Introduction

History has always aroused great public interest. This interest is explained by the natural need of a person to know the history of his homeland, his roots. A people without historical memory is doomed to degradation. He cannot give up his past, because then he will have no future. The most important sources of Russian history are chronicles. Nowadays, Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) make up about 85% of the population of Russia, 96% of Ukraine and 98% of Belarus. However, this situation has arisen quite recently. Getting acquainted with the most ancient descriptions of our country, until the first centuries of our era, we will not even find a mention of the name of the Slavs. The history of the Eastern Slavs, like most other peoples, has its roots in ancient times. Without knowledge of the peculiarities of the historical and spiritual development of the ancient Eastern Slavs, it is impossible to fully reveal the essence and nature of the relations of modern Slavic peoples among themselves and with other peoples.

The first who tried to answer the questions: where, how and when the Slavs appeared on historical territory was the ancient chronicler Nestor, the author of The Tale of Bygone Years. He defined the territory of the Slavs, including the lands along the lower Danube and Pannonia. It was from the Danube that the process of settlement of the Slavs began, that is, the Slavs were not the original inhabitants of their land, we are talking about their migration. Consequently, the Kiev chronicler was the founder of the so-called migration territory of origin of the Slavs, known as the “Danube” or “Balkan”.

The history of the Eastern Slavs, like most other peoples, has its roots in ancient times. Without knowledge of the peculiarities of the historical and spiritual development of the ancient Eastern Slavs, it is impossible to fully reveal the essence and nature of the relations of modern Slavic peoples among themselves and with other peoples.

1. Origin of the Eastern Slavs

The Slavs, according to most historians, separated from the Indo-European community in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The ancestral home of the early Slavs (Proto-Slavs), according to archaeological data, was the territory to the east of the Germans - from the Oder River in the west to the Carpathian Mountains in the east. A number of researchers believe that the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape later, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e.

The first written evidence about the Slavs dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Greek, Roman, Arab, and Byzantine sources report on the Slavs. Ancient authors mention the Slavs under the name of the Wends. The Wends at that time occupied approximately the territory of what is now South-Eastern Poland, South-Western Belarus and North-Western Ukraine.

During the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, the Slavs conquered the territory of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. They lived in the forest and forest-steppe zone. The peculiarities of agriculture forced the Slavs to colonize vast territories. The Slavs moved and settled along large rivers, which at that time served as transport arteries. The local population (Iranian, Baltic, Finno-Ugric) was easily assimilated by the Slavs, usually peacefully. The relations of the Slavs with nomadic peoples were special. Along this steppe ocean, stretching from the Black Sea region to Central Asia, wave after wave of nomadic tribes invaded Eastern Europe. At the end of the 4th century. The Gothic tribal union was broken by the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Huns who came from Central Asia. In 375, hordes of Huns occupied the territory between the Volga and Danube with their nomads, and then advanced further into Europe to the borders of France. In their advance to the west, the Huns carried away some of the Slavs. After the death of the leader of the Huns, Atilla (453), the Hunnic state collapsed, and they were thrown back to the east.

In the VI century. Turkic-speaking Avars (the Russian chronicle called them Obra) created their own state in the southern Russian steppes, uniting the nomadic tribes there. The Avar Khaganate was defeated by Byzantium in 625. The “proud in mind” and body of the great Avars disappeared without a trace. “They died like obras” - these words from the light hand of the Russian chronicler became an aphorism.

Eastern Slavs in the VI-IX centuries. In the VI century. The Slavs repeatedly carried out military campaigns against the largest state of that time - Byzantium. From this time, a number of works by Byzantine authors have reached us, containing unique military instructions on how to fight the Slavs. So, for example, the Byzantine Procopius from Caesarea in the book “War with the Goths” wrote: “These tribes, the Slavs and Antes, are not ruled by one person, but from ancient times they have lived in democracy (democracy), and therefore for them happiness and misfortune in life are considered a matter of common... They believe that only God, the creator of lightning, is the ruler over everyone, and they sacrifice bulls to him and perform other sacred rites... Both have the same language... And once even the name Slavs and Antes were one and the same."

The formation of large tribal associations of the Slavs is indicated by a legend contained in the Russian chronicle, which tells about the reign of Kiya with his brothers Shchek, Khoriv and sister Lybid in the Middle Dnieper region. Kyiv, founded by the brothers, was allegedly named after his older brother Kiy. The chronicler noted that other tribes had similar reigns. Historians believe that these events occurred at the end of the 5th - 6th centuries. n. e.

