Sketch of Slavic Settlement in FYROM

[Vasiliye]

The well founded historical fact about settlement of the Slavs in the Balkans today finds its opponents embodied in the pseudoscientist circles of FYROM lead by Aleksandar Donski, TaÅ¡o Belčev, Vasil Iljov, Vangel Božinovski, Aristotel Tentov, Tome BoÅ¡evski and others.The most substantiated criticism of their collective body of work is its apriorism and obvious nationalistic bias in the process that appears to have outward form of a scientific inquiry but is unable to withstood serious criticism.In this article we shall summarize the main body of historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence about settlement of Slavs in the territory of modern day FYROM.

For a synthetic treatment of early Slavic ethnogenesis, "Slavs" (1971) by M. Gimbutas is a quintessential work It present evidence derived from prehistoric archeology, hidronymy and evidence from lexicology to establish early Slavs as a society located between rivers Dniepar and Dniestar, surrounded by Balts, Germans and Iranians.

First mention of the Slavic ethnic name is given by Ptolemy (II century AD) who mentions that Stauanoi and Souobenoi live at the east from Ouenedai (Veneds)

The emergence of the Slavic nation into the foreground of the European history was belated and rather slow.Their primitive habitats were most probably in the region between the Vistula and Dnieper rivers.From there some of the tribes began early to penetrate the lands beyond the Dnieper and to follow the course of the rivers, toward the black sea, the Danube and beyond it.

The Slav initiated his own volkwanderung equipped with quite an obsolete culture based on primitive subsistence near marshes, forests and steppe of Eastern Europe.Thus the early Slavic mind was challenged with adaptation as a mean to inflate his own capability of defense and subsistence.This early deficiency of basic military structuralism is evident from the fact that some of the terminology for certain types of arms in early Slavic is of Germanic origin: mečĭ "sword" from Gothic mēkeis, Å¡elmŭ, Old Church Slavonic Å¡lěmŭ, "helmet" from Germanic helm, as well as military term vitȩdzĭ "knight" and *pǔlkǔ "military formation" from Common Germanic *fulkaz "armed troop"1)

The Slavic word for king/duke knez is derived from Germanic kuningas.Družina-the Slavic council of noblemen is probably a Scythian influenced formation.According to Procopius, Slavs were not ruled by a single men, but the lived in a democracy.The rule of a tribal chief and council is an Indo-European vestige.

As a derivate of their mythology, the name of the god of horned animals "Veles" became a name of the town of Veles, south-east from Skopje.The cult of Veles-Volos was present in Russian folkore until recent times.

The name of the supreme Slavic god, Perun, the god of thunder, cognate to Lith. Perkǔnas was given to the mountain peaks Perun on the Kozjak mountain, and Perun over the village VitoliÅ¡te in Mariovo, both localities being in FYROM


Sholars generally agree that the "Slavic problem" started with the Huns in the first half of the fifth century, although there is no firm historic or archaeological hypothesis.It is known that Slavs were in company of Attila's Huns at whose funeral Jordanes mentions the feast as the Slavic word "strava".Priscus, a Byzantine diplomat sent as envoy to the Huns, noticed that the people in Banat and Bačka drink "medos", also a term with Slavic root.2)

Slavs allied with their more powerful partners, the Hunno-Bulgars, known under the names of Kutrigurs and Utigurs, making incursion into Thrace in 493, 499 and 502.At about the same period, Slavs began to evacuate Slavinia, as their land north of Danube was known.The Slavic tactics suited their lack of military sophistication.They wore shields, spears, bows and poisoned arrows but according to Procopius they have no armor and they often avoided open confrontation in the fields, instead choosing forests as a place of retreat and battle.Together with Avars, sometimes in opposition to them the Slavs plundered the off-littoral parts of the Balkan peninsula.The source "Miracula S. Demetrii" mentions how ThessalonÃ*ki was sacked and how all of Greece and the Aegean islands were attacked between 610-626.The tribes mentioned are Draguvites, Sagudates (perhaps a tribe of Hunnish origin) Velegezites, Vaiunites, Berzites (Brsjaci of modern-day FYROM?) and others.This book uses the term Σκλαβιναι in order to designate every land populated by Slavs.

According to Bishop Isidore of Seville , the Slavs "took Greece from the Romans" (Sclavi Graeciam Romanis tulerunt"), which must be consider an exergation, since the highly fragmented and insular character of Greece in the narrower term of the word wasn't convenient for mass settlement by Slavs , who used their primitive vessels, the monoxyles , to perform limited raids.The Slavic invasion ended before the middle of the seventh century.The scope of Slavic colonization is evident from the "Armenian geography" which mentions that Thrace and Macedonia, among other lands were populated by Slavs.

Analysis of Slavic hydronyms in Bulgaria by the linguist V. Georgiev demonstrated that the bulк of Slavic river names are to be found in North-Western Bulgaria and Eastern Serbia, thus demonstrating the route of Slavic colonization via Vardar and Struma rivers.

Theophanes the Confessor is the first author who mentions Sklavinias in relation to Macedonia ("Sklavinias throughout Macedonia").3)

Archaeological surveys of FYROM discovered a number of Slavic finds belonging to the earliest era of Slavic settlement.These are however, rare, due to poor fundings and primitiveness of local archaeology

Some of them are:

Slavic pits for keeping grain with ceramic vases in Berovo, Prilep, Bašino Selo near Veles.4)

Belt application from St.Erazmo, Ohrid, Amphorae, Vases, Torc and fibulae from the same location, ceramic vases from Prilep.5)

The monk Hrabar in his tractat "O Pismeneh" (9th century) uses the following terms to designate ethnolingustic realities of his time :словѢане (Slavs), словѢньскы (Slavic), словѢньскаа писмена (Slavic letters), словѢньскоу рѢчь (Slavic word), родь словѢньскыи (Slavic breed), словѢньскы книгы (Slavic books), по словѢньскомоу іазыкоу (in Slavic language).

