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Countries inhabited by Slavs (East Slavs in mid-green)

European territory inhabited by East Slavic tribes in 8th and 9th century.

The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian^[1] peoples.

History[link]

Sources[link]

Slavic lands c. 500-550 A.D.

Relatively little is known about the Eastern Slavs prior to approximately 859 AD, the date from which the account in the Primary Chronicle starts. The reasons are the apparent absence of a written language (Cyrillic script, created about 863 was specifically for Slavic adoption) and the remoteness of East Slavic lands. What little is known comes from archaeological digs, foreign traveller accounts of the Rus land, and linguistic comparative analyses of Slavic languages.

Early East Slavic tribes c. 8th century A.D.

Very few native Rus' documents dating before the 11th century (none ante-dating the 10th century) have been discovered. The earliest major manuscript with information on Rus' history is the Primary Chronicle, written in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. It lists the twelve Slavic tribal unions who, by the 9th century settled between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. These tribal unions were Polans, Drevlyans, Dregovichs, Radimichs, Vyatichs, Krivichs, Slovens, Dulebes (later known as Volhynians and Buzhans), White Croats, Severians, Ulichs, Tivertsi.

Migration[link]

There is no consensus among scholars as to the urheimat of the Slavs. In the first millennium AD, Slavic settlers are likely to have been in contact with other ethnic groups who moved across the East European Plain during the Migration Period. Between the first and ninth centuries, the Sarmatians, Huns, Alans, Avars, Bulgars, and Magyars passed through the Pontic steppe in their westward migrations. Although some of them could have subjugated the region's Slavs, these foreign tribes left little trace in the Slavic lands. The Early Middle Ages also saw Slavic expansion as an agriculturist and beekeeper, hunter, fisher, herder, and trapper people. By the 8th century, the Slavs were the dominant ethnic group on the East European Plain.

By 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. The East Slavs practiced "slash and burn" agricultural methods which were well-suited to the endless forests in which they settled. This method of agriculture involved clearing tracts of forest with fire, cultivating it and then moving on after a few years. Slash and burn agriculture requires frequent movement, because soil cultivated in this manner only yields good harvests for a few years before exhausting itself, and the reliance on slash and burn agriculture by the East Slavs explains their rapid spread through eastern Europe.^[2] The East Slavs flooded Eastern Europe in two streams. One group of tribes settled along the Dnieper river in what is now Ukraine,and Beylorussia to the North; they then spread northward to the northern Volga valley, east of modern-day Moscow and westward to the basins of the northern Dniester and the Southern Buh rivers in present-day Ukraine and southern Ukraine.

Another group of East Slavs moved from Pomerania to the northeast, where they encountered the Varangians of the Rus' Khaganate and established an important regional centre of Novgorod. The same Slavic population also settled the present-day Tver Oblast and the region of Beloozero. Having reached the lands of the Merya near Rostov, they linked up with the Dnieper group of Slavic migrants.

Pre-Kievan period[link]

Viktor Vasnetsov. Boyan (1910).

In the eighth and ninth centuries, the south branches of East Slavic tribes had to pay tribute to the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people who adopted Judaism in the late eighth or ninth century and lived in the southern Volga and Caucasus regions. Roughly in the same period, the Ilmen Slavs and Krivichs were dominated by the Varangians of the Rus' Khaganate, who controlled the trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Byzantine Empire.

The earliest tribal centres of the East Slavs included Novgorod, Izborsk, Polotsk, Gnezdovo, and Kiev. Archaeology indicates that they appeared at the turn of the tenth century, soon after the Slavs and Finns of Novgorod had rebelled against the Norsemen and forced them to withdraw to Scandinavia. The reign of Oleg of Novgorod in the early tenth century witnessed the return of the Varangians to Novgorod and relocation of their capital to Kiev on the Dnieper. From this base, the mixed Varangian-Slavic population (known as the Rus) launched several expeditions against Constantinople.

