South Slavs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from South Slav)
Jump to: navigation, search
Countries inhabited by South Slavs (in teal)
Countries inhabited by South Slavs (in teal)

The South Slavs are a southern branch of the Slavic peoples that live in the Balkans, the southern Pannonian Plain and the eastern Alps. They speak the South Slavic languages.

Contents

Main article: Slavic peoples

The Slavs were a mysterious people, little known before the fall of Rome. From obscurity, they moved in and populated half of Europe within one century. The earliest descriptions of Slavs comes from Procopius' work De Bellis. He portrays them as unusually tall and strong, with a tanned complexion and reddish-blonde hair, living a rugged and primitive life. They lived in huts, often distant from one another, often changing their place of abode. They were not ruled by a single leader, but for a long time lived in a democracy. They probably believed in many Gods, but Procopius suggests they believed in one, perhaps supreme god. He has often been identified as Perun -the creator of lightening. The Slavs went into battle on foot, charging straight at their enemy, armed with spears and small shields, but they did not wear armour. This information is supplanted by Pseudo-Marice's work Strategion, describing the Slavs a numerous but disorganised and leaderless people, resistant to hardship and not allowing themselves to be enslaved or conquered. They made their homes in forests, by rivers and wetlands[1]

Although referred to as 'Slavs' and speaking a Slavic language, modern South Slavic peoples 'genetic roots' actually stem from a wide variety of genetic backgrounds, attesting the complexity of the ethnogenetic processes in Eastern Europe, namely the symbiosis of ancient, native Balkan populations with that of the 6th century Slavs. A recent genetic study [2] researched several Slavic populations with the aim of localizing the Proto-Slavic homeland. A significant finding of this study is that two genetically distinct groups of Slavic populations exist. The first group encompassed most Slavic populations except some Southern Slavs. According to the authors, most Slavs share a high frequency of Haplogroup R1a. Its origin is purported to trace to the middle Dnieper basin of Ukraine from Ukrainian LGM refuge 15 kya.[3]. The second group is comprised of southern Slavic populations: Bulgarians, Croatians, Macedonians and Serbians, who have a significantly lower frequency of R1a. According to the authors, this phenomenon is explained by "...contribution to the Y chromosomes of peoples who settled in the Balkan region before the Slavic expansion to the genetic heritage of Southern Slavs..."[4]

From the postulated Slavic homeland in the Pripet marshes in what is now Ukraine and Southern Belarus, the Slavs settled almost the entire Balkans region, a process which occurred over several decades and via two major routes.

The earliest migrations moved southward directly from Ukraine along the eastern arc of the Carpathian Mountains to the lower Danube. According to Procopius, the first raid on Byzantium took place in 523 AD. Although composed of many different tribes, and lacking any organization, they have been classed into two major groups- Slaveni and Antes [5].

The Slavs encountered a Balkans which was ethnically and culturally varied. Apart from the Greeks, there were Illyrians, Dacians, and Thracians- who by the 5th century had been 'Romanised' to quite varying degrees (depending on their own tribal natures and location). Many areas were bastions of Roman culture, despite the devastation caused by earlier Hun and Germanic raids, especially along the Adriatic coastline, while southern regions were dominantly Greek in culture and language.

The settlement of the Danube and interaction with autochthonous populations is confirmed archaeologically. Remains along the Danube dating back to the 6th century are similar to the Prague and Penkoa cultures (see Slavs article), and represent a specific mixture of Slavic, Dato-Getic, Daco-Roman and Byzantine elements. Historical accounts are in agreement with archaeological evidence. Jordannes wrote: ‘the Sclavinoi and Antes .. have their homelands on the Danube not far from the northern bank”.

From their new base in the middle and lower Danube river, the Slavs subsequently expanded farther south. They raided the Byzantine Empire annually, according to Procopius, which peaked in the 520s during the reign of Justinian I. They spread about destruction, taking loot and herds of cattle, seizing prisoners and taking fortresses. Despite attempts to fortify the northern borders of Byzantine empire, the Slavic tides could not be held back, and eventually came to also settle the provinces of Moesia and Thrace.

