1699, Turkey ceded to Austria the occupied part, among other lands, according to the Karlovtsy peace. In 1809-1813. Croatia was annexed to the Illyrian provinces ceded to Napoleon I. From 1849 to 1868. together with Slavonia, the coastal region and Fiume, it constituted an independent crown land, in 1868 it was again united with Hungary, and in 1881 the Slovak border region was annexed to the latter.

A small group of South Slavs - Illyrians, the later inhabitants of ancient Illyria, located west of Thessaly and Macedonia, and east of Italy and Rhetia, as far north as the river Istra. The most significant of the Illyrian tribes are: Dalmatians, Liburnians, Istrians, Japodes, Pannonians, Desitiates, Pirusts, Dicyons, Dardani, Ardei, Taulantii, Plerei, Iapigi, Messaps.

At the beginning of the III century. BC e. the Illyrians were subjected to Celtic influence, as a result of which a group of Illyro-Celtic tribes was formed. As a result of the Illyrian Wars with Rome, the Illyrians underwent rapid romanization, as a result of which their language disappeared.

From the Illyrians are descended modern Albanians and dalmatians.

In formation Albanians(self-name shchiptar, known in Italy as arbreshi, in Greece as arvanites) the tribes of the Illyrians and Thracians took part, and the influence of Rome and Byzantium also affected it. The community of Albanians was formed relatively late, in the 15th century, but it was strongly influenced by the Ottoman domination, which destroyed economic ties between the communities. At the end of the XVIII century. Albanians formed two main ethnic groups: the Ghegs and the Tosks.

Romanians(Dakorumyns), who until the 12th century were a pastoral mountain people who did not have a stable place of residence, are not pure Slavs. Genetically, they are a mixture of Dacians, Illyrians, Romans and South Slavs.

Aromanians(Aromans, Tsintsars, Kutsovlachs) are the descendants of the ancient Romanized population of Moesia. With a high degree of probability, the ancestors of the Aromanians until the 9th - 10th centuries lived in the northeast of the Balkan Peninsula and are not an autochthonous population in the territory of their present residence, i.e. in Albania and Greece. Linguistic analysis shows the almost complete identity of the Aromanian and Dakoromanian vocabulary, which indicates that these two peoples long time were in close contact. Byzantine sources also testify to the resettlement of the Aromanians.

Origin Megleno-Romanian not fully explored. There is no doubt that they belong to the eastern part of the Romanians, which was subjected to a long influence of the Dakoromanians, and are not an autochthonous population in the places of modern residence, i.e. in Greece.

Istro-Romanians represent the western part of the Romanians, currently living in small numbers in the eastern part of the Istrian peninsula.

Origin Gagauz, people living in almost all Slavic and neighboring countries (mainly in Bessarabia), is highly controversial. According to one of the widespread versions, this Orthodox people, who speak the specific Gagauz language of the Turkic group, are Turkified Bulgarians mixed with the Polovtsy of the southern Russian steppes.

Southwestern Slavs, currently united under the code name "Serbs"(self-designation - srbi), as well as singling out of them Montenegrins and Bosnians, are assimilated descendants of the Serbs themselves, Duklyans, Tervunyans, Konavlyans, Zakhlumyans, named, who occupied a significant part of the territory in the basin of the southern tributaries of the Sava and Danube, the Dinaric Mountains, south. part of the Adriatic coast. The modern southwestern Slavs are divided into regional ethnic groups: the Shumadians, the Uzhians, the Moravians, the Machvans, the Kosovians, the Srems, and the Banachans.

Bosnians(Bosanians, self-name - Muslims) live in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, they are Serbs who mixed with Croats and converted to Islam during the Ottoman occupation. The Turks, Arabs, Kurds who moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina mixed with the Bosnians.

Montenegrins(self-name - "tsrnogortsy") live in Montenegro and Albania, genetically differ little from the Serbs. Unlike most Balkan countries, Montenegro actively resisted the Ottoman yoke, as a result of which, in 1796, it gained independence. As a result, the level of Turkish assimilation of Montenegrins is minimal.

The center of settlement of the southwestern Slavs is the historical region of Raska, which unites the basins of the Drina, Lim, Piva, Tara, Ibar, Western Morava rivers, where in the second half of the 8th century. happened early state. In the middle of the ninth century the Serbian principality was created; in the X-XI centuries. the center of political life moved to the south-west of Raska, to Duklja, Travuniya, Zakhumya, then again to Raska. Then, at the end of the XIV - beginning of the XV centuries, Serbia entered Ottoman Empire.

Western Slavs, known by their modern name "Slovaks"(self-name - Slovaks), on the territory of modern Slovakia began to prevail from the VI century. AD Moving from the southeast, the Slovaks partially absorbed the former Celtic, Germanic, and then the Avar population. The southern areas of Slovak settlement in the 7th century were probably within the borders of the state of Samo. In the ninth century along the course of the Vah and Nitra, the first tribal principality of the early Slovaks arose - Nitra, or the principality of Pribina, which around 833 joined the Moravian principality - the core of the future Great Moravian state. At the end of the ninth century The Great Moravian principality collapsed under the onslaught of the Hungarians, after which its eastern regions by the XII century. became part of Hungary, and later Austria-Hungary.

