Chapter I Origin of the Slavs. Origin of the Slavs

The Slavs are Europe's largest ethnic group, but what do we really know about them? Historians still argue about who they came from, where their homeland was located, and where the self-name “Slavs” came from.

Origin of the Slavs

There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Slavs. Some attribute them to the Scythians and Sarmatians who came from Central Asia, others to the Aryans and Germans, others even identify them with the Celts. All hypotheses of the origin of the Slavs can be divided into two main categories, directly opposite to each other. One of them, the well-known “Norman” one, was put forward in the 18th century by German scientists Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, although such ideas first appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The bottom line was this: the Slavs are an Indo-European people who were once part of the “German-Slavic” community, but broke away from the Germans during the Great Migration. Finding themselves on the periphery of Europe and cut off from the continuity of Roman civilization, they were very behind in development, so much so that they could not create their own state and invited the Varangians, that is, the Vikings, to rule them.

This theory is based on the historiographical tradition of “The Tale of Bygone Years” and the famous phrase: “Our land is great, rich, but there is no side in it. Come reign and rule over us." Such a categorical interpretation, which was based on obvious ideological background, could not but arouse criticism. Today, archeology confirms the presence of strong intercultural ties between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but it hardly suggests that the former played a decisive role in the formation of the ancient Russian state. But the debate about the “Norman” origin of the Slavs and Kievan Rus does not subside to this day.

The second theory of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, on the contrary, is patriotic in nature. And, by the way, it is much older than the Norman one - one of its founders was the Croatian historian Mavro Orbini, who wrote a work called “The Slavic Kingdom” at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. His point of view was very extraordinary: among the Slavs he included the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gepids, Getae, Alans, Verls, Avars, Dacians, Swedes, Normans, Finns, Ukrainians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Thracians and Illyrians and many others: “They were all of the same Slavic tribe, as will be seen later.”

Their exodus from the historical homeland of Orbini dates back to 1460 BC. Where did they not have time to visit after that: “The Slavs fought with almost all the tribes of the world, attacked Persia, ruled Asia and Africa, fought with the Egyptians and Alexander the Great, conquered Greece, Macedonia and Illyria, occupied Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland and the coasts of the Baltic Sea "

He was echoed by many court scribes who created the theory of the origin of the Slavs from the ancient Romans, and Rurik from the Emperor Octavian Augustus. In the 18th century, the Russian historian Tatishchev published the so-called “Joachim Chronicle,” which, as opposed to the “Tale of Bygone Years,” identified the Slavs with the ancient Greeks.

Both of these theories (although there are echoes of truth in each of them) represent two extremes, which are characterized by a free interpretation historical facts and archaeological information. They were criticized by such “giants” of Russian history as B. Grekov, B. Rybakov, V. Yanin, A. Artsikhovsky, arguing that a historian should in his research rely not on his preferences, but on facts. However, the historical texture of the “ethnogenesis of the Slavs”, to this day, is so incomplete that it leaves many options for speculation, without the ability to finally answer the main question: “who are these Slavs after all?”

Age of the people

The next pressing problem for historians is the age of the Slavic ethnic group. When did the Slavs finally emerge as a single people from the pan-European ethnic “mess”? The first attempt to answer this question belongs to the author of “The Tale of Bygone Years” - monk Nestor. Taking the biblical tradition as a basis, he began the history of the Slavs with the Babylonian pandemonium, which divided humanity into 72 nations: “From these 70 and 2 languages ​​the Slovenian language was born...”. The above-mentioned Mavro Orbini generously gave the Slavic tribes a couple of extra thousand years of history, dating their exodus from their historical homeland to 1496: “At the indicated time, the Goths and Slavs left Scandinavia ... since the Slavs and Goths were of the same tribe. So, having subjugated Sarmatia, the Slavic tribe was divided into several tribes and received different names: Wends, Slavs, Ants, Verls, Alans, Massetians... Vandals, Goths, Avars, Roskolans, Russians or Muscovites, Poles, Czechs, Silesians, Bulgarians ...In short, the Slavic language is heard from the Caspian Sea to Saxony, from the Adriatic Sea to the German Sea, and within all these limits lies the Slavic tribe.”

Of course, such “information” was not enough for historians. Archeology, genetics and linguistics were used to study the “age” of the Slavs. As a result, we managed to achieve modest, but still results. According to the accepted version, the Slavs belonged to the Indo-European community, which most likely emerged from the Dnieper-Donets archaeological culture, in the area between the Dnieper and Don rivers, seven thousand years ago during the Stone Age. Subsequently, the influence of this culture spread to the territory from the Vistula to the Urals, although no one has yet been able to accurately localize it. In general, when speaking about the Indo-European community, we do not mean a single ethnic group or civilization, but the influence of cultures and linguistic similarity. About four thousand years BC it broke up into conventional three groups: the Celts and Romans in the West, the Indo-Iranians in the East, and somewhere in the middle, in Central and Eastern Europe, another one emerged language group, from which the Germans, Balts and Slavs later emerged. Of these, around the 1st millennium BC, the Slavic language begins to stand out.

But information from linguistics alone is not enough - to determine the unity of an ethnic group there must be an uninterrupted continuity of archaeological cultures. The bottom link in the archaeological chain of the Slavs is considered to be the so-called “culture of podklosh burials”, which received its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel, in Polish “klesh”, that is, “upside down”. It existed in the V-II centuries BC between the Vistula and the Dnieper. In a sense, we can say that its bearers were the earliest Slavs. It is from this that it is possible to identify the continuity of cultural elements right up to the Slavic antiquities of the early Middle Ages.

Proto-Slavic homeland

Where, after all, was the Slavic ethnic group born, and what territory can be called “originally Slavic”? Historians' accounts vary. Orbini, citing a number of authors, claims that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia: “Almost all the authors, whose blessed pen conveyed to their descendants the history of the Slavic tribe, claim and conclude that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia... The descendants of Japheth the son of Noah (to which the author includes the Slavs ) moved north to Europe, penetrating into the country now called Scandinavia. There they multiplied innumerably, as St. Augustine points out in his “City of God,” where he writes that the sons and descendants of Japheth had two hundred homelands and occupied lands located north of Mount Taurus in Cilicia, along the Northern Ocean, half of Asia, and throughout Europe all the way to the British Ocean."

Nestor called the most ancient territory of the Slavs - the lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Pannonia. The reason for the resettlement of the Slavs from the Danube was the attack on them by the Volokhs. “After many times, the essence of Slovenia settled along the Dunaevi, where there is now Ugorsk and Bolgarsk land.” Hence the Danube-Balkan hypothesis of the origin of the Slavs.

The European homeland of the Slavs also had its supporters. Thus, the prominent Czech historian Pavel Safarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe in the neighborhood of related tribes of Celts, Germans, Balts and Thracians. He believed that in ancient times the Slavs occupied vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, from where they were forced to leave beyond the Carpathians under the pressure of Celtic expansion.

There was even a version about two ancestral homelands of the Slavs, according to which the first ancestral home was the place where the Proto-Slavic language developed (between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina) and where the Slavic people themselves were formed (according to the authors of the hypothesis, this happened starting from the 2nd century BC era) - the Vistula River basin. Westerners and East Slavs. The first populated the area of ​​the Elbe River, then the Balkans and the Danube, and the second - the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester.

The Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis about the ancestral home of the Slavs, although it remains a hypothesis, is still the most popular among historians. It is conditionally confirmed by local toponyms, as well as vocabulary. If you believe the “words”, that is, lexical material, the ancestral home of the Slavs was located away from the sea, in a forested flat zone with swamps and lakes, as well as within the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, judging by the common Slavic names of fish - salmon and eel. By the way, the areas of the Podklosh burial culture already known to us fully correspond to these geographical characteristics.

"Slavs"

The word “Slavs” itself is a mystery. It firmly came into use already in the 6th century AD; at least, Byzantine historians of this time often mentioned the Slavs - not always friendly neighbors of Byzantium. Among the Slavs themselves, this term was already widely used as a self-name in the Middle Ages, at least judging by the chronicles, including the Tale of Bygone Years.

However, its origin is still unknown. The most popular version is that it comes from the words “word” or “glory,” which go back to the same Indo-European root ḱleu̯- “to hear.” By the way, Mavro Orbini also wrote about this, albeit in his characteristic “arrangement”: “during their residence in Sarmatia, they (the Slavs) took the name “Slavs”, which means “glorious”.

There is a version among linguists that the Slavs owe their self-name to the names of the landscape. Presumably, it was based on the toponym “Slovutich” - another name for the Dnieper, containing a root with the meaning “to wash”, “to cleanse”.

At one time, a lot of noise was caused by the version about the existence of a connection between the self-name “Slavs” and the Middle Greek word for “slave” (σκλάβος). It was very popular among Western scientists of the 18th-19th centuries. It is based on the idea that the Slavs, as one of the most numerous peoples in Europe, made up a significant percentage of captives and often became objects of the slave trade. Today this hypothesis is recognized as erroneous, since most likely the basis of “σκλάβος” was a Greek verb with the meaning “to obtain spoils of war” - “σκυλάο”.

It is quite difficult to reliably tell about the origin of the Slavs briefly and interestingly, because there is no written confirmation. Where did they come from? The very first mention according to the chronicle comes after the Flood, when the sons of Japheth took the west and north. It was from them, the sons of Japheth, that the Slavic people came, or another name - Noriki.

So, Slavs.

There are several versions even about how the word Slavs arose. Maybe from Indo-European ancient language, in which they denoted rumor and fame, glorious people. Or, people who could be easily understood, speaking our language. Basically, there is a version in which the Slavic peoples are designated as Slovenes or Sklavens (Eastern Venets), among many peoples of Scandinavia, such names have been preserved in the language to this day. The name Russian Slavs appeared in the 12th century.

Motherland, where is it?

It is believed that it was from Central and Eastern Europe that the origin and subsequent settlement of Slavic peoples began in the 6-7 centuries AD. Valleys of the Vistula, Oder, Elbe and Danube rivers. Fortunately, numerous excavations of everyday objects confirm this.

Settlement.

As a rule, settlement occurred in all directions, but was more noticeable towards the Baltic and Black Sea. Historical military-tribal alliances could help people and took care of their safety and survival. The suitability of a place for life attracted people, good pastures for livestock and meadows for sowing. During the same period, as a result of movements and mixing of tribes, religious movements appeared, replacing paganism. In the west - the Vagrs, the Drevans. In the north there are Pomeranians, Sledzhans, and Bohemians. In the north-west - Polish, Silesian, Lusatian. Eastern and southeastern - Buzhans, Volynians. The names were given according to the place of residence.

Slavic fortifications.

Fortifications were built, as a rule, on high banks of rivers; they were surrounded by high earthen ramparts, deep ditches filled with water and log palisades. It was protection from wild animals, of which there were a lot then, from warring neighbors from different parts of the world, and simply from robbers. Housing - dugouts - was poor, damp and dark. In the center of the settlements there was a square. Everyone usually gathered in the squares for general meetings or courts. From here they escorted traders and warriors on their way.

Culture.

The basis of Slavic culture is called Prague. Burial grounds of that time have been found, containing burials of cremated people, women's jewelry - temple rings, molded ceramics, frying pans and bowls. The gods and idols had clear names. Perun was a warrior, Veles was the protector of livestock, Mokosh was in charge of weaving, Stribog was guarding the sky, Dazhdbog was the sun. Common language was Proto-Slavic, then Slavic and Old Church Slavonic. The initial writing was in the form of the Glagolitic alphabet, later in the form of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet. The counting system and calendars were developed. They are associated with the rituals of that time and activities - solar and lunar, wedding, sowing, hunting. When Christianity came to the Slavs, from the 6th to the 10th centuries, calendars with fasting and meat-eaters appeared. The Eastern and South-Eastern Slavs became Christians according to the Byzantine rite, and the Western and South-Western ones according to the Roman rite. The Balkan settlements of the Slavs, occupied by the Ottoman Empire, converted to Islam. In our time, rituals from the pagan past have been preserved, such as Maslenitsa, Ivan Kupala, Krasnaya Gorka. And a lot of superstitions about brownies and ghosts.

Basic classes.

Hunting and gathering berries and mushrooms could not feed large tribes. The found tools of agricultural implements made of iron indicate that the ancient sedentary Slavs were engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry and crafts. And surplus food was exchanged or sold to neighboring tribes. Thus, trade routes leading to all directions of the world were born, and with them the settlement of the Slavs continued.

Modern Slavs.

If in past centuries all groups were united by a common tribal way of life, now similarities are observed only in language. There is no common race, no common religion, no common culture.

Origin of the Slavs. This very phrase immediately raises more questions than answers.

S. V. Ivanov “Housing of the Eastern Slavs”

Soviet archaeologist P. N. Tretyakov wrote:

“The ancient Slavs in the light of archaeological materials is an area of ​​hypotheses, usually short-lived, constantly raising numerous doubts.”

Today, even after global work carried out by archaeologists, many works by linguists, and research on toponymy, this question remains open. The fact is that we have practically no written sources according to the early history of the Proto-Slavs, and this is the stumbling block for all further reasoning. This work is based on key research on this topic.

Introduction

At the end of the 6th century, new enemies appeared on the Danube border and attacked the Byzantine state.

These were peoples about whom ancient and Byzantine authors had already heard a lot, but now they became their restless neighbors, leading constant fighting and carrying out devastating raids on the empire.

How could the new tribes that appeared on the northern border for a long time not only compete with the military forces of the most powerful country in Europe, but also seize its lands?

How were these peoples, unknown or little known to the Roman world just yesterday, able to occupy such vast territories? What powers and capabilities did they have, how and by whom were they involved in the worldwide migration of peoples, how did their culture develop?

