[[File:Slavic europe.svg|thumb|European countries with majority Slavic ethnicities and at least one Slavic national language ]]

The Slavic people are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group, living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term ''Slavic'' represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of central and eastern Europe and the Balkans. In addition to their main population centre in Europe, some East Slavs also settled later in Siberia and Central Asia. Part of all Slavic ethnicities emigrated to other parts of the world. Over half of Europe's territory is inhabited by Slavic-speaking communities. The worldwide population of people of Slavic descent is close to 400 million.

Modern nations and ethnic groups called by the ethnonym ''Slavs'' are considerably diverse both in appearance and culturally, and relations between them – even within the individual ethnic groups themselves – are varied, ranging from a sense of connection to feelings of mutual hostility.

Present-day Slavic peoples are classified into East Slavic (including Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavic (including Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), and South Slavic (including Bulgarians, Macedonians, Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks and Montenegrins). For a more comprehensive list, see the ethnocultural subdivisions.

Ethnonym

The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as ''Slověninъ.'' The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest Словѣне ''Slověne'' to describe the Slavs. Other early Slavic attestations include Old East Slavic Словене ''Slověně'' for "an East Slavic group near Novgorod." However, the earliest written references to the Slavs under this name are in other languages. In the 6th century AD Procopius writing in Byzantine Greek, refers to the ''Sklaboi'', ''Sklabēnoi'', ''Sklauenoi'', ''Sthlauenoi'', or Σκλαβῖνοι ''Sklabinoi'', while his contemporary Jordanes refers to the ''Sclaveni'' in Latin.

The Slavic autonym ''Slověninъ'' is usually considered a derivation from ''slovo'' "word," originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)," i.e. people who understand each other, in contrast to Slavic word denoting "foreign people" – ''němci'', meaning "mumbling, murmuring people" (from Slavic ''němъ'' – "mumbling, mute"). The latter word may be the derivation of words to denote German/Germanic people in many later Slavic languages: e.g., Polish ''Niemiec'', Ukrainian ''Німець'', Czech ''Němec'', Russian and Bulgarian ''Немец'', Serbian ''Nemac or Nijemac, ''Bosnian'' and ''Croatian'' Nijemac'' etc.

The English word Slav is derived from the Middle English word ''sclave'', which was borrowed from Medieval Latin ''sclavus'' "slave," itself a borrowing and Byzantine Greek ''sklábos'' "slave," which was in turn apparently derived from a misunderstanding of the Slavic autonym (denoting a speaker of their own languages). The Byzantine term ''Sklavinoi'' was loaned into Arabic as ''Saqaliba'' by medieval Arab historiographers. However, the origin of this word is disputed (see origin of the word "Slavs").

Alternative proposals for the etymology of ''Slověninъ'' propounded by some scholars enjoy much less support. B.P. Lozinski argues that the word ''slava'' once had the meaning of ''worshipper,'' in this context meaning "practicer of a common Slavic religion," and from that evolved into an ethnonym. S.B. Bernstein speculates that it derives from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European '''', cognate to Ancient Greek λαός ''laós'' "population, people," which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. Meanwhile others have pointed out that the suffix -enin indicates a man from a certain place, which in this case should be a place called Slova or Slava, possibly a river name. The Old East Slavic ''Slavuta'' for the Dnieper River was argued by Henrich Bartek (1907–1986) to be derived from ''slova'' and also the origin of Slovene.