The issue of the origin of the Slavs is quite controversial and today there are a large number of theories that approach the study of this issue from different points of view. Most historians agree that the search for the ancestors of the Slavs should be sought in the second millennium BC. It was then that the birth of the Slavic tribe took place, who lived in a small territory in the Vistula region. Subsequently, the Slavs developed more and more new lands, moving further west, and eventually reached the Oder River. In textbooks you can often find the assumption that the migration of our ancestors would have continued further to the west, but the ancestors of modern Germans did not allow them to cross the Oder. At the same time, the Slavs migrated to the east. An absolutely proven fact is that they reached the banks of the Dnieper.

According to V. Sedov, the first historical and geographical information about the ancient Slavs is contained in the works of Greco-Roman authors who wrote at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. e. Many historical sources record the name of the ancient Slavs - Veneds (Venetas). We read about this, in particular, from the historian of the 6th century. - Jordan. However, the Slavs themselves did not call themselves that. This ethnonym is used in relation to them only by foreign authors.

According to the Tale of Bygone Years, the homeland of the ancient Slavs, and indeed of all humanity in general, was Western Asia. Following the chronicle, the history of the Slavs begins with the Babylonian pandemonium, when they emerged from 72 peoples scattered in different directions.

Life of the Eastern Slavs. Hood. S. V. Ivanov, 1909. The location of the painting is unknown

Speaking about the ancient Slavs, they distinguish, with a certain degree of convention, the historical boundaries of the Proto-Slavs (the most distant ancestors) and the Proto-Slavs (the closest ancestors). But it’s not just a matter of blurring time boundaries. Both linguistic and ethnic boundaries are blurred. In this regard, a fundamental question arises: who should be considered the ancestors of the Slavs? The fact is that the Slavs, like, for the most part, other peoples, in the process of ethno-territorial localization, were formed from many tribes and peoples.

Sometimes the idea is expressed that the ancestors of the Slavs initially lived in some small territory, from which they settled across the vast expanses of the planet. Disagreement with this position was expressed by Academician B. A. Rybakov and supported by other authors. At the same time, another, more productive position was formulated, which is expressed in the following: no “small” ancestral home of the Slavs existed, and could not have existed according to the laws and characteristics of the long ethnogenesis of large “arrays”. Already at the dawn of their history, the ancestors of the Slavs were numerous related Indo-European tribes that inhabited vast territories from the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the south to the Baltic and White Seas in the north, from northern Italy and the Elbe (Laba) basin in the west to Asia Minor and the Volga basin in the east. And they called themselves by their tribal names. Therefore, at some historical stage, their ancestors may not have had a single collective name denoting the entire set of Proto-Slavic peoples, but rather had several collective names with dialectal differences. Moreover, the ancestors of the Slavs could have been representatives of various Indo-European and non-Indo-European ethnic groups. The same proto- and proto-Slavic peoples took part in the territorial localization of various Indo-European peoples. There are many examples of this. For example, the Krivichi participated in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs on the territory of modern Belarus, Russia, the Baltic countries and even... in the north-west of India. The situation is similar with the Polans, Northerners and other Russian-Venetian peoples who took part in the formation of various branches of the current Slavic world.

The ancient Slavs settled in settlements (analogous to a modern city). The settlements were built with great regard for safety, since an invasion of nomads could be expected at any moment. That is why such villages were located at higher elevations - on high hills, at river mouths. Fortifications were built near rivers and lakes, which provided the population with fresh water, which was also used to irrigate arable land. The clan (family) in the settlements lived in huts. The huts were quite primitive and served mainly for protection from natural phenomena (rain, snow and wind). In the hut itself there were no partitions or divisions into rooms. There was only a fireplace in it. Many of these huts were dugouts that were 1.5 meters deep, which made it possible to better retain heat in the winter.

In Central Europe approximately 1700 BC. A unified ethnic, cultural and economic environment began to form from among the related Pravenetian tribes. The stage of its development, which lasted approximately from the 13th to the 4th centuries BC. e., received the name of the Lusatian archaeological culture of the late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The name goes back to the Slavic region of Lusatia - Lausitz in Germany). The Polabian Slavs mastered the lands from the Odra River (German name - "Oder") to the Laba (in German - "Elbe") and its tributary the Saale. Fortifications, settlements, and burial grounds with corpses were excavated. The basis of the Lusatian economy was agriculture and cattle breeding.

The ancient Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. Cattle were used for work as well as food for the tribe's inhabitants. The cultivated crops were dominated by grains, the surplus of which was then sold. The ancient Slavs had an extensive network of trade routes and traded with the surrounding settled tribes. It is in the development of these trade relations that the main prerequisites for the rapid development of Slavic civilization lie. Economic ties made it possible to provide the population, in particular, with sophisticated weapons, as well as various items necessary in everyday life - fabrics, dishes and other utensils.

