Western Europe is the western region of Europe . The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean world, the Roman Empire (both Western and Eastern ), and medieval " Christendom ". Beginning with the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery , roughly from the 15th century, the concept of Europe as "the West " slowly became distinguished from and eventually replaced the dominant use of "Christendom" as the preferred endonym within the area. By the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution , the concepts of " Eastern Europe " and "Western Europe" were more regularly used. The distinctiveness of Western Europe became most apparent during the Cold War , when Europe was divided for 40 years by the Iron Curtain into the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc , each characterised by distinct political and economical systems.
71-502: [REDACTED] Look up călin in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Călin [kəˈli:n] is a Romanian masculine given name and surname of probable Slavic origin meaning guelder rose . It is similar to the Bulgarian masculine given name Kalin and the Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Russian feminine given name Kalyna. But it may be related to
142-592: A Romanian given name Calinic (given name) , a Romanian given name [REDACTED] Name list This page or section lists people that share the same given name . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Călin&oldid=1243920073 " Categories : Given names Romanian masculine given names Masculine given names Hidden categories: Pages with Romanian IPA Articles with short description Short description
213-494: A large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture . As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek -speaking eastern provinces, which had formed the highly urbanised Hellenistic civilisation , and the western territories, which in contrast largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division
284-451: A larger portion of locals compared to migrating Slavs. Other notable exceptions are the territory of present-day Romania and Hungary , where Slavs settled en route to present-day Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and East Thrace but assimilated, and the modern Albanian nation which claims descent from Illyrians and other Balkan tribes. Western Europe Prior to the Roman conquest,
355-758: A mild, generally humid climate, influenced by the North Atlantic Current . Western Europe is a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes. Western European languages mostly fall within two Indo-European language families: the Romance languages , descended from the Latin of the Roman Empire ; and the Germanic languages , whose ancestor language ( Proto-Germanic ) came from southern Scandinavia . Romance languages are spoken primarily in
426-685: A movement which came into prominence in the mid-19th century, emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires: the Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary , the Ottoman Empire , and Venice . Austro-Hungary envisioned its own political concept of Austro-Slavism , in opposition of Pan-Slavism that
497-524: A very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Although some countries were officially neutral , they were classified according to the nature of their political and economic systems. This division largely defines the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe and its borders with Eastern Europe . The world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. West Germany peacefully absorbed East Germany , in
568-552: Is a descendant of common Proto-Indo-European , via a Balto-Slavic stage in which it developed numerous lexical and morphophonological isoglosses with the Baltic languages . In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis , "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations [from the steppe] became speakers of Balto-Slavic". Proto-Slavic is defined as the last stage of the language preceding
639-712: Is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union . In this thesaurus, the countries of Europe are grouped into sub-regions. The following countries are included in the sub-group Western Europe: The Western European and Others Group is one of several unofficial Regional Groups in the United Nations that act as voting blocs and negotiation forums. Regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European members of
710-756: Is also a Latin script to write in Belarusian, called Łacinka and in Ukrainian, called Latynka . West Slavs originate from early Slavic tribes which settled in Central Europe after the East Germanic tribes had left this area during the migration period . They are noted as having mixed with Germanics , Hungarians , Celts (particularly the Boii ), Old Prussians , and the Pannonian Avars . The West Slavs came under
781-542: Is also no evidence of Asian admixture. However, samples of Novosibirsk residents and Old Believers in Siberia have 5-10% Central Siberian ancestry despite being genetically close to European Slavs. The pagan Slavic populations were Christianized between the 7th and 12th centuries. Orthodox Christianity is predominant among East and South Slavs, while Catholicism is predominant among West Slavs and some western South Slavs . The religious borders are largely comparable to
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#1733092768836852-403: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages . Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia ; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe , Eastern Europe , Southeastern Europe , and Northern Asia , though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across
923-486: Is somewhat unusual, given such a wide dispersal of Slavic populations. Together they form the basis of the " East European " gene cluster , which also includes non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Only Northern Russians among East and West Slavs belong to a different, " Northern European " genetic cluster, along with Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples (Northern Russian populations are very similar to Balts). The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that
