Who are the Slavs? - Citations and Sources

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Carlin
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2011
    • 3332

    This appears to be from a Turkish or Turkic site. It contains excerpts from F. Curta's book with analysis/comments.

    URL:


    Here are several excerpts -


    1) The bottom line of the study: Neither the sources, nor archeology allow to equate “Sclavenes” and “Antes” with the origin of the Slavs. The work and the heart of the its Conclusion are confirming the fact that before 12th c., “no “Slavs” called themselves by this name, no group took on the label imposed by outsiders”, and “the first clear statement that “we are Slavs” comes from the twelfth-century Russian Primary Chronicle”. Behind the supra-ethnical names “Sclavenes” and “Antes” of the 6th-12th cc. stand numerous ethnically-assorted local horse pastoralist nomadic tribes, generically named Wends and Winidi (Wendeln “Wanderers” Vandals) by the contemporaries, and in the case of the Sclavenes identified with Severeis, Cutrigurs, and Suvars, relatively small Türkic tribes of the Western Hunnic circle. The numerous multi-ethnic local sedentary agrarian tribes called Slavs were made in a Türkic cauldron, and are known from the distinctly Greek and Roman mirrors, with terminology largely formed from their perspective.

    The greatest achievermernt of the F. Curta's Conclusion is the decoupling of the terms “Sclavenes” and “Antes” from the term “Slav”.


    2) The unfortunate conflation of the terms Slav and Sclavene confuses the otherwise fairly clear issue: Slavs were not horsed people, they still are not; Sclavene were horsed people, with herds of horses, and therefore possessing the technology of horse husbandry. That distinction between the sedentary cultivators and nomadic horse husbandry stockbreeder is unmistakable throughout the analysis, and it is reflected in the original terminology. Moreover, before 560s, the sources associate Sclavene with Köturgur “Cutrigurs”, and after 560s they switch the Köturgur role to the Avars, and identify the raiders as mounted Bulgars leading the Slav militia. That transparently discloses the ethnic identification of the Köturgur nomads as Bulgars, and leaves Avars as supreme overlords commanding ethnically Bulgar armies with their Slavic auxiliaries. In the Greek lingo, Bulgars are Sclavene, Σκλαβόι, a kind of the generic nomadic Scythians. In the political hierarchy, but not ethnically, the Severs (Severeis) were a brunch of Bulgars, ever since the Bulgars took over the leadership from the Severs/Suvars/Savirs.


    3) The problem is that of the investigator, not of the sources or our ignorance. The situation of the 453- 550s closely parallels that of the Kipchak Khanate/Juchi Ulus in 1380-1480, when the Rus leaders did not know who is a recipient of their obligations, and were both withholding their tax payments till the situation clears up, and playing the internecine strife game to prolong it. In the Hunnic state, every pretender tried to gain an upper hand by claiming the Byzantine's monetary inheritance. That started still during Atilla's days, when distracted with the Roman Empire, he left the Byzantine affairs unenforced, and was planning to return to them when death and subsequent division of inheritance drastically changed the political map. The enforcement raids of the 490s-540s were led by Bulgars of the Irnik/Ernak/Hernach Kaganate, named in the sources Huns and Bulgars, with their auxiliary Antes; in the period 540s-560s the sources name Huns, Cutrigurs (Köturgurs), and Sclavenes without naming Slavic auxiliaries, and afterwards the sources name Avars, and their Bulgar and Sclavene vassals, without naming the Slavic auxiliaries.