Introduction

The historical development of mankind has always been uneven. And this is not surprising, because in those distant times man was completely dependent on nature. Features of the landscape, flora and fauna, and climate determined a person’s entire life: his appearance (the formation of races, the type of economy, language characteristics, cultural differences, ideological foundations and the very speed of development of civilization. And the more difficult, the more severe the living conditions were, the slower the pace historical development. In the most favorable areas for humans, local civilizations of Antiquity developed, which laid the foundations - the civilization of the Middle Ages. It was at this time - in the Middle Ages - that the history of our Fatherland begins.

Ancient Rus' is the origins of statehood, culture, and the mentality of Russian people. Scientific debates continue about who the Slavs are, where the Russian land came from, and what the prehistory of the Russian state is.

Origin of the Slavs

First information about the Slavs

The first written evidence about the Slavs dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. These are Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arabic sources. The ancient authors Herodotus (5th century BC), Polybius (III-II centuries BC), Strabo (1st AD) mention the Slavs under the name of the Wends (Venetians), Antes and Sklavins. The first information about the political history of the Slavs dates back to the 4th century. AD

The Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, etc.) inhabiting modern Eastern Europe once formed an ethnic community, which is conventionally called the Proto-Slavs. Around the 2nd millennium BC. e. stood out from an even more ancient Indo-European community. Therefore, all Slavic languages ​​belong to the Indo-European language family. This explains the fact that, despite all the similarity of the language and cultural elements associated with it, in other respects there are serious differences between the Slavic peoples, even in anthropological type. This applies not only, for example, to the southern and western Slavs, but there are also differences of this kind within individual groups of certain East Slavic peoples. No less significant differences are found in the sphere of material culture, since the Slavicized ethnic groups that became an integral part of certain Slavic peoples had unequal material culture, the features of which were preserved in their descendants. It is in the sphere of material culture, as well as such an element of culture as music, that there are significant differences even between such closely related peoples as Russians and Ukrainians.

However, in ancient times there was a certain ethnos, the arena of its habitat was obviously not extensive, contrary to the opinion of some researchers who think that the region of residence of the Proto-Slavs should be significant and are looking for confirmation of this. This phenomenon is quite common in history.

The question of which territory is considered the ancestral home of the Slavs does not have a clear answer in historical science. However, when the Slavs joined the world migration process of the 2nd-7th centuries. - “Great Migration” - they settled in three main directions: to the south - to the Balkan Peninsula; to the west - between the Oder and Elbe rivers; to the east and north - along the East European Plain.

There is every reason to believe that the area of ​​settlement of the Proto-Slavs, who, as proven by linguists, separated from their related Balts in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, during the time of Herodotus, was very small. Considering that there is no news about the Slavs until the first centuries AD. in written sources, and these sources, as a rule, came from the regions of the Northern Black Sea region, most of the territory of modern Ukraine, except for its north-west, must be excluded from the area of ​​settlement of the Proto-Slavs.

To this day, there is a historical region of Galicia, the western part of which is now inhabited by Poles, and the eastern part by Ukrainians.

The very name of the area seems to suggest that the Gauls once lived here, i.e. Celts, although a number of scientists dispute this. It is quite possible to assume the presence of Celts in this area at one time, given the Celtic affiliation of the Boii. In this case, the area of ​​​​the oldest settlement of the Slavs has to be sought to the north of Czechoslovakia and the Carpathian Mountains. However, the territory of present-day western Poland was not Slavic either - from the Middle Vistula, including Pomerania, where the East German tribes of the Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, etc. lived.

In general, a retrospective look at ethnic changes in Central Europe shows that the Germanic tribes once occupied some very limited territory of what is now East Germany and Western Poland. Even to the west of modern Germany they came relatively late, literally on the eve of the Romans’ penetration there, and earlier the Celts and perhaps some other peoples lived there.

Probably, some expansion of the ethnic territory of the Slavs was also observed in the 3rd - 4th centuries, but, unfortunately, there are almost no sources for this time. The so-called Peutinger Map, the final edition of which dates back to the first half of the 5th century, includes, however, significant elements of earlier information dating back to the 1st century. BC, and therefore it is very difficult to use its data.

The Wends on this Map are shown to the north-west of the Carpathians, together with some part of the Sarmatians, and obviously this localization corresponds to the very purpose of the Pevtinger Map - itenirarium, which focuses primarily on the most important trade routes that connected Roman possessions with other countries . The joint presence of the Wends and Sarmatians in the Carpathian region obviously reflects, with elements of the 5th century, the realities of the 2nd - 4th centuries. before the invasion of the Huns.