History

Origins

Homeland debate

The location of the Slavic homeland has been the subject of significant debate. The Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the 6th to 7th centuries CE are generally accepted to reflect the expansion of Slavic-speakers at that time. Serious candidates for the core from which they expanded are cultures within the territories of modern Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine. The proposed frameworks are:

#Milograd culture hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs (or Balto-Slavs) were the bearers of the Milograd culture (7th century BCE to 1st century CE) of northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. #Chernoles culture hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs were the bearers of the Chernoles culture (750–200 BCE) of northern Ukraine, and later the Zarubintsy culture (3rd century BCE to 1st century CE). #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 (1300–500 BCE), and later the Przeworsk culture (2nd century BCE to 4th century CE). #Danube basin hypothesis: postulated by Oleg Trubachyov; sustained at present by Florin Curta, also supported by an early Medieval Slavic narrative source - Nestor's Chronicle

Research history

The starting point in the autochtonic/allochtonic debate was the year 1745, when Johann Christoph de Jordan published ''De Originibus Slavicis.'' The works of Slovak philologist and poet Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861) has influenced generations of scholars. The foundation of his theory was the work of Jordanes, Getica. Jordanes had equated the Sclavenes and the Antes to the Venethi (or Venedi) also known from much earlier sources, such as Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, and Ptolemy.

Pavel Jozef Šafárik bequeathed to posterity not only his vision of a Slavic history, but also a powerful methodology for exploring its Dark Ages: language.

The Polish scholar Tadeusz Wojciechowski (1839–1919) was the first to use place names to write Slavic history. He was followed by A. L. Pogodin and the Polish botanist, J. Rostafinski.

The first to introduce archaeological data into the scholarly discourse about the early Slavs, Lubor Niederle (1865–1944), endorsed Rostafinski’s theory in his multi-volume work ''The Antiquities of the Slavs''. Vykentyi V.Khvoika (1850–1914), a Ukrainian archaeologist of Czech origin, linked the Slavs with Neolithic Cucuteni culture. A. A. Spicyn (1858–1931) assigned to the Antes the finds of silver and bronze in central and southern Ukraine. Czech archaeologist Ivan Borkovsky (1897–1976) postulated the existence of a pottery “Prague type” which was a national, exclusively Slavic, pottery. Boris Rybakov, has issue a theory that made a link between both Spicyn’s “Antian antiquities” and the remains excavated by Khvoika from Chernyakhov culture and that those should be should be attributed to the Slavs.

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 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.

Geneticists entered the debate in the 21st century. See the Genetics section below.

Earliest accounts

The relationship between the Slavs and a tribe called the Veneti east of the river Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain. The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs.

The Slavs under name of 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 of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains, the lower Danube and the Black Sea, invading the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire.

Procopius wrote in 545 that "the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Spori in olden times." He describes their social structure and beliefs:

For these nations, the Sclaveni and the Antae, are not ruled by one man, but they have lived from of old under a democracy, and consequently everything which involves their welfare, whether for good or for ill, is referred to the people. It is also true that in all other matters, practically speaking, these two barbarian peoples have had from ancient times the same institutions and customs. For they believe that one god, the maker of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him cattle and all other victims.

He mentions that they were tall and hardy:

"They live in pitiful hovels which they set up far apart from one another, but, as a general thing, every man is constantly changing his place of abode. When they enter battle, the majority of them go against their enemy on foot carrying little shields and javelins in their hands, but they never wear corselets. Indeed, some of them do not wear even a shirt or a cloak, but gathering their trews up as far as to their private parts they enter into battle with their opponents. And both the two peoples have also the same language, an utterly barbarous tongue. Nay further, they do not differ at all from one another in appearance. For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men, while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blond, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts...".

Jordanes tells us that the Sclaveni had swamps and forests for their cities. Another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes.

Menander Protector mentions a Daurentius (577-579) that slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I. The Avars asked the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars, he however declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs [...] so it shall always be for us".

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 Dniester 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, some modern historians dispute the link between the Wielbark culture and the Goths. While the Chernyakhov culture (2nd to 5th c. AD, identified with the multi-ethnic kingdom established by the Goths) 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.