    4) Segregating the terms Slav and Sclavene make the sources much more intelligible. The dispersed organization of the Slavic communities is known from numerous unrelated sources, that made their subjugation quite an easy task, and for their own protection they needed patronage anyway. That neatly falls into the concept of the “Slavic democracy”. Very soon, in the Avar period, in the sources appear the first Slavic communal leaders, under a Türkic name zupan, from the Türkic zopan “caftan”, Greek ζγπαν, Ital. Giuppane, its allophonic Sumerian shuba/sipa and Türkic shupan/chuban/choban/chaban stand for “shepherd”; these are the elders of the villages. A military title voivode appeared at the same time, from the Türkic boi- (voi-) “subjugate” (lit. “to neck, step on somebody's neck, bend somebody's neck”. To lead an assembly of multi-lingual peasants from dispersed villages, the voivode had to be an appointed position, like the Norman Dir heading the Slavic militia in Kyiv in 860s; that is until capable leaders were available from the Slavic stock. The Slavic peasants remained in the auxiliary position well into the Asparukh time, to the 8th c. and some later.practice, but over millenniums history accumulated numerous examples, best known of which are the treatment of the Khazar Kagans, and the poisoning of the Chingiz-khan papa. Since the imperial Greeks generally lived with the same succession system as the traditional Türkic system, the Lateral Order of Succession, the Greek practices as far as disposition of their leaders were not contrasting with the Sclavene practices, it is all a matter of historical situation.


    5) This short phrase tells in our face who the Sclavenes are: they are Suvars/Savirs/Subars/Severeis/Severyans, well known from all kinds of sources other than the Late Antique Balkan sources. Besides the Theophanes direct statement that Sclavenes are Severeis, and Fredegar's are Wends (i.e. a horse-nomadic nation, which the Suvars certainly were), and Frankish Cosmography are Winidi, Paul the Deacon tells of their dux Boruth, otherwise named Boloch (r. 520-522), whose widow Boarix (Boyar-kyz = Boyar's daughter) was a Queen of the Savirs and a Byzantine ally.

    The period immediately after 520 AD was tumultuous for the Dulo dynasty. Details are murky, but after the death of the Western Huns' King Bulyak-Bolgar Djilki “Bolokh”, r. 520-522 (aka “Bolah”,“Valakh”) are known two regents (Ilchibek m., Ilchibika fem.), the widow Boyarkyz (aka Boarix) 522-535, and “Gostun” (aka “Kushtan”) 527-528. Boyarkyz was a regent for her son As-Terek, who died in 527, after which arose a double-regnum (or triple-regnum), since we have parallel names of the regent Kushtan ~ Gostun (527-528), and rulers Djambek (527-535), Moger (528), Aiar (Avar, 528-531), Saba-Urgan (Zabergan, Kotrag, 531-535), and unknown Suvar ruler (527-535).

    In the Türkic societies, disposition of the leaders was not a daily


    6) Once the Türkic Savir ethnicity of the Sclavene is established, the ethnicity of the Antes also becomes tentatively clear, since Sclavenes and Antes spoke a common language. The name Antes < Türkic “Anchu” (likely Anchy) = border guards remains applicable independently of their ethnic affiliation, but the Antes tribes could be bilingual and have their own language(s) too; with the absence of direct statement on the ethnic affiliation of the Antes tribes, unlike in the case of Severeis, their ethnic affiliation must be resolved with the help of ethnological and biological distinctions.


    7) In the second half of the sixth century and the early seventh century the Byzantine authors did not know “Slavs”. They still knew the Sclavenes and Antes who are “Slavs” only in slanted backward projection from a far-away 12th c., when the Slavic group identity was first formed.


    8) The story with Σκλαβόι ~ Sclavenes is more blurred. The Σκλαβόι (Sklaboi) is a Türkic agglutinative compound Sk + la + boi = “of tribe Sk” or “of people Sk”, where Sk is a stem found in numerous Türkic tribal names: Scythians, Saka, Sekler, Sakar, Sagadar, Sagay, Saha; -la- is a Türkic adjectival and adverbial affix: Rusla = Russian, yerla = earthly, arkala = archly, öla = awedly, badla = badly, bodla = bodily, bögüshla = bogusly, ikila = both, etc., thus Skla (Sakla, Sekla, Sikla, Sokla, Sukla) is something with Sk property or a property of Sk tribe; boi in Türkic is “tribe, people”. The Σκλαβόι is exonym with various derivative forms digested by numerous languages, and it explains the “κ” in “Σκ-”, and the form Sclavenes vs. Slavenes. The form Slavenes could be a contracted from of Sclavenes, or could be an independent appellation derived from the Türkic süläü = “word, speak” > Sl. “slovo”, “slava” > Slav, Slovak, Slovene, etc., or could be a conflation of two independent appellations. It is quite possible that equation of Sclavenes with Slavs is a willful backward projection, applied anachronically.