It would seem that archeology should make significant adjustments to our knowledge of the early history of the Slavs. But due to the specifics of its materials, they cannot exist until the appearance of written sources.

accurately identified with certain ethnic communities. Archaeologists are trying to see the Slavs as bearers of various archaeological

cultures, ranging from the so-called culture of subklosh burials (IV - II centuries BC, Upper Vistula and Warta basin) to various archaeological cultures of the first half of the 1st millennium AD. However, there is much that is controversial in these conclusions even for archaeologists themselves. Until recently, the fairly widespread interpretation that the Chernyakhov culture belonged to the Slavs did not have many adherents, and most scientists believe that this culture was created by different ethnic groups with a predominance of Iranians.

The Hunnic invasion led to significant population movements, including from the steppe and partially forest-steppe zones of our south. This applies most of all to the steppe regions, where, after a short-term hegemony of the corners, already in the 6th century. The proto-Turks prevailed. The forest-steppe of present-day Ukraine and the North Caucasus (Don region) is a different matter. Here the old Iranian population turned out to be more stable, but it also began to gradually be exposed to the Slavs who were steadily moving east. Obviously, already in the 5th century. the latter reached the middle Dnieper, where they assimilated local Iranians. It was probably the latter who founded the towns on the Kyiv mountains, since the name of Kyiv can be explained from Iranian dialects as a princely (town). Then the Slavs advanced beyond the Dnieper into the Desna River basin, which received the Slavic name (Right). It is curious, however, that the main part of the large rivers in the south retained their old, pre-Slavic (Iranian) names. So, the Don is just a river, the Dnieper is explained as a deep river, Russia is a bright river, Pond is a river, etc. But the names of the rivers in the north-west of Ukraine and in most of Belarus are Slavic (Berezina, Teterev, Goryn, etc.), and this is undoubtedly evidence of the very ancient habitation of the Slavs there. In general, there is reason to assert that it was the Hunnic invasion that provided significant incentive and opportunity to expand the territory of the Slavs. Perhaps the main enemies of the Huns were the Germans (Goths, etc.) and Iranians (Alans), whom they conquered and mercilessly pursued, dragging them along in their campaigns to the west. The Slavs, if they did not become natural allies of the Huns (and there are certain grounds for this conclusion), then, in any case, used the current situation to their advantage. In the 5th century The movement of the Slavs to the west continues and they push the Germans back to the Elbe, and then to this river. From the end of the 5th century. The beginning of the Slavic colonization of the Balkans is also observed, where they quickly assimilated the local Illyrians, Dalmatians and Thracians. There is every reason to talk about a similar movement of the Slavs to the east, in the area of ​​​​present-day Ukraine and Great Russia. In the forest-steppe part, after the Hun invasion, the local population decreased significantly, but in the forest it was never numerous.

At the same time, the Slavs, initially as inhabitants of forests (and this is exactly how Byzantine historians of the 6th century portray them to us), moved and settled mainly along large rivers, which at that time served as almost the only transport arteries for forest and forest-steppe regions. The local population (Iranian, Baltic, and then Finnish) was quite easily assimilated by the Slavs, usually peacefully. The vast majority of our information about the early Slavs comes from Byzantine sources. Even information preserved from the 6th - 7th centuries. Syriac and Arab writers, generally go back to Byzantium.

Special, heightened attention to the Slavs began precisely from the end of the second decade of the 6th century. is explained primarily by the fact that from that time they began to actively penetrate the Balkan Peninsula and within a few decades they took possession of most of it. The Greeks, the remnants of the Romanesque population (the Volochs are the ancestors of the Romanians), and the ancestors of the Albanians have survived here, but little is written about them, since the main role in the political life of the Balkans is increasingly played by the Slavs, who were advancing on Byzantium from both sides - from the north Balkan Peninsula and from the lower reaches of the Danube.

Thus, once united, in the VI-VIII centuries. The proto-Slavs were divided into southern, western and eastern Slavs. In the future, although their historical destinies were inevitably connected with each other, each branch of the Slavic peoples created its own history.

Origin of the Slavs

Until the end of the 18th century, science could not give a satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs, although it already attracted the attention of scientists. This is evidenced by the first attempts dating back to that time to give an outline of the history of the Slavs, in which this question was raised. All statements connecting the Slavs with such ancient peoples as the Sarmatians, Getae, Alans, Illyrians, Thracians, Vandals, etc., statements appearing in various chronicles from the beginning of the 16th century, are based only on an arbitrary, tendentious interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and church literature or on the simple continuity of peoples who once inhabited the same territory as the modern Slavs, or, finally, on the purely external similarity of some ethnic names.

