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88-456: Samo ( c.  600 – c.  658 ) founded the first recorded political union of Slavic tribes , known as Samo's Empire ("realm", "kingdom", or "tribal union"), ruling from 623 until his death in 658. According to Fredegarius , the only contemporary source, Samo was a Frankish merchant who unified several Slavic tribes against robber raids and violence by nearby settled Avars , showing such bravery and command skills in battle that he

176-553: A "violent quarrel in the Pannonian kingdom of the Avars or Huns" during his ninth year (631–32), Dagobert led three armies against the Wends, the largest being his own Austrasian army. The Franks were routed near Wogastisburg ( Latin castrum Vogastisburg ), an unidentified location meaning "fortress/castle of Vogast." The majority of the besieging armies were slaughtered, while the rest of

264-401: A Ukrainian-funded series The Slavs which was as of September 2024 available on Amazon Video. 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

352-609: A duke, but remained independent. Their leaders met in the temple of Rethra . In 983, many Wend tribes participated in a great uprising against the Holy Roman Empire , which had previously established Christian missions, German colonies and German administrative institutions ( Marken such as Nordmark and Billungermark ) in pagan Wendish territories. The uprising was successful and the Wends delayed Germanisation for about two centuries. Wends and Danes had early and continuous contact including settlement, first and mainly through

440-522: A hatred of them. 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,

528-659: A large Slavic minority scattered across 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

616-685: 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

704-508: A revolt of 623–24 or during one that inevitably followed the Avar defeat in 626, he definitely took advantage of the latter to solidify his position. A string of victories over the Avars proved his utilitas (usefulness) to his subjects and secured his election as rex (king). Samo went on to secure his throne by marriage into the major Wendish families, wedding at least twelve women and fathering twenty-two sons and fifteen daughters. Each year,

792-544: A strong admixture with Germans and continued to use West Slavic languages were still termed Wends . With the gradual decline of the use of these local Slavic tongues, the term Wends slowly disappeared, too. Some sources claim that in the 13th century there were actual historic people called Wends or Vends living as far as northern Latvia (east of the Baltic Sea) around the city of Wenden . Henry of Livonia (Henricus de Lettis) in his 13th-century Latin chronicle described

880-691: A tribe called the Vindi . Today, only one group of Wends still exists: the Lusatian Sorbs in present-day Eastern Germany, with international diaspora. The term "Wends" derived from the Roman-era people called in Latin : Venetī , Venethī [ˈwe.ne.t̪ʰiː] or Venedī [ˈwe.ne.d̪iː] ; in Ancient Greek : Οὐενέδαι , romanized :  Ouenédai [u.eˈne.ðe] . This people

968-504: 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

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1056-468: Is a very tendentious source, as its name suggests. According mainly to the Conversio , Samo was a Karantanian merchant. The sources Fredegar used to compile his Wendish account are unknown. A few scholars have attacked the entire account as fictitious, but Fredegar displays a critical attitude and a knowledge of detail that suggest otherwise. It is possible that he had an eyewitness in the person of Sicharius,

1144-756: 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

1232-542: 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

1320-651: Is mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy as inhabiting the Baltic coast. In the 1st millennium AD, during the Slavic migrations which split the Slavs into Southern, Eastern and Western groups, some West Slavs moved into the areas between the Rivers Elbe and Oder - moving from east to west and from south to north. There they assimilated the remaining Germanic population that had not left

1408-596: Is now common scholarly fare. The last or only Fredegar was the author of a brief account of the Wends including the best, and only contemporary, information on Samo. According to Fredegar, "Samo [was] a Frank by birth [or nation] from the pago Senonago ", which could be present-day Soignies in Belgium or present-day Sens in France . Although he was of Frankish origin, Samo demanded that an ambassador (Sicharius) of Dagobert I ( King of

1496-483: Is one of the reasons for future military campaigns against them by the Carolingians, especially Charles Martel and Charlemagne. While the Wends were arriving in so-called Germania Slavica as large homogeneous groups, they soon divided into a variety of small tribes, with large strips of woodland separating one tribal settlement area from another. Their tribal names were derived from local place names, sometimes adopting

1584-486: 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

1672-531: Is today north-eastern Germany. This did not, however, affect the Wendish people in today's Saxony , where a relatively stable co-existence of German and Slavic inhabitants as well as close dynastic and diplomatic cooperation of Wendish and German nobility had been achieved. (See: Wiprecht of Groitzsch). In 1168, during the Northern Crusades , Denmark mounted a crusade led by Bishop Absalon and King Valdemar