====Genetics====

The modern Slavic peoples carry a variety of Mitochondrial DNA haplogroups and Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups. Yet two paternal haplogroups predominate: R1a1a [M17] and I2a2a [L69.2=T/S163.2]. The frequency of Haplogroup R1a ranges from 63.39% in the Sorbs, through 56.4% in Poland, 54% in Ukraine, 52% in Russia, Belarus, to 15.2% in Republic of Macedonia, 14.7% in Bulgaria and 12.1% in Herzegovina. The correlation between R1a1a [M17] and the speakers of Indo-European languages, particularly those of Eastern Europe and Central and Southern Asia, was noticed in the late 1990s. From this Spencer Wells and colleagues, following the Kurgan hypothesis, deduced that R1a1a arose on the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Specific studies of Slavic genetics followed. In 2007 Rębała and colleagues studied several Slavic populations with the aim of localizing the Proto-Slavic homeland. The significant findings of this study are that:

# Two genetically distant groups of Slavic populations were revealed: One encompassing all Western-Slavic, Eastern-Slavic, and few Southern-Slavic populations (north-western Croats and Slovenes), and one encompassing all remaining Southern Slavs. According to the authors most Slavic populations have similar Y chromosome pools — R1a. They speculate that this similarity can be traced to an origin in the middle Dnieper basin of Ukraine during the Late Glacial Maximum 15 kya. # However, some southern Slavic populations such as Bulgarians, Serbs and Macedonians 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...."

Pomors are distinguished by the presence of Y Haplogroup N among them. Postulated to originate from southeast Asia, it is found at high rates in Uralic peoples. Its presence in Pomors (called "Northern Russians" in the report) attests to the non-Slavic tribes (mixing with Finnic tribes of northern Eurasia).

On the other hand I2a2a (P41.2) is typical of the South Slavic populations, being highest in Bosnia-Herzegovina (>50%). Haplogroup I2a2 is also commonly found in north-eastern Italians. There is also a high concentration of I2a2a in north-east Romania, Moldova and western Ukraine. According to original studies, Hg I2a2 was believed to have arisen in the west Balkans sometime after the LGM, subsequently spreading from the Balkans through eastern Europe. Recently, Ken Nordtvedt has split I2a2 into two clades - N (northern) and S (southern), in relation where they arose compared to Danube river. He proposes that N is slightly older than S. He recalculated the age of I2a2 to be ~ 2550 years and proposed that the its current distribution is explained by a Slavic expansion from the area north-east of the Carpathians. There is a much lower level of I2a2a among Greeks and Albanians (including those in Kosovo and R. of Macedonia), which retain their non-Slavic languages, than in present-day majority South Slavic-speaking nations.

Physical characteristics

Whilst physical anthropology has suffered criticism ever since the abuses of the discipline by Nazi Germany, it continues to enjoy popularity in eastern European scholarship. Some of the conclusions reached by physical anthropologists have recently been disproven by molecular and DNA technology; however, it remains useful in describing general phenotypic variations between populations. Tatyana Alexeyeva has recently described five cardinal Slavic physical types:

(1) White Sea and Baltic type: characterized by their fair skin and blond hair, and medium facial features; they are predominantly meso- and brachy-cephals. Typical of northern Russians, Belarusians, some Poles. Compared to the related West Baltic type (Scandinavians), they possess less prominent noses, sparser beards and a slight swelling of the upper eyelid; all due to a small degree of Mongoloid admixture.

(2) Eastern European type: this group includes virtually all Russian people (except northern Russians) and part of the Belarusians populating predominantly Russia's east and south. This type is distinguished by their darker hair and eyes. The anthropological composition of East European populations emerged through intermixing among the indigenous northern, southern and Ural tribes. The indigenous types had long or medium heads, large facial features, sharp horizontal profiles and prominent noses. The Uralic admixture is characterized by somewhat flattened faces and less prominent noses. Both groups must have created an anthropological groundwork for the formation of a significant part of the population inhabiting the East European Plain (apparently, of the Finno-Ugric type) that mixed with the Eastern Slavs.

(3) Dnieper-Carpathian type: includes Ukrainians and Poles, ethnic groups populating the Carpathian area, Slovaks and some of the Czechs. These are rather dark brachycephals ("short heads") with relatively broad faces. Such types have been found in Slavic burial grounds of Slovakia and Moldavia. Morphologically, those people were akin to the Alpine ethnic type of Ripley which stretched westward to what is now Austria, Switzerland and part of northern Italy. It might be that the Dnieper- Carpathian populations are a northeastern variant of this local race.