This was the situation until the beginning of the 19th century. Only a few historians were able to rise above the level of science of that time, in which the solution to the question of the origin of the Slavs could not be scientifically substantiated and had no prospects. The situation changed for the better only in the first half of the 19th century under the influence of two new scientific disciplines: comparative linguistics and anthropology; both of them introduced new positive facts.

History itself is silent. There is not a single historical fact, not a single reliable tradition, not even a mythological genealogy that would help us answer the question of the origin of the Slavs. The Slavs appear on the historical arena unexpectedly as a great and already formed people; we don't even know where he came from or what his relations were with other peoples. Only one piece of evidence brings apparent clarity to the question that interests us: this is a well-known passage from the chronicle attributed to Nestor and preserved to this day in the form in which it was written in Kiev in the 12th century; this passage can be considered a kind of “birth certificate” of the Slavs.

The first part of the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years” began to be created at least a century earlier. At the beginning of the chronicle there is a fairly detailed legendary story about the settlement of the peoples who once tried to erect the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar. This information is borrowed from Byzantine chronicles of the 6th–9th centuries (the so-called “Easter” chronicle and the chronicle of Malala and Amartol); however, in the corresponding places of the named chronicles there is not a single mention of the Slavs. This gap obviously offended the Slavic chronicler, the venerable monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. He wanted to make up for it by placing his people among those peoples who, according to tradition, lived in Europe; therefore, by way of clarification, he attached the name “Slavs” to the name of the Illyrians - Illyro-Slavs. With this addition, he included the Slavs in history, without even changing the traditional number of 72 peoples. It was here that the Illyrians were first called a people related to the Slavs, and from this time on this point of view was dominant in the study of the history of the Slavs for a long time. The Slavs came from Shinar to Europe and settled first on the Balkan Peninsula. There we must look for their cradle, their European ancestral home, in the lands of the Illyrians, Thracians, in Pannonia, on the banks of the Danube. From here later separate Slavic tribes emerged, when their original unity disintegrated, to occupy their historical lands between the Danube, the Baltic Sea and the Dnieper.

This theory was first accepted by all Slavic historiography, and in particular by the old Polish school (Kadlubek, Bohuchwal, Mierzwa, Chronica Polonorum, Chronica principum Poloniae, Dlugosh, etc.) and Czech (Dalimil, Jan Marignola, Przybik Pulkawa, Hajek of Libočan , B. Paprocki); Later it acquired new speculations.

Then a new theory appeared. We don't know where exactly it originated. It should be assumed that it arose outside the mentioned schools, because for the first time we encounter this theory in the Bavarian chronicle of the 13th century and later among German and Italian scientists (Flav. Blondus, A. Coccius Sabellicus, F. Irenicus, B. Rhenanus, A. Krantz etc.). From them, this theory was adopted by the Slavic historians B. Vapovsky, M. Kromer, S. Dubravius, T. Peshina from Chekhorod, J. Bekovsky, J. Matthias from the Sudetenland and many others. According to the second theory, the Slavs allegedly moved north along the Black Sea coast and initially settled in Southern Russia, where history first knew the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians, and later the Alans, Roxolans, etc. This is where the idea of ​​the kinship of these tribes with the Slavs arose , as well as the idea of ​​the Balkan Sarmatians as the ancestors of all Slavs. Moving further west, the Slavs allegedly split into two main branches: the South Slavs (south of the Carpathians) and the Northern Slavs (north of the Carpathians).

So, together with the theory of the initial division of the Slavs into two branches, the Balkan and Sarmatian theories appeared; both of them had their enthusiastic followers, both of them lasted until the present day. Even now, books often appear in which the ancient history of the Slavs is based on identifying them with the Sarmatians or with the Thracians, Dacians and Illyrians. Nevertheless, already at the end of the 18th century, some scientists realized that such theories, based only on the supposed analogy of various peoples with the Slavs, have no value. The Czech Slavist J. Dobrovsky wrote to his friend Kopitar in 1810: “Such research pleases me. Only I come to a completely different conclusion. All this proves to me that the Slavs are not Dacians, Getae, Thracians, Illyrians, Pannonians... The Slavs are Slavs, and the Lithuanians are closest to them. So, they need to be looked for among the latter on the Dnieper or beyond the Dnieper.”