At first the ruling elite was primarily Norse, but it was rapidly Slavicized by the mid-century. Sviatoslav I of Kiev (who reigned in the 960s) was the first Rus ruler with a Slavonic name.

Modern East Slavs[link]

Modern East Slavic peoples and ethnic groups include:

• Russians
  • Pomors
  • Polekhs
  • Goryuns
  • Kamchadals
  • Lipovan Russians
  • Cossacks
    • Don Cossacks
    • Kuban Cossacks
    • Terek Cossacks
    • Astrakhan Cossacks
    • Ural Cossacks
    • Orenburg Cossacks
    • Siberian Cossacks
    • Semirechye Cossacks
    • Baikal Cossacks
    • Amur Cossacks
    • Ussuri Cossacks
• Ruthenians
  • Belarusians
    • Poleszuks
  • Ukrainians
    • Poleszuks
    • Hutsuls
    • Boykos
    • Lemkos
    • Rusyns (also considered as a separate nation)
      • Carpathian Rusyns
      • Pannonian Rusyns

Gallery[link]

• 

  Three generations of a Russian family, ca. 1910

• 

  1961 USSR postage stamp depicting Belarusian traditional costumes

• 

  Ukrainians in traditional dress

See also[link]

• List of early East Slavic states
• Slavic peoples
• List of Medieval Slavic tribes

References[link]

• Г.В.Вернадский Древняя Русь http://www.erlib.com/Георгий_Вернадский/Древняя_Русь/1;

http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/VGV/vgv1.htm; http://www.rodstvo.ru/rus/hist/ver1.htm и др.

Look up east slavs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

•  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies. - Russia

v t e Russia topics History Timeline Proto-Indo-Europeans Scythians East Slavs Rus' Khaganate Kievan Rus' Novgorod Republic Vladimir-Suzdal Grand Duchy of Moscow Tsardom of Russia Russian Empire Russian SFSR Soviet Union Russian Federation Military history Postal history Geography Subdivisions Ural Mountains Siberia European Russia West Siberian Plain Caucasus Mountains Caspian Sea North Asia North Caucasus Cities and towns Islands Economic regions Rivers Volcanoes Climate Governance Constitution Government President Federal Assembly Law Foreign relations Constitutional Court Public Chamber State Council Judiciary Politics Elections Political parties Human rights Economy Agriculture Inventions Tourism Banking Central Bank Russian ruble Transport Telecommunications Corruption Demographics Russians Public holidays Languages Religion Crime 2002 Census 2010 Census Famous Russians Culture Architecture Literature Ballet Avant-garde Cinema Material culture Music (Opera) Language Cuisine Martial arts Folklore Internet Sports Symbols National flag Other flags Coat of arms National anthem Category Book Portal WikiProject

v t e Slavic ethnic groups East Slavs Belarusians • Russians • Ukrainians (Rusyns) West Slavs Czechs (Moravians) • Silesians • Poles (Kashubians) • Sorbs • Slovaks South Slavs Bosniaks • Bulgarians (Pomaks) • Croats (Bunjevci • Burgenland Croats • Janjevci • Krašovani • Molise Croats • Šokci) • Macedonians • Montenegrins • Serbs • Slovenes

The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies in Migration period and early medieval Europe (ca. 5th to 10th centuries) whose tribal organizations indirectly created the foundations for today’s Slavic nations (via the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages).^[1]

The first mention of the name Slavs dates to the 6th century, by which time the Slavic tribes inhabited a vast area of central-eastern Europe. Over the following two centuries, the Slavs expanded further, towards the Balkans and the Alps in the south and west, and the Volga in the north and east. ^[2]

From the 9th century, the Slavs were gradually Christianised, and by the 12th century, they formed the population within a number of medieval Christian states, the East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' and Lithuania, the South Slavs in Bulgaria and Serbia, and the West Slavs in Poland and the Holy Roman Empire (Pomerania, Bohemia).