The term "Slovaks" appeared from the middle of the 15th century; earlier, the inhabitants of this territory were called "Slovenia", "Slovenka".

The second group of Western Slavs - Poles, formed as a result of the unification of the Western shy; Slavic tribes of the glades, slenzan, vislyans, mazovshans, pomeranians. Up to late XIX in. there was no single Polish nation: the Poles were divided into several large ethnic groups, which differed in dialects and some ethnographic features: in the west - Velikopoliane (which included the Kuyavians), Lenchitsans and Seradzians; in the south - the Malopolyans, whose group included the Gorals (the population of mountainous regions), Krakovians and Sandomierz; in Silesia - slenzan (slenzaks, Silesians, among whom there were Poles, Silesian Gorals, etc.); in the north-east - Mazury (they included Kurpi) and Warmiaks; on the coast of the Baltic Sea - the Pomeranians, and in Pomorie the Kashubians were especially prominent, retaining the specifics of their language and culture.

The third group of Western Slavs - Czechs(self-name - Cheshi). The Slavs as part of the tribes (Czechs, Croats, Luchians, Zlichans, Dechans, Pshovans, Litomers, Hebans, Glomachs) became the predominant population in the territory of modern Czech Republic in the 6th-7th centuries, assimilating the remnants of the Celtic and Germanic population.

In the ninth century The Czech Republic was part of the Great Moravian Empire. At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. the Czech (Prague) principality was formed, in the X century. included Moravia in their lands. From the second half of the XII century. The Czech Republic became part of the Holy Roman Empire; further, German colonization took place on the Czech lands, in 1526 the power of the Habsburgs was established.

At the end of XVIII - early XIX centuries the revival of Czech identity began, which ended, with the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, with the formation of the national state of Czechoslovakia, which in 1993 broke up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

As part of the modern Czech Republic, the population of the Czech Republic proper and the historical region of Moravia stand out, where regional groups of Horaks, Moravian Slovaks, Moravian Vlachs and Hanaks are preserved.

Leto-Slavs are considered the youngest branch of the North European Aryans. They live to the east of the middle Vistula and have significant anthropological differences from the Lithuanians living in the same area. According to a number of researchers, the Leto-Slavs, having mixed with the Finns, reached the middle Main and Inn, and only later were partially forced out, and partially assimilated by the Germanic tribes.

Intermediate nationality between the southwestern and western Slavs - slovenes, currently occupying the extreme north-west of the Balkan Peninsula, from the upper reaches of the Sava and Drava rivers to the eastern Alps and the Adriatic coast up to the Friuli valley, as well as in the Middle Danube and Lower Pannonia. This territory was occupied by them during the mass migration of Slavic tribes to the Balkans in the 6th-7th centuries, forming two Slovenian regions - the Alpine (Karantans) and the Danubian (Pannonian Slavs).

From the middle of the ninth century most of the Slovenian lands came under the rule of southern Germany, as a result of which Catholicism began to spread there.

In 1918, the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created under the common name of Yugoslavia.

SLAVIES, Europe's largest group kindred peoples. The total number of Slavs is about 300 million people. Modern Slavs are divided into three branches: eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Muslim Bosnians, Macedonians) and western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians). They speak the languages ​​of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family. The origin of the ethnonym Slavs is not clear enough. Apparently, it goes back to the common Indo-European root, the semantic content of which is the concept of "man", "people", "speaking". In this meaning, the ethnonym Slavs is registered in a number of Slavic languages ​​(including the Old Polabian language, where "Slavak", "Tslavak" meant "man"). This ethnonym (middle Slovenes, Slovaks, Slovenes, Slovenes of Novgorod) in various modifications is most often traced on the periphery of the settlement of the Slavs.

The question of ethnogenesis and the so-called ancestral home of the Slavs remains debatable. The ethnogenesis of the Slavs probably developed in stages (Proto-Slavs, Proto-Slavs and the early Slavic ethnolinguistic community). By the end of the 1st millennium AD, separate Slavic ethnic communities (tribes and unions of tribes) were formed. Ethnogenetic processes were accompanied by migrations, differentiation and integration of peoples, ethnic and local groups, assimilation phenomena in which various, both Slavic and non-Slavic, ethnic groups took part as substrates or components. Contact zones arose and changed, which were characterized by ethnic processes of various types in the epicenter and on the periphery. In modern science greatest recognition received views according to which the Slavic ethnic community initially developed in the area either between the Oder (Odra) and the Vistula (Oder-Vislenian theory), or between the Oder and the Middle Dnieper (Oder-Dnieper theory). Linguists believe that Proto-Slavic speakers consolidated no later than the 2nd millennium BC.