Some historians held the same views even before Dobrovsky. After him, Safarik in his “Slavic Antiquities” refuted the views of all previous researchers. If in his early writings he was greatly influenced by the old theories, then in Antiquities, published in 1837, he rejected, with some exceptions, these hypotheses as erroneous. Safarik based his book on a thorough analysis of historical facts. Therefore, his work will forever remain the main and indispensable guide on this issue, despite the fact that the problem of the origin of the Slavs is not resolved in it - such a task exceeded the capabilities of the most rigorous historical analysis of that time.

Other scientists turned to the new science of comparative linguistics in order to find an answer that history could not give them. The mutual kinship of Slavic languages ​​was assumed at the beginning of the 12th century (see the Kievan Chronicle), but for a long time the true degree of kinship of the Slavic languages ​​with other European languages ​​was unknown. The first attempts made in the 17th and 18th centuries to find out (G. W. Leibniz, P. Ch. Levesque, Fr?ret, Court de Gebelin, J. Dankowsky, K. G. Anton, J. Chr. Adelung, Iv. Levanda, B. Siestrzencewicz etc.) had the disadvantage that they were either too indecisive or simply unreasonable. When W. Jones in 1786 established the common origin of Sanskrit, Gaulish, Greek, Latin, German and Old Persian, he had not yet determined the place of the Slavic language in the family of these languages.

Only F. Bopp, in the second volume of his famous “Comparative Grammar” (“Vergleichende Grammatik”, 1833), resolved the question of the relationship of the Slavic language with the rest of the Indo-European languages ​​and thereby gave the first scientifically substantiated answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs, which historians unsuccessfully tried to resolve . The solution to the question of the origin of a language is at the same time an answer to the question of the origin of the people speaking this language.

Since that time, many disputes have arisen about the Indo-Europeans and the essence of their language. Various views have been expressed which are now rightly rejected and have lost all value. It has only been proven that none of the known languages ​​is the ancestor of other languages ​​and that there has never been an Indo-European people of a single unmixed race that would have a single language and a single culture. Along with this, the following provisions have been adopted that form the basis of our current views:

1. Once upon a time there was a common Indo-European language, which, however, was never completely unified.

2. The development of dialects of this language led to the emergence of a number of languages ​​that we call Indo-European or Aryan. These include, not counting the languages ​​that have disappeared without a trace, Greek, Latin, Gaulish, German, Albanian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Persian, Sanskrit and Common Slavic or Proto-Slavic, which over quite a long time developed into modern Slavic languages. The beginning of the existence of the Slavic peoples dates back to the time when this common language emerged.

The process of development of this language is still unclear. Science has not yet advanced enough to adequately address this issue. It has only been established that a number of factors contributed to the formation of new languages ​​and peoples: the spontaneous force of differentiation, local differences that arose as a result of the isolation of individual groups, and, finally, the assimilation of foreign elements. But to what extent did each of these factors contribute to the emergence of a common Slavic language? This question is almost unresolved, and therefore the history of the common Slavic language is still unclear.

The development of the Aryan proto-language could occur in two ways: either through a sudden and complete separation of different dialects and the peoples speaking them from the mother trunk, or through decentralization associated with the formation of new dialect centers, which were isolated gradually, without completely breaking away from the original core, that is, not having lost contact with other dialects and peoples. Both of these hypotheses had their adherents. The pedigree proposed by A. Schleicher, as well as the pedigree compiled by A. Fick, are well known; The theory of “waves” (?bergangs-Wellen-Theorie) of Johann Schmidt is also known. In accordance with various concepts, the view on the origin of the Proto-Slavs also changed, as can be seen from the two diagrams presented below.

Pedigree of A. Schleicher, compiled in 1865

Pedigree of A. Fick

When the differences in the Indo-European language began to increase and when this large linguistic community began to split into two groups - the Satem and Centum languages ​​- the Proto-Slavic language, combined with the Proto-Lithic language, was included in the first group for quite a long time, so that it retained special similarities with the ancient Thracian (Armenian) and Indo-Iranian languages. The connection with the Thracians was closest in the outlying areas where the historical Dacians later lived. The ancestors of the Germans were in the Centum group of peoples among the closest neighbors of the Slavs. We can judge this from some analogies in the Slavic and German languages.

At the beginning of the second millennium BC. e. all Indo-European languages, in all likelihood, have already formed and divided, since during this millennium some Aryan peoples appear as already established ethnic units in Europe and Asia. The future Lithuanians were then still united with the Proto-Slavs. The Slavic-Lithuanian people to this day represent (with the exception of the Indo-Iranian languages) the only example of the primitive community of two Aryan peoples; its neighbors have always been the Germans and Celts on one side, and the Thracians and Iranians on the other.