    9) Both the pre-ioticization and palatalization of velars are properties of the Oguric Bulgar language, and are relicts of the Türkic in Slavic. Rotacization is a notable property of the Chuvash, which is held to be a remnant of the Türkic Bulgar language. They complement the Türkic lexus in the pre-Slavic and Slavic, and the Türkic morphological elements in the pre-Slavic and Slavic. The Slavistic philology keep turning a blind eye to the Türkic-related facts of the Slavic languages, frequently invoking internal development of the inherited linguistic properties.


    10) It is a common knowledge that the the twelfth-century Russian Primary Chronicle were re-written to sanitize and create. In spite of that, in the Russian and politically related historiographies they are widely used without juxtaposition of conflicting sources, continuing the revision of the 12th c. into the modern science, and thus propagating the history with an angle.

    Comment

    • Carlin
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2011
      • 3332

      As of the beginning of the 6th century there was in fact no significant Slavic presence anywhere in the territory of modern Russia except the province of Bryansk while the Slavic core embraced contemporary western and northern Ukraine, southern Belarus and south-eastern Poland. The territory north of the Slavs was dominated by various Baltic tribes who occupied significant area that included all of the contemporary Lithuania, most of Belarus, southern half of Latvia, all of the modern province of Smolensk and partially the provinces of Moscow (western half) and Pskov (southern districts) as well as the historical East Prussia now shared by Poland and Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. All the rest of today’s central and northern Russia was the realm of Finnic and Finno-Ugric tribes.







      Brzezinski, Richard; Mielczarek, Mariusz (2002). The Sarmatians, 600 BC-AD 450. Osprey Publishing. p. 39. [...] Indeed, it is now accepted that the Sarmatians merged in with pre-Slavic populations.

      Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. p. 523. [...] In their Ukrainian and Polish homeland the Slavs were intermixed and at times overlain by Germanic speakers (the Goths) and by Iranian speakers (Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans) in a shifting array of tribal and national configurations.

      Atkinson, Dorothy; Dallin, Alexander; Warshofsky Lapidus, Gail, eds. (1977). Women in Russia. Stanford University Press. p. 3. [...] Ancient accounts link the Amazons with the Scythians and the Sarmatians, who successively dominated the south of Russia for a millennium extending back to the seventh century B.C. The descendants of these peoples were absorbed by the Slavs who came to be known as Russians.

      Slovene Studies. 9–11. Society for Slovene Studies. 1987. p. 36. [...] For example, the ancient Scythians, Sarmatians (amongst others), and many other attested but now extinct peoples were assimilated in the course of history by Proto-Slavs.

      "Between the sixth and seventh centuries, large parts of Europe came to be controlled by Slavs, a process less understood and documented than that of the Germanic ethnogenesis in the west. Yet the effects of Slavicization were far more profound". Geary (2003, p. 144)



      Last edited by Carlin; 06-25-2017, 10:52 PM.

      Comment

      • tchaiku
        Member
        • Nov 2016
        • 786

        Carlin who are those Slavs that devastated Greece during Middle Age?

        «Καὶ νῦν δὲ πᾶσαν Ἤπειρον καὶ Ἑλλάδα σχεδὸν καὶ Πελοπόννησον καὶ Μακεδονίαν Σκύθαι Σκλάβοι νέμονται»

        "And now most of Epirus and Hellas and Peloponnesus and Macedonia are inhabited by 'Scythian' (=uncivilized) Slavs"

        Comment

        • Carlin
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2011
          • 3332

          Originally posted by tchaiku View Post
          Carlin who are those Slavs that devastated Greece during Middle Age?