External factors helped the Slavs colonise much of the Balkans. Prior to their arrival, the Regnum Gepidorum centred in the regions around modern Belgrade was defeated and devastated by the Lombards in 567. The Lombards subsequently departed to Italy in 568 AD (perhaps fleeing the Avars), essentially creating a power vacuum. The Avars arrived into Europe in 558. From their core territory in the Carpathian basin, the Avars essentially galvanised the Slavs and led them into Byzantine territory [6]. Avar raids into the Balkans continued unendingly, despite being paid high tribute by the Byzantines. Following the unsuccessful siege of Constantinople in 626, the Avars contracted to their core territory in Paanonia. A century later their khanate collapsed all together and their subject peoples broke away. The Slavs, as a consequence of their involvement in Avar raids throughout eastern Europe, now lay scattered from Austria in the north to Peloponnese in the south, the Adriatic sea in the west to the Black Sea in the east.

By 581, many Slavic tribes had settled the land around Thessaloniki, though never taking the city itself, creating a Macedonian Sclavinia [7]. As John of Ephesus tells us in 581: “the accursed people of the Slavs set out and plundered all of Greece, the regions surrounding Thessalonica, and Thrace, taking many towns and castles, laying waste, burning, pillaging, and seizing the whole country.”. By 586, they took the western Peloponnese, Attica, Epirus, leaving only the east part of Peloponnese, which was mountainous and inaccessible.

The final attempt to restore the northern border was from 591-605, when the end of conflicts with Persia allowed Emperor Maurice to transfer units to the north. However he was deposed after a military revolt in 602, and the Danubian frontier collapsed one and a half decades later (Main article: Maurice’s Balkan campaigns)

As part of the Slavic migrations to the Balkans, the Serb and Croat tribes also settled the western Balkans. From White Serbia and White Croatia, these related tribes presumably arrived from adjacent areas in what is now southern Poland and Eastern Germany, just north of the Carpathian mountains. This occurred between 615 and 640 AD, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus' accounts, it was the Serbs and Croats that freed Dalmatia from the Avars, taking the land for themselves. Here they settled, mixing with Illyrians and other Slavs. Despite the destruction, many towns along the Dalmatian coast survived, and there began a long-term process of Roman-Slav symbiosis. The colonization of the western Balkans would continue for one century, and Dalmatia, the eastern part of the Alps, the entire region of Illyria, and even Transylvania were permanently settled by Slavs.

There is little written historical information regarding the early contact of the pagan Slavs and the local Christianised Balkan peoples. Analysis of anthropological evidence and material culture demonstrates the significant biological and cultural contribution of the 'native' Balkan populations to the formation of today's southern Slavs. Remains dating back to the 6th century represent a specific mixture of Slavic, Thracian, Illyrian, Dacian, Celtic and Hellenic elements. Linguistics also supports this notion. There was a flow of loan-words in either direction. For example the Slavic name for Greeks -Grci- is derived from the Latin Graecus- presumably encountered through the local Romanised populace. Conversely the indigenous Vlachs borrowed many Slavic words, especially pertaining to agricultural terms. This theory of interaction is now substantiated by emerging population genetics analysis.

Pseudo-Maurice in his Strategion notes that it was commonplace for Slavs to accept newly acquired prisoners into their ranks. The Slavs did not want to form “client states”, dependent on Roman political and economic structures, such as the Germans in the west, nor did they exploit the inhabitants in the same way as the Asian nomads[8]. The sixth century was a time of relative stability and peace in the Balkans, hastening the process of wilful Slavicisation of foreign populations, although local traditions speak of initial hostilities between the locals and newly-arrived [9].

Slavic tribes in the Balkans c. 700 AD
Slavic tribes in the Balkans c. 700 AD

Apart from obvious distaste of the ‘barbarous’ Slavs, and the ever posing threat of raiding expeditions, the Byzantines did not actively try to prevent Slavic settlement in the Balkans for two main reasons. Colonisation by these new agricultural people would be beneficial, so long they would recognize Byzantine rule and pay taxes. Secondly, the waxing and waning Byzantine Empire often was too busy defending its eastern borders against Persians and Arabs. Initially the Slavic tribes retained independent rule with their own political structure. These units were referred to as Sclavenes. Byzantium tried to incorporate the Slavs immediately adjacent to the imperial border into the socio-economic system of the Byzantine state, with varied success. The Thracian theme was returned to imperial rule in 680-681. However the Slavs of Greece and Macedonia proved more stubborn, and resisted Hellenization. Emperors Constans (656) and Justinian II (686) had to resort to military expeditions. Although he succeeded in subduing a number of Slav tribes, he was ambushed and defeated by Han Kuber's Slavo-Bulgars from Macedonia, and was subsequently deposed for the first time. This difficulty also lay in the lack of centralized ruling core of Slavic tribal leaders which could be subdued or bribed. During these early stages of attempted re-Hellenization, some historians, such as Dennis Hupchick, suggest that assimilation actually operated in an opposite direction, where the surrounded Hellenic peoples were acculturated into the more primitive culture of their encirclers [10].