We are talking about the ancestors of the Slavs, who settled over the vast expanse of central, northeastern and southern Europe.

And if about the military operations and battles of the Slavs in the VI-VII centuries. is known quite well thanks to written sources that have come down to us, archaeological sites give us important information that significantly complements the picture and helps us understand many aspects of early Slavic history.

The clash or cooperation of the Slavs with nearby peoples: the Byzantine Empire, Germanic tribes and, of course, the nomads of the Eurasian plain enriched their military experience and military arsenal.

The Slavs and their military affairs are little known to the general public; they for a long time were in the shadow of the Germanic peoples who lived in these areas, as well as the nomadic peoples who lived in the Danube region.

Origin

The Kiev chronicler in the “ethnographic” part of “The Tale of Bygone Years” wrote:

“After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where now the land is Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Lutichs, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians.

For a long time, this chronicle story was considered decisive in the picture of the settlement of the Slavic tribes, but today, on the basis of archaeological data, toponymy, but especially philology, the Vistula River basin in Poland is considered the ancestral home of the Slavs.

Slavic language belongs to Indo-European language family. The question of the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans still remains open. Anatolian, Greek, Armenian, Indo-Iranian and Thracian languages ​​independently emerged from the Proto-Indo-European language, while the Italic, Celtic, Slavic, Baltic and Germanic proto-languages ​​did not exist. They constituted a single community of the ancient European language, and their division occurred during the settlement throughout Europe.

There is a debate in the literature about whether there was originally a Balto-Slavic linguistic community or whether there were long-term contacts between the ancestors of the Slavs and Balts, which influenced the similarity of the languages. Recent research suggests that, firstly, the Proto-Slavs had contacts only with the Western Balts (ancestors of the Prussians), and secondly, they initially had contacts with the Proto-Germanic tribes, in particular, with the ancestors of the Angles and Saxons, which is recorded in the vocabulary of the latter . These contacts could only take place on the territory of modern Poland, which confirms the localization of the early Proto-Slavs in the Vistula-Oder interfluve.

This territory was their European ancestral home.

First historical evidence

For the first time, messages about the Vends or Slavs appear on the pages of Roman manuscripts at the beginning of our millennium. Thus, Guy Pliny the Elder (23/24-79 AD) wrote that, among other peoples, the Sarmatians and Veneti lived in the east of Europe. Claudius Ptolemy (died 178 AD) pointed to the gulf, calling it Venedsky, now presumably the Gulf of Gdansk in Poland, he also writes about the Venedian Mountains, possibly the Carpathians. But Tacitus (50s - 120 AD) argues as follows:

“Whether the Pevkin [Germanic tribe], the Wends and the Fennians should be classified as Germans or Sarmatians, I really don’t know... The Wendians have adopted many of their customs, for for the sake of robbery they scour the forests and mountains that exist between the Pevkin and the Fenni. However, they can rather be classified as Germans, because they build houses for themselves, carry shields and move on foot, and with great speed; all this separates them from the Sarmatians, who spend their whole lives in a cart and on horseback.” .

Area of ​​the Przeworsk archaeological culture. Source: Sedov V.V. Slavs. Old Russian people. M., 2005

Early name of the Slavs

As we have already said, ancient authors, like ancient peoples, at the turn of the millennium called the ancestors of the Slavs “Vends”. Many researchers believe that in antiquity this term defined not only the Slavs, but all the tribes of the Slavic-Baltic language group, since for the Greeks and Romans this land was distant and information about it was sketchy, and often simply fabulous.

This word is preserved in Finnish and German, this is how the Luga Sorbs or Western Slavs are still called today - Wendel or Wende. Where did it come from?

Perhaps, some researchers believe, this was the self-name of some of the first tribal groups moving from the Vistula River basin to the west and north, to the area inhabited by the Germans, and, accordingly, the Finnish tribes.

By the 6th century The “Weneds” were clearly localized in the north of Central Europe, in the west they went beyond the borders of the Oder, and in the east - to the right bank of the Vistula.

The actual name “Slavs” appears in sources in the 6th century. at Jordan and Procopius, when both authors could actually get acquainted with representatives of this people. Procopius of Caesarea, being the secretary of the commander Belisarius, more than once observed and described the actions of the Slavic warriors.

There is also an opinion that if the word “Vends - Venets” was colloquial, then “Sklavins” or “Slavs” had a book origin, such as, for example, the term “Rosy”.

There is no exact answer as to where this name came from. Until the 19th century. it was believed that it comes from the word “glory” (gloriosi). Another version, which also circulated until the 19th century, suggested a connection between the word “Slav” and “slave,” a term identical in many European languages.

Modern theories suggest two solutions to this issue. The first links it with the places of initial residence of the Slavs, people living along the rivers. Derived from the word “flow, water flows”, hence: the rivers Sluya, Slavnica, Stawa, Stawica.

The vast majority of researchers are followers of another theory, they believe that the ethnonym comes from “word” - verbosi: to speak, “to speak clearly”, “people who speak clearly”, unlike “Germans” - cannot speak, are dumb.

We find it in the names of tribes and modern peoples: Slovenes of Novgorod (Ancient Rus'), Slovaks (Slovakia), Slovenes (Slovenia and other Balkan countries), Slovenes-Kashubs (Poland).

Early Slavs and Celts

In the south of the Vistula-Oder interfluve, the ancient Slavs (Przeworsk archaeological culture) had their first contacts with the Celts migrating to these territories.

The Celts by this time had reached great heights in the development of material culture, which was reflected in the archaeological culture of La Tène (the settlement of La Tène, Switzerland). The Celtic society of Europe at this time can be defined as “heroic,” with the cult of leaders and heroes, squads and the militarization of all life, consisting of clans grouped into tribes.

The Celts made an outstanding contribution to the history of metallurgy in Europe: archaeologists discovered entire forging production complexes.

They mastered the technology of welding, hardening, made a great contribution to the production of iron tools, and, of course, . A significant fact in the development of Celtic society is the process of urbanization; by the way, it is with this that archaeologists associate a new important moment: from the middle of the 2nd century. BC e. No military equipment was recorded in Celtic burials.

We know the large Celtic cities of Alesia (97 hectares), Bibracta (135 hectares) and Gergovia (Clermont) (75 hectares) and others.

Society is moving to a new stage, in conditions of accumulation of wealth, when weapons lose their symbolic significance. It was during this period that one of the waves of Celtic migration reached the upper reaches of the Vistula in Central Europe in the 2nd century. BC e., from this moment the time of interaction between the early Slavs and the Celts began. From this period, the Przeworsk archaeological culture began to form.

The Przeworsk archaeological culture is associated with the early Slavs, although signs of habitation by both Celts and Germans are found on its territory. Archaeological monuments provide a wealth of material about the development of material culture; artifacts testify to the emergence of military affairs among the Slavs at the turn of the millennium.

An important factor in the interaction was the process of influence of the Celts, who were more high level development, on the spiritual culture of the Slavs, which was reflected in religious buildings and burial rites. At least, what can be judged today is very likely. In particular, in the construction in a later period of a pagan temple of the Western Slavs in Arkona, on the island of Rügen, historians find features of Celtic religious buildings. But if weapons disappear in the burials of the Celts of central Europe, then on the periphery of the Celtic world they are preserved, which is completely understandable within the framework of military expansion. And the Slavs began to use the same ritual.

The participation of the Celts in the formation of the Przeworsk culture led to the first great division in the history of the Slavs: into southern (central Europe) and northern (Powisle). The movement of the Celts in central Europe, quite likely accompanied by military expansion into the Vistula region, forced some of the local tribes to begin moving to the Dnieper region. They go from the Vistula and Volhynia zone to the upper Dniester zone and especially to the Middle Dnieper region. This movement, in turn, caused an outflow of the Baltic tribes who lived here (Zarubinsk archaeological culture) to the north and east.

Although some archaeologists associate the Zarubinsk culture with the Slavs.

It was during this period that the western neighbors of the ancient Slavs began to call them “Veneti”. And here too there is a Celtic trace.

One of the hypotheses comes from the fact that the ethnonym “Veneta” was the self-name of the Celtic tribes that lived in Powiślie, but when they collided with the Germans at the beginning of our era, they retreated to the lands of the northeast and southeast of modern Poland, where they conquered the Proto-Slavs and They gave them their name: “Vends” or “Venetas”.

Armament of the Slavs in the early period

Tacitus, as we see, told us little, but this information is priceless, since we are talking primarily about the Slavs as a sedentary people who do not live like the Sarmatians in carts, but build houses, which is confirmed by archaeological data, and also that their weapons are similar to their western neighbors.

Among the Slavs, like most tribes who lived in the forest-steppe zone and embarked on the path historical development, the main type of weapon was spears, which, naturally, owe their origin to sharpened sticks. Given the early contacts with the Celts, whose society was at a higher stage of material development, the influence in weaponry is obvious. It was even reflected in the funeral rite, when weapons or any piercing and cutting instruments were damaged. This is what the Celts did when burying male warriors.

Diodorus Siculus, (80-20 BC) wrote:

“...they [the Celts. - V.E.] they fight with a long sword, which they carry, suspended on an iron or copper chain to the right thigh... In front of them they put out spears, which they call “lankias”, with iron tips one cubit (45 cm) long or more, and width - slightly less than a dipalesta (15.5 cm).”

Swords and spear tip. Celts. Archaeological culture of La Tène.

Origin of the Slavs

Ethnogenesis of the Slavs- the process of formation of the ancient Slavic ethnic community, which led to the separation of the Slavs from the conglomerate of Indo-European tribes. Currently, there is no generally accepted version of the formation of the Slavic ethnic group.

The Slavs as an established people were first recorded in Byzantine written sources from the mid-6th century. Retrospectively, these sources mention Slavic tribes in the 4th century. Earlier information refers to peoples who could take part in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, but the degree of this participation varies in different historical reconstructions. The earliest written evidence of Byzantine authors of the 6th century deals with an already established people, divided into Sklavins and Antes. Mentions of the Wends as the ancestors of the Slavs (or a separate Slavic tribe) are retrospective. Evidence from authors of the Roman era (I-II centuries) about the Wends does not allow us to connect them with any authentically Slavic archaeological culture.

Archaeologists identify as credibly Slavic a number of archaeological cultures dating back to the 5th century. In academic science there is no single point of view on ethnic origin carriers of earlier cultures and their continuity in relation to later Slavic ones. Linguists also do not have a consensus on the time of appearance of a language that could be considered Slavic or Proto-Slavic. Existing scientific versions suggest the separation of the Proto-Slavic language from the Proto-Indo-European (or from the language family of more low level) in a wide range from the 2nd millennium BC. e. until the turn of eras or even the first centuries AD. e.

The origin, history of formation and habitat of the ancient Slavs are studied using methods and at the intersection of various sciences: linguistics, history, archeology, paleoanthropology, genetics.

Linguistic data

Indo-Europeans

In Central Europe during the Bronze Age, there was an ethnolinguistic community of Indo-European tribes. The attribution of certain groups of languages ​​to this community is controversial. The German scientist G. Krahe came to the conclusion that while the Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek languages ​​had already separated and developed as independent ones, the Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Illyrian, Slavic and Baltic languages ​​existed only as dialects of a single Indo-European language. The ancient Europeans, who lived in central Europe north of the Alps, developed a common terminology in the field Agriculture, social relations and religion. The famous Russian linguist, academician O. N. Trubachev, based on an analysis of the Slavic vocabulary of pottery, blacksmithing and other crafts, came to the conclusion that the speakers of early Slavic dialects (or their ancestors) at the time when the corresponding terminology was being formed were in close contact with the future Germans and Italics, that is, Indo-Europeans of Central Europe. Approximately, the separation of the Germanic languages ​​from the Baltic and Proto-Slavic occurred no later than the 7th century. BC e. (according to the estimates of a number of linguists - much earlier), but in linguistics itself there are practically no precise methods of chronological reference to historical processes.

Early Slavic vocabulary and habitats of the Proto-Slavs

Attempts were made to establish the Slavic ancestral home by analyzing early Slavic vocabulary. According to F.P. Filin, the Slavs as a people developed in a forest belt with an abundance of lakes and swamps, far from the sea, mountains and steppes:

“The abundance in the lexicon of the common Slavic language of names for varieties of lakes, swamps, and forests speaks for itself. The presence in the common Slavic language of various names for animals and birds living in forests and swamps, trees and plants of the temperate forest-steppe zone, fish typical for reservoirs of this zone, and at the same time the absence of common Slavic names for the specific features of the mountains, steppes and sea - all this gives unambiguous materials for a definite conclusion about the ancestral home of the Slavs... The ancestral home of the Slavs, at least in the last centuries of their history as a single historical unit, was located away from the seas, mountains and steppes, in a forest belt of the temperate zone, rich in lakes and swamps...”

The Polish botanist Yu. Rostafinsky tried to localize the ancestral home of the Slavs more accurately in 1908: “ The Slavs transferred the common Indo-European name yew to willow and willow and did not know larch, fir and beech.» Beech- borrowing from the Germanic language. IN modern era The eastern border of the distribution of beech falls approximately on the Kaliningrad-Odessa line, however, the study of pollen in archaeological finds indicates a wider range of beech in ancient times. In the Bronze Age (corresponding to the middle Holocene in botany), beech grew throughout almost the entire territory of Eastern Europe (except for the north), in the Iron Age (late Holocene), when, according to most historians, the Slavic ethnic group was formed, remains of beech were found in most of Russia, the Black Sea region, Caucasus, Crimea, Carpathians. Thus, the probable place of ethnogenesis of the Slavs may be Belarus and the northern and central parts of Ukraine. In the north-west of Russia (Novgorod lands) beech was found back in the Middle Ages. Beech forests are currently widespread in Western and Northern Europe, the Balkans, the Carpathians, and Poland. In Russia, beech is found in the Kaliningrad region and the northern Caucasus. Fir does not grow in its natural habitat in the territory from the Carpathians and the eastern border of Poland to the Volga, which also makes it possible to localize the homeland of the Slavs somewhere in Ukraine and Belarus, if the assumptions of linguists about the botanical vocabulary of the ancient Slavs are correct.