From here began the gradual advance of the Slavs in the southwestern, western and northern directions, coinciding mainly with the final phase of the Great Migration of Nations (V-VII centuries). At the same time, the Slavs interacted with Iranian, Thracian, Dacian, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric and other ethnic components. By the 6th century, the Slavs occupied the Danubian territories that were part of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, about 577 crossed the Danube and in the middle of the 7th century settled in the Balkans (Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, most of Greece, Dalmatia, Istria), penetrating partly into Malaya Asia. At the same time, in the VI century, the Slavs, having mastered Dacia and Pannonia, reached the Alpine regions. Between the 6th-7th centuries (mainly at the end of the 6th century), another part of the Slavs settled between the Oder and the Elbe (Labe), partially moving to the left bank of the latter (the so-called Wendland in Germany). Since the 7th-8th centuries, there has been an intensive advance of the Slavs to the central and northern zones of Eastern Europe. As a result, in the IX-X centuries. there was an extensive area of ​​Slavic settlement: from the North-East of Europe and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Volga to the Elbe. Along with this, the Proto-Slavic ethno-linguistic community was disintegrating and the formation of Slavic language groups on the basis of local pra-dialects and later, the languages ​​of individual Slavic ethno-social communities.

Ancient authors of the 1st-2nd centuries and Byzantine sources of the 6th-7th centuries mention the Slavs under different names, then calling them generally Wends, then singling out Antes and Slavins among them. It is possible, however, that such names (especially "Vendi", "Antes") were used to refer not only to the Slavs themselves, but also to neighboring or related to other peoples. In modern science, the location of the Ants is usually localized in the Northern Black Sea region (between the Seversky Donets and the Carpathians), and the Sklavins are interpreted as their western neighbors. In the VI century, the Antes, together with the Slavs, participated in the wars against Byzantium and partially settled in the Balkans. The ethnonym "Antes" disappears from written sources in the 7th century. It is possible that it was reflected in the later ethnonym of the East Slavic tribe "Vyatichi", in the generalized designation of Slavic groups in Germany - "Vends". Starting from the 6th century, Byzantine authors increasingly report the existence of "Slavinia" ("Slavii"). Their occurrence was recorded in different parts of the Slavic world - in the Balkans ("Seven clans", Berzitia among the Berzites tribe, Draguvitia among the Draguvites, etc.), in Central Europe(“State of Samo”), among the Eastern and Western (including Pomeranian and Polabian) Slavs. These were unstable formations that arose and again disintegrated, changed territories and united various tribes. So, the state of Samo, which was formed in the 7th century to protect against the Avars, Bavarians, Lombards, Franks, united the Slavs of the Czech Republic, Moravia, Slovakia, Lusatia and (partially) Croatia and Slovenia. The emergence of "Slavinia" on a tribal and intertribal basis reflected the internal changes of the ancient Slavic society, in which there was a process of formation of the propertied elite, and the power of tribal princes gradually developed into hereditary.

The emergence of statehood among the Slavs dates back to the 7th-9th centuries. The date of foundation of the Bulgarian state (the First Bulgarian Kingdom) is considered to be 681. Although at the end of the 10th century Bulgaria became dependent on Byzantium, as further development showed, the Bulgarian people had already acquired a stable self-consciousness by that time. In the second half of the VIII - the first half of the IX centuries. there is a formation of statehood among the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes. In the ninth century, it develops ancient Russian statehood with centers in Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod and Kyiv ( Kievan Rus). By the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. refers to the existence of the Great Moravian state, which had great importance for the development of a common Slavic culture - here in 863 the educational activities of the creators of Slavic writing Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius began, continued by their students (after the defeat of Orthodoxy in Great Moravia) in Bulgaria. The boundaries of the Great Moravian state at the time of its highest prosperity included Moravia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, as well as Lusatia, part of Pannonia and Slovenian lands and, apparently, Lesser Poland. In the 9th century, the Old Polish state arose. At the same time, the process of Christianization proceeded, with the majority of the southern Slavs and all the eastern Slavs found themselves in the sphere of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Western Slavs (including Croats and Slovenes) - the Roman Catholic. Some of the Western Slavs in the XV-XVI centuries had reform movements (Husism, the community of Czech brothers, etc. in the Czech Kingdom, Arianism in Poland, Calvinism among the Slovaks, Protestantism in Slovenia, etc.), largely suppressed during the counter-reformation period.

The transition to state formations reflected a qualitatively new stage in the ethno-social development of the Slavs - the beginning of the formation of nationalities.