(4) Pontic type. It is represented mostly by Bulgarians: dark-haired, of medium height, with longish or medium heads. Their facial features are moderately broad or else narrow. Judging by paleoanthropo-logical data, this combination type, a variant of the southern branch of Europeoids, must have originated in the Eastern Europe of the Neolithic time, though its origins might be traced earlier than that, when its tribes settled in these parts. The propagation of the Pontic type from the Mediterranean and Caucasia to southern Russian steppes continued down to the Late Bronze Age (1st millennium B.C.). Its traces are present in Eastern Slavs, the plainsmen of the Middle Age, in the contemporary Ukrainian population related to the Prut anthropological type, and among the Russians of the Don-Sura Region.

(5) Dinaric type takes in Yugoslavia's high-landers (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro). Tall and short- headed, they have very broad faces, prominent noses, profuse hair growth and high stature. They differ from the other southern Europeoids in the lighter color of eyes. These summary features resemble the morphological complex of the peoples of Central Caucasia (i.e. so-called Armenoid type).

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 would not 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 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 was founded in AD 681, the Slavic language Old Bulgarian became the main and official of the empire in AD 864. Bulgaria was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world.

Assimilation

Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups. In the postulated "homeland" region (present-day Northern 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 Illyrians, Greeks and romanized (North of the Jireček Line) or hellenized (South of the Jirecek-line) Thracians . Having lost their indigenous language, what remained of the Thracians and Illyrians were completely absorbed into the Slavic tribes, the most notable exceptions being Greeks, Romanians and Albanians. Later few invaders such as Bulgars and even Cumans mingled with the Slavs also, particularly in eastern parts (i.e. Bulgaria).

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 and Celtic, while the eastern Slavs encountered Uralic and Scandinavian peoples. Scandinavians (Varangians) and Finnic peoples were involved in the early formation of the Rus state but were completely Slavicised after a century. Some Finno-Ugric tribes in the north were also absorbed into the expanding Rus 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. The population of Moravian Wallachia also descend of this 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 Romanian 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 are to some degree made up of people with Slavic ancestry.

Modern history

As of 1878, there were only three free Slavic states in the world: Russian Empire, Serbia and Montenegro. Bulgaria was also free but was ''de jure'' vassal to the Ottoman Empire until official independence was declared in 1908. 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 national 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 25 to 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 did not 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).

Population

The worldwide population of people of Slavic descent is close to 400 million. The three largest Slavic ethnic groups are Russians (150 million), Poles (60 million), and Ukrainians (50 million). Other Slavic ethnic groups include Czechs (11 million), Bulgarians (10 million), Serbs (10 million), Belarusians (10 million), Croats (8 million), Slovaks (6 million), Bosniaks (4 million), Macedonians (3 million), Slovenes (3 million), Montenegrins (500 000).

Religion

Most Slavic populations gradually adopted Christianity (the East Slavs Orthodox Christianity and the West Slavs Roman Catholicism, with South Slavs split by the two religions) 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 Orthodox, followed by Roman Catholic. A very small minority are Protestant. Bosniaks are the Muslim Slavic ethnic group, Gorani are also Muslims, but their ethnic group is miniature, inhabiting some villages. Religious delineations by nationality can be very sharp; usually in the Slavic ethnic groups the vast majority of religious people share the same religion. Some Slavs are atheist or agnostic: only 19% of Czechs professed belief in god/s in the 2005 Eurobarometer survey, making them one of the most irreligious people in the world.