All Slavic languages ​​(and Baltic) have the word Linden to designate the same tree, which suggests that the distribution area of ​​the linden tree overlaps with the homeland of the Slavic tribes, but due to the extensive range of this plant, the localization is blurred over most of Europe.

Baltic and Old Slavic languages

Map of Baltic and Slavic archaeological cultures of the 3rd-4th centuries.

It should be noted that the regions of Belarus and northern Ukraine belong to the zone of widespread Baltic toponymy. A special study by Russian philologists, academicians V.N. Toporov and O.N. Trubachev showed that in the Upper Dnieper region Baltic hydronyms are often formalized with Slavic suffixes. This means that the Slavs appeared there later than the Balts. This contradiction is removed if we accept the point of view of some linguists regarding the separation of the Slavic language from the common Baltic language.

From the point of view of linguists grammatical structure and other indicators, the Old Slavic language was closest to the Baltic languages. In particular, many words not found in other Indo-European languages ​​are common, including: roka(hand), golva(head), lipa(Linden), gvězda(star), balt(swamp), etc. (close ones are up to 1,600 words). The name itself Baltic are derived from the Indo-European root *balt- (standing waters), which has a correspondence in Russian swamp. The wider spread of the later language (Slavic in relation to Baltic) is considered by linguists to be a natural process. V.N. Toporov believed that the Baltic languages ​​are closest to the original Indo-European language, while all other Indo-European languages ​​moved away from their original state in the process of development. In his opinion, the Proto-Slavic language was a Proto-Baltic southern peripheral dialect, which turned into Proto-Slavic around the 5th century. BC e. and then developed independently into the Old Slavic language.

Archaeological data

The study of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs with the help of archeology encounters the following problem: modern science It is not possible to trace until the beginning of our era the change and continuity of archaeological cultures, the bearers of which could confidently be attributed to the Slavs or their ancestors. Some archaeologists accept some archaeological cultures at the turn of our era as Slavic, a priori recognizing the autochthony of the Slavs in a given territory, even if it was inhabited in the corresponding era by other peoples according to synchronous historical evidence.

Slavic archaeological cultures of the V-VI centuries.

Map of Baltic and Slavic archaeological cultures of the 5th-6th centuries.

The appearance of archaeological cultures, recognized by most archaeologists as Slavic, dates back only to the 6th century, corresponding to the following similar cultures, separated geographically:

• Prague-Korczak archaeological culture: the range stretches in a strip from the upper Elbe to the middle Dnieper, touching the Danube in the south and capturing the upper reaches of the Vistula. The area of ​​the early culture of the 5th century is limited to the southern Pripyat basin and the upper reaches of the Dniester, Southern Bug and Prut (Western Ukraine).

Corresponds to the habitats of the Sklavins of Byzantine authors. Characteristic features: 1) dishes - hand-made pots without decorations, sometimes clay pans; 2) dwellings - square half-dugouts with an area of ​​up to 20 m² with stoves or hearths in the corner, or log houses with a stove in the center 3) burials - corpse burning, burial of cremation remains in pits or urns, the transition in the 6th century from ground burial grounds to the mound burial rite; 4) lack of grave goods, only random things are found; brooches and weapons are missing.

• Penkovskaya archaeological culture: range from the middle Dniester to the Seversky Donets (western tributary of the Don), capturing the right bank and left bank of the middle part of the Dnieper (territory of Ukraine).

Corresponds to the probable habitats of the antes of Byzantine authors. It is distinguished by the so-called Ant treasures, in which bronze cast figurines of people and animals are found, colored with enamels in special recesses. The figurines are Alan in style, although the technique of champlevé enamel probably came from the Baltic states (earliest finds) through the provincial Roman art of the European West. According to another version, this technique developed locally within the framework of the previous Kyiv culture. The Penkovskaya culture differs from the Prague-Korchak culture, in addition to the characteristic shape of the pots, in the relative wealth of material culture and the noticeable influence of the nomads of the Black Sea region. Archaeologists M.I. Artamonov and I.P. Rusanova recognized the Bulgar farmers as the main carriers of culture, at least at its initial stage.

• Kolochin archaeological culture: habitat in the Desna basin and the upper reaches of the Dnieper (Gomel region of Belarus and Bryansk region of Russia). It adjoins the Prague and Penkovo ​​cultures in the south. Mixing zone of Baltic and Slavic tribes. Despite its proximity to the Penkovo ​​culture, V.V. Sedov classified it as Baltic based on the saturation of the area with Baltic hydronyms, but other archaeologists do not recognize this feature as ethnically defining for the archaeological culture.

In the II-III centuries. Slavic tribes of the Przeworsk culture from the Vistula-Oder region migrate to the forest-steppe areas between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers, inhabited by Sarmatian and Late Scythian tribes belonging to the Iranian language group. At the same time, the Germanic tribes of the Gepids and Goths moved to the southeast, as a result of which a multi-ethnic Chernyakhov culture with a predominance of Slavs emerged from the lower Danube to the Dnieper forest-steppe left bank. In the process of Slavicization of the local Scythian-Sarmatians in the Dnieper region, a new ethnic group was formed, known in Byzantine sources as the Ants.

Within the Slavic anthropological type, subtypes are classified that are associated with the participation of tribes of various origins in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs. Most general classification indicates the participation in the formation of the Slavic ethnos of two branches of the Caucasian race: southern (relatively broad-faced mesocranial type, descendants: Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians) and northern (relatively broad-faced dolichocrane type, descendants: Belarusians and Russians). In the north, participation in the ethnogenesis of Finnish tribes was recorded (mainly through the assimilation of Finno-Ugrians during the expansion of the Slavs to the east), which gave some Mongoloid admixture to East Slavic individuals; in the south there was a Scythian substrate, noted in the craniometric data of the Polyan tribe. However, it was not the Polyans, but the Drevlyans who determined the anthropological type of future Ukrainians.

Genetic history

The genetic history of an individual and entire ethnic groups is reflected in the diversity of the male sex Y chromosome, namely its non-recombining part. Y-chromosome groups (outdated designation: HG - from the English haplogroup) carry information about a common ancestor, but as a result of mutations they are modified, due to which the stages of development can be traced by haplogroups, or, in other words, by the accumulation of a particular mutation in a chromosome humanity. A person’s genotype, like his anthropological structure, does not coincide with his ethnic identification, but rather reflects the migration processes of large groups of the population during the Late Paleolithic era, which makes it possible to make probable assumptions about the ethnogenesis of peoples at their earliest stage of formation.

Written evidence

Slavic tribes first appear in Byzantine written sources of the 6th century under the name Sklavini and Antes. Retrospectively, in these sources the Antes are mentioned when describing the events of the 4th century. Presumably the Slavs (or ancestors of the Slavs) include the Wends, who, without defining their ethnic characteristics, were reported by the authors of the late Roman period (-II centuries). Earlier tribes noted by contemporaries in the supposed area of ​​formation of the Slavic ethnos (middle and upper Dnieper region, southern Belarus) could have contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, but the extent of this contribution remains unknown due to the lack of information on both the ethnicity of the tribes mentioned in the sources, and along the exact boundaries of the habitat of these tribes and the Proto-Slavs themselves.

Archaeologists find a geographical and temporal correspondence to the neurons in the Milograd archaeological culture of the 7th-3rd centuries. BC e., whose range extends to Volyn and the Pripyat River basin (northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus). On the issue of the ethnicity of the Milogradians (Herodotus's Neuros), the opinions of scientists were divided: V.V. Sedov classified them as Balts, B.A. Rybakov saw them as Proto-Slavs. There are also versions about the participation of Scythian farmers in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, based on the assumption that their name is not ethnic (belonging to Iranian-speaking tribes), but generalizing (belonging to barbarians).

While the expeditions of the Roman legions revealed Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe and the barbarian lands from the middle Danube to the Carpathians to the civilized world, Strabo, in describing Eastern Europe north of the Black Sea region, uses legends collected by Herodotus. Strabo, who critically interpreted the available information, directly stated that there was a white spot on the map of Europe east of the Elbe, between the Baltic and the Western Carpathians mountain range. However, he reported important ethnographic information related to the appearance of bastarns in the western regions of Ukraine.

Whoever ethnically the bearers of the Zarubintsy culture were, their influence can be traced in the early monuments of the Kyiv culture (at first classified as late Zarubintsy), early Slavic according to most archaeologists. According to the assumption of archaeologist M. B. Shchukin, it was the Bastarns, assimilating with the local population, who could play a noticeable role in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, allowing the latter to stand out from the so-called Balto-Slavic community:

“Part of [the Bastarns] probably remained in place and, along with representatives of other “post-Zarubinets” groups, could then take part in the complex process of Slavic ethnogenesis, introducing into the formation of the “common Slavic” language certain “centum” elements, which separate the Slavs from their Baltic or Balto-Slavic ancestors."

“Whether the Pevkins, Wends and Fennes should be classified as Germans or Sarmatians, I really don’t know […] The Wends adopted many of their customs, for for the sake of robbery they scour the forests and mountains that exist between the Pevkins [Bastarns] and the Fennes. However, they can rather be classified as Germans, because they build houses for themselves, carry shields and move on foot, and with great speed; all this separates them from the Sarmatians, who spend their entire lives in a cart and on horseback.”

Some historians make hypothetical assumptions that perhaps Ptolemy mentioned among the tribes of Sarmatia and the Slavs under distorted stavan(south of the ships) and sulons(on the right bank of the middle Vistula). The assumption is justified by the consonance of words and intersecting habitats.

Slavs and Huns. 5th century

L. A. Gindin and F. V. Shelov-Kovedyaev consider the Slavic etymology of the word to be the most justified strava, pointing to its meaning in Czech "pagan funeral feast" and Polish "funeral feast, wake", while allowing the possibility of Gothic and Hunnic etymology. German historians are trying to derive the word strava from Gothic sûtrava, meaning a pile of wood and possibly a funeral pyre.

Making boats using the hollowing method is not a method unique to the Slavs. Term monoxyl found in Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Strabo. Strabo points to gouging as a method of making boats in ancient times.

Slavic tribes of the 6th century

Noting the close kinship of the Sklavins and Antes, Byzantine authors did not provide any signs of their ethnic division, except for different habitats:

“Both of these barbarian tribes have the same life and laws [...] They both have the same language, which is quite barbaric. And by appearance they do not differ from each other […] And once upon a time even the name of the Sklavens and Ants was the same. In ancient times, both these tribes were called spores [Greek. scattered], I think because they lived, occupying the country “sporadic,” “scattered,” in separate villages.”
“Starting from the birthplace of the Vistula [Vistula] river, a populous tribe of Veneti settled across immeasurable spaces. Although their names now change according to different clans and localities, they are still predominantly called Sclaveni and Antes.”

The Strategikon, whose authorship is attributed to Emperor Mauritius (582-602), contains information about the habitats of the Slavs, consistent with the ideas of archaeologists on early Slavic archaeological cultures:

“They settle in forests or near rivers, swamps and lakes - generally in places that are difficult to access […] Their rivers flow into the Danube […] The possessions of the Slavs and Antes are located along the rivers and touch each other, so that there is no sharp border between them. Due to the fact that they are covered with forests, or swamps, or places overgrown with reeds, it often happens that those who undertake expeditions against them are immediately forced to stop at the border of their possessions, because the entire space in front of them is impassable and covered with dense forests.”

The war between the Goths and the Antes took place somewhere in the Northern Black Sea region at the end of the 4th century, if we relate to the death of Germanarich in 376. The question of the Ants in the Black Sea region is complicated by the point of view of some historians, who saw in these Ants the Caucasian Alans or the ancestors of the Circassians. However, Procopius expands the habitat of the antes to places north of Sea of ​​Azov, although without precise geographical reference:

“The peoples who live here [Northern Azov Sea] in ancient times were called Cimmerians, but now they are called Utigurs. Further, to the north of them, countless tribes of Ants occupy the lands.”

Procopius reported the first known Ant raid on Byzantine Thrace in 527 (the first year of the reign of Emperor Justinian I).

In the ancient German epic “Widside” (the content of which dates back to the 5th century), the list of tribes of northern Europe mentions the Winedum, but there are no other names of Slavic peoples. The Germans knew the Slavs under the ethnonym Venda, although it cannot be ruled out that the name of one of the Baltic tribes bordering the Germans was transferred by them to the Slavic ethnic group during the era of the Great Migration (as happened in Byzantium with the Rus and the ethnonym Scythians).

Written sources about the origin of the Slavs

The civilized world learned about the Slavs, who had previously been cut off by the warlike nomads of Eastern Europe when they reached the borders of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines, who consistently fought off waves of barbarian invasions, may not have immediately identified the Slavs as a separate ethnic group and did not report legends about its occurrence. The historian of the 1st half of the 7th century Theophylact Simocatta called the Slavs getae (“ that's what these barbarians were called in the old days"), apparently mixing the Thracian tribe of the Getae with the Slavs who occupied their lands on the lower Danube.