The nature, dynamics and pace of formation of the Slavic peoples were determined by social factors (the presence of "complete" or "incomplete" ethno-social structures) and political factors (the presence or absence of their own state-legal institutions, stability or mobility of the borders of early state formations, etc.). ). Political factors in a number of cases, especially at the initial stages of ethnic history, acquired decisive importance. Thus, the further development of the Great Moravian ethnic community on the basis of the Moravian-Czech, Slovak, Pannonian and Lusatian tribes of the Slavs, which were part of Great Moravia, turned out to be impossible after the fall of this state under the blows of the Hungarians in 906. There was a break in the economic and political ties of this part of the Slavic ethnos and its administrative-territorial separation, which created a new ethnic situation. On the contrary, the emergence and consolidation of the Old Russian state in the east of Europe was the most important factor in the further consolidation of the East Slavic tribes into a relatively single Old Russian nationality.

In the 9th century, the lands inhabited by tribes - the ancestors of the Slovenes, were captured by the Germans and from 962 became part of the Holy Roman Empire, and at the beginning of the 10th century, the ancestors of the Slovaks, after the fall of the Great Moravian state, were included in the Hungarian state. Despite the long resistance to German expansion, the bulk of the Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs lost their independence and were subjected to forced assimilation. Despite the disappearance of their own ethno-political base among this group of Western Slavs, separate groups of them in different regions of Germany remained for a long time - until the 18th century, and in Brandenburg and near Lüneburg even until the 19th century. The exception was the Lusatians, as well as the Kashubians (the latter later became part of the Polish nation).

Approximately in the XIII-XIV centuries, the Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Czech and Polish peoples began to move to a new phase of their development. However, this process among the Bulgarians and Serbs was interrupted at the end of the 14th century by the Ottoman invasion, as a result of which they lost their independence for five centuries, and the ethno-social structures of these peoples were deformed. Croatia, in view of the danger from outside, in 1102 recognized the power of the Hungarian kings, but retained autonomy and the ethnically Croatian ruling class. This had a positive effect on the further development of the Croatian people, although the territorial disunity of the Croatian lands led to the conservation ethnic regionalism. By the beginning of the 17th century, the Polish and Czech nationalities had reached a high degree of consolidation. But in the Czech lands, included in 1620 into the Habsburg Austrian monarchy, as a result of the events of the Thirty Years' War and the counter-reformation policy in the 17th century, significant changes occurred in the ethnic composition of the ruling strata and townspeople. Although Poland remained independent until the partitions of the late 18th century, the general unfavorable domestic and foreign political situation and the lag in economic development hampered the process of nation formation.

The ethnic history of the Slavs in Eastern Europe had its own specific features. For consolidation ancient Russian people influenced not only by the proximity of culture and the relatedness of the dialects used by the Eastern Slavs, but also by the similarity of their socio-economic development. The peculiarity of the process of formation of individual nationalities, and later - ethnic groups among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) was that they survived the stage of ancient Russian nationality and common statehood. Their further formation was a consequence of the differentiation of the ancient Russian people into three independent closely related ethnic groups (XIV-XVI centuries). AT XVII-XVIII centuries Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were again part of one state - Russia, now as three independent ethnic groups.

AT XVIII-XIX centuries Eastern Slavic peoples develop into modern nations. This process proceeded among the Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians at a different pace (the most intense - among the Russians, the most slow - among the Belarusians), which was determined by the peculiar historical, ethno-political and ethno-cultural situations experienced by each of the three peoples. Thus, for Belarusians and Ukrainians, an important role was played by the need to resist Polonization and Magyarization, the incompleteness of their ethno-social structure, formed as a result of the merger of their own upper social strata with the upper social strata of Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, etc.

Among the Western and Southern Slavs, the formation of nations, with some asynchrony of the initial boundaries of this process, begins in the second half of the 18th century. With a formation commonality, in a stadial relationship, there were differences between the regions of Central and South-Eastern Europe: if for the Western Slavs this process basically ends in the 60s of the XIX century, then for the southern Slavs - after the liberation Russian-Turkish war 1877-78.

Until 1918, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks were part of multinational empires, and the task of creating national statehood remained unresolved. At the same time, the political factor retained its significance in the process of formation of the Slavic nations. The consolidation of Montenegrin independence in 1878 created the basis for the subsequent formation of the Montenegrin nation. After the decisions of the Berlin Congress of 1878 and the change of borders in the Balkans, most of Macedonia turned out to be outside Bulgaria, which subsequently led to the formation of the Macedonian nation. At the beginning of the 20th century, and especially in the period between the first and second world wars, when the Western and Southern Slavs gained state independence, this process, however, was contradictory.

After the February Revolution of 1917, attempts were made to create Ukrainian and Belarusian statehood. In 1922, Ukraine and Belarus, together with other Soviet republics, were the founders of the USSR (in 1991 they declared themselves sovereign states). Established in Slavic countries ah Europe in the second half of the 1940s totalitarian regimes with the dominance of the administrative-command system, they had a deforming effect on ethnic processes (violation of the rights of ethnic minorities in Bulgaria, ignoring the autonomous status of Slovakia by the leadership of Czechoslovakia, aggravation of interethnic contradictions in Yugoslavia, etc.). This was one of the most important reasons for the nationwide crisis in the Slavic countries of Europe, which led here, starting from 1989-1990, to significant changes in the socio-economic and ethno-political situation. Modern processes of democratization of the socio-economic, political and spiritual life of the Slavic peoples create qualitatively new opportunities for expanding interethnic contacts and cultural cooperation, which have strong traditions.