          «Καὶ νῦν δὲ πᾶσαν Ἤπειρον καὶ Ἑλλάδα σχεδὸν καὶ Πελοπόννησον καὶ Μακεδονίαν Σκύθαι Σκλάβοι νέμονται»

          "And now most of Epirus and Hellas and Peloponnesus and Macedonia are inhabited by 'Scythian' (=uncivilized) Slavs"
          My guess is that they came from regions as far north as Poland, but perhaps also -- somewhere from 'Dacia', where there were many Slavs established long before the 6th-7th c.

          Comment

          • tchaiku
            Member
            • Nov 2016
            • 786

            Citations about Slavs migrating into the Balkans, describing their height:

            1. Procopius of Caesarea:

            - "(...) Nay further, they [Slavs] don't differ at all from one another in appearance. For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men, while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or very blonde, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are slightly ruddy in color. (...)"

            - "(...) Valerian chose one of the Slavs who are men of mighty stature. (...)"

            2. Theophilact Simokatta

            "(...) The Emperor was with great curiosity listening to stories about this tribe [Slavs], he has welcomed these newcomers from the land of barbarians, and after being amazed by their height and mighty stature, he sent these men to Heraclea. (...)"

            3. Theophanes the Confessor:

            "(...) The Emperor was admiring their [Slavic] beauty and their stalwart stature. (...)"

            4. Caesarius of Nazianzus:

            He described Slavs as "numerous and tall", if I'm not mistaken (but I don't have exact quotation at hand).

            Comment

            • Carlin
              Senior Member
              • Dec 2011
              • 3332





              Comment

              • Carlin
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2011
                • 3332

                Approximate ethno-linguistic map of European Eastern Kievan Rus in the 9th century: The five Volga Finnic groups of the Merya, Mari, Muromians, Meshchera and Mordvins are shown as surrounded by the Slavs to the west, the (Finnic) Veps to the northwest, the Permians to the northeast the (Turkic) Bulghars and Khazars to the southeast and south.

                URLs:



                The Mordvins (also Mordva, Mordvinians) remain one of the larger indigenous peoples of Russia. They consist of two major subgroups, the Erzya and Moksha, besides the smaller subgroups of the Qaratay, Teryukhan and Tengushev (or Shoksha) Mordvins who have become fully Russified or Turkified during the 19th to 20th centuries.

                URL:


                Indigenous to large parts of western and central Russia are speakers of the Uralic languages, such as the Vepsians, Mordvins, Maris and Permians. Historically, the Russification of these peoples begins already with the original eastward expansion of the East Slavs. Written records of the oldest period are scarce, but toponymic evidence indicates that this expansion was accomplished at the expense of various Volga-Finnic peoples, who were gradually assimilated by Russians; beginning with the Merya and the Muroma in the early 2nd millennium CE.

                The Russification of the Komi began in the 13th to 14th centuries but did not penetrate into the Komi heartlands until the 18th century. Komi-Russian bilingualism has become the norm over the 19th and has led to increasing Russian influence in the Komi language.
                Last edited by Carlin; 05-10-2020, 09:48 PM.

                Comment

                • Carlin
                  Senior Member
                  • Dec 2011
                  • 3332

                  NEURI, an ancient tribe placed by Herodotus (iv. 105) to the north-east of Scythia. He says of it that it is not Scythian, but has Scythian customs. Every member of it, being a wizard, becomes a wolf once a year. The position assigned to their district appears to be about the head waters of the Dniester and Bug (Bugh) and the central course of the Dnieper just the region which, on general grounds, place-names, recorded migrations and modern distribution, appears to be the original location of the Slavs (q.v.). The wolf story again recalls the tales of werewolves so common among Slavonic peoples, and there is much probability in Schafarik's conjecture that the Neuri are nothing but the ancestors of the Slavs.