Old Russian chronicle the beginning of the 12th century, “The Tale of Bygone Years” finds the homeland of the Slavs on the Danube, where they were first recorded by Byzantine written sources:

“A long time later [after the biblical Pandemonium of Babylon], the Slavs settled along the Danube, where now the land is Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Luticians, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians. Likewise, these Slavs came and settled along the Dnieper and were called Polyans, and others - Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and others sat between Pripyat and Dvina and were called Dregovichs, others sat along the Dvina and were called Polochans, after the river flowing into the Dvina , called Polota, from which the Polotsk people took their name. The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmen were called by their own name - Slavs."

The Polish chronicle “Greater Poland Chronicle” follows this pattern independently, reporting on Pannonia (the Roman province adjacent to the middle Danube) as the homeland of the Slavs. Before the development of archeology and linguistics, historians agreed with the Danube lands as the place of origin of the Slavic ethnic group, but now they recognize the legendary nature of this version.

Review and synthesis of data

In the past (Soviet era), two main versions of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs were widespread: 1) the so-called Polish, which places the ancestral home of the Slavs in the area between the Vistula and Oder rivers; 2) autochthonous, influenced by the theoretical views of the Soviet academician Marr. Both reconstructions a priori recognized the Slavic nature of the early archaeological cultures in the territories inhabited by the Slavs in the early Middle Ages, and some of the original antiquity of the Slavic language, which independently developed from Proto-Indo-European. The accumulation of data in archeology and the departure from patriotic motivation in research led to the development of new versions based on the identification of a relatively localized core of the formation of the Slavic ethnic group and its spread through migrations to neighboring lands. Academic science has not developed a single point of view on exactly where and when the ethnogenesis of the Slavs took place.

Genetic research also confirms the ancestral home of the Slavs in Ukraine.

How the expansion of the early Slavs from the region of ethnogenesis occurred, the directions of migration and settlement in central Europe can be traced through the chronological development of archaeological cultures. Typically, the beginning of expansion is associated with the advance of the Huns to the west and the resettlement of Germanic peoples towards the south, associated, among other things, with climate change in the 5th century and the conditions of agricultural activity. By the beginning of the 6th century, the Slavs reached the Danube, where their further history is described in written sources of the 6th century.

The contribution of other tribes to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs

The Scythian-Sarmatians had some influence on the formation of the Slavs due to their long geographical proximity, but their influence, according to archaeology, anthropology, genetics and linguistics, was mainly limited to vocabulary borrowings and the use of horses in the household. According to genetic data, common distant ancestors of some nomadic peoples, collectively called Sarmatians, and the Slavs within the Indo-European community, but in historical times these peoples evolved independently of each other.

The contribution of the Germans to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, according to anthropology, archeology and genetics, is insignificant. At the turn of the era, the region of ethnogenesis of the Slavs (Sarmatia) was separated from the places of residence of the Germans by a certain zone of “mutual fear”, according to Tacitus. The existence of an uninhabited area between the Germans and the Proto-Slavs of Eastern Europe is confirmed by the absence of noticeable archaeological sites from the Western Bug to the Neman in the first centuries AD. e. The presence of similar words in both languages ​​is explained by a common origin from the Indo-European community of the Bronze Age and close contacts in the 4th century after the start of the migration of the Goths from the Vistula to the south and east.

Notes

1. From the report of V.V. Sedov “Ethnogenesis of the early Slavs” (2002)
2. Trubachev O. N. Craft terminology in Slavic languages. M., 1966.
3. F. P. Filin (1962). From the report of M. B. Shchukin “The Birth of the Slavs”
4. Rostafinski (1908). From the report of M. B. Shchukin “The Birth of the Slavs”
5. Turubanova S. A., Ecological scenario of the history of the formation of living cover in European Russia, dissertation for the competition scientific degree Ph.D., 2002:
6. Toporov V. N., Trubachev O. N. Linguistic analysis of hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper region. M., 1962.

Possible Ethnogenesis.

An article from the Internet, the concept of the origin of the Slavic ethnic group, which is very close to the author of this page of this site.

Sources for studying the ethnogenesis of the Slavs (legends and traditions of the Slavic peoples; mentions of the Slavs in non-Slavic written sources; language data)
The problem of origin and ancient history Slavs represents one of the most difficult problems of modern Slavic studies. The efforts of archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, and historians are aimed at solving it. Only their joint research can lead to a solution to this problem.
Sources of information about the Slavic ancestral home. Speaking about the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, we must rely on several sources. These should include
1) Legends and traditions of the people themselves, early medieval chronicles and chronicles (epics, fairy tales, “The Tale of Bygone Years”, etc.).
Slavic writers of the Middle Ages, in their views on the origin of the Slavs, proceeded from the biblical legend of Tower of Babel and settlement of peoples different parts peace. The most ancient and detailed presentation of medieval ideas about the origin of the Slavs is found in the Russian chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years.” The chronicler knew from the legends that had reached him that the name Rus itself was of Varangian (Scandinavian) origin, and the “original” Rus was called together with the Varangian princes (Rurik, Sineus, Truvor) to Novgorod. But the language spoken by the Russian people contemporary to the chronicler was Slavic: “and the Slovenian language and the Russians are the same, from the Varangians they called you Russia, and the first language was Slovenia” (PVL). In ancient times, says the chronicler, “was Slovenia along the Dunaevi, where?” is there now? Ugrian land and called by its own names, where? Where is the place?” The chronicler also knows the reason for the resettlement of the Slavs from their Danube ancestral home: pressure from the Romans (Volokhs): “S?dAkh? because that (on the Danube, in the contemporary chronicler of Hungary and Bulgaria) is the same as Slovenia, and Volokhov is the land of Slovenia.”
Many tribes of the Danube Slavs moved to the west and northeast. Some settled along the Dnieper and Dvina and even further north, near Lake Ilmen, and formed a special eastern branch of the Slavs.
N.M. Karamzin, referring to the “Tale of Bygone Years,” writes in “History of the Russian State”: “Many Slavs, of the same tribe as the Poles who lived on the banks of the Vistula, settled on the Dnieper in the Kiev province and were called glades from their pure fields. This name disappeared in ancient Russia, but became the common name of the Poles, the founders of the Polish state. From the same tribe of Slavs there were two brothers, Radim (1) and Vyatko, the heads of the Radimichi and Vyatichi: the first chose a home on the banks of the Sozh, in the Mogilev province, and the second on the Oka, in Kaluga, Tula or Oryol. The Drevlyans, named so from their forest land, lived in the Volyn province; Dulebs and Buzhans along the Bug River, which flows into the Vistula; Lutich and Tivertsy along the Dniester to the sea and the Danube, already having cities in their land; white Croats in the vicinity of the Carpathian mountains, northerners, neighbors of the glades, on the banks of the Desna, Semi and Sula, in the Chernigov and Poltava provinces; in Minsk and Vitebsk, between Pripyat and the Western Dvina, Dregovichi; in Vitebsk, Pskov, Tver and Smolensk, in the upper reaches of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga, Krivichi; and on the Dvina, where the Polota River flows into it, Polotsk residents of the same tribe; on the shores of Lake Ilmen are the so-called Slavs, who founded Novgorod after the Nativity of Christ.”
Map 1. Slavs in the VI - IX centuries.
In addition to the tribes listed by Nestor, and after him by Karamzin, the Slavic tribes of Draguvites, Sagudats, Verzites, Severians, and others lived on the Balkan Peninsula.
In addition to the Slavic peoples, according to Nestor’s legend, many non-Slavic tribes also lived in Russia at that time: Merya - around Rostov and on Lake Kleshchina or Pereyaslavl; muroma - on the Oka (at its confluence with the Volga); Cheremis, Meshchera, Mordovians - to the southeast of Mary; Liv - in Livonia, Chud - in Estonia and east to Lake Ladoga(cf. “stranger”); narova - where Narva is; yam or eat - in Finland, all - on Beloozero; Perm - in the Perm province; Yugra, or the current Berezovsky Ostyaks, - on the Ob and Sosva; Pechora - on the Pechora River. The origin of the Western Slavs was depicted in approximately the same way by Czech and Polish chroniclers.

2) Evidence from neighboring peoples who had writing.
In the 4th century. BC. Herodotus described Scythia in his book “History of the Greco-Persian Wars”. He places it on the Crimean peninsula and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper. He divides the Scythians into several genera: the royal Scythians and the Scythian plowmen who lived in the northern Black Sea region. The last mention is very strange, because it is known that the Scythians were engaged in cattle breeding, not agriculture. It is believed that these were peoples subordinate to the Scythians, most likely the Slavs. In addition, in his book he mentions the Enets and writes that the Enets live on the Adriatic coast and that they are Illyrian tribes. In later sources, the Wends are constantly distinguished from the Illyrians.

Map 2. The Great Migration of Peoples in the second half of the 1st - mid-2nd centuries.
The oldest historical information about the Slavs, or Wends, dates back to the 1st-2nd centuries AD. e. Since the middle of the 6th century, the name Sklabenoi, Sclaveni is repeatedly found in the texts of Procopius, Jordanes, and others. The first mention of the Slavs (sakaliba) by Arab authors (Abu Malik, al-Akhtal) dates back to the second half of the 7th century. Roman and Alexandrian writers (Pliny “Natural History”, Tacitus “Germany”, Ptolemy “Manual of Geography”) call the Wends the most significant and numerous people between the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and the Carpathians (3). Around 150 BC The Celts came to this territory, but the Wends retained the characteristics of their people. Polybius writes: “They differ little from the Celts in manners and decorations, but they use a different language.” Pliny (c. 77 AD) mentions that the Sarmatians and Wends live “as far as the Vistula,” and Ptolemy (died c. 178 AD) confidently says that “Sarmatia is inhabited by the greatest peoples,” including “ Veneds throughout the Gulf of Vened" (the coast of the Baltic Sea) - "the place of residence of the Polabian and Pomeranian Slavic tribes, which could have come here from the Venedian-Illyrian center - perhaps the northern half of the Amber Road." Tacitus, at the very end of the 1st century, noted that between the Sarmatians and the Germans there is a band of special nationalities that are not easily classified. He writes that these peoples speak the “Pannonian” language, that the Sarmatians imposed taxes on them, as people of “alien origin,” and that their social system combines opposing features. On the one hand, they “roam like robbers throughout the entire expanse of the mountainous and wooded country that separates the Pevins from the Finns.” On the other hand, they still “have permanent dwellings, carry shields, walk quickly on foot; all this is the opposite of the Sarmatians, who live in carts and ride horses.” Thus, the lines of Tacitus throw a bright light on the meeting in the upper reaches of the Oder and Vistula of three nationalities: the Germans, the Wends and the Sarmatians. To this day, on the territory of modern Germany, between Dresden and Berlin, there live Slavic peoples who speak the Lower Sorbian and Upper Sorbian languages. The Germans call them Wends, and they call themselves Serbs. About the identity of the Wends with the Slavs in these places around 600 AD. says the chronicler Fredegar, combining all three names into one: “Surbs, a tribe of Slavs; Slavs called Vinads.” Gothic historian Jordan in the 6th century elevates the contemporary Slavs, Sklavins and Antes, as well as the Venets to one root and thus provides a “ready-made” theory of Slavic ethnogenesis.
The Slavs became known under the name Sklavins in Greek sources in the 6th century AD. in the Danube region, on the border Byzantine Empire. The self-name sklavin - Slav - Slovak is a variant of the word “man”. Byzantine authors applied this name to the southern Slavs. Self-name not only distinguishes a people, but also contrasts it with other peoples. Traditionally, philologists (V.V. Ivanov, V.N. Toporov) highlight the opposition: “Slovenians - Germans,” i.e. “those who have articulate speech, language, and words are mute.”

3) Archaeological data, archaeological cultures.
4) Archaeological data is confirmed by language data.
Toponymy has a special place here, and first of all these are oikonyms (names settlements) and hydronyms (names of bodies of water). Even in the first centuries of our era, geographical names of a Slavic nature became known: Lake Pelso (Slavic *pleso, to splash) now Lake Balaton in modern Hungary, Berzovia - a Roman settlement on the Brzva River in Banat, the Cerna area on the Cerna River - a northern tributary of the Danube and other. However, in different eras in one territory the population was not constant: some peoples replaced others, and with them the names could change.
In addition, various types of borrowings indicate the interaction of Slavic and non-Slavic tribes. Thus, research shows that until the 3rd century BC. Proto-Germanic tribes lived between the Oder and Vistula rivers and neighbored Slavic tribes. From this era, such Germanisms as flattery, kusiti (try, tempt), khudog (artist), stranger (teuty - Teutons; self-name of Germanic tribes), buy, bread (sour bread) have been preserved in the Slavic languages. In the 7th - 3rd centuries BC. in the south, the Slavs neighbored the Celts (the territory of modern Czech Republic). Initially, it was assumed that words such as cheren (the name of a part of the stove), fierce, mash, servant were Celticisms. Later studies showed that of all these words, only the lexeme servant is Celtic, the rest are common Slavic (cheren, fierce) or Turkic (braga) names.
An etymological study of the names of the landscape, plants, wild and domestic animals, birds, and fish can tell a lot about the territory that the Slavs inhabited in ancient times. Research shows that in all Slavic languages ​​lexemes associated with forest and forest-steppe zones predominate and are common Slavic: lake, swamp, pond, pine forest, forest, oak grove... birch, aspen, oak, ash, walnut... bear, fox, wolf , lynx, deer... goose, swan, duck, raven, catfish, perch, tench, ide, pike, etc. Lexemes associated with the designation of the sea, mountains, steppe, used in modern Slavic languages, are mainly borrowings.
For example, the lexeme beech is a borrowing from the 3rd century BC. from the Germanic language. The distribution area of ​​this plant today is very extensive - from the Neman River to the city of Odessa. However, as research by botanists shows, two thousand years ago the eastern border of the distribution of this plant was different: it passed along the Elbe River. It follows from this that the Slavic tribes were unlikely to cross this river.
All Slavic languages ​​have the word linden, which means the same plant. Most likely, this word already existed in the Proto-Slavic language, and the Proto-Slavs lived where the linden tree grows.
So, linguistic data connect the territory of settlement of the ancient Slavs with the region of Central and Eastern Europe, stretching from the river. Elba and r. Oder to the west, into the river basin. Vistula, to the Upper Dniester region and to the Middle Dnieper region to the east. In the north, the neighbors of the Slavs were the Germans and Balts, who together with them formed the northern group of Indo-European tribes. In the east, the neighbors of the Slavs were Western Iranian tribes (Scythians, Sarmatians), in the south - the Thracians and Illyrians, in the west - the Celts. However, the question of the ancient “homeland” of the Slavs remains debatable.
Based on these data, at different times scientists built hypotheses according to which in the early period of their existence the Slavs occupied certain territories.
Concepts of the origin and settlement of the Slavs
Orlova O.Yu.
I. Introduction
II. Main part
1. Origin of the Slavs
1.1. Nestor's version
1.2. Eurasianism, anti-Normanism
1.3. Noriki and Wends
1.4. Germans and Huns

2. Moving south

III. Conclusion
Used Books

Introduction
Currently, there are many concepts about the origin and settlement of the Slavs. Each of them has some truth and fiction. In this scientific work we will consider only some of them and try to analyze them.