994-725: Is the largest religion in Western Europe. According to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center , 71.0% of Western Europeans identified as Christians. In 1054, the East–West Schism divided Christianity into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity . This split Europe in two, with Western Europe primarily under the Catholic Church , and Eastern Europe primarily under the Eastern Orthodox Church . Ever since
1065-680: The Sclaveni in Latin . The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic , dating from the 9th century, attest the autonym as Slověne ( Словѣне ). Those forms point back to a Slavic autonym , which can be reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ , plural Slověne . The reconstructed autonym * Slověninъ is usually considered a derivation from slovo ("word"), originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", meaning "people who understand one another", in contrast to
1136-610: The Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe . Warsaw , Berlin , Prague , Vienna , Budapest , Belgrade , Bucharest and Sofia ; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to
1207-570: The Baltic states and Central Asia , and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas , Western Europe , and Northern Europe . Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central , Eastern , and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in
1278-400: The East–West Schism which began in the 11th century. Islam first arrived in the 7th century during the early Muslim conquests , and was gradually adopted by a number of Slavic ethnic groups through the centuries in the Balkans. Among Slavic populations who profess a religion, the majority of contemporary Christian Slavs are Orthodox, followed by Catholic. The majority of Muslim Slavs follow
1349-833: The German reunification . Comecon and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had been part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. In 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands and the United Kingdom . It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference , when
1420-546: The Hanafi school of the Sunni branch of Islam. Religious delineations by nationality can be very sharp; usually in the Slavic ethnic groups, the vast majority of religious people share the same religion. Mainly Eastern Orthodoxy : Mainly Catholicism : Mainly Islam : Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups. In the postulated homeland region (present-day Ukraine ), they had contacts with
1491-548: The Hunger Plan , Germany's intentional starvation of the region, as well as the murders of 3.3. million Soviet prisoners of war . Germany's Heinrich Himmler also ordered his subordinate Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben to start repopulating Crimea , and hundreds of ethnic Germans were forcibly moved to cities and villages there. The Soviet Red Army took back their land from the Germans in 1944 . Stephen J. Lee estimates that, by
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#17330927688361562-636: The Kingdom of Poland . Beginning in the mid-19th century, a pan-Slavic movement has emphasized the common heritage and unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus of the movement was in the Balkans, whereas the Russian Empire was opposed to it. The Slavic languages belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . Present-day Slavs are classified into three groups: Though
1633-726: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . The first half of the 20th century in Russia and the Soviet Union was marked by a succession of wars , famines and other disasters, each accompanied by large-scale population losses. The two major famines were in 1921 to 1922 and 1932 to 1933 , which caused millions of deaths mostly around the Volga region , Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus . The latter resulted from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin 's collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine . During
1704-793: The Reformation in the 16th century, Protestantism has also been a major denomination in Europe, with Eastern Protestant and Eastern Catholic denominations also emerging in Central and Eastern Europe . During the four decades of the Cold War , the definition of East and West was simplified by the existence of the Eastern Bloc . A number of historians and social scientists view the Cold War definition of Western and Eastern Europe as outdated or relegating. During
1775-477: The Roman world, Slavic -speaking tribes formed part of several successive multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia – such as the Sarmatian, Hun and Gothic empires. The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (thought to be in conjunction with the movement of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns , and later Avars and Bulgars ) started
1846-615: The Scordisci ), as well as with Romans (and the Romanized remnants of the former groups), and also with remnants of temporarily settled invading East Germanic, Asiatic or Caucasian tribes such as Gepids , Huns , Avars , Goths and Bulgars . The original inhabitants of present-day Slovenia and continental Croatia have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with Romans and romanized Celtic and Illyrian people as well as with Avars and Germanic peoples (Lombards and East Goths). The South Slavs (except
1917-510: The Soviet Union . With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain . This term had been used during World War II by German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and, later, Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri : From Stettin in
1988-679: The Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even to North Africa . Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in large numbers. Byzantine records note that Slav numbers were so great, that grass would not regrow where the Slavs had marched through . Military movements resulted in even the Peloponnese and Asia Minor being reported to have Slavic settlements. This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion. By