Slavs are the largest this moment In Europe, the Indo-European language group. Within the common Slavic unity, Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Kashubians and Lusatians), Southern Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Slovenes, Montenegrins) and Eastern Slavs (Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians, Rusyns) stand out.

The origin of the ethnonym Slavs.

There are several versions of the etymology of the term "Slavs".
1. The meaning of the ethnonym goes back to the word "word", i.e. Slavs are people with the gift of words, unlike foreign-speaking peoples. The version is based on the opposition of one's own - someone else's, which was widespread in antiquity among many peoples. (supporters - L. Niederle, T. Lehr-Splavinsky, R.O. Jacobson.)
2. B.A. Rybakov connects the Slavs with the tribes of the Wends of the Roman authors and interprets the term Slavs as “slavs” + “vene” (i.e. ambassadors of the Wends).
3. The etymology of the word goes back to the Indo-European root -kleu-, one of the meanings of which is “glory” in the concept of fame, celebrity, popularity.
4. The word "Slavs" is associated with a hydronym in the area of ​​​​settlement of one of the tribes and subsequently spread to all other tribes. The epithet r. Dnieper - Slavutych, r. Sluya, a tributary of the Vazuza, Polish. the names of the rivers Svava, Svawisa, the Serbian river Slavnica, etc.
5. The self-name is derived from the Indo-European word -slauos- people (supporters - S. B. Bernstein, I. Yu. Mikkola).

Where did the Slavs come from?

Where did the Slavs come from When determining the territory of the Slavic ancestral home, data from linguistics, toponymy, paleobotany and paleozoology, historical linguistics, anthropology and archeology were used. It was found that the region of the ancestral home should be located in the foothills, where oak, beech and hornbeam grow, in the basin of rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea and should not go to the sea coast. The territory is roughly localized somewhere in the Northern Carpathian region. According to archeology, the first archaeological culture associated with the Slavs proper is the sub-klosh culture of the 5th - 2nd centuries. BC. The area of ​​distribution of this culture is southern Poland, the north of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the southeast of Germany and the Carpathians. This place is associated with the separation of the Slavic language from the Balto-Slavic linguistic community. In the north, the Slavs bordered on the Balts and Germans, in the east with the Iranian-speaking tribes of the Scythians and Sarmatians, in the south with the Illyrians and Thracians, and with the Celts in the west.
The Slavs are sometimes identified with a part of the Scythian cultural region (the so-called Scythians-plowmen), as well as with the ethnonym Wends. So the Finns still call Russia - Veneia, and the Estonians - Venemaa.

Settlement of the Slavs.

By the end of the II century. BC. to the west of the Carpathians, the Przeworsk archaeological culture is localized, and to the east of the Carpathians, the Zarubynets culture, some of whose carriers belong to the Slavs. Settlement of the Slavs Representatives of the Przeworsk culture migrated to the Dnieper, and there in the 2nd century the Chernyakhov archaeological culture was formed, which, along with the Slavs, also included the Iranian-speaking tribes of the Sarmatians.
From the 6th century AD Slavs actively participate in the Great Migration of Nations, reshaping the ethnic map of Europe in a new way. The Slavic stage of the ethnogenesis of Europe is coming. The settlement of the Slavs in Europe took place in three main directions: south to the Balkan Peninsula, north and east along the East European Plain and west to the Middle Danube and the interfluve of the Oder and Elbe.
Three directions of settlement determined the division of the Slavs into three branches: eastern, western and southern. The Tale of Bygone Years lists twelve East Slavic tribal unions inhabiting the territories between the Baltic and Black Seas. Among these tribal unions are Polans, Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Krivichi, Slovenes, Dulebs (later divided into Volynians and Buzhans), White Croats, Severians, Ulichs, Tivertsy.

Written testimonies about the Slavs.

Written evidence of the Slavs The earliest references to the Slavs are found in ancient authors of the 1st century BC. n. e (Pliny the Elder, Tacitus). They are the first to mention the Wends, who are usually identified with the Slavs. The Slavs themselves, under the name of the Slavs and Antes, are first spoken of in the middle of the 6th century AD. two authors - the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea and the Goth Jordanes. Below are the most informative testimonies about the Slavs of the two indicated authors.

These [Veneti], as we already told at the beginning of our presentation, precisely when listing the tribes, come from the same root and are now known under three names: Veneti, Antes, Sklavens. Although now, due to our sins, they rage everywhere, but then they all obeyed the power of Germanaric.

Procopius.