So, for example, in general form The positions of the Normanists come down to two theses: firstly, Slavic statehood was created, in their opinion, not by the Slavs, but by European Varangians and, secondly, the birth of Slavic statehood took place not in the Kiev forest-steppe south, but in the Novgorod swampy and barren North.
The fallacy of the first thesis is proven, first of all, by the analysis of written sources of the 11th-12th centuries and the identification of a clearly defined bias in one of the areas of editorial work on “The Tale of Bygone Years” (A.A. Shakhmatov). In addition, checking the degree of reliability of the pro-Varangian tendency can be carried out using the entire amount of materials outlining the long process of development of Slavic primitiveness, which led to the creation of Kievan Rus.
The second thesis about the more progressive development of the North compared to the South can easily be verified using the same amount of objective materials about the evolution of the economy, social relations, and the ratio of the pace of social development in different environmental conditions and, finally, about the specific connections of different parts of the vast Slavic world with other peoples and states of antiquity.
For both tests, we equally need to know what territory was occupied by Slavic tribes in pre-state times, how and at what time the area of ​​Slavic settlement changed. Having determined this, we will be able to draw on abundant archaeological materials that will outline for us common features, local differences and the level of the most advanced regions, where Slavic statehood should have naturally arisen (and arose) first.
In a word, the first question, without the solution of which we cannot begin to analyze the process of transforming a primitive society into a class one, is the question of the origin of the Slavs in its geographical, territorial aspect: where did the “First Slavs” live, what peoples were their neighbors, what were natural conditions, what paths did the further settlement of the Slavic tribes take and what new conditions did the Slavic colonists find themselves in?
1. Origin of the Slavs
1.1. Nestor's version
Here is the story of past years, where the Russian land came from, who became the first to reign in Kyiv and how the Russian land arose
So let's begin this story.
After the flood, Noah's three sons divided the earth - Shem, Ham, Japheth. And Shem got the east: Persia, Bactria...
Ham got the south: Egypt, Ethiopia...
Japheth got the countries of the west and the north:...

This is how “The Tale of Bygone Years” begins - the most ancient work on Russian history that has come down to us. It was created by the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nestor around 1110. Late lists (not earlier than 1377 - Laurentian Chronicle) of its editions made by other authors in 1116 (edition of the abbot of the Kiev Vydubetsky monastery Sylvester) and 1118 (third edition) have reached us, but the editing mainly concerned current politics and to a lesser extent affected historical data.
Nestor had predecessors. These include the author of “The Tale of the Initial Spread of Christianity” - a purely hagiographic work created around 1037-1039. and the monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Nikon, who compiled the Initial Chronicle in 1093. He has already entered a weather record of events. (Generally accepted results of research by A.A. Shakhmatov and others.)

But it is Nestor who can rightfully be called not a writer or chronicler, but rather a scientist-historian. Nestor created a work whose meaning is to comprehend history, and the methods used by Nestor: comparative analysis various reports about the same event, comparison of reports about events with monuments of material culture, interest in cause-and-effect relationships, special investigations to clarify missing facts, etc. - that's quite scientific methods not typical of those who write chronicles of events, much less hagiographic writers.
PVL consists of weather records telling about the events of a particular year. They are preceded by some introduction, where Nestor gives answers to questions: about the origin of the Slavs in connection with the origin of all known peoples, about the origin of those Slavs who inhabit the Russian Land, and about the origin of the Russian Land itself, as a state entity, i.e. about the beginning of historical time for the Eastern Slavs.
The first question - where did the Slavs come from in general - Nestor resolves in the biblical tradition, defining the Slavs on an equal basis with other peoples of the west and north as the descendants of the sons of Japheth, and their language as the result of the Babylonian confusion of languages. After the destruction of the pillar [of Babylon] and the division of the peoples, the sons of Shem took the eastern countries, and the sons of Ham took the southern countries, and the Japhethites took the west and northern countries. From these same seventy-two the language came from the Slavic people from the tribe of Japheth - the so-called Noriks, who are Slavs. Those. The first Slavs were Noriks. Among famous peoples, the Norics can be understood as the inhabitants of the kingdom, and then the Roman province of Norik, located on the left bank of the Danube in the territory of modern Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia.
The next stage is the division of the Slavs into different tribes. Nestor considered the Danube lowlands to be the ancestral home of the Slavs. After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where the land is now Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some came and sat down on a river named Morava and were called Moravas, while others were called Czechs. And here are the Slavs: White Croats, Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs and settled among them and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Luticians, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians.
Nestor connects the second question - how the Slavs settled along the Russian Plain - with the primary settlement of the Slavs from the Danube region. Likewise, these Slavs came and sat along the Dnieper and called themselves Polyans, and others Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and still others sat between Pripyat and Dvina and called themselves Dregovichs. The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmen were called by their own name - Slavs, and built a city and called it Novgorod. And others sat along the Desna, and the Seim, and the Sula and called themselves northerners. And so the people dispersed, and after his name the letter was called “Slavic”.
Nestor returns twice more to the settlement of the Eastern Slavs.
The Polyans, living on their own, as we have already said, were from the Slovenian clan and only later were called Polyans, the Drevlyans descended from the same Slavs and were also not immediately called Drevlyans, the Radimichi and Vyatichi - from the clan of the Poles. After all, the Poles had two brothers - Radim, and the other Vyatko; and they came and sat down; Radim on Sozha, and from him they were called Radimichi, and Vyatko settled with his family on the Oka, from him the Vyatichi got their name. The Dulebs lived along the Bug, where the Volynians are now, and the Ulichi and Tivertsy sat along the Dniester and neighboring the Danube. There were many of them: they used to sit along the Dniester all the way to the sea, and their cities have survived to this day; that's why the Greeks called them "Great Scythia". Here Nestor gave an explanation for the epithet “great”, and not for the main name - Scythia. Even during the time of Emperor Diocletian (284-305), the territory along the Black Sea coast from the Danube to the Dniester was allocated to the Roman province of Scythia Minor, and under the same name this province was part of Byzantium until its conquest by the Bulgarians. By Great Scythia the Greeks understood the entire East European Plain.
The chroniclers who continued Nestorov's undertaking continued it in only one direction - they made weather records. The next historian of Russia had to wait until the 18th century, until the time of Peter the Great. Then not only were Russian chronicles collected and read by secular figures, which was done in particular by V.N. Tatishchev, whose collection burned in the Moscow fire of 1812, but the works of ancient authors were also read: Herodotus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Strabo, etc. Version Nestor did not find support for the Noriks and the Danube origin of the Slavs. From then on, the Wends began to be considered the First Slavs. Also in M.V. Lomonosov’s work “Ancient Russian history", written in 1754-1758, you can read: "The oldest migration of the Slavs, according to ancient writers, should be read from Asia to Europe. It is not difficult to see that this happened in two ways. For the Wends from Troy with Antenor sailed through the Archipelago [islands of the Aegean Sea], the Middle Sea and the Adriatic Sea."
They agreed with this same version, although not in such an exotic form as that of M.V. Lomonosov, however, without giving ethnogenesis to the problem of great importance, authors of classical works on the history of Russia, S.M. Solovyov, the first volume of his “History of Russia from Ancient Times” was published in 1851, and V.O. Klyuchevsky, the first volume of the “Course of Russian History” - 1904. Time of the beginning of history these authors coordinate the Eastern Slavs and the history of Russian statehood with the data of the Tale of Bygone Years.
1.2. Eurasianism, anti-Normanism.
In the 19th century, in connection with the disputes between “Westerners” and “Slavophiles,” another direction appeared, defined in poetic form by Blok: “Yes, we are Scythians, yes, we are Asians.” The authors of this direction considered the influence of the nomadic peoples of the Black Sea region or, in a broader sense, the entire Great Steppe, to be decisive in the early history of the Slavs, to the point of identifying the Slavs with these nomads, as, for example, D.I. Illovaisky identified the Huns with the Slavs. This direction, which later took shape as Eurasianism, however, will be classified as anti-Westernism, because opposition to the West and alliance with the East were its ideological basis. The confrontation between two historical trends was defined in terms of “Normanism” - “anti-Normanism”. Moreover, claims to the Normanists, Westerners late XIX- the beginning of the twentieth century, were presented as if they were those semi-mythical German scientists of the Elizabethan era, writing history Russia, as a product of the German spirit.
But it’s all the fault of those who came to Russia and laid the foundation for the Russian historical science in its European, i.e. generally accepted, in the form of Messrs. G.Z. Bayer and G.F. Miller, according to the witty remark of M. Voiloshnikov, is that they rewrote the chronicle text in the language of science, which earned them the wrath of the famous fighter against the dominance of the Germans, M.V. Lomonosov.
This same eastern, anti-Normanist tradition was continued in the 20th century, including by such different scientists as one of the main hierarchs of Soviet academic history B.A. Rybakov, the most prominent representative of emigration G.V. Vernadsky and L.N. Gumilyov.
1.3. Noriki and Wends.
Kinship between tribes and peoples, i.e. their belonging to the same ethnic system is determined by the language of these peoples.
Lifestyle and historical similarities can only indicate, with varying degrees of probability, a possible relationship, but in themselves they do not confirm this relationship, since they are determined to a greater extent by the unity of the natural and political environment than by the unity of origin. Cultural similarities can indicate somewhat better kinship, especially for peoples whose culture has not been influenced by state institutions.
Enough is currently known about the Noriks, mentioned in the PVL as the first Slavs, to completely refute this version. Neither their language nor culture gives any reason to connect them with the Slavs.
In the 1st century BC. In the Alpine lands, the kingdom of Norik was formed, as it is called by Latin authors. The Illyrian tribe of the Norics united several Celtic, Illyrian tribes and the Veneti tribe under their rule. The latter lived between the Alps and the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea and gave their name to Venice. The kingdom of Norik achieved great economic growth. Norik minted his own gold coin. The Venetian and Illyrian alphabet were used.
In 16 BC. Noricum was transformed into a Roman province of the same name and existed as such until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The name of the Noriks appears in another ancient Russian source associated with PVL - Tolkova Paleya. It provides comments to all 72 peoples listed in the PVL as the descendants of the sons of Noah: the Norits, who are the essence of the Slovenes. The correlation between the Norics and the Slavs by the medieval historian could have arisen due to the fact that Norik was the first of the provinces of Rome, inhabited by the Slavs already in the 6th century, and for this new population the name of the inhabitants of the province was retained for some time.
The ethnonym “Vendi” first appears in Tacitus’s work “On the Origin of the Germans and the Location of Germany,” written in 98 AD. The last chapter says:
This is the end of Suebia. I really don’t know whether the Pevkins, Wends and Fennians should be classified as Germans or Sarmatians, although the Pevkins, whom some call Bastarnae, repeat the Germans in their speech, way of life, and settled way of life. Untidyness among all, idleness and inertia among the nobility. Due to mixed marriages, their appearance becomes more and more uglier, and they acquire the features of Sarmatians. The Veneds adopted many of their customs, for they roam the forests and mountains for the sake of robbery. However, they can rather be classified as Germans, because they build houses for themselves, carry shields and move on foot; all this separates them from the Sarmatians, who spend their entire lives in a cart and on horseback.
As we see, in the text of Tacitus there is no indication of the Wendish language. What are the reasons to consider the Wends Slavs?
Two clear signs of similarity between the Wends and Slavs can be identified.
a) Wends at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. occupied the territory in which, from the 7th century, we see actual Slavs - initially various tribes, consolidated into the modern Polish nation.
b) The names “Vends” and “Slavs”, “Slovenes” contain consonant “ven” and “vyan”.
Are these signs enough to recognize the Wends as Slavs? Firstly, many territories where the Slavs have lived since the 7th century were inhabited by completely different peoples in the 1st century. For example, Bulgaria - by the Thracians, Slovenia - by the Illyrians, the Polish Seaside, the Czech Republic, Moravia - by the Germans, in particular, the Macromanian tribes lived on the territory of the Czech Republic, after whom the Macromanian Wars (167-181) were named, etc.
Secondly, the transition from the word “Vends” to the word “Slavs” requires a good linguistic justification. The option proposed by B.A. Rybakov, who represents the word “Slavs” as a compound: “sly” + “vene” (ambassadors from the Wends), using the Estonian word vana, meaning Russians, is doubtful and cannot be preferred to the generally accepted one: Slavs from "glory" or "word". People of the same root, one clan-tribe, in contrast to those who say otherwise, is incomprehensible. In addition, the Estonians first encountered the Slavs in the 8th century, when the latter, already under their modern self-name - Slovenes (Novgorod or Ilmen) settled the border areas with the Estonians (Chudskoe Lake) to the east of Lake Peipsi. So the name vana cannot in any way be a name adopted from direct communication with their Slavic neighbors.
Long-term attempts to connect any archaeological cultures of the beginning of our century. with the Slavs also did not lead to positive results.
For example, the consonance of the Latin sclavus (Slav) - slav (slave) prompted some historians to populate the environs of the Roman Empire with so many Slavs, and to endow Roman citizens with so many Slavic slaves that the very name “Slav” became a common noun. Or the opposite - the Slavs gratefully adopted the Latin word “slave” for their self-name. With the same success, one can build all sorts of theories based on the consonance of the Russian words “slave” and “Arab”. The censors of the times of the all-powerful Glavlit tried not to miss such constructions, not because they were scientific, but because they were obvious even to them, but not at all felt by the authors Great History Great People, ideological contradictions - both direct and reverse constructions do not fit into such a concept at all.
And what’s interesting is that the founding fathers of such versions are most often medieval authors, whose level of perception and analysis of historical reality is much higher. The version of slavery was expressed by the Jewish author of the 9th-10th centuries, Benjamin of Tudela, in search of the place of the Slavs within the framework of the biblical tradition about the origin of all peoples from the sons of Noah, without, however, resorting to the services of the indicated consonance. He classifies the Slavs as the descendants of Canaan, because representatives of Slavic tribes often ended up in slave markets; The Bible says that Canaan is cursed: “he will be a slave of slaves to his brothers.” Benjamin’s goal was not to discredit the Slavs, just as the goal of his “successors” was to exalt them. “The correlation of real knowledge with tradition, especially with sacred tradition, is not only a method, but also the goal of the work of medieval scribes.” Benjamin, just like Nestor later, is looking for the place of the Slavs among the biblical list of peoples, where, naturally, there is no trace of them.