Ethnogenesis[link]

It has been suggested that Slavic peoples#Origins be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since August 2011.

The question of Slavic origins has generated many theories, none of which have been universally accepted. The competing theories on the origin of Slavs used different types of evidence, had different perspectives upon the issues involved, but also were influenced by political factors.^[3] When discussing early "Slavs", one is referring to a diverse set of tribal communities who shared a common language and material culture.

Historical evidence[link]

In historical literature, the tribal names Antes, Sclaveni and Venethi have been often connected with early Slavic peoples. The earliest clear reference to the ethonym Slav does not occur until the 6th century AD. Nevertheless, attempts have been made to identify the Slavs, or their ancestors, with earlier groups. The Soubenoi mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD have often been deemed to have been Slavs, their name having originally been Sthlavanoi - a distorted form of Slovenoi. They lived in Sarmatia, north of the Alans. Another tribe linked with Slavs was the Venethi mentioned by writers such as Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy and Tacitus.^[4] They occupied the area between the Oder and Vistula river basins. Although Tacitus listed the Venethi as a Germanic tribe, in his Getica, Jordanes, several centuries later, stated that they were Slavic,^[5] although it is far from certain that they were referring to the same people. The third major ancient Slavic group, the Antes, were mentioned as early as the 1st century AD by Pliny the Elder (Natural History). Counted amongst the ranks of Sarmatian and Scythian tribes, they occupied the open steppe north of the Black Sea.^[6] Jordanes' Slavic Antes were said to dwell along the northern curve of the Sea of Pontus – from the Dniester to the Dnieper.

Both writing in the mid-6th century, Jordanes and Procopius provide the first indisputable reference to the Slav ethonym, in the form Sclavenoi. Jordanes writes that their land stretched from the town of Noviodunum, to the river Dniester, then northward to the Vistula river. He adds that the Sclavenoi, Antae, and Veneti were but one people. In his work De Bellis, Procopius also links the Sclavenoi and Antes, being two barbarian tribes speaking the 'same' language and bearing a similar appearance, living just north of the River Ister (Danube). He adds that they were originally one people, called Sporoi.^[7]

Jordanes’ account suggests that Slavs were ancient, and had long lived in the forest zone of eastern Europe. Paul Barford and Curta, however, have questioned the extent of Jordanes’ understanding of ancient demography and geography.^[8][9] Although the various references to postulated Slavic groups consistently locate such tribes in the expanses between the upper Vistula river and the region north of the Black Sea, such information “is far too enigmatic to form the basis for the proposition of unequivocal conclusions”.^[4]

Moreover, whilst Sclavene may have originally been the self-designation of a particular ethnic group, Curta argues that it came to be used by the Byzantines as an 'umbrella term' to categorize various barbarian ethnic groups who dwelt beyond the River Danube.^[10]

Linguistic evidence[link]

Balto-Slavic dialects c. 600 BCE

For a long time, language was seen as the defining factor in the formation of a people's culture and world view.^[11] Although deductions about the existence of a proto-Slavic people based on an unattested and reconstructed proto-Slavic language must be held with caution, scholars often place great emphasis on linguistics in the hope of discovering the Slavic Urheimat. So far, scholars have been unable to agree on the exact region where the proto-Slavic language developed. Nevertheless, Marija Gimbutas’ model for analysing the spread of Indo-Europeans is the favoured one. Hence, other theories attempting to place the origins of proto-Slavic in the Near East (Anatolian hypothesis), the Balkans (modified Anatolian hypothesis, PCT), or beyond the Urals are now considered peripheral.^[12]

Historical distribution of the Slavic languages. The larger shaded area is the Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the sixth to seventh centuries, likely corresponding to the spread of Slavic-speaking tribes of the time. The smaller shaded area indicates the core area of Slavic river names (after Mallory & Adams (1997:524ff).

