byzslavs

SLAVS

The name 'Slav' (which has no Slavic etymology) appears in the form 'Sklavenoi' or 'Sthlavenoi' in Greek and Latin sources, probably not earlier than the mid 6^th century.

All attempts to probe deeper into the past, to establish direct links between the Slavs and previous ethnic groups such as the Skythians, have failed, as have attempts to interpret as Slavic some archaeological cultures (e.g., that Cernjachovo) that flourished in the region as the beginning of the first millennium A.D.

Jordanes (Getica 119) distinguishes three tribes ('gentes'), "offshoots of a single origin" -Venethi, Antes (Antae), and Sclaveni (Sklavenoi). He locates the Venethi on the Vistula, the Sklavenoi between the Vistula and the Danube, and the Antae from the Dniester to the Don.

Since the Byzantines of the 6^th century were concerned with the topic of the Slavic invasion, they presented them only as potential frontier warriors and not as political, ethnic, racial, or linguistic communities.

Of these three gentes the Byzantines had to deal only with the last two, for the Venethi dwelled from the Eastern Empire.

Slavo-Byzantine relations can be divided into three periods.

The first period roughly encompasses the 6^th century. The Slavs were firmly entrenched on the left bank of the Danube and from there attacked the northern Balkans (especially in 551/2, 558/9, and 580/1) Harrying expeditions of the Slavs, often in concert with Gotrigurs, were limited in scope. Around 550-60 the Slavs began to winter on Byzantine soil. After 576 they became part of the Avar military force and the latter's design for conquest.

The second period (ca.590-800) coincides with the first crossing of the Danube in 594 by Maurice, who moved Byzantine military action to Slavic territory.

In two or three decades the Avars transformed the bands of Slavic frontiersmen into shipbuilders and formidable amphibious troops. Already in 593, the Pannonian Sklavenoi built ships for the Avars as well as a bridge over the Sava River. Around 600 the Slavic fleet was in operation in the Aegean; in 623 they attacked Crete and, in 626, formed the backbone of the joint Avar-Persian attack on Constantinople.

It was probably in this period that Slavic became an attractive lingua franca in the area populated by Sklavenoi, Serbs, Croats, etc.

In this period the Slavs began to settle south of the Danube to form so-called Sklaviniai. There is no archaeological evidence for Slavic penetration of imperial territory before the end of the 6^th century. The ceramics and the semisubterranean houses of the 7^th century considered by archaeologists to be Slavic are found in Moldavia, on the Lower Danube, and less frequently, in the basin of the Sava. The cartography of these findings allows the hypothesis that Slavic penetration south from the Danube followed two independent routes -via the Lower Danube in the east and from Pannonia in the west.

Traces of Slavic culture in Greece are rare: a Slavic cemetery near Olympia, ceramics in Argos and Tiryns, fibulae from Lakonia and Kechreai, tombs of warriors near the walls of Corinth containing Slavic belt buckles and weapons (K.Kilian, Peloponnesiaka 16 [1985-86] 295-304). It is possible that the majority of the Slavs in this area had undergone (at least partial) hellenization before they formed established settlements.

The Slavs participated in the creation of new political entities in the basin of the Danube.

In the former Noricum the realm of Samo emerged (ca.623-58). This had two social strata: the ruling Winidi (Jordanes' Venethi?) and the inferior stratum of the Sclavi, to whom also belonged the Serbi.

Even less is known about the polity called "Volhynia", a name that survives in al-Mas`udi and in the Kievan chronicle.

The polity created in Moesia ca.680 by the Bulgars of Asparuch appeared much more stable. These Bulgars assumed control of local Sklaviniai (especially those of the "Seven Tribes" and Drogoubitai).

Now Thessalonike and its environs, rather than the Danube, was the frontier and focus of Slavo-Byzantine relations.

The third period was initiated by the destruction of the Avar realm by Charmemagne and Franco-Bulgar cooperation in pacifying the region. Two types of Slavs appear soon after 800:

mobile military colonists who were ready to settle as allies on any sort of frontier within the Byzantine Empire, especially in the Peloponnesos (Ezeritai and Melingoi), is Asia Minor (especially in Opsikion, Pontos, and Cilicia), and in Italy; and
the former Avar military elite and their retainers who were eager to settle and establish their power over semi-independent princes under Frankish or Byzantine sovereignty, for example, in Pannonia or Moravia.

During this period the Slavs converted to Christianity and the Slavic sacred language (Church Slavonic) was created by Constantine the Philosopher and Methodios. The Slavic lingua franca was elevated (along with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin) to the language of an ecclesiastic rite. Though originally a failure in Moravia where it was introduced, Slavic laid down stronger roots in Bulgaria, whence it expanded to Kievan Rus' and Serbia.

In the earlier stage, the Slavic rite found the support, albeit reluctant, of the papal court and facilitated the extension of papal jurisdiction over Pannonia, the territory of the former Avar realm and their Sklavenian successors (with Slavic as the current lingua franca): but soon, in neighboring Nitra and in Split, Latin replaced the Slavic tongue in church services. The situation changed dramatically, however, when the rulers of Bulgaria, at the end of the 9^th century, abandoned their Bulgaro-Greek bureaucratic bilingualism and turned to the Slavic lingua franca and the Slavic rite for the needs of both church and state.

In the 9^th century the Slavs exerted an influential force on Byzantine territory: at the beginning of the century they besieged Patras, and legend has it that only the supernatural assistance of the apostle Andrew saved the city. After the Byzantine victory the Slavs were placed under the jurisdiction of the metropolis of Patras, and the obligation to accommodate traveling imperial functionaries and ambassadors was imposed on them. Various sources speak of Slav rebellions in the Peloponnesos in the 9^th and 10^th centuries. The hagiographer of Nikon Ho "Metanoeite" snobbishly represents the Peloponnesian Slavs as robbers and pagans. Still, in the 14^th (and probably the 15^th) century some Slav groups dwelled on Taygetos: they refused to pay taxes but agreed to serve as soldiers.

An even more substantial Slav population existed in Macedonia, and the 'practica' of various monasteries on Mt.Athos show that many 'paroikoi' in the 14^th and 15^th century bore Slavic names.

Some Slavs became members of the Byzantine elite (especially after Basil II's occupation of Bulgaria) or served as mercenaries.

Significant traces of Slavic survive in Greek toponyms. The role of the Slavs in Byzantium has, however, been exaggerated by some Russian and Soviet scholars (from V.Vasil'evskij onward) who connected with the Slav penetration the resurgence of Byzantium after the decline of the 7^th century, the expansion of the peasant community, and military reform; they considered even the Farmer's Law a document of Slavic customary law.

After the 9^th century Byzantine authors rarely used the term 'Sklavenoi' and its derivatives, and preferred to apply to the Slavs either specific ethnic denominations (Rus', Bulgarians, Chorbatoi, Lechoi, etc.) or antiquarian terms such as Skythians, Sarmatians, Illyrians; they seem to have had no concept of the ethnic unity of the Slavs and had only a very vague idea of the unity of Slavic languages.

O.Pritsak,

Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991), vol.3, p.1916-1918