1.4. Germans and Huns
In German, two names were assigned to the Slavs: the later and more general - slavic, slavonic, and the earlier venden, which refers to the immediate eastern neighbors Germans - to the tribes of Lusatian Serbs or, as they call themselves, Sorbs. At a later time, in the 11th century, the first public education Western (Polabian Slavs) led by a Christian prince received the name Vendian Power from the Germans. The Slavs themselves never had a self-name - Wends, Wends. The name Lugians, which was inherited by the West Slavic tribes of the Lusatian Serbs, did not disappear either.
Preference is given to the hypothesis of the late separation of the Slavs from the previous homogeneous Balto-Slavic massif, in contrast to another concept that gives rise to the Slavs no later than the turn of the 2nd-1st millennia BC, when they emerged as an independent linguistic group directly from the Indo-European linguistic unity. This latter concept led to the emergence of several mutually exclusive "ancestral homelands" of the Slavs, for example on the Vistula or on the Middle and Lower Dnieper, each of which equally lacks archaeological connections with the authentic Slavic archeology of "historical" times.
But the beginning of the process of ethnogenetic division had to be caused by something. Before being divided ethnically, the Balts and Slavs had to be separated territorially. And the Germanic tribes assisted them in this. Their movement initiated the process of dividing the Balto-Slavic massif into southern and northern parts. At the end of the 2nd century AD. From the German coast of the Baltic, the Goths began moving south. The resettlement of the Goths is considered to be the era of the “great migration of peoples.”
1.5. Sklavins and Antes (Jordan, Procopius)
And only in the middle of the 6th century did two authors reliably record the appearance of the Slavs in the historical arena under their own name. This is Jordanes, writing in Latin. And Procopius of Caesarea - a Byzantine, head of the office of Belisarius, the commander of Emperor Justinian, who wrote in Greek. In the books of Procopius, primarily in the “War with the Goths” (555) and Jordanes’ “Getica” (551), the Transdanubian peoples are mentioned - the Sclaveni (Jordan) and the Antes related to them.

For the same time, in Southern Poland and Northwestern Ukraine, a culture of the Prague type is discovered - most definitely attributable to the Slavic. “The Prague-Korchak culture is considered the earliest authentically Slavic, not only because its date is VI-VII centuries. (and according to some data from the 5th century) - “coincides” with the first written news about the Slavs, but because its connection with the subsequent authentically Slavic “historical” cultures of Central and Eastern Europe can be traced archaeologically, which cannot be said about the cultures that preceded it (Chernyakhov and etc.). The same lack of connections with Slavic antiquities applies to the contemporaneous Prague Penkov culture of the Northern Black Sea region.”
Let us present two of the most complete and definitive evidence from these authors.
Jordan. Between these rivers lies Dacia, which, like a crown, is fenced by the Alps [mountains in general, here the Carpathians and from the north the Transylvanian Alps]. On their left [western] slope, descending to the north, starting from the birthplace of the Vistula [Vistula] River, a populous tribe of Veneti settled in vast spaces. Although their names now change according to different clans and localities, they are still predominantly called Sclaveni and Antes.
The Sklavens live from the city of Novietuna [in Slovenia] and the lake called Mursiansky to Danastra and north to Viskla [same as Vistula]; instead of cities they have swamps and forests. The Antes, the strongest of both [tribes], spread from Danaster to Danapra, where the Pontic Sea forms a bend; these rivers are distant from one another at a distance of many crossings.
These [Veneti], as we already said 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, Sclaveni. Although now, due to our sins, they are rampant everywhere, but then they all submitted to the authority of Germanarich.

Procopius.
These tribes, the Slavs and Ants, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times they have lived in the rule of people, and therefore they consider happiness and misfortune in life to be a common matter. They believe that God alone, the creator of lightning, is the ruler over all, and they sacrifice bulls to him and perform other sacred rites. In appearance they do not differ from each other. Very tall and of great strength. Their skin and hair color 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 amenities, they are always covered in dirt, but essentially they are not bad and not at all evil, but they retain Hunnic morals in all purity. In ancient times, both of these tribes were called spores [scattered], I think because they lived, occupying the country "sporade", "scattered", in separate villages. That's why they need a lot of land. They live occupying most of the bank of the Istra, on the other side of the river. I consider what has been said about this people sufficient.
As you can see, there is not much information. Jordan has almost all the information. Procopius talks about several more Slav attacks on Byzantium. But these stories are only the background, along with the earthquake in Greece and the flood in Egypt, on which the main action develops - the war for Italy between Byzantium and the Gothic Empire.
It is quite obvious that the beginning invasion of the Slavs does not seem to political writers to be as spectacular as the Gothic or Hunnic ones. The most interesting thing is that it did not seem interesting not only to the authors who witnessed the moment of its inception, but also to later writers who lived in its era highest development. Writers of the 7th century already took the Slavic population of the Balkans for granted and did not at all ask the question of where they came from here. The first historian to ask this question was none other than Nestor.
Both descriptions agree in the names of two related tribes, the Sklavins and Ants, and diverge in the definition of their ancestors and habitats.
First about the ancestors. In Jordan it is the Wends, in Procopius it is disputes. Those. these two authors completely disagree about the ancestors of the Slavs. No one else from the contemporaries of the Slavicization of the Balkans expresses an opinion on this issue. None of the modern historians tried to identify the Wends with the disputes; on the contrary, they were bred geographically by the Wends - on the Vistula, and they were looking for disputes in the Black Sea region. Jordan is the last of the historians of the Roman-Byzantine period to mention the Vistula Wends. Procopius mentions - but only the Venetian Veneti. The German naming of the Sorbs as Wends is not a book creation, but a folk transfer of the name from former neighbors to new ones who quietly replaced them.
The Roman historian Jordan lives in Ravenna, the capital of the Gothic Empire. The center of this power is Noricum and the Venetian region - the land of the Veneti, not so much conquered as incorporated by Rome. Jordan knows very little about the Transdanubian tribes, and what he knows, he knows from hearsay, although he was born on the Lower Danube.
It was said above that Nestor named the Noriks as the first Slavs. The assumption that Nestor’s identification of the Norics and Slavs arose as a result of the earliest appearance of the Slavs precisely on the borders of this province, and possibly their settlement of Norik abandoned by the Romans, is confirmed by Jordan, who for the first time in the middle of the 6th century recorded the appearance of the Slavs on the borders of the Roman world precisely on the borders Norika. Jordan, according to Roman tradition, transfers to the new people the name of the territory that at one time was named after another people. His Sklavins belong to a larger community called Wends from old memory. The settlement of the Venedian Slavs by the Jordan north to the Vistula can well be accepted as due to correspondence with archaeological data.
There is another ancient text in which the names Sclavus and Nara appear side by side. The epitaph to Martin (d. 524) says that he attracted various ferocious tribes to Christ and then gives a list in which, however, almost all known barbarians are mentioned. So the mention of the Slavs and Noriks in this list follows each other. According to E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya, this, coupled with the evidence of the PVL, is sufficient reason to believe that in the 6th century some of the Slavs were called Noriks.
Let's finish with the Veneti here, mentioning only that Procopius knows the Venetian Veneti by this name, mentioning them when listing the peoples inhabiting Italy and the environs of the Adriatic Sea.
There are often disputes that are identified with the Spales of Pliny, living along the Tanais (Don) and with even greater zeal with the Spales of the Jordan, those whom the Goths defeated on the left bank of the Dnieper. Procopius speaks only about the territory north of Istra and does not mention in the context of the story about the Sklavins, Ants and their common ancestors, the Northern Black Sea region. But, knowing those places poorly, I did not indicate their locations more precisely. There is another mention of the ethnonym Anta, relating to a completely different region. Concluding the description of the peoples inhabiting the coast of Pontus Euxine and the northern slopes of the Caucasus Range, Procopius writes.
Many tribes of Huns settled beyond the Sagins. The peoples who live here were called Cimmerians in ancient times, but now they are called Utigurs. Further, to the north of them, countless Ant tribes occupy the lands.
This is the ethnic geography of the Northern Black Sea region according to Procopius. The distance between the Slavic Antes on the Danube and the Antes on the Don is more than 1000 kilometers. And all these kilometers are inhabited by various other tribes. Despite the obvious difficulty of overcoming this enormous distance, the authors of the History of Great Very Ancient Rus' were not afraid of difficulties and boldly united these two regions into a single ancient Russian massif.
The most determined (G.V. Vernadsky) Rus settled almost to the foothills of the Caucasus. The more cautious ones limited themselves to the right bank of the lower Dnieper (B.A. Rybakov and the Soviet school of anti-Normanism). In this case, as usual, if the source text does not correspond to the concept, then we are offered the “correct version” of this text. In the case of Procopius, E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya, trying to maintain maximum correctness, nevertheless assumes that Procopius did not continue here “the same strict sequence in the description of the “circle” of Pontus Euxine, which he had observed so far.” Simply put, I lost logic and got confused in my own ignorance of those places and, pointing north from the Tanais, which flows in the lower reaches almost strictly in the east-west direction, meant the direction to the northwest from the Taman Peninsula, i.e. through Azov to the Mariupol region and further to the Middle Dnieper.
The Byzantine clerk gave a completely naive explanation for the name of the Slavs and Antes in ancient times, “disputes” - scattered, according to the meaning of the consonant Greek word. This kind of etymology is usually called “folk etymology” and is not given much importance, which is what, for example, E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya does, pointing to a number of similar etymologies of Jordan. She writes that this was a very common technique in the Middle Ages. But it turns out that not a single good initiative of medieval scientists remains without followers and continuers among our contemporaries. Spalei (II century, Danube delta) - disputes (VI century, left bank of the Lower Dnieper) - glades (8th century, Middle Dnieper) - polyanica (female hero) - this is the amazing series they offer in their “rigorous scientific logic” , having agreed with each other in absentia, G.V. Vernadsky and B.A. Rybakov.
It was already said above that Procopius and Jordanes talk about different ancestors of the Slavs and Antes: the Wends in Jordan, the disputes in Procopius. Naturally, no people can appear from anywhere or descend from anyone; they must have an ancestral home and ancestors.
The only question is who and when gave birth to the Slavs?
“Who,” in the linguistic sense, is decided quite reliably: the closest relatives of the Slavic languages ​​are the Baltic languages ​​(Lithuanian, Latvian, etc.). The Proto-Slavic language comes from the outlying dialects of the ancient Baltic languages, which occupied at the turn of the century AD. a huge territory from the Baltic to the Upper Don. "The most ancient features equally unite both the Proto-Slavic and Baltic languages ​​with the Asian Indo-European languages, with the Balkan (Thracian and Illyrian), which disappeared at the beginning new era(of these languages, only the Albanian language has been preserved in the mountains on the Adriatic coast), as well as with the Germanic languages. At the same time, the Proto-Slavic language is characterized by a significant set of features that bring it closer to Western Iranian languages, which, as is commonly believed, included the language of the Scythians; these features are unknown to the Baltic languages. Based on this evidence, it has been suggested that the Proto-Slavic linguistic union, which over time took shape in the Proto-Slavic language, consisted primarily of dialects, some of which were preserved on the Baltic outskirts of the once vast area of ​​their distribution. The final separation of the Proto-Slavic language from the ancient Baltic dialects occurred after rapprochement with the Western Iranian speech of the Scythians.
They are also trying to decide “when”, based on linguistic data. In accordance with the glottochronology method, a language, in the course of its life, updates ~15% of the roots from the so-called diagnostic list of 100 words every millennium. The calculation carried out for the Slavic languages ​​places the time of their appearance at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. But the glottochronology method is statistical method, and like any statistical method is applicable to linear processes. Those. it is applicable to already existing living, non-preserved languages ​​(For example, the Icelandic language, preserved by a written culture, has remained virtually unchanged for a thousand years; Icelanders speak the same language that they wrote a thousand years ago.) Birth processes are obviously non-linear processes and to them Linear estimation methods are not applicable. The time required to form a new language, and lexicon, borrowed from parent languages, are determined not by statistical laws, but by specific historical conditions.
In the cultural and archaeological sense, the Slavs earlier than the 5th century are not visible, and the original core of Slavic antiquities - a culture of the Prague type, occupies a rather narrow belt in the southwest of the primary Balto-Slavic massif.
Therefore, we can only say with a high degree of confidence that since the Slavs did not massacre the entire previous population from the Baltic to the Aegean Sea, and no one accused them of this, it means that they assimilated it - made it Slavic in language and culture. During the 5th and first half of the 6th century, i.e. In just 6-8 generations, the Slavs, emerging from the forests north of the Carpathians, came to the Danube Valley and began moving to the Balkans, Slavicizing all the peoples they met along the way.
2. Moving south
Around the end of the 5th century, the process of Slavicization of the population of the northern Balkans began. Those who did not die under the blows of the Germanic invasions from the north and the nomads from the east joined the young (??-author of the site) people emerging from the forests of central Europe, adopting the Slavic language, culture and way of life. But in their memory these former Celts, Illyrians, and Thracians were able to retain the memory of “peaceful life under the rule of Rome” and the pogrom carried out by the Goths and continued by the Huns. And they passed this memory on to the Slavs. In this sense, the history of the peoples of the northeastern borderlands of Rome is the common history of all Eastern European peoples.