After the separation of the Lithuanians from the Slavs, which most likely occurred in the second or first millennium BC. e., the Slavs formed a single people with a common language and only faint dialect differences, and remained in this state until the beginning of our era. During the first millennium AD, their unity began to disintegrate, new languages ​​developed (though still very close to each other) and new Slavic peoples arose. This is the information that linguistics gives us, this is its answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs.

Along with comparative linguistics, another science appeared - anthropology, which also brought new additional facts. The Swedish researcher A. Retzius in 1842 began to determine the place of the Slavs among other peoples from a somatological point of view, based on the shape of their heads, and created a system based on the study of the relative length of the skull and the size of the facial angle. He united the ancient Germans, Celts, Romans, Greeks, Hindus, Persians, Arabs and Jews into the group of “dolichocephalic (long-headed) orthognaths”, and the Ugrians, European Turks, Albanians, Basques, ancient Etruscans, Latvians and Slavs into the group of “brachycephalic (short-headed) ) orthognathates". Both groups were of different origins, so the race to which the Slavs belonged was completely alien to the race to which the Germans and Celts belonged. Obviously, one of them had to be “Aryanized” by the other and take on the Indo-European language from it. A. Retzius did not particularly try to define the relationship between language and race. This question arose later in the first French and German anthropological schools. German scientists, relying on new studies of German burials of the Merovingian era (V-VIII centuries) with the so-called “Reihengr?ber”, created, in accordance with the Retzius system, a theory of an ancient pure Germanic race with a relatively long head (dolichocephals or mesocephals) and with some characteristic external features: fairly tall, pink complexion, blond hair, light eyes. This race was contrasted by another, smaller, with a shorter head (brachycephals), darker skin color, brown hair and dark eyes; the main representatives of this race were supposed to be the Slavs and the ancient inhabitants of France - the Celts, or Gauls.

In France, the school of the outstanding anthropologist P. Broca (E. Hamy, Ab. Hovelacque, P. Topinard, R. Collignon, etc.) adopted approximately the same point of view; Thus, in anthropological science, a theory appeared about two original races that once populated Europe and from which a family of peoples speaking the Indo-European language was formed. It remained to be seen - and this caused a lot of controversy - which of the two original races was Aryan and which was “Aryanized” by the other race.

The Germans almost always considered the first race, long-headed and blond, to be a race of ancestral Aryans, and this view was shared by leading English anthropologists (Thurnam, Huxley, Sayce, Rendall). In France, on the contrary, opinions were divided. Some adhered to the German theory (Lapouge), while others (the majority of them) considered a second race, dark and brachycephalic, often called Celtic-Slavic, the original race that transmitted the Indo-European language to the northern European fair-haired foreigners. Since its main features, brachycephaly and dark coloring of hair and eyes, brought this race closer to the Central Asian peoples with similar characteristics, it was even suggested that it was related to the Finns, Mongols and Turanians. The place intended, according to this theory, for the Proto-Slavs is easy to determine: the Proto-Slavs came from Central Asia, they had relatively short heads, dark eyes and hair. Brachycephals with dark eyes and hair inhabited Central Europe, mainly its mountainous regions, and mixed partly with their northern long-headed and blond neighbors, partly with more ancient peoples, namely with the dark dolichocephals of the Mediterranean. According to one version, the Proto-Slavs, having mixed with the first, passed on their speech to them; according to another version, on the contrary, they themselves adopted their speech.

However, supporters of this theory of the Turanian origin of the Slavs based their conclusions on an erroneous or, at least, insufficiently substantiated hypothesis. They relied on the results obtained from the study of two groups of sources, very distant from each other in time: the original Germanic type was determined from early sources - documents and burials of the 5th–8th centuries, while the Proto-Slavic type was established from relatively later sources, since the early the sources were still little known at that time. Thus, incomparable values ​​were compared - the current state of one nation with the former state of another nation. Therefore, as soon as ancient Slavic burials were discovered and new craniological data came to light, supporters of this theory immediately encountered numerous difficulties, while at the same time, an in-depth study of ethnographic material also yielded a number of new facts. It was found that skulls from Slavic burials of the 9th–12th centuries are mostly of the same elongated shape as the skulls of the ancient Germans, and are very close to them; it was also noted that historical documents give descriptions of the ancient Slavs as a blond people with light or blue eyes and a pink complexion. It turned out that among the Northern Slavs (at least among the majority of them) some of these physical traits prevail to this day.