These tribes, Slavs and Antes, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times they live in the government of the people, and therefore they consider happiness and unhappiness in life to be a common thing. And in all other respects, both of these barbarian tribes have the same life and laws. They believe that only one god, the creator of lightning, is the lord over all, and bulls are sacrificed to him and other sacred rites are performed. They do not know fate and do not at all recognize that it has any power in relation to people, and when they are about to face death, whether they are stricken with illness or in a war in a dangerous situation, they make a promise if they are saved, immediately bring a sacrifice to God for your soul; having escaped death, they sacrifice what they promised, and think that their salvation is bought at the price of this sacrifice. They worship rivers, and nymphs, and all sorts of other deities, make sacrifices to all of them and, with the help of the victims, perform divination. They live in miserable huts, at a great distance from each other, and they all change their places of residence frequently. Entering the battle, most of them go to the enemy with shields and darts in their hands, but they never wear shells; others do not wear shirts or cloaks, but only trousers, pulled up by a wide belt on the hips, and in this form they go to battle with enemies. Both have the same language, rather barbaric. And in appearance they do not differ from each other. Highly tall and great strength. The color of their skin and hair is white or golden and not quite black, but they are all dark red. Their way of life, like that of the Massagetae, is rough, without any conveniences, they are always covered with mud, but in essence they are not bad and not at all malicious, but they preserve the Hun morals in all their purity. In ancient times, both of these tribes were called disputes [scattered], I think because they lived, occupying the country "sporaden", "scattered", in separate villages. That is why they need a lot of land. They live, occupying most of the banks of the Istra, on the other side of the river. I consider sufficient what has been said about this people.
No less interesting are the data on the Slavs of the Byzantine emperor Mauritius the Strategist. The work of Mauritius "Strategikon" was for subsequent generations of Byzantine commanders a kind of textbook on military operations against the Slavs. The information concerns mainly military affairs. The author notes they great amount military tricks. So our ancestors could hide in a pond, breathing through reeds, or use a false retreat technique. Mauritius describes the Slavs as extremely freedom-loving, unpretentious and hardy people who value hospitality most of all, which they have elevated almost to a cult element. On this occasion, the historian of the XIX century Petrushevsky A.F. wrote the following. The Slavs were of good character and very hospitable. Leaving the house, the Slav did not lock the door and left various food on the table, in case a stranger came in. For others, it was not even considered dishonorable if the owner, out of poverty, steals something for a guest. According to the author, Slavic women, after the death of their husband, could prefer death on his grave to the position of a widow. It is also noted that they have some features of patriarchal slavery, so having been a slave for some time, a person could move into the position of a free member of the community.

Literature.
Reader on the history of the USSR. T. I / Comp. V. Lebedev and others. M.: 1940
Rybakov B. A. Paganism Ancient Russia. M.: Publishing house "Nauka", 1987
Rybakov B. A. Paganism of the ancient Slavs M .: Publishing house "Nauka", 1981
Cornelius Tacitus. Works in two volumes. T.1. Annals. Small works. L.: Nauka, 1969
Sedov V.V. Origin and early history Slavs. M.: Publishing house "Science", 1979
Gimbutas M. Slavs. Sons of Perun. M.: 2001.

Blagorad,
Magazine Rodnoverie №1(1) 2009

Modern Slavic peoples and states.

The first information about the Slavs. Wends.

The origin of the word "Slavs"

In this book, addressed mainly to students and students Russia, there is no need to elaborate on the topic of who the Slavs are. The largest Slavic people, Russians, constitutes in our country the so-called "titular" or state-forming nation.

Slavs live mainly in Eastern and Central Europe (and also in Siberia). As a result of immigration processes, there are Slavic diasporas even in the USA, Canada, Australia and a number of other regions of the planet.

Russians, according to the latest available data, more than 145 million. The second largest Slavic people are Ukrainians. There are about 50 million of them. The third largest Slavic people are Poles. Their number approaches the number of Ukrainians and is about 45 million. Further, in descending order of numbers, there are almost 10 million Belarusians, until recently there were at least 10 million Serbs, about 10 million Czechs, more than 9 million Bulgarians, 5 Slovaks. .5 million, Croats too - 5.5 million, Slovenes - up to 2.5 million, Macedonians - 2 million, Muslims - about 2 million, Montenegrins - 0.6 million people16.

For centuries, the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) lived in one state, which changed names (Russian Empire, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), but united these fraternal peoples, mutually reinforcing them culturally, economically and military-politically. At the end of 1991, due to complex socio-political processes, the USSR collapsed. Since that time, Ukrainians and Belarusians live in their own separate from Russia and Russian national states.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia existed on the Balkan Peninsula for several decades, uniting almost all southern Slavs - Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Muslims and Montenegrins. Since the beginning of the 1990s, due to similar processes, Yugoslavia has gradually disintegrated. At first, the Slovenes, Croats and Macedonians almost simultaneously emerged from it and proclaimed the creation of their own states. In the end, only Serbia and Montenegro remained part of Yugoslavia, but recently Montenegro, as a result of a referendum, declared its independence from Serbia, and Yugoslavia ceased to exist as a state.