                  URL:





                  URL:
                  First published in 1913, Scythians and Greeks is a monumental work, covering the archaeology, ethnology and history of the region between the Carpathians and the Caucasus. Written evidence on Scythia is mostly from Greek sources, but archaeological evidence provides another picture of these nomadic tribes who moved west in about the eighth century BCE, coming into contact with Greeks, Persians and Egyptians. The book is particularly valuable for its research and bibliography on Siberia and Southern Russia, then less well known to western scholars, from where there are many excavated burials containing magnificent jewellery. Sir Ellis Minns (1874-1953) discusses the pre-history and ethnography of the Scythians, and their shifting territories, and also how they were viewed by outsiders. There is a full exposition on Scythian art and the influence on it of Greek art from the Black Sea colonies, and the book contains hundreds of illustrations.
                  Last edited by Carlin; 06-27-2020, 09:10 PM.

                  Comment

                  • Carlin
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2011
                    • 3332

                    Ancient Bone Sheds Light on Slav Alphabet History

                    URL:
                    An inscribed cow bone dating back to the seventh century proves that Germanic runes were the oldest script ever used by the ancient Slavs, Czech scientists said Thursday.


                    PRAGUE (AFP) — An inscribed cow bone dating back to the seventh century proves that Germanic runes were the oldest script ever used by the ancient Slavs, Czech scientists said Thursday.

                    Up to now, it was believed that the oldest Slavic alphabet was Glagolitic, invented by Byzantine monk St Cyril in the ninth century.

                    Cyril and his brother St Methodius came to former Great Moravia, covering today’s Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia and parts of Austria, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and the Balkans, on a mission in 863.

                    But the broken bovine rib found in the southern Czech Republic in 2017 and examined by an international team of Czech, Austrian, Swiss and Australian scientists proved the assumption about the alphabet wrong.

                    “The team discovered this was the oldest inscription found with the Slavs,” head researcher Jiri Machacek from Masaryk University in the city of Brno said in a statement.

                    The team used genetic and radio-carbon testing to examine the bone.

                    “These sensitive analyses have shown the bone comes from domesticated cattle that lived around the year 600 AD,” said team member Zuzana Hofmanova, an analyst at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

                    Robert Nedoma from the University of Vienna identified the inscription as so-called Elder Futhark runes, used by the German-speaking inhabitants of central Europe in the second to seventh centuries.

                    The Elder Futhark alphabet comprised 24 signs, and the last seven were inscribed on the newly found rib, according to the researchers.

                    “It is probable that the bone originally comprised the whole runic alphabet. Hence, it is not a specific message but rather a teaching tool,” the scientists said.

                    Comment

                    • Soldier of Macedon
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 13670

                      According to the article, they found a bone fragment with Germanic runes in the same pit as a type of pottery that has supposedly been identified with the 'early Slavs'. The location of the pit is in today's Czech Republic but in the 6th century it was an area where the settlements of Germanic-speaking and Slavic-speaking peoples were within close proximity to each other. The bone fragment itself is inscribed with the last 7 signs of a runic alphabet, suggesting that the whole bone may have consisted of a complete alphabet and therefore used as a teaching tool. That's about it.
                      An inscribed cow bone dating back to the seventh century proves that Germanic runes were the oldest script ever used by the ancient Slavs, Czech scientists said Thursday.
                      I wonder if that is what the actual Czech scientists said or if this AFP journalist is applying his own creative interpretation. The person who inscribed the runes on that bone fragment may have been some Germanic-speaking tribesman or Slavic-speaking individual who was learning to use runes for the purpose of writing in a Germanic language. Is it possible that some of the ancestors of the Czechs may have used runes to write in a Slavic language? Sure, but there is no evidence of it presented in this finding (or anywhere else, for that matter). Which makes the below statement all the more ridiculous.
                      Up to now, it was believed that the oldest Slavic alphabet was Glagolitic.......the broken bovine rib found in the southern Czech Republic in 2017 and examined by an international team of Czech, Austrian, Swiss and Australian scientists proved the assumption about the alphabet wrong.
                      Even if another set of letters or signs was used to write in a Slavic language, it can hardly be considered a Slavic alphabet. And the comparison between the runes cited in this finding and Glagolitic is just comical.
                      In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X