1760-680: 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

1848-516: The Ben Nevis seeking greater liberty, in order to settle an area of central Texas, primarily Serbin . The Wends succeeded, expanding into Warda , Giddings , Austin, Houston, Fedor, Swiss Alp, Port Arthur, Mannheim, Copperas Cove, Vernon, Walburg, The Grove, Bishop, and the Rio Grande Valley. A strong emphasis on tradition, principles, and education is evident today in families descendant from

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1936-483: The Abbey of Luxeuil . If this is correct, it may explain why he is remarkably free of typical stereotypes of heathen Slavs, and why he was familiar with the Wends as a specifically pagan nation. Few written works have their storyline taking place during Samo's Empire. One of them is the 2018 book Fire Worshipers , by Vladimír Olej. He is a major character (in the first few episodes as an amnesiac stranger going by "Vlad") in

2024-458: 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

2112-546: 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

2200-548: 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

2288-636: 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

2376-726: 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

2464-859: The Peloponnese and Asia Minor being reported to have Slavic settlements. This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion. By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps 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

2552-509: The Prague -type pottery associated with Slavs was not found anywhere south of the Danube where large numbers of Slavic-speaking people emerged in the early Middle Ages. 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

2640-524: 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

2728-698: The Saxons , a Wend ( Wende ) was a Slav living in the area west of the River Oder , an area later entitled Germania Slavica , settled by the Polabian Slav tribes (mentioned above) in the north and by others, such as the Sorbs and the Milceni , further south (see Sorbian March ). The Germans in the south used the term Winde instead of Wende and applied it, just as the Germans in the north, to Slavs they had contact with; e.g.,

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2816-615: 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

2904-573: The Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even to North Africa . On the other hand, historian Florin Curta categorically dismisses the concept of "Slavs' migration" and opts instead for short-distance population movements that would explain the spread of Slavic languages . He argues - in favor of this view - that the proposed migration models are inconsistent with the archaeological findings, for example

2992-504: The ancient Veneti . For the medieval Scandinavians , the term Wends ( Vender ) meant Slavs living near the southern shore of the Baltic Sea ( Vendland ), and the term was therefore used to refer to Polabian Slavs like the Obotrites , Rugian Slavs , Veleti / Lutici , and Pomeranian tribes . For people living in the medieval Northern Holy Roman Empire and its precursors, especially for

3080-697: 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

3168-658: 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

3256-404: The Avar host. He probably based his account on "native" Wendish accounts. Fredegar records the story of the origo gentis (origin of the people) of the Wends. The Wends were Slavs, but Samo was the only king of the Wends , at least according to Fredegar. It has also been suggested that Fredegar's sources may have been the reports of Christian missionaries, especially disciples of Columbanus and

3344-712: The Balkans were Slavicized. Thracians and Illyrians mixed as ethnic groups in this period. Wends In German-speaking Europe during the Middle Ages , the term "Wends" was interpreted as synonymous with "Slavs" and sporadically used in literature to refer to West Slavs and South Slavs living within the Holy Roman Empire . The name has possibly survived in Finnic languages ( Finnish : Venäjä [ˈʋe̞.næ.jæ] , Estonian : Vene [ˈve.ne] , Karelian : Veneä ), denoting modern Russia . According to one theory, Germanic peoples first applied this name to

3432-517: The Baltic shores (and, in turn, the Wends often raided the raiders). The Holy Roman Empire and its margraves tried to restore their marches. In 1068/69, a German expedition took and destroyed Rethra , one of the major pagan Wend temples. The Wendish religious centre shifted to Arkona thereafter. In 1124 and 1128, the Pomeranians and some Lutici were baptised. In 1147, the Wend crusade took place in what

3520-603: The Franks ) put on Slavic clothes before entering his castle. All other sources for Samo are derived from Fredegar and are much more recent. The Gesta Dagoberti I regis Francorum ("Deeds of King Dagobert I of the Franks") was written in the first third of the 9th century. The Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum ("Conversion of the Bavarians and Karantanians") from Salzburg (the Bavarian ecclesiastic centre), written in 871–72,

3608-584: The German-Roman Empire) explicitly recognised in its Art. 31 that the German-Roman Empire was a multi-national entity with "diverse nations distinct in customs, manner of life, and in language". For that it stipulated "the sons, or heirs and successors of the illustrious prince electors, ... since they are expected in all likelihood to have naturally acquired the German language, ... shall be instructed in