The communis opinio proposes that, “somewhere in eastern Europe”, proto-Slavic had separated from proto-Indo-European by 1500- 1000 BC, probably via a proto-Balto-Slavic medium.^[13] Kortlandt places the Slavs near the Indo-European homeland itself: “the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic”.^[14]

Proto-Slavic remained surprisingly conservative for over one millennium. According to Kortlandt, the earliest evidence for dialectal divergence within Common Slavic can be dated to no earlier than the 4th century, apparently in connection with the earliest phases of the Slavic expansion.^[15] Analysis of loan words reveals that Slavs have had a long period of contact with Germanic groups, occurring from the period of Proto-Slavic proper, through to the Middle Ages. The majority of Germanic loan words are of Gothic origin. In addition, there are also some Iranic influences, although not as many as once thought.^[16] In addition to the proposed genetic relationship with Baltic, much of the Balto-Slavic similarity has also been viewed to be a result of ongoing cultural contacts between the two peoples. This would place the proto-Slavs in the vicinity of speakers of early Baltic, Germanic and the Iranic speaking nomads of the steppe.

In an attempt to localise the linguistic Urheimat, linguists have employed place names, especially hydronyms, as indirect evidence. According to one interpretation of the onomastic evidence, the most ancient recognizably Slavic hydronyms are to be found in northern and western Ukraine and southern Belarus. In fact, proto-Slavic has very well-developed terminology for inland bodies of water (lakes, river, swamps), as well as the flora and fauna indigenous to the temperate forest zone. In contrast, inherited Common Slavic vocabulary does not include detailed terminology for physical surface features peculiar of the mountains or the steppe, nor any relating to the sea, to coastal features, littoral flora or fauna, or salt water fishes.^[17] Therefore, supporters of this line of reasoning view this area as the Urheimat of the Slavs.^[5] Others, adopting a different methodology, note that the Common Slavic words for beech, larch and yew were foreign (Germanic) in origin, whilst that for hornbeam was native. Hence they argued that the original Slavic homeland was devoid of beech, larch and yew, but was plentiful in hornbeam. On the basis of the modern distribution of those trees (and assuming geo-botanical stability over the past two thousand years), some believe the Slavic urheimat was within the Pripet marshes, in Polesie.^[18]

Although linguists cannot agree exactly where it first developed, the evidence shows that proto-Slavic remained archaic for over a millennium, suggesting that it developed in a relatively confined region and was spoken by a relatively compact body of peoples. Its spread has been dated to have begun in the 4th century, evidenced by increasing dialectical divergence and the acquisition of Germanic and Sarmatian loanwords.

Archaeological evidence[link]

Slavic lands c. 500-550 CE

In the archaeological literature, attempts have been made to assign a Slavic, or proto-Slavic, ethnicity to several different archaeological cultures encompassing various time periods and territorial zones.^[19] The Prague-Korchak cultural complex is regarded as the "Slavic cultural model",^[20] a remarkably uniform cultural tradition which spanned almost half of Europe, coinciding neatly with the historic distribution of Slavic speech.^[21] Scholars have attempted to ascertain how far back this commonality of tradition can be traced in the archaeological record. It is certain that Prague-type assemblages represented a new cultural model in eastern Europe, where the Przeworsk and Chernyakov cultures previously existed. These cultures 'disappeared' in the late 4th century (attributed to the “violent irruption of the Huns”,^[22]) and had been 'replaced' by the Slavic model by the late 5th century AD.

The Chernyakov & Przeworsk cultures, c. 3rd century

The Chernyakhov culture existed from the second to the 5th centuries, and it encompassed the territories of modern Ukraine, Moldavia and Wallachia. Chernyakov finds are characterized by polished black pottery vessels, fine metal ornaments, and impressive iron tools.^[23] In the earlier half of the 20th century, much energy had been spent by scholars debating the ethnic affinity of the people which inhabited the Chernyakov zone. Soviet scholars such as Boris Rybakov saw it as the archaeological reflection of the proto-Slavs,^[24] whilst western, especially German, historians attributed it to the Goths.