The recovery of Greece was not achieved until the 9th century. The Emperors actively re-settled Greeks from other regions of the Empire to the Peloponnese and central Greece. To ensure Helleniziation of the Slavs living in Greece, Orthodox church organization using exclusively Greek language was imposed. The result was an inevitable intermixture of Greek and Slavic peoples [11]. Hence the borders of the Greek and Slavic linguistic, and therefore ethnic worlds, were sketched. Greece could reclaimed linguistic jurisdiction over what is now central and southern Greece, yet pockets of independent Slavs remained even until Ottoman times as deep as the Peloponesse. Macedonia, Thrace, Rumelia, Moesia remained overwhelmingly Slavic, save coastal strips of land along the Aegean Sea.

An Orthodox icon depicting Saints Methodius and Cyril, founders of the Glacolitic alphabet and patron saints for all south Slavic people
An Orthodox icon depicting Saints Methodius and Cyril, founders of the Glacolitic alphabet and patron saints for all south Slavic people

There were also moments of cooperation. In the 717 siege of Constantinople by the Arabs, the Slavs and Bulgars were instrumental in repelling the attacks. In terms of saving medieval Europe from Islamic conquest, this is an achievement equal to that of Charles Martel in defeating the Moors in France in 731 AD.

The Slavic inroads into the Balkans, whilst causing much territorial loss, never destroyed the classical Hellenic culture. The political, economic and military strength of the Eastern Roman Empire ensured its survival for one thousand years longer. This contrasts the situation in the Latin West, where the Germanic tribes created states of their own retaining a 'bastardised' form of Latin Hellenism, loosely modelled after the Western Empire which they destroyed. Although the Byzantines could only manage to linguistically Hellenize the Slavs deep inside Greece, a Hellenic tradition was nonetheless implaced upon the Slavs who remained outside the empire. This was manifest in two major forms: Christianity (subsequently Orthodox Christianity) and Cyrillicism - a unique Slavic written language inspired by Greek literary forms. Byzantine culture, administrative and legal systems were mirrored by the courts of Bulgarian and Serbian Princes. [12]

The Byzantine influence in the northwestern Balkans, (ie Croatia and Slovenia) was initially limited to the Adriatic coastline of Dalmatia. This ceased all together by the 11th century, being supplanted by Venetian dominance. This explains why the Croats and Slovenes are Catholic and traditionally orient themselves toward the western European sphere of culture. However, its legacy can still be seen in the historic churches of the area.

To the far northwest, the alpine Slavs of Slovenia underwent a process of internal consolidation after the fall of Avar power, leading to the creation of Carantania. However, with the eastward extension of Charlemagne’s Frankish empire, Carantania was incorporated into the Frankish empire as a military march. Yet its legacy lives on as the first Slavic state. Although the majority remained ethnically independent, the Slavs in Austria were virtually all Germanised. Similarly, the Magyars arrival to the Carpathian basin ended the independence of the Slavic Balaton Principality, a multi-slavic tribal organisation located on the Sava river.

In the eastern Balkans, the Proto-Bulgars arrived in Scythia Minor, on the mouths of the Danube, after the collapse of Old Great Bulgaria. Realising the danger of this new people, Byzantium sent a military expedition against them, which ended in victory for the Bulgars led by Khagan Asparuch, they moved south to occupy lower Moesia in 678. There they subdued the Severs and 7 clans of Slavs (Slavic tribes living in the area), but allowed them to retain their ethnic identity and own tribal leaders. The First Bulgarian Empire emerged in 681. By the 900s, the nomadic ruling class was fully Slavicized and Christianised. Another 'tribe' of Kitrigur Bulgars settled in Macedonia. Led by Han Kuber, they rebelled against their Avar overlords and led a mixed group of Bulgars, Thracians, Illyrians and possibly Franks from their original settlement in Slavonia to Macedonia. Soon, they were absorbed into the Bulgarian Empire. The Bulgarian Empire lasted until 1018, and is credited for spreading Christianity and literacy throughout Slavic Christendom.