The main Slavic ethnic groups by religion: Mainly Orthodox Christians

Russians

Ukrainians

Bulgarians

Serbs

Belarusians

Macedonians

Montenegrins

Mainly Roman Catholic:

Poles

Croats

Slovaks

Slovenes

Czechs

Mainly Muslim:

Bosniaks

Alphabet

The alphabet depends on what religion is usual for the respective Slavic ethnic groups, the Orthodox use the Cyrillic alphabet and the Roman Catholics use Latin alphabet, the Bosniaks which are Muslims also use the Latin. Few Greek Roman and Roman Catholics use the Cyrillic alphabet however. The Serbian language and Montenegrin language can be written using both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, but the Cyrillic remains preferred by a large majority. There is also a Latin script to write in Belarusian, called the Lacinka alphabet.

Language

Slavic studies began as an almost exclusively linguistic and philological enterprise. As early as 1833, Slavic languages were recognized as Indo-European.

Slavic standard languages which are official in at least one country:

Belarusian

Bosnian

Bulgarian

Croatian

Czech

Macedonian

Montenegrin

Polish

Russian

Serbian

Slovak

Slovene

Ukrainian

Proto-Slavic language

Proto-Slavic, the ancestor language of all Slavic languages, is a descendant of common Proto-Indo-European, via 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 [from the steppe] became speakers of Balto-Slavic".

Proto-Slavic, sometimes referred to as ''Common Slavic'' or ''Late Proto-Slavic'', is defined as the last stage of the language preceding the geographical split of the historical Slavic languages. That language was uniform, and on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages and Slavic borrowings into other languages, cannot be said to have any recognizable dialects, suggesting a comparatively compact homeland. Slavic linguistic unity was to some extent visible as late as 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.

Ethnocultural 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 AD.

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, Romans, Celts); the Bulgarians' Slavs also mixed largely with local European tribes but also with the Bulgars. They were particularly influenced by the Orthodox Church, although Roman Catholicism and Latin influences were more pertinent in Dalmatia. The West Slavs and the Croats and 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.

East Slavs

Russians

*Goryuns

*Kamchadals

*Lipovan Russians

*Polekhs

*Pomors

Ukrainians

*Bojko

*Hutsuls

Lemko

Poleszuks

Belarusians

Poleszuks

West Slavs

Czech-Slovak group

Czechs

*Bohemians

Moravians

Silesians

Slovaks

Lechitic group

Poles

*Masovians

*Polans

*Vistulans

Pomeranians

Kashubians

Slovincians

Silesians

*Bieżuńczanie

*Bobrzanie

*Dziadoszanie

*Golęszyce

*Lubuszanie

*Opolanie

*Ślężanie

*Trzebowianie

Polabians

Sorbs (Serbo-Lusatians)

*Milceni (Upper Sorbs)

*Lusatians (Lower Sorbs)

Obodrites/Abodrites

Obotrites proper

Wagrians

Warnabi

Polabians proper

Linonen

Travnjane

Drevani

Veleti (Wilzi)

*Lutici (Liutici)

*Kissini (''Kessiner'', ''Chizzinen'', ''Kyzziner'')

*Circipani (''Zirzipanen'')

*Tollenser

*Redarier

Ucri (''Ukr(an)i, Ukranen'')

Rani (Rujani)

Hevelli (''Stodorani'')

Volinians (Velunzani)

Pyritzans (Prissani)

South Slavs

Eastern group

Bulgarians

*Pomaks (Muslim Bulgarians)

*Palćene (Banat Bulgarians)

Anatolian Bulgarians

Macedonians

*Torbeš

Gorani (recognized ethnicity)

Western group

Serbs

Croats

*Bunjevci (subgroup of Croats)

*Janjevci (Catholic Slavs in Kosovo)

*Burgenland Croats (in Austria)

*Molise Croats (in eastern Italy)

*Krashovans (Croats in Romania)

*Šokci

*Bosniaks (Croats in Hungary) (Croats in Hungary)

Slovenes

Carantanians

*Prekmurians

*Hungarian Slovenes

Somogy Slovenes

*Carinthian Slovenes

*Venetian Slovenes

*Resians

Bosniaks

Muslims by nationality (recognized ethnicity)

Montenegrins

Yugoslavs

Notes to list of ethnocultural divisions

Extinct Also considered part of Rusyns Considered transitional between Ukrainians and Belarusians Also considered part of Ukrainians The ethnic affiliation of the Lemkos has become an ideological conflict. It has been alleged that among the Lemkos the idea of "Carpatho-Ruthenian" nation is supported only by Lemkos residing in Transcarpathia and abroad Also considered part of Poles

Most Shopi self-declare as Bulgarians, but others declare as Macedonians or Serbs. Their dialect is transitional between west and east South Slavic group. Cognate with Torlaks. Most Torlaks self-declare as Serbs. Cognate with Shopi.