Fibulae

However, the remains of archaeologically visible material culture and their link with ethnic identity are not as clear as originally thought. The 'Culture-Historical' doctrine founded by German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna, assumed that “sharply defined archaeological culture areas correspond unquestionably with the areas of particular peoples or tribes".^[25] "Kossina simply equated culture provinces with ethnic groups and further equated those groups with historically attested peoples or tribes”. However, material cultures are better understood to represent cultural-economic systems incorporating many different groups. "What created the boundaries of these cultural areas were not the political frontiers of a particular people, but the geographical limits within which the population groups interacted with sufficient intensity to make some or all of the remains of their physical culture – pottery, metal work, building styles, burial goods and so on- look very similar.^[26] Therefore, the spread of cultures is not necessarily the result of direct migrations, but may be due to the spread of ideas.

Today, the Chernyakov zone is recognized to represent a cultural interaction of a diversity of peoples, one rooted primarily in Scytho-Sarmatian traditions modified by an admixture of Germanic elements introduced by the Goths.^[23][27] The Chernyakov zone also consisted of Dacians and, quite possibly, early Slavs. In fact, one of the settlement types in the Chernyakov zone were semi-subterranean dwellings with hearths in one of the corners. This settlement type later became typical of early Slavic sites.".^[28] Volodymir Baran labelled it as the Slavic "ethnic badge".^[28] Baran therefore placed Slavic cultural origins in the Carpathian foothills of Podolia. Here, along the northwestern fringes of the Chernyakov zone, the Slavs gradually accreted into a culturally unified people, since the multiethnic environment of the Chernyakhov zone necessitated the “need for self-identification in order to manifest their differentiation from other groups”.^[29]

Iron Age eastern Europe

The Przeworsk culture lay to the northwest of the Chernyakov zone, and extended from the Dniester to the Tisza valley and northward to the Vistula and Oder rivers.^[30] It arose considerably earlier than the Chernyakov culture. During the early 20th century, Slavic, and in particular Polish, archaeologists argued that the Przeworsk culture represented the material remains of the Venethi, who were a proto-Slavic tribe. German archaeologists rather connected it to the Germanic Vandals and Burgundians. Not surprisingly, such debates were influenced by the prevailing political climate of the time- namely German expansionism in Europe.

More accurately, the Przeworsk culture represents an amalgam of a series of localized cultures, most with roots in earlier traditions, modified by influences from the (Celtic) La Tene culture, (Germanic) Jastorf culture from beyond the Oder, and the local Bell-Grave culture of the Polish plain. It is impossible to believe that a single people could lay behind such a territorially wide and culturally varied zone. The Venethi may have played a part, but others included Vandals, Burguindians and even Sarmatians.^[30] To the east of the Przeworsk zone lay the Zarubinets culture, sometimes considered part of the Przeworsk complex.^[31] The area occupied by the Zarubinets culture is one where very ancient Slavic hydronyms are found,^[31] and where Irena Rusinova proposed that the most proto-typical examples of Prague-type pottery later arose.^[28] The Zarubinets culture is identified as either being proto-Slavic,^[32] or an ethnically mixed community which became Slavonicized.^[33]

As one looks even further back in pre-history, the confidence with which archaeological connections can be made to known historic groups regresses correspondingly.^[34] Much attention has been given to the Chernoles culture, which existed from 1050 to 725 BC in the forest-steppe zone. This area seems to correspond to where Herodotus placed his "Scythian ploughmen", postulated to represent proto-Slavic agriculturalists under the Scythian clientship. The Chernoles culture has been seen to represent a stage in the evolution of Slavic stock.^[35] Gimbutas goes so far as identifying it as the proto-Slavic homeland.^[36] Others, instead have labelled the neighbouring Milogradi or Lusatian cultures as proto-Slavic. However, many pre-historians argue that it is spurious to ascribe ethnic labels to the Iron Age peoples of Europe.^[37]

Social anthropology[link]