2059-702: The Western European Union was established. It was declared defunct in 2011 after the Treaty of Lisbon , and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries. Additionally, it had 6 associate member countries, 7 associate partner countries and 5 observer countries. The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) which divides
2130-697: The great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes who had fled from the Huns and their allies. Slavs, according to this account, moved westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe - Saale line; southward into Bohemia , Moravia , much of present-day Austria , the Pannonian plain and the Balkans ; and northward along the upper Dnieper river. It has also been suggested that some Slavs migrated with
2201-683: The " Far West ". The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty . The Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East . In Ricci's writings, Ricci referred to himself as "Matteo of the Far West". The term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Christianity
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2272-658: The 7th century, they were gradually Christianized . By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' , South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire , the Principality of Serbia , the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia , and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia , the Duchy of Bohemia , and
2343-463: The Balkans . In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed , and many former Soviet republics became independent countries. Currently, former Soviet states in Central Asia such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have very large minority Slavic populations, with most being Russians. Kazakhstan has the largest Slavic minority population. Proto-Slavic , the supposed ancestor language of all Slavic languages,
2414-451: The Balkans were Slavicized. Thracians and Illyrians mixed as ethnic groups in this period. A notable exception is Greece, where Slavs were Hellenized because Greeks were more numerous, especially with more Greeks returning to Greece in the 9th century and the influence of the church and administration, however, Slavicized regions within Macedonia , Thrace and Moesia Inferior also had
2485-594: The CIA classification a little more liberally and including "South-Western Europe", would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population. The Hague is the seat of government The climate of Western Europe varies from Mediterranean in the coasts of Italy , Portugal and Spain to alpine in the Pyrenees and the Alps . The Mediterranean climate of the south is dry and warm. The western and northwestern parts have
2556-440: The Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Carolingian Empire ), the division between Roman Catholic and Protestant became more important in Europe than that with Eastern Orthodoxy. In East Asia , Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as
2627-410: The Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire , survived and even thrived for another 1000 years. The rise of the Carolingian Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism , enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. After the conquest of the Byzantine Empire , center of
2698-817: The Greek name Kalinikos meaning fair or beautiful victor . It may refer to: Călin Alupi (1906–1988), Romanian painter Călin Dan (born 1955), Romanian artist, theorist and curator Călin Matei (born 1966), Romanian politician Călin Moldovan (born 1981), Romanian football player Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu (born 1952), Romanian politician Călin Peter Netzer (born 1975), German-Romanian film director Călin Popescu (born 2001), Romanian professional footballer Cristian Călin Panin (born 1978), Romanian football player Ottoi Călin (1886–1917), Romanian physician, journalist and socialist militant of Jewish descent See also [ edit ] Călinescu (surname) Călinești (disambiguation) Călinești River (disambiguation) Călina (given name) ,
2769-492: The Iranian Sarmatians and the Germanic Goths . After their subsequent spread, the Slavs began assimilating non-Slavic peoples. For example, in the Northern Black Sea region, the Slavs assimilated the remnants of the Goths. In the Balkans, there were Paleo-Balkan peoples, such as Romanized and Hellenized ( Jireček Line ) Illyrians , Thracians and Dacians , as well as Greeks and Celtic Scordisci and Serdi . Because Slavs were so numerous, most indigenous populations of
2840-600: The Sclaveni as having swamps and forests for their cities. Another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly-impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions Daurentius ( r. c. 577 – 579 ) who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Daurentius declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons". According to eastern homeland theory, prior to becoming known to
2911-434: The Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis placing the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper ". According to genetic studies until 2020, the distribution, variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 and their subclades R-M558, R-M458 and I-CTS10228 among South Slavs correlate with the spread of Slavic languages during
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2982-566: The Slavic word denoting " German people ", namely *němьcь , meaning "silent, mute people" (from Slavic *němъ " mute , mumbling"). The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and sluh ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος ( kléos "fame"), as in the name Pericles , Latin clueō ("be called"), and English loud . In medieval and early modern sources written in Latin, Slavs are most commonly referred to as Sclaveni or
3053-436: The Slavs, who are pressing hard on you. I am distressed because I sympathize with you; I am disturbed because they have already begun to arrive in Italy through the entry-point of Istria ." When Slav migrations ended, their first state organizations appeared, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force. In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo supported the Slavs against their Avar rulers and became