Now let's return to the Antam-Tanaitim. The consensus opinion of Soviet historians that all Ants are Slavs is complicated, in the words of E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya (“Collect all the books and burn them” so as not to spoil life), by the opinion expressed back in 1922 by A. Olrik and subsequently supported G.V. Vernadsky, that the Ants-Tanaites (the prefix “Tanaites” was introduced to distinguish them from the Danube Ants-Slavs) are Alans, or more precisely, a certain peripheral group of them: Ossetian “anda” - “everything”, “andag” - “external” ", in Sanskrit "anta" - "end", "border".
However, in this interpretation, it seems that the settlement of the Alans to the north of the Don is just as unlawful as the settlement of the Slavs there. The meaning of the words cited by A. Olrik and G.V. Vernadsky rather indicates that the Ants-Tanaites are not an ethnic definition of a group of tribes, but a union of various tribes on a geographical basis. Ants-Tanaites are tribes that occupy the entire territory external to the border. The border for the North Caucasian steppe region was undoubtedly the Don (Tanais). And for them the definition of “external” was assigned as a tribal name, when other tribes addressed them.
These Turkic-speaking tribes, who lived in the 3rd-4th centuries on the right bank of the Don, were subjugated by the Huns. Further, we can only speak in terms of the possible, reconstructing the transition of the name “Ants” from the Turks to the Slavs. As an analogue, let us take the transition of the name “Bulgarians” from Turks to Slavs. As allies of the Huns, the Antes were attacked by the Ostrogoths, who had become disobedient. Then they, like all the other peoples of the Northern Black Sea region, took part in the great migration of peoples, coming together with the Huns of Attila to central Europe. The Ants became the rulers of a conglomerate of fragments from different peoples, which was experiencing a stormy process of ethnogenesis, and this process fully captured the Ants themselves, of which soon only the name of one newly formed Slavic tribe remained. Thus, a fragment from the history of a foreign ethnic group entered the ethnic memory of the Slavs.
The name Sklavina is a linguistically correct transformation of the name of the Slavs in Greek. But under the names of Sklavins and Antes, the Byzantines and Romans left information not only about the Slavs, but about the conglomerate of peoples who took part in the Slavic movement and became Slavicized during it. Over time, the Greeks will learn the more accurate sound of the Slavic name.
Above were excerpts about the Slavs from Jordan and Procopius. Jordan did not touch upon this topic any further. Procopius regularly, describing the general situation in the empire, gives information regarding the Slavs. The author is not sure that the following statement has not been previously made by someone, but it has not been found explicitly. Procopius's information provides a very consistent and accurately dated chronology of the Slavs' approach to the Danube and the first attempts to overcome it.
494 (3rd year of the reign of Emperor Anastasius 491-518) When the Eruls were defeated in battle by the Lombards and had to leave, leaving the places of residence of their fathers, one of them, as I said above, settled in the camps of Illyria, the rest they did not want to cross anywhere [to the right bank] across the Istr River, but settled on the very edge of the inhabited land. Led by many leaders of royal blood, they first of all successively passed through all the Slavic tribes, and then, passing through a vast desert region, they reached the country of the so-called Varni [Saxons].
In this passage, attention is almost always paid to the mention of Slavic tribes in plural, considering this as proof of their widespread distribution. However, it is noteworthy that this is the first mention of the Slavs, which contains a fairly definite localization of their places of settlement. The Slavs at this moment had not yet reached the Danube. The Heruli enter their territory, going northwest from the Danube. Beyond the territory of the Slavs in the direction to the northwest is a huge empty area - the former habitat of the Lugii, and only then the lands of the coastal Germans begin. By the way, the Danes, not at all as numerous later as the Slavs would later turn out to be, are also defined in the plural number of tribes. Thus, the territory of the Slavs in 494 in the meridional direction coincides with the area of ​​Prague culture.
527 When Justinian (527-565), Herman's uncle, ascended the throne, the Antes, the closest neighbors of the Slavs, crossed the Ister and invaded the Romans with a large army.
Somewhere between 494 and 527. The Slavs, in two formations: the Sclavenians and the Antes, reached the Danube, and in this passage the first attempt to cross this great river is mentioned. According to V.Ya. Petrukhin, for the Slavs, the crossing of the Danube was a transition to another world, an exit from the next world to this one, a transition across the border of historical non-existence and the existence of the Slavic ethnos.
Where did this exit take place? From the passage of Jordan given above, which is quoted out of general context, many concluded that the Slavs reached the Danube along its entire length from Norik to the delta. But that's not true. The same Jordan, describing the places of settlement of the Germanic tribes, which, unlike the Slavs, are the main subject of his interest, very consistently defines the territory of Dacia as the territory of the Gepids.
After very vague instructions from Procopius and Jordan about the countless tribes of Antes living somewhere east of the Dniester, Procopius now gives a very specific message about the Slavs, and under their general self-name “Sclavinians”, and not their tribal one - “Antes”. And the “countless tribes” are sharply reduced in number, so that they are located in the vicinity of two very insignificant fortified points (On the border of Moesia alone, Procopius names more than 50 fortifications). And, nevertheless, this is solid evidence that by the time of Justinian’s reign, the Slavs reached the Danube not only along the shortest route from north to south, but also along a giant arc, rounding the Carpathians from the east.
In 531, another problem of the Slavs appeared clearly at the moment of their entry into the historical arena. Procopius says that these tribes live in popular rule, and are not ruled by one person. But no democracy abolishes leaders. The Slavs do not have their own leaders.
It can be stated that the Slavs not only did not have their own leaders who could interest the foreign writing fraternity, but they were also uninteresting to themselves. Compared, for example, with the Gothic epic of migration, on which Jordan relies, the Slavs do not remember anything. Only the legendary name of the Danube itself remained in the people's memory, recorded in epics.
Here is all the information Procopius provides about the Sklavins (in the quoted translation by S.P. Kondratiev - Slavs) and Ants. Having previously mentioned the lack of information about the Slavs, here we present a remark by G.V. Vernadsky. "...Byzantine historians of the seventh and eighth centuries did not have such accurate knowledge of the Slavic tribes as Procopius had before." Those. a century later, even less was known about the Slavs, or they were even less interested in them than at the very moment of their appearance on the borders of the empire.
Analysis of the information of Jordan and Procopius does not confirm the traditional opinion of historians about a continuous line of contact between the Slavs and the empire from the former Roman province of Noricum in the west to the Crimea (or Dnieper, or Don) in the east. The Ants in the Don steppes and the Ants-Slavs appear to be ethnically completely different tribes, by chance having similar names. The eastern group of Slavs are those Slavs who reached the borders of the provinces of Moesia Inferior and Scythia Minor. They are not called antes anywhere. All mentions of the Antes are associated with Slavic attacks carried out from the region of Sirmium and Singidun. Those. the Antes were one of the tribes of the western group. Under the Sklavins appear both the Slavs in general, and some tribes that use the general name as a tribal one. This is quite typical for the Slavs; just remember Slovenia, Slovakia, the Ilmen Slovenes, etc.
Having reached the borders of Byzantium, the Slavs did not represent an independent political force for a long time. They participate in wars, but they are led by others - Greeks, Huns, Avars. For about a hundred years they settled in the borderlands of the empire, and then gradually the Slavs began to move from participating in raids to settling the Balkans, which by this time were very empty as a result of these same raids. Moreover, settlement is taking place primarily in rural areas. In the Adriatic region, for a very long time the population of cities and villages will belong to different nations, the Slavicization of cities will drag on for three to four centuries, and somewhere, for example, in Dubrovnik, even longer.
The invasion of the Avars, however, did not in any way affect the activity of the Slavs in their movement to the Balkans. In the Avars they found even more consistent leaders. Under the Avars, the Slavs moved from predatory raids to the systematic settlement of the Balkans and the assimilation of the remnants of the old Illyrian-Thracian and Greek population, achieving undoubted success in this. With the exception of the Vlachs, as well as the Illyrian Albanian tribes, all of the Balkans eventually begin to speak Slavic. Even Hellas itself largely became Slavic-speaking (in the Peloponnese - almost until the 19th century), although it subsequently restored the Greek tradition.
Constantinople, which initially tried to “not let in”, waging a continuous border war under Justinian I, then, like Rome, itself began to invite the Slavs to move, using them in the fight against the Avars. Thus, Croats and Serbs moved to the territory of Byzantium at the invitation of Emperor Heraclius (610-641).
In the middle of the 7th century. The Avars also lose control over the southeastern regions of their Slavic power. It is about this southeastern “province” of the Avar Kaganate that Nestor writes.
When the Slavs, as we have already said, lived on the Danube, they came from the Scythians, i.e. from the Khazars, the so-called Bulgarians settled along the Danube and were rapists of the Slavs. Then the White Ugrians came and inherited the Slavic land. Following these images came the Pechenegs, and then the Black Ugrians walked past Kyiv, but this was already under Oleg.
In this passage, Nestor lists all the nomadic tribes that passed through the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region from east to west. If by White Ugrians we mean any of the hordes of Bulgarians, whose names have at the end the generic designation “Gurs”, which is very similar to “Ugrians”, because Since the real Ugrians-Magyars moved to Pannonia only at the end of the 9th century, this listing corresponds to the information of Byzantine authors - contemporaries of these invasions. The sequence and timing of the invasions of nomads in the Danube region are generally erroneous.
In 650, the Bulgarians, driven out of the Don steppes by the Khazars, returned to the Balkans under the leadership of Khan Asparukh. The local population does not offer resistance to the Bulgarians. This was the beginning of the Bulgarian kingdom.
This time can be considered the beginning of the separation of the eastern and southern Slavs. The single Slavic massif that had formed by the 7th century, when the Slavs, having bypassed Dacia from the west and east, invaded the Balkans, now began to split into two regions. First, the resurgent Romanian nation pushed the Slavs away from the northwestern coast of the Black Sea, separating the Danube basin from the Dnieper. It is impossible to say what connection the invasion of the Bulgarian horde had with the beginning of the advance of the Wallachians. Later, towards the end of the 8th century, the Slavs were pushed out from the west by the Germans, who began their “drang nah Osten”. From the territory of Bavaria, the Germans began moving in a southwestern direction to the lands of Danube Austria, which ended two centuries later with the formation of the Eastern March (978). And finally, at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries, the Magyars who broke into Europe, occupying Pannonia, finally divided the territory of the Slavs into two regions.
Actually, with the beginning of the weakening of the Avar Kaganate, the first and last state association that almost completely controlled the Slavic world, the history of the Slavs in general ends and the stories of individual Slavic peoples, such as the Czechs or Croats, begin, and this is also the time when the formation of the East Slavic group began.
Material evidence of the Avar period were finds dating back to the 7th century at the site of Khotoml in Belarus and in the Martynovsky treasure in Porosye of elements of iron armor of the Avar type.
This concludes the history of the Slavs in general and returns to the Eastern Slavs.
3. Settlement of the Slavs across the East European Plain
The PVL contains a version about the settlement of the East European Plain by the Slavs.
When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs and settled among them and oppressed them, these Slavs came...
This passage is often interpreted as the departure of the ancestors of the Polans, Drevlyans, Dregovichs and Ilmen Slavs from the Carpathians. In some cases (B.A. Rybakov) the Volokhs are identified with the Romans of Troyan. In others (V.O. Klyuchevsky), with the Avars. In both cases, the Carpathians are considered the ancestral home of the Eastern Slavs, although Nestor nowhere mentions mountains as the place where the Slavs lived, and there are no mountains in the Slavic epic.
The influence of the Franks on the Slavs was limited to the most western tribes - the Croatians, Czechs, and Moravians. Moreover, Frankish aggression was no longer tribal expansion, but state policy.