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3696-608: The Germanic tradition (e.g. Heveller from Havel , Rujanes from Rugians ). Settlements were secured by round burghs made of wood and clay, where either people could retreat in case of a raid from the neighbouring tribe or used as military strongholds or outposts. Some tribes unified into larger, duchy-like units. For example, the Obotrites evolved from the unification of the Holstein and Western Mecklenburg tribes led by mighty dukes known for their raids into German Saxony . The Lutici were an alliance of tribes living between Obotrites and Pomeranians. They did not unify under

3784-416: The Great against the Wends of Rugia in order to convert them to Christianity. The crusaders captured and destroyed Arkona , the Wendish temple-fortress, and tore down the statue of the Wendish god Svantevit . With the capitulation of the Rugian Wends, the last independent pagan Wends were defeated by the surrounding Christian feudal powers. From the 12th to the 14th centuries, Germanic settlers moved into

3872-423: The Huns [Avars] came to the Slavs, to spend the winter with them; then they took the wives and daughters of the Slavs and slept with them, and among the other mistreatments [already mentioned] the Slavs were also forced to pay levies to the Huns. But the sons of the Huns, who were [then] raised with the wives and daughters of these Wends [Slavs] could not finally endure this oppression anymore and refused obedience to

3960-424: The Huns and began, as already mentioned, a rebellion. When now the Wendish army went against the Huns, the [aforementioned] merchant Samo accompanied the same. And so the Samo’s bravery proved itself in wonderful ways and a huge mass of Huns fell to the sword of the Wends. The most well-documented event of Samo's career was his victory over the Frankish royal army under Dagobert I in 631 or 632. Provoked to action by

4048-492: 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

4136-410: The Middle Ages, the kings of Denmark and of Denmark–Norway used the titles King of the Wends (from 1362) and Goths (from the 12th century). The use of both titles was discontinued in 1973. The Wendish people co-existed with the German settlers for centuries and became gradually assimilated into the German-speaking culture. The Golden Bull of 1356 (one of the constitutional foundations of

4224-516: The Polabians from Bavaria Slavica or the Slovenes (the names Windic March , Windisch Feistritz , Windischgraz , or Windisch Bleiberg near Ferlach still bear testimony to this historical denomination). The same term was sometimes applied to the neighboring region of Slavonia , which appears as Windischland in some documents prior to the 18th century. Following the 8th century, the Frankish kings and their successors organised nearly all Wendish land into marches . This process later turned into

4312-600: 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

4400-434: 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

4488-566: 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

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4576-436: 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

4664-679: 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

4752-445: The Wendish lands in large numbers, transforming the area's culture from a Slavic to a Germanic one. Local dukes and monasteries invited settlers to repopulate farmlands devastated in the wars, as well as to cultivate new farmlands from the expansive woodlands and heavy soils, with the use of iron-based agricultural tools that had developed in Western Europe. Concurrently, a large number of new towns were created under German town law with

4840-409: 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

4928-403: The ambassador of Dagobert I to the Slavs. According to Fredegar, the "Wends" had long been subjects and befulci of the Avars . Befulci is a term, cognate with the word fulcfree found in the Edict of Rothari , signifying "entrusted [to guard]", from the Old German root felhan, falh, fulgum and Middle German bevelhen . Fredegar appears to have envisaged the Wends as a military unit of

5016-450: The area in the Migration period . Their German neighbours adapted the term they had been using for peoples east of the River Elbe before to the Slavs, calling them Wends as they called the Venedi before and probably the Vandals as well. In his late sixth century work History of Armenia , Movses Khorenatsi mentions their raids into the lands named Vanand after them. The Wends are mentioned in Fredegar IV.74-75. The lived east of

5104-535: The closest South Danish islands of Møn , Lolland and Falster , all having place-names of Wendish origin . There were also trading and settlement outposts by Danish towns as important as Roskilde, when it was the capital: 'Vindeboder' (Wends' booths) is the name of a city neighbourhood there. Danes and Wends also fought wars due to piracy and crusading. After their successes in 983 the Wends came under increasing pressure from Germans, Danes and Poles . The Poles invaded Pomerania several times. The Danes often raided

5192-401: 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

5280-419: 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. Also during World War II, fascist Italy sent tens of thousands of Slavs to concentration camps in mainland Italy, Libya , and the Balkans , because Italian leader Benito Mussolini also had

5368-443: 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

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5456-526: 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