Both occur widely in northeastern Croatia and also in northern Serbia; their Ikavian dialect is subequal as southern Croats in Hercegovina and Dalmatian mainland from where they once emigrated. Considered part of Croats by most of them, although recently (since Yugoslav disaster) some within Serbia consider themselves a separate peoples

These Gorani are a Slavic nation living mainly in Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania; not to be confound with other Gorani (or Gorinci) in the highlands of western Croatia (Gorski Kotar county).

A census category recognized as an ethnic group. Most Slavic Muslims (especially in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia) now opt for Bosniak ethnicity, but some still use the "Muslim" designation.

This identity continues to be used by a minority throughout the former Yugoslav republics. The nationality is also declared by diasporans living in the USA and Canada. There are a multitude of reasons as to why people prefer this affiliation, some published on the article.

Generally, heavily mixed with German people

Most inhabitants of historic Moravia considered themselves as Czechs but significant amount declared their Moravian nationality, different from that Czech (although people from Bohemia proper and Moravia speak the same language).

Not to be confused with Silesians from Poland. Unlike them, Silesians in Czechia speak Czech.

Note: Besides ethnic groups, Slavs often identify themselves with the local geographical region in which they live. Some of the major regional South Slavic groups include: Zagorci in northern Croatia, Istrijani in westernmost Croatia, Dalmatinci in southern Croatia, Boduli in Adriatic islands, Vlaji in hinterland of Dalmatia, Slavonci in eastern Croatia, Bosanci in Bosnia, Hercegovci in southern Bosnia (Herzegovina), Krajišnici in western Bosnia, Semberci in northeast Bosnia, Srbijanci in Serbia proper, Šumadinci in central Serbia, Vojvođani in northern Serbia, Sremci in Syrmia, Bačvani in northwest Vojvodina, Banaćani in Banat, Sandžaklije (Muslims in Serbia/Montenegro border), Kosovci in Kosovo, Crnogorci in Montenegro proper, Bokelji in southwest Montenegro, Trakiytsi in Upper Thracian Lowlands, Dobrudzhantsi in north-east Bulgarian region, Balkandzhii in Central Balkan Mountains, Miziytsi in north Bulgarian region, Warmiaks and Masurians in north-east Polish regions Warmia and Mazuria, Pirintsi in Blagoevgrad Province, Ruptsi in the Rhodopes etc.

Another interesting note is that the very term Slavic itself was registered in the US census of 2000 by more than 127,000 residents.

See also

Early East Slavs

Early Slavs

East Slavs

European ethnic groups

Gord (Slavic settlement)

Lech, Czech and Rus

List of ethnic groups

North Slavic languages

Pan-Slavic colours

Pan-Slavism

Slavic languages

Slavic mythology

Slavic names

Slavisphere

Slavistics

South Slavs

West Slavs

Other European ethnic groups:

* Armenian peoples

* Baltic peoples

* Brythonic peoples

* Celtic peoples

* Finno-Ugric peoples

* Germanic peoples

* Illyrian peoples

* Italic peoples

* Romance peoples

* Thracian peoples

* Uralic peoples

Notes

References

Balanovsky, Oleg, ''et al.''. 2008. Two Sources of the Russian Patrilineal Heritage in Their Eurasian Context. ''American Journal of Human Genetics'', 10 January 2008, 82(1): 236-250.

Barford, P. M. 2001. ''The Early Slavs. Culture and Society in Early Medieval Europe.'' Cornell University Press. 2001. ISBN 0-9014-3977-9.