3124-679: The Slovenes and Croats) came under the cultural sphere of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), of the Ottoman Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Islam , while the Slovenes and the Croats were influenced by the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and thus by the Catholic Church in a similar fashion to that of the West Slavs. Consistent with the proximity of their languages, analyses of Y chromosomes , mDNA , and autosomal marker CCR5de132 shows that East Slavs and West Slavs are genetically very similar, but demonstrating significant differences from neighboring Finno-Ugric, Turkic , and North Caucasian peoples. Such genetic homogeneity
3195-409: The affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , were calling for national self-determination. During World War I , representatives of the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes set up organizations in the Allied countries to gain sympathy and recognition. In 1918, after World War I ended, the Slavs established such independent states as Czechoslovakia , the Second Polish Republic , and
3266-508: The countries of the world into regional and subregional groups, based on the M49 coding classification . The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories. In the UN geoscheme, the following countries are classified as Western Europe: The CIA classifies seven countries as belonging to "Western Europe": The CIA also classifies three countries as belonging to "Southwestern Europe": EuroVoc
3337-401: The dominant religion among the respective ethnic groups. Orthodox Christians use the Cyrillic alphabet while Catholics use the Latin alphabet ; the Bosniaks, who are Muslim, also use the Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet in Serbia. Additionally, some Eastern Catholics and Western Catholics use the Cyrillic alphabet. Serbian and Montenegrin use both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. There
3408-440: The end of World War II in 1945, the Russian population was about 90 million fewer than it could have been otherwise. The ultra-nationalist, fascist Ustaše committed genocide against Serbs during World War II. The Serbian nationalist Chetniks committed genocide against Croats and Bosniaks . Also during World War II, fascist Italy sent tens of thousands of Slavs to concentration camps in mainland Italy, Libya , and
3479-486: The end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps regions . Pope Gregory I in 600 AD wrote to Maximus, the bishop of Salona (in Dalmatia ), expressing concern about the arrival of the Slavs: Latin: " Et quidem de Sclavorum gente, quae vobis valde imminet, et affligor vehementer et conturbor. Affligor in his quae jam in vobis patior; conturbor, quia per Istriae aditum jam ad Italiam intrare coeperunt. " English: "I am both distressed and disturbed about
3550-443: The era of the emperor Justinian I ( r. 527–565 ), such as Procopius of Caesarea , Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta , describe tribes of these names emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains , the lower Danube and the Black Sea to invade the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire . Jordanes, in his work Getica (written in 551 AD), describes the Veneti as a "populous nation" whose dwellings begin at
3621-430: The final stages of World War II , the future of Europe was decided between the Allies in the 1945 Yalta Conference , between the British Prime Minister , Winston Churchill , the U.S. President , Franklin D. Roosevelt , and the Premier of the Soviet Union , Joseph Stalin . Post-war Europe was divided into two major spheres: the Western Bloc , influenced by the United States , and the Eastern Bloc , influenced by
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#17330927688363692-526: The geographical split of the historical Slavic languages . That language was uniform, and on the basis of borrowings from foreign languages and Slavic borrowings into other languages, it cannot be said to have any recognizable dialects, which suggests that there was, at one time, a relatively-small Proto-Slavic homeland . Slavic linguistic unity was to some extent visible as late as Old Church Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian ) manuscripts which, though based on local Slavic speech of Thessaloniki , could still serve
3763-402: The group are: In addition, Australia , Canada , Israel and New Zealand are members of the group, with the United States as observer. Using the CIA classification strictly would give the following calculation of Western Europe's population. All figures based on the projections for 2018 by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs . Using
3834-414: The influence of the Western Roman Empire (Latin) and of the Catholic Church . East Slavs have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed and contacted with Finns , Balts and with the remnants of the people of the Goths . Their early Slavic component, Antes , mixed or absorbed Iranians , and later received influence from the Khazars and Vikings . The East Slavs trace their national origins to
3905-667: The majority of Slavs are Christians , some groups, such as the Bosniaks, mostly identify as Muslims . Modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably diverse, both genetically and culturally, and relations between them may range from "ethnic solidarity to mutual feelings of hostility" — even within the individual groups. The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius , writing in Byzantine Greek , used various forms such as Sklaboi ( Σκλάβοι ), Sklabēnoi ( Σκλαβηνοί ), Sklauenoi ( Σκλαυηνοί ), Sthlabenoi ( Σθλαβηνοί ), or Sklabinoi ( Σκλαβῖνοι ), and his contemporary Jordanes refers to
3976-415: The medieval Slavic expansion from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine and Southeastern Poland . According to a 2017 study, Slavic speakers like Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians have similar genetic components. Ukrainians and Belarusians have near-equal amounts of two "European components", which are commonly found in North Europe and Caucasus respectively. There
4047-408: The protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Western Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe. Western Europe is one of the richest regions of the world. Germany has
