Genealogical newsletter for Americans with Sorbian / Wendish ancestors and friends of genealogy

The topic today is the different theories of where to look for the origin of Sorbian/Wendish peoples and some about Slavic history. 

As you know, the Wendish nation belongs to the huge group of Slavic peoples. They are traditionally divided along linguistic lines into West Slavic (including Sorbians/Wendish, Czech, Poles and Slovaks), East Slavic (including Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians), and South Slavic (including Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenians).

The Slavic people are a linguistic and ethnic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in Europe. Since emerging from their original homeland (one theory tells us that this was to be in Eastern Europe) in the early 6th century, they have inhabited most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Many have later settled in Northern Asia or emigrated to other parts of the world.

Slavic settlers mixed with existing local populations and later invaders, thus modern Slavic peoples share few genetic traits. Yet they are connected by speaking often closely related Slavic languages, and also by a sense of common identity and history, which is present to different extents among different individuals and different Slavic peoples.

 

Origin of the term “Slav”

The origin of the word Slav remains controversial. Excluding the ambiguous mention by Ptolemy of tribes Stavanoi and Soubenoi, the earliest references of "Slavs" under this name are from the 6th century. The word is written variously: Sklabenoi, Sklauenoi, Sklabinoi - in Byzantine Greek; Sclaueni, Sclauini, Sthlaueni - in Latin. The oldest documents written in Old Slavonic and dating from the 9th century use the word "slověne". Note the first vowel "o", rather than an "a" as in Greek and Latin.

Folk etymologies and scholars such as Roman Jacobson traditionally link the name either with the word sláva ("glory", "fame", hypothetically reconstructed IE root kleu--) or with the word slovo ("word, talk"). Thus slověne would mean "people who speak (the same language)", i.e. people who understand each other, as opposed to the Slavic word for German nations, nemtsi, meaning "speechless people" (from Slavic němi - mute, silent, dumb).

It can be argued, however, that these obvious connections are misleading. Names of ethnicities are often very old and defy attempts to find etymologies for them. There are two alternative scholarly theories as to the origin of the Slavs ethnonym, both very tentative: According to the first theory, it derives from a Proto-Indo-European (s)lawos, cognate to Greek λᾱ(ϝ)ός "population, people", which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. The second theory (forwarded by e.g. Max Vasmer) suggests that the word originated as a river name (compare the etymology of the Volcae), comparing it with such cognates as Latin cluo ("to wash"), a root not known to have been continued in Slavic, however, and appearing in meanings of "to clean, to scour" in Baltic.

A false etymology, popular in Nazi propaganda, derived "Slav" from "slave". In fact, the reverse is true. The word slave is derived from Middle Latin sclavus, in turn derived from the ethnonym discussed above, because of the large number of Slavs captured during the raids of Turkic nomads and sold to Europe and the Arab world through slave markets along various routes. (See saqaliba for example.)

 

Proto-Slavic language

The ancestor of the Proto-Slavic language branched off at some uncertain time in an unknown location from common Proto-Indo-European (possibly passing through a common Proto-Balto-Slavic stage). According to a popular view, "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic". Proto-Slavic proper, defined as the last stage of the language preceding the split of the historical Slavic languages, predates the 7th century, and was likely spoken during the 5th and 6th century.

The Slavic language group is categorized with the “satem” or eastern branch of the Indo-European language family, along with the Baltic and Indo-Iranian groups. This is in contrast with the western or centum branch that includes Romance, Germanic and Celtic languages.

The first known historic Slavic people (Venedi, Sklavene and Anti) did identify themselves by "common ancestors and common blood" according to the 6th century historian Jordanes.

 

Origins and Slavic homeland debate

The location of the speakers of pre-Proto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic is subject to considerable debate. Serious candidates are cultures on the territories of modern Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. The proposed frameworks are:

1. "Polish" hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs were present in north-eastern Central Europe since at least the late 2nd millennium BC, and were the bearers of the Lusatian culture and later the Przeworsk culture (part of the Chernyakhov culture).
2. "Belarusian" hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs (or Balto-Slavs) were the bearers of the Milograd culture
3. "Ukrainian" hypothesis: The pre-Proto-Slavs were the bearers of the Chernoles culture of northern Ukraine

 

Earliest accounts

The lands of the Elbe, Oder (both in Germany), and west of the Vistula (=Wisła, in present day Poland) river were referred to as Magna Germania by Tacitus in AD 98. Tacitus, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy mention a tribe of the Venedes east of the Vistula, commonly identified with the early Vandals, but 6th century authors re-applied the ethnonym to hitherto unknown Slavic tribes, whence the later designation "Wends" for Slavic tribes, and medieval legends purporting a connection between Poles and Vandals. A minority view postulates that the Venedes of Tacitus and the "Slavs proper" between the 1st and the 6th centuries coalesced into the historical Slavic ethnicities.

The Slavs make their first appearance in historical records from the end of Late Antiquity, in the early 6th century. Byzantine historiographers under Justinian I (527-565), such as Procopius of Caesarea, Jordanes and Theophylact Simocatta describe tribes invading the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Empire, emerging from the area of the Carpathian Mountains, the lower Danube and the Black Sea. Jordanes mentions that the Venets sub-divided into three groups: the Venets, the Ants and the Sklavens (Sclovenes, Sklavinoi), collectively called Spores. The Byzantine term Sklavinoi was loaned as Saqaliba by medieval Arab historiographers.