Bernstein, S. B. 1961. ''Очерк сравнительной грамматики славянских языков'', vol. 1-2. Moscow.

Bideleux, Robert. 1998. ''History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change''. Routledge.

Buchanan, Donna Anne. 2006. ''Performing Democracy: Bulgarian Music and Musicians in Transition''. (Google Books preview.) Univ. of Chicago Press. Series: Chicago studies in ethnomusicology. ISBN 0-226-07826-4

Český statistický úřad (Czech Statistical Office). 2006. Obyvatelstvo hlásící se k jednotlivým církvím a náboženským společnostem.

Eichholtz, Dietrich. 2004. »Generalplan Ost« zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker. ''UTOPIE kreativ'', September 2004, 167: 800-808.

Eigeland, Tor. 1976. The golden caliphate. ''Saudi Aramco World'', September/October 1976, pp. 12–16.

Lacey, Robert. 2003. ''Great Tales from English History''. Little, Brown and Company. New York. 2004. ISBN 0-316-10910-X.

Lewis, Bernard. ''Race and Slavery in the Middle East''. Oxford Univ. Press.

Mango, Cyril. 1980. Cyril Mango. ''Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome''. Scribner's.

Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou, Maria. 1992. ''The "Macedonian Question": A Historical Review''. © Association Internationale d'Etudes du Sud-Est Europeen (AIESEE, International Association of Southeast European Studies), Comité Grec. Corfu: Ionian University. (English translation of a 1988 work written in Greek.)

Peričić, Marijana, ''et al.''. 2005. ''High-Resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations''. ''Molecular Biology and Evolution'', 2005 22(10): 1964-1975; doi:10.1093/molbev/msi185.

Rębała, Krzysztof, ''et al.''. 2007. Y-STR variation among Slavs: evidence for the Slavic homeland in the middle Dnieper basin. ''Journal of Human Genetics'', May 2007, 52(5): 408-414.

''Religare.ru''. 2007. Опубликована подробная сравнительная статистика религиозности в России и Польше. 6 June 2007.

Semino, Ornella, ''et al.''. 2000. The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic'' Homo sapiens sapiens ''in Extant Europeans: a Y Chromosome Perspective. (Abstract.) ''Science'', 10 November 2000, 290: 1155-1159.

Tachiaos, Anthony-Emil N. 2001. ''Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs''. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.

Trubačev, O. N. 1985. Linguistics and Ethnogenesis of the Slavs: The Ancient Slavs as Evidenced by Etymology and Onomastics. ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' (JIES), 13: 203-256.

Further reading

P.M. Barford, The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe, British Museum Press, London 2001, ISBN 9780714128047

F. Curta, The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0 521 80202 4.

P. Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom, An Introduction to the Medieval History of the Slavs, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1970, ISBN 9780521074599, ISBN 9780521107587

External links

The Slavic Ethnogenesis, Identifying the Slavic Stock and Origins of the Slavs

Some problems of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs and of the settlement process of the Central Danubian Slovenes – Slovaks in the 6th and 7th century

The Ancient Slavs ancientmilitary.com

The expansion of The Slavs, Third Millenium Library

.

The origin of the Baltic, Germand and Slavic people. The Iceland ages.

"Najstariji period istorije Slovena (Venedi, Sloveni i Anti)" - N. S. Deržavin

Sloveni: Unde orti estis? Slováci, KDE sú vaše korene? , by Cyril A. Hromník (mainly in Slova).

Site about Slavics, Slavic Countries, Cultures, Languages, etc (mainly in Russian)

The early wars between the Macedonian Slavs and the Byzantines (from medieval sources)

"The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective"

Mitochondrial DNA Phylogeny in Eastern and Western Slavs, B. Malyarchuk, T. Grzybowski, M. Derenko, M. Perkova, T. Vanecek, J. Lazur, P. Gomolcaknd I. Tsybovsky, Oxford Journals

Category:Ethnic groups in Europe

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