In 1993, it broke up into two West Slavic states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a single Czechoslovakia that existed since 1918. Only West Slavic Poland and South Slavic Bulgaria remained within the borders that they acquired after the Second World War.

As a result, at the moment there are Russia (the capital is Moscow), Ukraine (Kyiv), Belarus or Belarus (Minsk), Czech Republic (Prague), Slovakia (Bratislava), Poland (Warsaw), Bulgaria (Sofia), Macedonia (Skopje) ), Croatia (Zagreb), Slovenia (Ljubljana), Serbia (Belgrade), Montenegro (Podgorica)17.

Russian readers know what a spiritual tragedy the destruction of the USSR and the SFRY, powerful states in which peoples lived peacefully, created and developed in a unique way, turned out to be for all Slavs. vibrant cultures. At the same time, for example, the death of Yugoslavia resulted in an ethnic catastrophe.

In the early 1990s, a largely externally provoked war took place between the fraternal peoples - Serbs, Croats and Muslims - in the Yugoslav regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina18.

Many Bosnian Serbs were eventually expelled from the lands where their distant ancestors lived. Homeless people fled en masse to Serbia.

In 1999, Serbia, which had previously accepted them, in turn, became a victim of aggression by a number of countries that are members of the NATO military bloc.

The pretext for aggression was the declared intention of the NATO members to "protect" the Albanians living there from the Yugoslav police in the Serbian province of Kosovo. For 78 days, Serbia was constantly subjected to massive bombings, as a result of which thousands of civilians were killed, ancient cities and architectural monuments were destroyed.

After that, Albanian gangs, in conditions of complete impunity, staged a series of Serbian pogroms in Kosovo with numerous murders of unarmed people, as a result of which the Serb population in the first half of the 2000s almost completely fled this region, leaving their homes and property19.

At the beginning of 2008, with the huge support of the United States and some other NATO countries, Kosovo declared its "state" independence, although such a declaration was accompanied by a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Foreign forces in the XXI century. have repeatedly interfered in the internal affairs of the Slavic countries, provoking the so-called "orange revolutions" in them.

Currently Slavic world is in a state of unprecedented cultural and historical disunity, disintegration.

All the more important now is the task of getting to know Slavic issues within the framework of the course Introduction to Slavic Philology20.

The first information about the Slavs comes from Roman historians Pliny the Elder and Cornelia Tacitus 21. These are brief mentions, and both Roman authors call the Slavs "Venedi".

Thus, Pliny in his natural history" (98 AD) writes: "Some writers convey that these areas up to the Vistula (Vistula) river are inhabited by Sarmatians, Wends, Scythians, Girrs." Somewhat earlier Tacitus in his essay " Germany” also in the form of a passing mention says that the Wends live next to the tribes of Peukins and Fenns. He finds it difficult to attribute them to the Germans, whom he repeatedly criticizes for "barbarism", but argues that "the Wends adopted many of their customs", building similar dwellings and also distinguished by a sedentary lifestyle.

"Venedi" - the Slavs themselves, apparently, never called themselves this word. This is a name from the outside: that is what others called them in ancient times. In a similar way, one can recall all the well-known European people, whose representatives call themselves "Deutsches", and other peoples call them differently - Russians "Germans", French "Alleman", English "Jemen", etc.

Names that refract the word "Venedi" have survived to this day in the Finno-Ugric languages. In Estonian Russian - vene ("vein"), Russian - vene keel.

In the II century. n. e. Claudius Ptolemy in his " geographical guide” once again briefly mentions the Wends, who, according to his (very vague) information, live “along the entire Venedsky Gulf” (meaning the Baltic Sea). From the west, the land of the Wends is limited, according to Ptolemy, by the river Vistula (Vistula).

Byzantine author of the 5th c. Priscus of Pannia was part of the embassy sent to the court of Attila. Speaking about the Turkic conquerors, the Huns, he unexpectedly names such words of the “Hunnic” language as the names of the drink - medos and the name of the funeral feast - strava.

Since in the first word it is easy to guess honey, and the second meant a meal in the Old Russian language and is still available in some Slavic languages, insofar as the Czech philologist Pavel Shafarik(1795-1861), author of the work " Slavic antiquities "(1837), made a reasonable assumption about the presence of the Slavs in the multinational horde of Atilla. (By the way, Prisk also calls the drink kamos, in which one has to suspect kvass.)

The Gothic historian of the 6th century knew more concrete about the Slavs. Jordan and Byzantine historians of the VI-VII centuries. n. e.