 

 

Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe in the 3rd century AD:

██ Chernyakhov culture    ██ Przeworsk culture    ██ Wielbark Culture (associated with the Goths)   ██  Baltic culture (Aesti/Yotvingian)    ██ Debczyn culture   ██ Roman Empire

 

 

Picture Slavs 7th century

Historical distribution of the Slavic languages. The area shaded in light purple is the Prague-Penkov-Kolochin complex of cultures of the 6th to 7th c. AD, likely corresponding to the spread of Slavic tribes at the time. The area shaded in darker red indicates the core area of Slavic river names (after “Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture” p. 524ff.)

 

 Nationalist and fringe views

A recent theory, relying on the multiregional origin hypothesis claims an autochthonous Slavic origin from pre-glacial times. The Slavic homeland would thus have included areas described by Tacitus as Germania. Compare the Paleolithic Continuity Theory of Indo-European. These theories confuse the boundary between genetic continuity (it is undisputed that 80% of the European gene pool has been stationary since the paleolithic) and linguistic or ethnic groups.

Nationalist scholars of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia try to connect Proto-Slavic with the Balkans and the group of Paleo-Balkan languages.

Several theories of the origin of Slavs were published, and found large numbers of followers, fueled by the rise of nationalism in Ukraine, and the Eurasianism and Neo-Eurasianism movements in Russia. Most of those attempt to establish a direct connection between the Slavs and Proto-Indo-Iranians ("Aryans"). Some of these theories are well within the realm of national mysticism, some even claiming that Slavs existed as an entity as early as the 7th to 5th millennium BC, and were ancestors of the Sumerians and that the fabled Sumerian city of Aratta was located in Ukraine.

These theories are based of an old record, namely the narrative of Ibrahim ibn Ya’qub (a Jewish merchand and slave trader, born about 940 AD). He gives definite information pertaining to the origin of the Slavs. In his treatise “On the Slavs” he states that the Slavs are descendants of Mazan, the son of Japheth, but he is vague in his description of their location. The translator Semen Rapeport interprets that Mazan means Madai of the Bible recorded in Genesis 10, verse 2. According to Rapeports’ interpretation, the origin of the Slavs is traced to the very beginning of all races. Japheth was the son of Noah, and Madai the son of Japheth. Genesis 10 deals with the generations of Noah and in verse 5 says “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided into their lands: everyone after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.” If this can be accepted as accurate, the contention of some Slavic historians may be true that a distinct prehistoric Slavic nation existed; from which all later Slavs were descendants. Madai settled according to the Bible in the area from north of Elam till the Caspian See (present day Iran).

The genealogical line back to Adam would be according the Bible:

Madai, son of Japheth; Japheth son of Noah, Noah son of Methusalah, Methusalah, son of Jared, Jared son of Kenan, Kenan son of Seth, Seth son of Adam. An interesting theory, isn’t it?
 

Slavs in the historical period

Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germans and Celts in the 5th and 6th centuries AD (necessitated by the onslaught of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns, Avars, Bulgars and Magyars) started the great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes fleeing the Huns and their allies: westward into the country between the Odra 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.

When their migratory movements ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of state organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and defense force. Moreover, there were the beginnings of class differentiation, with nobles who pledged allegiance to the Frankish and Holy Roman Emperors.

In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo, who supported the Slavs fighting their Avar rulers, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, which, however, most probably did not outlive its founder and ruler. Karantania in today's Austria and Slovenia was one Slavic state; very old also are the Principality of Nitra (in present day Slovakia) and the Moravian principality (also today Slovakia). In this period, there existed central Slavic groups and states such as the Balaton Principality (present day Hungary), but the subsequent expansion of the Magyars and Romanians, as well as the Germanisation of Austria, separated the northern and southern Slavs.

In the early history of the Slavs, and continuing into the Dark Ages, non-Slavic groups were sometimes dissimilated by Slavic-speaking populations: the Bulgars became Slavicized and their Turkic tongue disappeared; in other cases, Slavs themselves assimilated other groups such as the Romanians, Magyars, Greeks, etc. Apart from the Illyrians who inhabited the region, the Croats probably merged with the Alans and the Serbs are speculated to have assimilated a tribe of the Sarmatians called the Serboi, later merged with the Celts.

Because of the vastness and diversity of the territory occupied by Slavic peoples, there were several centers of Slavic consolidation. In the 19th century, Pan-Slavism developed as a movement among intellectuals, scholars, and poets, but it rarely influenced practical politics and didn't find support in all nations that had Slavic origins. Pan-Slavism became compromised when Russian Empire started to use it as an ideology justifying its territorial conquests in Central Europe as well as subjugation of other ethnic groups of Slavic origins such as Poles or Ukrainians, and the ideology became associated with Russian imperialism. The common Slavic experience of communism combined with the repeated usage of the ideology by Soviet propaganda after World War II within the Eastern bloc (Warsaw Pact) was a forced high-level political and economic hegemony of the USSR dominated by Russians, and as such despised by the rest of the conquered nations. A notable political union of the 20th century that covered many South Slavs was Yugoslavia, but it broke apart as well.

Nazi Germany, whose proponents claimed a racial superiority for the Germanic people, particularly over Semitic and Slavic peoples, plotted an enslavement of the Slavic peoples, and the reduction of their numbers by killing the majority of the population. As a result, a large number of people considered by the Nazis to have Slavic origins were slain during World War II.

When will the time come that we will know how it really was? Maybe we have to wait until we meet our deceased ancestors on the “other side”. Will it be possible to ask them? If you ask me, yes.

Note: Much of the information in this newsletter comes from the webpage: www.wikipedia.de

Other source: Der Reisebericht des Ibrahim ibn Ya’qub (page 413-422)