States and Tribes c. 860s
States and Tribes c. 860s

With the need for defensive organisation, the tribal organizations in the western Balkans gradually transformed into larger duchies or principalities. The Croats formed the duchies of Panonnia and Dalmatia, which unified in the mid tenth century after shaking off Frankish suzerainty. The new Kingdom of Croatia received papal recognition in return for the people welcoming Papal religious jurisdiction, yet liturgy continued to be practised in Slavic for some time, until 1060 when the Synod of Split declared Latin as the official church language. At its Zenith, the Kingdom included central Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, and most of Bosnia. Although Dalmatia was nominally under Byzantine, then Venetian sovereignty, in practice the cities of the coast were largely self-ruling, and in fact were competitors with Venice in merchant shipping. However plagued by incessant succession struggles, the kingdom was conquered by Hungary in 1102, and split into Croatia proper and Slavonia, which were ruled by Bans appointed by the Hungarian King.

Principalities were also formed in Pagania, Travunia, Zahumlje, Raska and Duklja. The latter two were dominant and rose to become the cultural centres of Serbian identity. Little is known about the early history of these medieval statelets, apparently they were vassals of Raska, whose rulers claimed overall sovereignty as the descendants of the Unknown Achont who led the Serbs to the Balkans. In practice they were seldom unified, and early on were often dominated intermittently by either the Bulgarian Kingdom or Byzantine Empire. At this time, the Serbs were both Catholic and Orthodox, since the coastal Serbs were influenced by Rome, whereas the Raskan Serbs were more influenced by Byzantium and Bulgaria. On occasions, the Serbs were unified under a single ruler, such as Caslav from Raska, who expelled to Bulgarians in 927, and during King Bodin's reign in the latter half of the 11th century, who consolidated rule over all Serbian territories (including much of Bosnia). However these unifications were always transient, as succession struggles were the rule, allowing the local princes of the minor statelets to claim independence during anarchic periods in Raska or Duklja. Also, at times, the southern Dalmatian territories of Pagania and Zahumlje were under Croatian influence. The first true Kingdom to rise in Serbia was in the 13th century during the Nemenja dynasty's rule, which at its zenith ruled over Pagania, Doclea, Raska, Travunia, Macedonia, western parts of Bulgaria and most of Greece, being the major Balkan power of the time.

States and Tribes c. 980s
States and Tribes c. 980s

In the twelfth century, the state of Medieval Bosnia arose. Due to favourable circumstances, it found itself free of Serbian and Croatian influence. The local Bans were largely independent, although they had to pay homage to the Hungarian King or Byzantine Empire. The Bosnian Bans were Catholic at face value, though many were suspected of following the Bosnian Church, a local church, which was accused of being Bogomil by both Catholic Hungary and Orthodox Serbia. The common people themselves were a mixture of Catholic, Orthodox and local church followers, with each tending to dominate in certain areas of the kingdom to the relative exclusion of others. Such regional particularism firstly prevented a strong central authority. Secondly, portentously, it led to the development of factionalism amongst the people, the result of which was seen during the devastation of the Yugoslav wars.

The fate of all these medieval Slavic states, as it was for all of the Balkans, was annexation, one by one, by the growing Ottoman Empire. Characteristic of the people, they were never able to remain unified, the end result of a legacy of strong sense of tribal autonomy, opposing influences from external powers, and perhaps even individual greed for power at the expense of thought for the common good.

South Slavs are divided into two groups — eastern and western. Please note that some of the subdivisions of the South Slavic ethnicities remain debatable, particularly for smaller groups and national minorities in former Yugoslavia.

List of the South Slavic peoples and ethnic groups, including population figures: [13]

Eastern group:

Western group:

In the legendary description of the three major ethnicities amongst Slavic peoples, the designation "Ethnic Southern Slavic peoples", or more commonly "Czechs", is used to refer to not only to what are today generally considered South Slavs, but also to Czechs, Slovaks and Southern Sorbs.