Teophilactus mentions that the brothers from ThessalonÃ*ki found "Slavic letters" ("Σθλοβενικα γραμματα").The Pope John VIII issues adocument in which he calls that language: lingua sclavinica, sclavina.6)

After the collonisation of Slavs on the area of FYROM, much of the old geographic terminology was replaced with Slavic names:towns of Struga, Ohrid (Lihnid), Velbužd (Pautania), Kičevo, Debar, Raven, Kočani, RadoviÅ¡, Prosek, Delčevo, Stena, Sokolec, Črnče, Trnovo, Modrič, Belica, Železnec, Dobrun, ČreÅ¡če, Lukovica, SlaviÅ¡te, rivers Sateska, Bistrica, Lepenec, Pčinja, Kriva Reka, Treska, mountains Korab, Bistra, Belasica, Vodno etc.

Slavic personal names attested in medieval period are: Bratan, Bratislav, Boleslav (cf. Polish. Boleslaw), Boleslava, Vladimir, Verota, Vŭlkan, Grdju, Dobri, Dobresin, Dobroslav, Dragomad, Desislav, Dragan, Draža, Krasna, Kurica, Litovoj, Milju, Miroslava, Obrada, Prodan, Prevo, Rado, Radoslav, Stana, Stano, Slava, Slav, Tihomir, Černikosa etc.

From all of these matters combined we can conclude that the area of FYROM was indeed colonized by Slavic settlers who changed the ethnic make-up of the population, consisting mostly of Greek and Vulgar Latin speaking people.The Slavs were novelty to the Balkan peninsula which brought rudimentary material artifacts in their cultural inventory, but nevertheless managed to establish themselves demographically and later politically.The process of Slavic settlement from Eastern European core homeland to FYROM can be traced via historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence.The Slavic character of Pseudomacedonians is evident from their language, folklore and mythology.Slavs are not autochtonous population in Northern Geographic Macedonia, as some pseudo-scholars, motivated by aprioristic ideological fixations suggest

1) Gimbutas, M. "The Slavs", London 1971, p.77-78
2) Gimbutas, Ibid. p. 99
3) "Vizantiski izvori za istoriju naroda Jugoslavije", I, p. 222, 236
4) Belderovski Z., "Slovenski srednovekovni jami od Berovo", Macedoniae Acta Archaeologica No 9, 1983-1984, p. 230-232
5)“Umetnosta vo Makedonija“, Skopje 1984 p.121-133
6) Ilievski P. Hr., "Pojava i razvoj na pismoto", Skopje 2001, p.233



Portable idol of Perun, Skopje

[akritas]

Vasiliye can you (or your sources) estimated the date of the first Slavic findings in FYROM ?

[Vasiliye]

Originally Posted by akritas

Vasiliye can you (or your sources) estimated the date of the first Slavic findings in FYROM ?

The date given in most of the archaeological publication about the scarce artifacts belonging to the early Slavic period in FYROM is the 7th century AD.

[akritas]

Did they have any similarities with the other slavic findings in the Serbia, Croatia e.t.c.? In Greece the Slavic cemeteries and theirs findings are similar. Some scholars (e.g. Charanis, Setton, Bryonis ) name them and as Avar-Slavonic findings.

[Vasiliye]

Originally Posted by akritas

Did they have any similarities with the other slavic findings in the Serbia, Croatia e.t.c.? In Greece the Slavic cemeteries and theirs findings are similar. Some scholars (e.g. Charanis, Setton, Bryonis ) name them and as Avar-Slavonic findings.

There are similarities between Slavic archaeological finds in the Balkans, but one has to take in the consideration that the material from the era of incursion is often not only represented by mixed collection of artifacts, but often by artifacts which show eclectic stylistic variation.With regard to FYROM, the modest number of finds during the early period is best explained by the modest presence of Slavic population, which was more prominent in coastal Macedonia, Epirus and Peloponnese, where it was assimilated.Archaeologist Ivan Mikulčić thinks that the demographic refreshment with Slavic population inside FYROM came from the Danubian and Central Balkan regions in 10th century.These are some of the finds from that period (I am not certain about the typological similarities with artifacts from the Balkan interior)


Collective find from Streževo, Bitola. 10th-11th century



Battle axe from Vratislavci, Delčevo. 10th century

More abundant are the finds from interior of Greece.According to Mikulčić, the early Slavs considered the interior of Greece more suitable for habitation due to the climate and presence of intact Byzantine towns suitable for trade of goods.This is a find of Slavic religious amulets from Thessaly, 8th-9th century:


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Slavic fibulae from Thessaly ( А and Б ) and from Viničani, Veles , FYROM ( В ), late 6th, early 7th century

There are also Bulgar artifacts found in FYROM during the early middle ages which have typological similarities with those from the Republic of Bulgaria.



10th century Bulgar finds from FYROM: 1, 2. amulets from Čemren and Prilep. 3. Tamga from Arangel near Kičevo 4. Seal from Devol (Drenovo near Kavadarci) 5. Double sided seal from Jegunovce near Tetovo 6.Belt implement with lion-griffon from Devol (Drenovo).