For the author of the essay About Goths"Jordan, who wrote in Latin (he served the Romans for a long time and only at the age of sixty became the "court historian" of the Gothic king), the Slavs are hated enemies who "now because of our sins" "rage everywhere" and to whom, as well as to others ready for opponents, he regularly expresses emphasized official contempt. In particular, he calls them “a crowd of cowards”, “powerful in their numbers”, and reports that they “now have three names: Wends, Antes and Sklavins”23. However, in relation to the Antes, whose lands stretch “from Danastre to Danapr” (from the Dniester to the Dnieper), Jordan makes an interesting demonstrative reservation, calling them “the bravest” (of the Slavs).

Dig Caesarea(VI century) in his work "War With Goths" divides the Slavs into two categories: he calls the western ones “Slavs”, and the eastern ones (our immediate ancestors) “antes”. Procopius says:

“These tribes, the Slavs and the Antes, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times they live in democracy (democracy), and therefore they consider happiness and unhappiness in life to be a common cause. And in everything else, both of these barbarian tribes have the same life and laws.

At the end of the VI century. interesting and detailed information about the Slavs brought in his military leadership " Strategicon» a certain Byzantine Mauritius (the emperor of Mauritius was mistakenly considered the author of this work for a long time, later the author was conditionally called Mauritius Strategist). He writes, for example:

“The tribes of the Slavs and Antes are similar in their way of life, in their customs, in their love of freedom; they can in no way be persuaded into slavery or submission in their own country. They are numerous, hardy, easily endure heat, cold, rain, nakedness, lack of food. They treat foreigners who come to them kindly and, showing them signs of their favor, when moving from one place to another, they protect them if necessary, so that if it turned out that due to the negligence of the one who receives the foreigner, the latter suffered ( any) damage that took it earlier starts a war (against the guilty), considering it a duty of honor to avenge the stranger. They do not keep those who are in their captivity, like other tribes, for an unlimited time, but, limiting (the term of slavery) to a certain time, they offer them a choice: whether they want to return home for a certain ransom or stay there (where they are) ) in the position of free and friends?”

Here, their military adversary tells about the Slavs, who aims to acquaint his soldiers with the ways of the most effective fight against them. Such an author "will not overpraise". The more valuable is his objective evidence of a special Slavic love of freedom (they cannot be enslaved), endurance, cordiality and hospitality, and an amazingly humane attitude towards prisoners. All these are very informative, testifying features of the national character.

Information coming from Procopius of Caesarea and Mauritius the Strategist will be repeatedly drawn below in various sections of the Introduction to Slavic Philology.

The question of where the ethnonym "Slavs" comes from has been debated for centuries. As usual, the Slavs in various ways romanticized and, in particular, glorified their name. The point of view was popular that they are called so because they "covered themselves with unfading glory."

According to the philologist P.Ya. Chernykh, "in the popular Slavic consciousness, the name of the Slavic tribe was first associated with word, and then contacted glory. As one old Polish writer says: “That is why the peoples of our language were called Slavs that all together and each in particular tried to earn a good reputation for themselves by chivalrous exploits.

The original opinion was given by I. Pervolf in the book "Slavs, their mutual relations and connections." A certain Pole Paprocki reasoned that the Slavs “were named either from glory or from the word: they willingly fulfilled this word to everyone ... However, glory and the word do not differ from each other; glory to him who keeps his word.”25

In the medieval Slavic environment, even the so-called “charter” to the Slavic people from Alexander the Great (Macedonian) became widespread. This curious text reads:

“To the bright Slavic generation for its great services for all eternity, the entire part of the earth from the north to Italy itself, and the land in the south, so that no one other than your people dares to stay and settle in them; and if anyone else were found living in those countries, then he must be your servant, and his descendants must be the servants of your descendants.

P.Ya. Chernykh wrote about the word "Slav": "Since ancient times, in the written monuments, this name has been known since about after l and with the suffix -ѣnin. With this suffix, nouns were usually formed in the old days, denoting not only belonging to a tribe, people, but also origin from a particular settlement or locality: Samaritan, Galilean. Therefore, in this case, they make the assumption that the Slavs got their name from the area rich in rivers. Word or from the river The words" 27.

Nevertheless, most likely, the self-name "Slavs" was formed according to the principle that is widespread among world languages.

As correctly wrote the same P.Ya. Chernykh, “since the word was not associated with the word and got the meaning “people, people who speak the word, speaking an understandable language”, all other people who speak not Slavic languages, but other (incomprehensible) languages, were called “silent, dumb”. This concept was expressed by the word nѣmtsi (any foreigners. - Yum.).<...> So, for example, in Moscow at the beginning of the XVII century. they said: “(arrived in Kholmogory) 5000 aglinsky German", go "Danish king Germans", "Spanish king Germans","...in Germans, in Golan land"28.

Peoples in antiquity very often called themselves "having a language", "possessing the word" - in contrast to foreigners, who seemed to them to be speechless, Germans(in fact, foreigners, of course, had a language, but it was different, incomprehensible). Slavs (Slovens) - “having a word”, meaningfully speaking.