In the history of the Slavs a lot of white spots, which givesthe opportunity for numerous modern “researchers” to put forward the most fantastic theories about the origin and formation of the statehood of the Slavic peoples on the basis of conjectures and unproved facts. Often, even the concept of “Slav” is misunderstood and is regarded as a synonym for the concept “Russian”. Moreover, there is an opinion that the Slav is a nationality. All this is misleading.
Slavs make up the largest in Europeethno-linguistic community. Inside it there are three main groups: Eastern Slavs (i.e. Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians), Western (Poles, Czechs, Lusatians and Slovaks) and southern Slavs (among them we will name Bosnians, Serbs, Macedonians, Croats, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Slovenes). Slav is not a nationality, as a nation is narrowerconcept of Separate Slavic nations formed relatively late, while the Slavs (or rather, the Proto-Slavs) emerged from the Indo-European community for one and a half thousand years BC. er It took several centuries, and they learned about ancient travelers. At the turn of the era, Slavs were mentioned by Roman historians under the name of “Wends”: it is known from written sources that Slavic tribes fought wars with the Germans.
It is believed that the homeland of the Slavs (more precisely, the place where they formed as a community) was the territory between the Oder and the Vistula (some authors argue that between the Oder and the middle reaches of the Dnieper).
It makes sense to considerthe origin of the concept of "Slav". In ancient times, people were often called by the name of the river on whose banks they lived. In ancient times, the Dnieper was called Slavutych. The root of “glory” itself probably goes back to the common word for all Indo-Europeans, kleu, which means rumor or fame. There is one more common version: “Slovak”, “Tskovak” and, ultimately, “Slav” - this is just “a person” or “a person who speaks our way”. Representatives of the ancient tribes of all outsiders who spoke an incomprehensible language were not at all considered people. The self-name of any nation - for example, "Mansi" or "Nenets" - in most cases means "man" or "man."
Slav is a farmer.The ancestors of the Slavs learned to cultivate the land even in those times when all Indo-Europeans had a common language. In the northern territories practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, in the south - fallow. They grew millet, wheat, barley, rye, flax and hemp. Known garden crops: cabbage, beets, turnips. The Slavs lived in the forest and forest-steppe zones, therefore they were engaged in hunting, and pilicality, as well as fishing. They also bred cattle. The Slavs made weapons of high quality for those times, ceramics, and agricultural tools.
На ранних этапах развития у славян существовала tribal community, which gradually evolved into a neighbor. As a result of military campaigns, the nobility from the community members stood out; know received land, and the communal system was replaced by feudal.
In the north, the Slavs coexisted with the Baltic andGermanic tribes, in the west - with the Celts, in the east - with Scythians and Sarmatians, and in the south - with the ancient Macedonians, Thracians, Illyrians. At the end of the 5th century AD er they reached the Baltic and Black seas, and by the 8th century reached Lake Ladoga and mastered the Balkans. By the 10th century, Slavs occupied lands from the Volga to the Elbe, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. This migration activity was due to invasions of nomads from Central Asia, attacks by German neighbors, as well as climate change in Europe: some tribes were forced to look for new lands.
Eastern Slavs (the ancestors of modern Ukrainians,Belarusians and Russian) to the 9th century AD. er occupied lands from the Carpathians to the middle course of the Oka and Upper Don, from Ladoga to the Middle Dnieper region. They actively interacted with local Finno-Ugrians and Balts. Already from the 6th century, small tribes began to enter into alliances with each other, which marked the birth of statehood. At the head of each such union was a military leader.
The names of tribal unions are known to everyone from school.course of history: this is the Drevlyane, and Vyatichi, and northerners, and Krivichi. But the most famous, perhaps, the glade and Ilmen Slovenia. The former dwelled along the middle course of the Dnieper and founded Kiev, the latter lived on the shores of the Ilmen-lake and built Novgorod. The “way from the Varangians to the Greeks”, which emerged in the 9th century, promoted the rise and, subsequently, the unification of these cities. Thus, in 882, the state of the Slavs of the East European Plain arose - Russia.
Slavs can not be called an ancient people.Unlike the Egyptians or Indians, they did not have time to work out a developed mythological system. It is known that the cosmogonic myths of the Slavs (that is, the myths about the origin of the world) have much in common with the Finno-Ugric ones. In them, too, there is an egg, from which the world is "born", and two ducks, on the orders of the supreme god, bringing from the bottom of the ocean the silt to create the earth's firmament. At first, the Slavs worshiped Rod and the Rozhanitsy, later - to the personified forces of nature (Perun, Svarog, Mokosh, Dazhdogu).
There were ideas about paradise - Iriy (Vyrii),World Tree (Dube). Religious ideas of the Slavs developed along the same lines as other European nations (after all, the ancient Slav is European!): From the deification of natural phenomena to the recognition of the one God. It is known that in the 10th century AD er Prince Vladimir tried to “unify” the pantheon, making him the supreme deity of Perun, the patron saint of warriors. But the reform failed, and the prince had to pay attention to Christianity. Forced Christianization, however, was not able to completely destroy the pagan ideas: Elijah the prophet was identified with Perun, and Christ and the Virgin Mary were mentioned in the texts of magical conspiracies.
Alas, the myths of the Slavs about the gods and heroes were notrecorded. But these peoples created a developed lower mythology, the characters of which - the devils, mermaids, ghouls, pawns, bannits, bollards and midday - are known to us from songs, epics, proverbs. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, peasants told ethnographers about how to protect themselves from a werewolf and come to terms with a water one. Some remnants of paganism are still alive in the national consciousness.
