Section 5
550 AD - 620 AD
THE THIRD MIGRATION
SLAVS FROM NORTH-EASTERN EUROPE
INVADE THE BALKANS AND BRING THE
SLAVIC LANGUAGE
The
historical record shows that the movement of Slavic tribes into the Balkans was
a military conquest conducted by male soldiers. It was not a typical population
movement in the sense of a migration of families. In this respect, the
Slavization of the Balkans was achieved in the same way as the Latinization of
the Western Balkans (see: Section 4), the Illyrianization of the Western
Balkans (see: Section 3). These invaders assimilated their language
& identity on the people they conquered.
The
Slavic invasion of the Balkans was carried out in two main thrusts: from app:
550 AD - 620 AD by a unified Slavic population acting as allies of the Avars
and from 620 AD - 800 AD by a fragmented Slavic population under the leadership
of the Serbs, Croats & Bulgars.
O.
Pritsak discusses Slav-Byzantine relations and divides them into 3 periods:
Jordanes (Getica pg: 119; 555 AD)
distinguishes three tribes, "offshoots of a single origin" - the
Venets, Antes & Slavs. He locates the enets of the Vistula, the slavs
between the Vistula & the Dannube anf the Antes from the Dniester to the
Don ... of these htree tribes, the Byzantines only had to deal with the last
two.
Slavo-Byzantine relations can be divided into 3
periods. The first period roughly encompasses the 6th century. The Slavs
were firmly entrenched on the left bank of the Danube and from there attacked
the Northern Balkans (551 AD, 558 AD, 580 AD). Between 500 AD - 560
AD, the Slavs began to winter on Byzantine soil. After 576 AD, they
became part of the Avar military alliance and the latter's design for conquest.
O Pritsak
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
Volume 3, pages: 1916 - 1918
1991
Pritsak
continues:
The second period (580 AD - 800 AD) coincides with
the first crossing of the Danube by Maurice, who moved Byzantine military
action into Slavic territory. In 20 - 30 years, the Avars transformed the bands
of Slavic frontiersmen into shipbuilders and formidable amphibious troops.
Already in 593 AD, the Pannonian Slavs built ships for the Avars as well
as a bridge over the Sava. Around 600 AD, the Slavic fleet was in
operation in the Aegean, in 623 AD they attacked Crete and
in 626 AD, they formed the backbone of the join Avar-Persian attack on Constantinople.
Various sources speak of Slavic rebellions on the
Pellopponese in the 9th & 10 centuries AD. The hagiographer
Nikon...snobbishly represents the Slavs as robbers & pagans. Still, in the 14th
& 15 centuries AD, some Slavs dwelt 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 Mount Athos
show that many paroikoi in the 14th & 15th century bore Slavic names
... Significant traces of Slavic survive in Greek toponyms.
It was probably in this period that Slavic became
an attractie lingua franca in the area populated by Slavs, Serbs &
Croats ... In the former Noricum, the realm of Samo emerged (623 AD -
658 AD). This had two social strata: the ruling Wends and the
inferior stratum of the Slavs...
O Pritsak
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
Volume 3, pages: 1916 - 1918
1991
Carleton
Coon discusses the origin of the Slavs and identifies them as kinsmen of the
Indo-Iranians:
Speaking an archaic form of the
Satem branch of Indo-European, they almost miraculously succeeded in maintaining their
linguistic integrity through the priod of obscurity which preceded their time
of dispersion despite the widespread activities of the Celts, Scythians and the
Germans. Slavic is in many respects close to the original form of
Indo-Iranian a fact which cannot fail to have cultural and geographical
significance ... The Iranians, near linguistic relatives of the
Slavs had occupied the plains to the sout and east, while the
Thracians bordered the Slavs on the far side of the Carpathian
Mountains.
Like the early Iranians...the lavs were simple
farmers and herdsmen...they grew increasingly numerous in the period
between the 2nd & 5th centuries AD and began spilling outward in
all possible directions ... the Germanic peoples soon went through an eastward
expansion during which they Germanized many of the Slavic groups,
either by force or by peaceful assimilation.
Carleton Stevens Coon
Races of Europe
(Chapter VI, section 7)
The Slavs
Macmillam Press
1939
Much
of the ethnic Geman population is actually composed of ancestral Slavs.
John
Wilkes describes the Slavic settlement of Illyrian lands:
By 536 AD (the Slavs) reached the Adriatic, by 548
AD they reached Durres and in the following years there are several reports
of Slavs in Illyricum. Though hardly welcome, the newcomers were not everywhere
destructive raiders and made no challenge
to imperial authority.
After some years of successful resistance, Roman
Illyricum finally disintegrated during the chaotic reign of Phocas (602 AD -
610 AD) when large numbers of Slavs occupied Macedonia & Thessaly. In
the west, we learn from the Letters of Pope
Gregory that Slavs were thratening Roman towns in Dalmatia and in 611 AD they
invaded Istria. In 612 AD, the Dalmatian cities of Salona, Narona,
Doclea, Scardona, Risinium and Epidaurum were abandoned in favor of more
protected places on the mainland or on the islands.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus...lists the surviving
Roman communities...Decatera (Kotor), Ragusa (Dubrovnik), to which the
inhabitants of Epidaurum had fled, Split, Diocleatians villa...was occupied by
refugees from Salona, Trogir and
Zadar and on several islands on Kvarner, Rab, Krka an Osora.
John Wilkes
The Illyrians
Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians
Page: 268, 269,
Blackwell Publishers
1992
Wilkes
concludes that the Slavs assimilated much of the Romanized Illyrian culture and
mentions no large-scale population change caused by the Slavic invasions.
The new settlers did not eradicate the existing Roman
and Illyrian cultures and sveral of heir major settlements grew out of Roman cities.
Few early Slav villages...have been identified in
Illyrian lands. Some Slavic mateial has been found on the sites of Roman cities
and there are some early traces of an early settlement near Capljina, in the
Neretva valley. It seems reasonable to assume that some of the local
characteristics exhibitted by Slavs in Illyrian lands were a consequence of
assimilating local Illyrian culture. The Illyrian herritage of the
Adriatic Slavs is even today regularly invoked by the Slovenes and
Croats...
John Wilkes
The Illyrians
Chapter: Prehistoric Illyrians
Page: 270 271
Blackwell Publishers
1992
The
only thing left is to identify the sub-racial type of the Slavs:
...literary evidence antedates the osteological, for
numerous descriptions of the early Slavs, assiduously collected by Niederle
occur in the writings of Byzantines, Arabs & Persians. With only one
exception, these make the Slavs tall, spare, blond and ruddy. If the literary
evidence makes the early Slavs Nordic in stature & pigmentation,
that of ostocology makes them the same in the metrical &
morphological sense. In brief, the earlies Slavic skeletal
material (8th - 11th centuries) falls by group...into one or more of the Nordic
categories...
Carleton Stevens Coon
Races of Europe
(Chapter VI, section 7)
The Slavs
Macmillam Press
1939
There
is little skeletal material of the Slavs in general and virtually none in the
Balkans in particular because the Slavs consistently cremated their dead.
Most contemporary Slavs in Northern Europe belong to the Neo-Danubian
sub-racial type. This is a mix of the original Danubians discussed above and
Nordic Slavs mixed with at least two Mongoloid sub-strains. The Slavs who
entered the Balkans were almost certainly Neo-Danubian because this sub-racial
type is still observable in the Balkans in greater frequency than the Nordic
sub-racial type, especially in Slavonija & Slovenia, according to Richard
McCulloch, where it reaches frequencies of over 30 % compared to other
types.