Besides ethnic groups, South Slavs often identify themselves with the geographical region in which they live. Some of the major regional South Slavic groups include: Zagorci, Istrani, Dalmatinci, Slavonci, Bosanci, Hercegovci, Krajišnici, Semberci, Srbijanci, Šumadinci, Vojvođani, Sremci, Bačvani, Banaćani, Sandžaklije, Kosovci, Crnogorci, Bokelji, Torlaks, Shopi, Pelagonci, Tikvešjani, Trakiytsi, Dobrudzhantsi, Balkandzhii, Miziytsi, Pirintsi, Rodoptsi, Bessarabian Bulgarians, etc.

There are seven countries in which South Slavs form the majority of population: [1]

In addition, there are traditional sizable South Slavic minorities in non-Slavic neighbouring countries such as Italy (Slovenians, Molise Croats), Austria (Slovenians, Burgenland Croats), Hungary (Serbs, Croats, Bunjevci, Šokci, Slovenians), Romania (Krashovani, Banat Bulgarians, Serbs), Moldova (Bessarabian Bulgarians), Greece (Bulgarians,), Turkey (Pomaks, Bosniaks) and Albania (ethnic Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Gorani), as well as emigrant communities in various countries around the world.

Largest cities with South Slavic majority:

The religious and cultural diversity of the region the South Slavs inhabit has had a considerable influence on their religion. Originally a polytheistic pagan people, the South Slavs have also preserved many of their ancient rituals and traditional folklore, often intermixing and combining it with the religion they later converted to.

Today, most of the Bulgarians, ethnic Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Yugoslavs are Eastern Orthodox Christians; most of the Slovenians, Croats, Bunjevci, Šokci, Krashovans, and Palćene are Roman Catholics; while most of the Bosniaks, Muslims by nationality, Gorani, Torbesh, and Pomaks are Muslims.

South Slavic standard languages are:

In addition, there are also two more South Slavic languages, Montenegrin and Bunjevac, that do not have official status, but that are widely used by their speakers. Formerly, the Šokac language was also listed in the censuses conducted during Austro-Hungarian administration.

However, this language division is rather political than linguistic, thus linguistic non-political classification of the South Slavic dialects is as follows:

Note that Kajkavian Croatian, Chakavian Croatian, Shtokavian, and Torlakian were sometimes classified as four dialects of Serbo-Croatian language, but this classification was also politically motivated since, for example, differences between Shtokavian and Kajkavian are large as much as differences between Shtokavian and Slavic-Macedonian.

  1. Trajan Stojanović, Balkanska civilizacija, Beograd, 1995.
  2. Nikola Jeremić, Srpska Zemlja Bojka, Zemun, 1993.
  3. Aleksandar M. Petrović, Kratka arheografija Srba, Novi Sad, 1994.
  4. Sava S. Vujić - Bogdan M. Basarić, Severni Srbi (ne)zaboravljeni narod, Beograd, 1998.
  5. Jovan Dragašević, Makedonski Sloveni, Novi Sad, 1995.
  6. Kosta V. Kostić, Prilog etnoistoriji Torlaka, 2. izdanje, Novi Sad, 1995.

  1. ^ The Cambridge Medieval History, vol I, Paul Fouracre
  2. ^ Rebala K et al. (2007), Y-STR variation among Slavs: evidence for the Slavic homeland in the middle Dnieper basin, Journal of Human Genetics, 52:406-14
  3. ^ ibid., p. 408
  4. ^ ibid., p. 410
  5. ^ The Balkans. D P Hupchik
  6. ^ The Serbs. Sima Cirkovic. 2004. ISBN 0-631-20471-7
  7. ^ Cambridge Medieval Encyclopedia, Vol II
  8. ^ The new Cambridge Medieval History. Paul Fouracre
  9. ^ The Serbs S.M. Cirkovic
  10. ^ The Balkans. D P Hupchick
  11. ^ The Balkans: From Communism to Constantinople. Dennis P Hupchik
  12. ^ The Balkan: From Constantinople to Communism. Dennis P Hupchik
  13. ^ Mile Nedeljković, Leksikon naroda Sveta, Beograd, 2001.

Serb bagpiper in traditional attire wearing opanci and šajkača.

A Montenegrin Bokelj in traditional garb.

tsar Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia.

Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, the Prince-Bishop of Montenegro.

Josip Jelačić, the ban of Croatia.

tsar Jovan Nenad, the ruler of Vojvodina.

Pomak village in Xanthi, Western Thrace.

Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Bulgarians in national dress dancing choro

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Slavs"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.