Ancient burials of the South Russian Slavs contained skeletons, of which 80–90% had dolichocephalic and mesocephalic skulls; burials of northerners on Psela - 98%; burials of the Drevlyans - 99%; burials of glades in the Kyiv region - 90%, ancient Poles in Plock - 97.5%, in Slabozhev - 97%; burials of ancient Polabian Slavs in Mecklenburg - 81%; burials of Lusatian Serbs in Leibengen in Saxony - 85%; in Burglengenfeld in Bavaria - 93%. Czech anthropologists, when studying the skeletons of ancient Czechs, found that among the latter, skulls of dolichocephalic forms were more common than among modern Czechs. I. Gellikh established (in 1899) among the ancient Czechs 28% of dolichocephalic and 38.5% of mesocephalic individuals; these numbers have increased since then.

The first text, which mentions the 6th century Slavs who lived on the banks of the Danube, says that the Slavs are neither black nor white, but dark blond:

„?? ?? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ????, ? ?????? ?????, ???? ?? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????????, ???? ????????? ????? ???????“.

Almost all ancient Arabic evidence from the 7th–10th centuries characterizes the Slavs as fair-haired (ashab); Only Ibrahim Ibn Yaqub, a Jewish traveler of the 10th century, notes: “it is interesting that the inhabitants of the Czech Republic are dark.” The word “interesting” betrays his surprise that the Czechs are dark-skinned, from which one can conclude that the rest of the northern Slavs in general were not dark-skinned. However, even today among the Northern Slavs the predominant type is blond, not brown-haired.

Some researchers, based on these facts, took a new point of view on the origin of the Slavs and attributed their ancestors to the blond and dolichocephalic, so-called Germanic race, which formed in Northern Europe. They argued that over the centuries the original Slavic type had changed under the influence of the environment and crossing with neighboring races. This point of view was defended by the Germans R. Virchow, I. Kolman, T. Poesche, K. Penka, and among the Russians A. P. Bogdanov, D. N. Anuchin, K. Ikov, N. Yu. Zograf; I also subscribed to this point of view in my early writings.

However, the problem turned out to be more complex than previously thought and cannot be resolved so easily and simply. In many places, brachycephalic skulls and remains of dark or black hair were found in Slavic burials; on the other hand, it must be recognized that the modern somatological structure of the Slavs is very complex and indicates only the general predominance of the dark and brachycephalic type, the origin of which is difficult to explain. It cannot be assumed that this predominance was predetermined by the environment, nor can it be satisfactorily explained by later crossing. I tried to use data from all sources, both old and new, and, based on them, I came to the conviction that the question of the origin and development of the Slavs is much more complex than it has hitherto been represented; I believe that the most plausible and probable hypothesis is built on the combination of all these complex factors.

The Proto-Aryan type did not represent a pure type of a pure race. In the era of Indo-European unity, when internal linguistic differences began to increase, this process was influenced by different races, especially the Northern European dolichocephalic light-haired race and the Central European brachycephalic dark race. Therefore, individual peoples formed in this way during the third and second millennium BC. e., were no longer a pure race from a somatological point of view; this also applies to the Proto-Slavs. There is no doubt that they were not distinguished by either purity of race or unity of physical type, for they received their origin from the two mentioned great races, at the junction of whose lands their ancestral home was; The most ancient historical information, as well as ancient burials, equally testify to this lack of racial unity among the Proto-Slavs. This also explains the great changes that have occurred among the Slavs over the last millennium. Undoubtedly, this problem remains to be carefully considered, but the solution to it - I am convinced of this - can be based not so much on the recognition of environmental influences as on the recognition of the crossing and "struggle for life" of the basic elements available , that is, the northern dolichocephalic fair-haired race and the central European brachycephalic dark-haired race.

Thousands of years ago, the type of the first race prevailed among the Slavs, which has now been absorbed by another, more viable race.

Archeology is currently unable to resolve the question of the origin of the Slavs. Indeed, it is impossible to trace Slavic culture from the historical era to those ancient times when the Slavs were formed. In the ideas of archaeologists about Slavic antiquities before the 5th century AD. e. Complete confusion reigns, and all their attempts to prove the Slavic character of the Lusatian and Silesian burial fields in eastern Germany and to draw appropriate conclusions from this have so far been unsuccessful. It was not possible to prove that the named burial fields belonged to the Slavs, since the connection of these monuments with undoubtedly Slavic burials still cannot be established. At best, one can only admit the possibility of such an interpretation.

Some German archaeologists suggest that the Proto-Slavic culture was one of the constituent parts of the great Neolithic culture called “Indo-European” or better “Danubian and Transcarpathian” with a variety of ceramics, some of which were painted. This is also acceptable, but we have no positive evidence for this, since the connection of this culture with the historical era is completely unknown to us.