4118-469: The purpose of the first common Slavic literary language. Standardised Slavic languages that have official status in at least one country are: Belarusian , Bosnian , Bulgarian , Croatian , Czech , Macedonian , Montenegrin , Polish , Russian , Serbian , Slovak , Slovene , and Ukrainian . Russian is the most spoken Slavic language, and is the most spoken native language in Europe. The alphabets used for Slavic languages are usually connected to
4189-418: The ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, Samo's Empire . This early Slavic polity probably did not outlive its founder and ruler, but it was the foundation for later West Slavic states on its territory. The oldest of them was Carantania ; others are the Principality of Nitra , the Moravian principality (see under Great Moravia ) and the Balaton Principality . The First Bulgarian Empire
4260-452: The shortened version Sclavi . Ancient Roman sources refer to the Early Slavic peoples as "Veneti" , who dwelt in a region of central Europe east of the Germanic tribe of Suebi and west of the Iranian Sarmatians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, between the upper Vistula and Dnieper rivers. Slavs - called Antes and Sclaveni - first appear in Byzantine records in the early 6th century AD. Byzantine historiographers of
4331-754: The sources of the Vistula and occupy "a great expanse of land". He also describes the Veneti as the ancestors of Antes and Slaveni, two early Slavic tribes, who appeared on the Byzantine frontier in the early-6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that "the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Sporoi in olden times". The name Sporoi derives from Greek σπείρω ("to sow "). He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy and believed in one god, "the maker of lightning" ( Perun ), to whom they made sacrifice. They lived in scattered housing and constantly changed settlement. In war, they were mainly foot soldiers with shields, spears, bows, and little armour, which
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#17330927688364402-430: The southern and central part of Western Europe, Germanic languages in the northern part (the British Isles and the Low Countries ), as well as a large part of Northern and Central Europe . Other Western European languages include the Celtic group (that is, Irish , Scottish Gaelic , Manx , Welsh , Cornish and Breton ) and Basque , the only currently living European language isolate . Multilingualism and
4473-423: The start of World War II was to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all West and East Slavs from their native lands, so as to make " living space " for German settlers. In early 1941, Germany began planning Generalplan Ost , the genocide of Slavs in Eastern Europe which was supposed to start after a major expansion of German concentration camps in occupied Poland and the fall of Stalin's regime. This plan
4544-419: The tribal unions of Kievan Rus' and Rus' Khaganate , beginning in the 10th century. They came particularly under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and of the Eastern Orthodox Church . South Slavs from most of the region have origins in early Slavic tribes who mixed with the local Proto-Balkanic tribes ( Illyrian , Dacian , Thracian , Paeonian , Hellenic tribes ), and Celtic tribes (particularly
4615-428: The war, Nazi Germany used hundreds of thousands of people for slave labor in their concentration camps , the majority of whom were Jewish or Slavic. Both groups were a part of what Germans claimed to be a "vast racially subhuman surplus population" that they " intended to eliminate in time from their new empire ", their term for "racial subhumans" being Untermensch . Thus, one of Adolf Hitler 's ambitions at
4686-424: Was eventually reinforced by the later political east–west division of the Roman Empire . The Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the two divergent regions between the 3rd and the 5th centuries. The division between these two was enhanced during late antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed , starting the Early Middle Ages . By contrast,
4757-446: Was founded in 681 as an alliance between the ruling Bulgars and the numerous Slavs in the area, and their South Slavic language, the Old Church Slavonic , became the main and official language of the empire in 864 AD. Bulgaria was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world. Duchy of Croatia was founded in 7th century and later became Kingdom of Croatia . Principality of Serbia
4828-488: Was founded in 8th, Duchy of Bohemia and Kievan Rus' both in the 9th century. The expansion of the Magyars into the Carpathian Basin and the Germanization of Austria gradually separated the South Slavs from the West and East Slavs . Later Slavic states, which formed in the following centuries included the Second Bulgarian Empire , the Kingdom of Poland , Banate of Bosnia , Duklja and Kingdom of Serbia which later grew into Serbian Empire . Pan-Slavism ,
4899-402: Was predominantly led by the Russian Empire . As of 1878, there were only three majority Slavic states in the world: the Russian Empire, Principality of Serbia and Principality of Montenegro . Bulgaria was effectively independent but was de jure vassal to the Ottoman Empire until official independence was declared in 1908. The Slavic peoples who were, for the most part, denied a voice in
4970-433: Was reserved mainly for chiefs and their inner circle of warriors. Their language is "barbarous" (that is, not Greek), and the two tribes are alike in appearance, being tall and robust, "while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blond, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts..." Jordanes describes
5041-503: Was to be carried out gradually over 25 to 30 years. After an approximate 30 million Slavs would be killed through starvation and their major cities depopulated, the Germans were supposed to repopulate Eastern Europe. In June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa , Hitler paused the plan to focus on the extermination of the Jews . However, some of the plan was nonetheless implemented. Millions of Slavs were murdered in Eastern Europe; this includes victims of
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