5544-437: The grammar of the Italian and Slavic (i.e. Wendish) tongues, beginning with the seventh Year of their age." Many geographical names in Central Germany and northern Germany can be traced back to a Slavic origin. Typical Slavic endings include -itz, -itzsch and -ow. They can be found in city names such as Delitzsch and Rochlitz . Even names of major cities like Leipzig and Berlin are most likely of Wendish origin. Today,

5632-414: 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

5720-401: The introduction of legally enforced markets, contracts and property rights. These developments over two centuries were collectively known as the Ostsiedlung (German eastward expansion). A minority of Germanic settlers moved beyond the Wendish territory into Hungary, Bohemia and Poland, where they were generally welcomed for their skills in farming and craftsmanship. The Polabian language

5808-462: The kings of Sweden were officially called kings of the Swedes , the Goths and the Wends (in Latin translation: kings of Suiones , Goths and Vandals ) ( Swedish : Svears, Götes och Wendes Konung ). After the Danish monarch Queen Margrethe II chose not to use these titles in 1972 the current Swedish monarch, Carl XVI Gustaf also chose only to use the title King of Sweden" ( Sveriges Konung ), thereby changing an age-old tradition. From

5896-667: 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

5984-415: 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

6072-420: The only remaining minority people of Wendish origin, the Sorbs , maintain their traditional language and culture and enjoy cultural self-determination exercised through the Domowina . The third minister president of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich (2008–2017) is of Sorbian origin, being the first head of a German federal state with an ethnic minority background. In 1854, the Wends of Texas departed Lusatia on

6160-469: 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

6248-439: The river Elbe and were neighbours of the Saxons. The Saxons paid tribute to the Merovingian Kingdom since Chlothar I (511-561). They had to pay 500 cows yearly and had the obligation to guard the sector of the Frankish border against the Wends. However, the Saxons broke their oath under Dagobert I which resulted in frequent raids of Wends into Frankish territory and spreading out over Thuringia and other territory. The Saxon duplicity

6336-587: 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

6424-644: The series of Crusades . By the 12th century, all Wendish lands had become part of the Holy Roman Empire. In the course of the Ostsiedlung , which reached its peak in the 12th to 14th centuries, this land was settled by Germans and reorganised. Due to the process of assimilation following German settlement , many Slavs west of the Oder adopted the German culture and language . Only some rural communities which did not have

6512-668: 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

6600-1004: 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

6688-480: 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

6776-542: 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

6864-517: The troops fled, leaving weapons and other equipment lying on the ground. In the aftermath of the Wendish victory, Samo invaded Frankish Thuringia several times and undertook looting raids there. The Sorbian prince Dervan abandoned the Franks and "placed himself and his people under Samo's realm". In 641, the rebellious duke of Thuringia , Radulf , sought an alliance with Samo against his sovereign, Sigebert III . Samo also maintained long-distance trade relationships. On his death, however, his title

6952-428: 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

7040-574: The year of Fredegar's arrival has been questioned on the basis that the Wends would have most likely rebelled after the defeat of the Avar khagan at the First Siege of Constantinople in 626. The Avars first arrived in the Pannonian Basin and subdued the local Slavs in the 560s. Samo may have been one of the merchants who supplied arms to the Slavs for their frequent revolts. Whether he became king during

7128-480: Was elected "King of the Slavs" ( Latin : rex Sclavorum ). In 631, Samo successfully defended his realm against the Frankish Kingdom in the three-day Battle of Wogastisburg . The dates for Samo's rule are based on Fredegar, who says that he went to the Slavs in the fortieth year of Chlothar II (i.e., 623–24) and reigned for thirty five years. The interpretation that places the start of Samo's reign in

7216-446: 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

7304-814: 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 ,

7392-473: Was not inherited by his sons. Ultimately, Samo can be credited with forging a Wendish identity by speaking on behalf of the community that recognised his authority. The main source of written information on Samo and his empire is the Fredegarii Chronicon , a Frankish chronicle written in the mid-7th century (c. 660). Though theories of multiple authorship once abounded, the notion of a single Fredegar

7480-516: 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

7568-433: 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

7656-549: Was spoken in the central area of Lower Saxony and in Brandenburg until around the 17th or 18th century. The German population assimilated most of the Wends, meaning that they disappeared as an ethnic minority - except for the Sorbs . Yet many place names and some family names in eastern Germany still show Wendish origins today. Also, the Dukes of Mecklenburg , of Rügen and of Pomerania had Wendish ancestors. Between 1540 and 1973,

7744-667: 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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