Only another people, at the same stage of ethnic upsurge, could oust the Slavs from the territories they had already occupied. Here, it seems, the theory of L.N. Gumilyov is quite applicable. Such a people were probably the Romanized descendants of the Getae and Dacians and the ancestors of the Romanians and Moldavians, known from medieval Russian sources under the name Volokhi.
Apparently, for Nestor the Volochs existed in two forms: as a general name for all Romanized peoples from the Wallachians to the Franks; and the name of a specific people belonging to this group. This opinion has already been expressed by V.D. Korolyuk.
In the year 6406 (898) the Ugrians walked... through the great mountains, which were called the Ugric Mountains, and began to fight with the Volokhs and Slavs who lived there. After all, the Slavs sat here before, and then the Voloks captured the Slavic land. And after the Ugrians drove out the Volokhs, inherited that land and settled with the Slavs, subjugating them to themselves.
The relations between the Slavs and the Wallachians are very complicated, first in the VI-VII centuries. part of the Getae and Dacians was Slavicized, and then in the 7th-8th centuries. Some of the Slavs turned out to be Romanized, so the “folk memory” of the Slavs and Romanians turned out to be very intricately intertwined.
And yet, the geographical factor does not allow us to accept Nestor’s version. The regeneration of the Volokhs in the 7th century, of course, caused their pressure on the Slavs, but this pressure was not very strong. The territory taken from the Slavs is practically limited to Dobruja. There is no mass migration of Volokhs to the north and east through the Carpathian Mountains. So the Slavs who left the Lower Danube cannot possibly be enough to populate the entire territory from the Dniester to the Volkhov.
One could assume that some groups of Slavs, having left the Lower Danube, moved to the northeast. Having passed through the territories of the Ulichs and Tiverts, they reached the border of the Forest, where they stopped, since the Dnieper forests were already inhabited by related Slavs who came from the west. Whether they were called glades in the new place, or brought this name with them from the south is unknown.

The cultural level of these newly arrived tribes, if we follow Nestor, was significantly higher than that of the forest Slavic population. The Polyans have the custom of their fathers, being meek and quiet, being bashful before their daughters-in-law and sisters. And the Drevlyans lived according to bestial customs, they lived like bestials: they killed each other, ate everything unclean, and they did not have marriages, but they kidnapped girls near the water. (The custom of dating by the water survived in Russian culture until the beginning of the 20th century - “A girl was walking for water, for a cold spring. Behind her was a young guy calling out: “Maiden, wait” - Russian folk song.) And the Radimichi and Vyatichi and Northerners They had a common custom: they lived in the forest like animals, eating everything unclean.
So, Nestor separates the Polans in earlier times from the rest of the surrounding Slavs on the basis of some spread of Christianity among them. The Polyans, unlike other Dnieper Slavs, had swords as their main weapons, which is reflected in the episode with tribute in the form of straight double-edged blades, offered to the Khazars and rejected by the latter. The conflict reflected by the chronicler - “the Drevlyans and other devious peoples began to oppress the glades” - can also be attributed to this cultural difference. Here, however, Nestor contradicts himself; earlier he spoke about peace between all Slavic tribes. The Polyanes were the first of the Eastern Slavs, according to Nestor, to build the city of Kyiv, the city of Kiya and its brothers Khoriv and Shchek.
This presentation of the history of the Slavic tribe of the Polyans looks quite legendary and, as many researchers have noted, is associated with the political aspirations and patriotic passions of the author. Neither archaeological data nor any other sources confirm such a cultural and historical separation of glades from the general East Slavic massif.
The settlement of the Russian Plain by the Slavs most likely occurred in line with the general process of settlement of the Slavs from the area of ​​primary Slavic ethnogenesis, i.e. from the area of ​​Prague culture.
In the first phase (VI century) - movement to the south through Norik, Pannonia, Upper Moesia.
In the second phase (second half of the 6th century - first half of the 7th century) - movement to the south, bypassing the Carpathians to the Black Sea and further through Dobrudja and Lower Moesia.
In the third phase (second half of the 7th century), the settlement of the Slavs began in all azimuths. To the north - to the Baltic coast. To the northeast into the Western Dvina and Volkhov basin. To the east into the Upper Dnieper and Upper Volga basins. To the southeast to the Oka and Upper Don basins. The central "transshipment bases" in the general eastern direction were the areas of the Middle and Upper Dnieper. The settlement of ancient peoples usually occurred in two forms. This was either a forced relocation, when, under the threat of complete physical extermination, the tribes were completely removed from their former habitats and left with a fight or by agreement to a safe place. So the Ostrogoths, fleeing the Huns, moved to the territory of the Roman Empire. But this is usually due to the pressure of nomads, whose wars often led to the complete extermination of the enemy, since the same pastures could not feed two hordes.
Another form of resettlement was druzhina settlement. It is usually associated not with deterioration, but, on the contrary, with improvement of living conditions. When the result climate change farm productivity increases and nutrition improves, then in families the age of activity begins to reach not one - three, but four - five, or even larger number boys. But the archaic structures of tribal society cannot integrate these younger generations without significant transformation. A significant number of young men, even from noble families, are in danger of remaining at the bottom of the hierarchical tribal structure, because the structure is too rigid and cannot change.
There is reason to believe that there was a third way. In the epic “Ilya Muromets and Son,” Ilya Muromets meets his “brutalized” son, who has lost his father’s tradition. Neither the voice of blood nor the voice of reason can overcome this “brutality” - the son breaks the contract with his father and, moreover, kills his mother. In the ensuing battle, Ilya Muromets kills his son. That is, the traditional society of the Eastern Slavs was able to find new forces within the framework of tradition, and Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich are precisely young heroes, they are younger in relation to Svyatogor’s generation. The traditional society of the Eastern Slavs was able to suppress the rebellion of the young, was able to incorporate younger generations, thereby preserving itself and, at the same time, dooming itself to a thousand-year, slow and painful transformation, which has not ended to this day.
As a result of settling in a general direction to the northeast, the Eastern Slavs found themselves very far from the centers of civilization of that time - Byzantium, the Carolingian Empire, Khorezm, and the Arab Caliphate. At no point did the area of ​​the Eastern Slavs come into contact with the territories of the great states of both the previous ancient era and the early Middle Ages.
At the moment of the beginning of the Slavic advance to the northeast, i.e. in the middle of the 7th - beginning of the 8th century, new states emerged in eastern Europe - the Khazar Khaganate (650), controlling the lower reaches of the Volga, North Caucasus and Eastern Crimea and Great Bulgar (670) in the middle reaches of the Volga. At the same time, the Baltic Sea began to turn into an area of ​​active trade contacts between the various peoples inhabiting its shores, forming a certain prototype of the future Hanseatic League. The Western Slavs also take an active part in this community, quickly reaching the southern coast of the Baltic through the territories abandoned in previous centuries by the Germans who went to the south and west.
It took the Slavs about a hundred years to come into contact with the outposts of the civilized world.
At the end of 760, the Slavs appeared in Ladoga, where they subsequently became the dominant element. Old Russian name Ladoga, through the Scandinavian Aldeiga, goes back to the Finnish Alode-jogi - “lower river”.
By the middle of the 8th century, Slavic colonization in the north reached the border of lakes Ilmen-Ladoga-Onega-Beloye. The Western Slavs from the Vistula basin took the main part in the movement to the north. For quite a long time, the linguistic situation retained traces of primary movements. Analysis of Novgorod birch bark letters showed greater similarity even in the XI-XIII centuries of their language with the West Slavic languages ​​than with the most ancient layers of the languages ​​of the Dnieper Slavs.
In the northeast, the Slavs reached the area on the right bank of the upper Volga.
In the southeast, the Slavs reach the upper reaches of the Don and Seversky Donets. The Slavs, moving to the southeast, reached areas that were subjected to a devastating defeat by the Huns, the consequence of which was the almost complete disappearance of the country that existed in the 3rd-4th centuries. on the territory of Ukraine and adjacent areas of the Chernyakhov culture. “Among the creators of the Chernyakhov culture there were several ethnic groups, including, probably, the Proto-Slavs (in the north-west). But the main role, apparently, was played here by the Iranian-speaking population, the descendants of the Scythians and Sarmatians, who largely switched to agriculture.” .
In Chernyakhovites or their private groups, many people try to see Slavs or Proto-Slavs. S.Yu. Saprykin sees the genetic predecessor of the Slavs as that part of the Chernyakhovites who occupied the forest and forest-steppe zone from Slovakia to the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets. For B.A. Rybakov, this whole culture is Slavic.
When the Slavs began to settle in a southeastern direction, on the Middle Dnieper and in the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets they met the remnants of Scythian-Sarmatian farmers. “It is probably from them that the south-eastern Slavic tribes (Polyans, Northerners) preserved relics of Iranian vocabulary, as well as the Iranian deities of the East Slavic pagan pantheon (Hors, Simargl, Viy, etc.) that were Iranian in origin and names.”
The time from which the Eastern Slavs entered world history can be considered the middle of the 9th century - the time when the path from the Varangians to the Greeks appeared.
(The author of this document is very far from the truth. However, the Slavs began to enter the biblical history of globalization precisely from this century).
Nestor in his PVL provides a description of both of these routes, the Dvina-Volga route and From the Varangians to the Greeks.
Thus, the main factor in the early history of the Eastern Slavs was the geographical factor - namely, their distance from the Pax Romana (Roman world). The tribes who settled on the banks of the rivers flowing through the plains of Eastern Europe found themselves beyond the limits reached by the material or spiritual influence of Rome.
The first great state formation of the Western world - the empire of Charlemagne brought the Western Slavs into its field of influence, while the southern Slavs found themselves under the influence of Byzantium - which preserved the tradition of both the old ancient world and the despotisms of the East.

And only the Eastern Slavs were out of work. Until the new links of civilization, having closed, rose far enough to the north and Arab silver and gold, seeping through the forest jungle, sparkled on the Baltic coast, eclipsing the light of amber and attracting hunters to themselves, promising a hundred times more. Arab dirhams promised to become guides for such hunters through the unknown lands of the east and bring them to the source - fabulous Baghdad. And hunters were found - the Scandinavian Vikings became them. That they ended up in Constantinople instead of Baghdad is only a slight deviation from the course when viewed from Scandinavia. Through the efforts of the Vikings, although they did not want it, the tribes of the Eastern Slavs, who had dozed off on the banks of their rivers after the era of settlement, were awakened and involved in world history. And the awakened Eastern Slavs sent the Vikings along the road that turned out to be more convenient for them.
Conclusion
The ancient history of the Slavs has not yet been fully elucidated by historians; their origin and ancestral home have not been established. The origins of the historical fate of the Slavs go nowhere. Scientists do not have even a mere crumb of information about those times - the times of hoary antiquity. It is not even known exactly when the Slavs learned writing. Many researchers associate the emergence Slavic writing with the adoption of Christianity. All information about the ancient Slavs of the preliterate era was extracted by historians from the meager lines of historical and geographical works belonging to ancient Roman and Byzantine authors. Archaeological finds have shed light on some events. Archaeologists often argue among themselves, determining which of the objects they found belonged to the Slavs and which did not.
For every drop of solid knowledge there is a whole ocean of assumptions and conjectures. Thus, the early history of the Slavs is no less mysterious and mysterious than the history of Atlantis.
In the concepts of the origin and settlement of the Slavs, we cannot single out one that would answer all our questions: “where” and “when”. Most likely, such a concept will not exist, but only the totality of all theories will shed light on this dark part of the history of the Slavs.

As for my opinion, I am inclined to the European concept that the Slavs belong to the Indo-European unity, which includes such peoples as Germanic, Roman, and Greek.
My opinion about the settlement of the Slavs is based on the combination of two concepts.
Scientists had two options for defining the ancestral home: some researchers believed that the primary region of the Proto-Slavs was the forest-steppe and forests of the Middle Dnieper region with Kiev at the head, while others believed that the ancestral home was located to the west, on the Vistula, and reached the Oder; this variant can conditionally be called the Vistula-Oder one. Both options fully satisfied the requirements of linguists. It was necessary to look for additional data to choose between the two proposed hypotheses.
Polish archaeologist Stefan Nosek, a supporter of the Vistula-Oder variant (“autochthonist”, who believed that the Slavs were autochthonous on the territory of Poland), proposed turning to archaeological materials from the time when the Proto-Slavs, according to linguists, first split off from their Indo-European neighbors. It was a completely reasonable proposal. The attention of archaeologists was attracted by the so-called Trzyniec culture of the 15th-12th centuries BC, which was well known in Poland between the Vistula and Oder. Nosek wrote an article with the loud title “The Triumph of the Autochthonists.”
It seemed that the choice between two equal (according to linguistics) hypotheses was made on the basis of such objective material as archaeological material. But it soon became clear, thanks to the work of another Polish archaeologist, Alexander Gardawsky, and the work of a number of Ukrainian archaeologists, that the Trzyniec culture was not at all confined to the boundaries of only one western, Vistula-Oder, variant, but extended to the eastern Vistula, right up to the Dnieper, passing partially and to its left bank. Thus, turning to archaeological materials that had been sufficiently studied resolved the dispute in favor of combining both options.

The ancestral home of the Slavs in the heyday of the Bronze Age should be located in a wide strip of Central and Eastern Europe. This strip extends from north to south for about 400 kilometers, and from west to east about one and a half thousand kilometers.
This is my opinion and does not force you to accept it as truth. This is just another concept among many that exist.
Article from the Internet, the concept of the origin of the Slavic ethnic group.
Used Books
1. Ancient History of Ukraine. Book 1-2. – K., 1994,1995.
2. Magazine “Kyiv Starovyna”. 2001-2.
3. A. G. Akopyan. History of Ukraine (from ancient times to the beginning of the First World War). – A., 1999.
4. N. M. Karamzin. History of Russian Goverment. T. 1-4. – M., 2001.
5. O. Subtelny. Ukraine History. – K., 1994.
6. B. A. Rybakov. World of history. – M., 1987.