Slavic settlements in Macedonia

[akritas]

Late Antiquity (324-565)

The province of Macedonia played an important role in the transition of the ancient world to the world of Christianity, for it formed the immediate hinterland of the Danubian Roman frontier, which bordered upon the barbarian world. Successive barbarian tribes that crossed the Danube (Alamanoi, Sarmatai, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Huns) plundered and wrought extensive destruction during the 4th and 5th centuries.


The dark ages (565-867)


The mid-6th century saw the first appearance on Byzantine territory of hordes of Slav nomads, who followed in the footsteps of the Avars. By the end of the century the Slavs had reached Macedonia; having failed to capture Thessalonike, they went raiding throughout Greek-speaking lands.

Commencing in the mid-7th century, hordes of Slavs settled in Macedonia, Thrace and the Peloponnese forming isolated groups of autonomous alien and foreign-speaking communities, referred to as 'sklaveniai', which initially obstructed the exercise of Byzantine administration.

In the course of the second half of the 7th century, the inhabitants of these 'sklaveniai' revolted against the Byzantine state. In Macedonia the uprisings were countered with Byzantine military operations (aimed chiefly at securing the Constantinople-Thessalonike road network), during which many Slavs were captured, while others were compelled to re-settle in Asia Minor.
The Slavs who stayed behind were gradually assimilated into the Byzantine state and so were absorbed into the more powerful indigenous Greek population.

source: www.macedonian-heritage.gr

[akritas]

Settlement of the Slavs - Summary


During the 6th and 7th centuries, a large number of Slavs moved from the area between the Baltic Sea, the Carpathians and the rivers Dnieper and Dniester to the left bank of the river Danube and into the Balkans. The Byzantine territories were attacked and eventually settled by Slavs, including Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and even Greece. The original Bulgarians, who were an Asiatic people, were completely assimilated by the Slavic tribes and these Slavs became known as Bulgarians. Although today's Greeks will not admit it, their culture was heavily influenced by the Slavs. This is only logical as the entire region of the Balkans became the subject of a countless number of Slav attacks and settlement. Could Greece be the only country that was not affected? Unlikely.

In the case of the Macedonians, the Slavs integrated with the ancient Macedonians and their ethnicity became dominant. The existing Macedonians transmitted to them some of their own customs, including the Christian faith, culture, and name of their homeland, Macedonia.
An important event took place in 863 when the Macedonian missionaries, Sts. Cyril and Methody from Solun invented the first Slavonic alphabet (the Glagolitic). From this came the Cyrillic alphabet which today is used by virtually all Slavs.

The Macedonians made an incredible contribution to the cultural development of all Slavs, the creation of this alphabet. From this event came the transliteration of Church documents into Macedonian and other Slavic languages. The acceptance of the majority of Slavs into the Eastern Orthodox Church followed as the Macedonians spread Christianity. The achievements of all Slavs in literature, art, and culture began with the achievements of the Macedonians.

This article is made from the Slavs of the FYROM. Sometimes remember their roots!!! Of course when you read Macedonian in this article is the suupporters Slavspeakers of the FYROM

http://www.makedonija.info/slavs.html

[Ptolemy]

Macedonia during the Byzantine period - Slav invasions


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With the exception of some enclaves of Latin-speaking and other peoples, the fundamentally Greek population of Macedonia remained effectively unchanged until the 7th century A.D., when various Slav races (Drogovites, Strumonites,Sagoudates, and others) began to settle in the area of Macedonia. With the permission of the Byzantine authorities, these tribes formed small Slavic enclaves known to the Byzantines as "Sclavineae".

Throughout the 7th century the Slavs fought the Byzantines and made repeated attacks on Thessaloniki, though without success. In 688
Justinian II won a decisive victory over them, and forcibly removed many of them to Bithynia in Asia Minor. For a long time the Slavs lived peacefully in the European provinces of the Byzantine Empire and, as can be seen from Byzantine writers, many of them were hellenised.

In the meantime the Balkans had been invaded by Finno-Tartar tribes,the Proto-Bulgars, who in turn began to gain sway over the Slavs and the other peoples wlo lived in the area which today is Bulgaria. However,these tribes were assimilated linguistically by the Slavs, who far outnumbered them. The amalgamation of these peoples -who jointly used the name Bulgars-created the medieval state of Bulgaria.

At this point it should be noted that there is considerable controversy amongst scholars with regard to the extent of the "Bulgarisation" of the
Slav tribes which had settled in parts of Macedonia. The historians of Skopje (Yugoslav Macedonia) maintain that there were no Bulgars in Macedonia during the Middle Ages,and that Samuel was a Slav Macedonian king who fought against Byzantines and Bulgars alike. However, the Byzantine sources reveal that Samuel's kingdom was a multi-racial one, and that for a short period in the 10th century it extended further than Bulgaria, into Macedonia and even further south and north. The fact remains, nonetheless, that despite the dynamism which this state displayed for a few decades it was unable to dislodge Byzantine rule over the whole of Macedonia or bring about any radical change in tis ethnological composition.

The major centres of population in southern Macedonia did not fall into the hands of Samuel and continued to be Greek, without interruption. In the rural areas of northern Macedonia, on the other hand -in areas, that is which today are mostly within the frontiers of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, though some lie to the south- it would appear that there was a solid Slav element. After the overthrow of Samuel's state by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, known aa "the Bulgarslayer" (11th century), the Greek population of the rural areas revived and there was a Greek renaissance throughout the length and breadth of Macedonia.

In the 14th century,the Serbian empire of Stefan Dusan spread into Macedonia. However, this short-lived empire, which preceded the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, had no effective impact on the ethnological nature of Macedonia, as explained by Professor A.Vakalopoulos in his History of Macedonia. Serbian rule left in its passage a few more Slav enclaves which reinforced the strata of Slav population already there. More importantly, however, Serbian rule left behind it tales of a great, though transient,empire.

It should be noted that these misty recollections of a glorious past played their part in inciting the national awakening of the Serbs in the
19th century to put forward claims on Macedonia. A similar process occurred with the national awakening of the Bulgarians, who, during the 19th century,laid claim to the title deeds of Macedonia by virtue of its shortlived occupation by czar Samuel.

It is, perhaps, necessary to emphasise at this point that during the Byzantine era and,later, in the Ottoman period the term "Macedonia" had lost its former geographical implications. According to the historians Amantos, Zakythinos and Vakalopoulos, the Byzantine authors often applied the term Macedonia to areas including the greater part of modern Albania, Northern Thrace (Eastern Rumelia) and regions of what is today Greek, Thrace. That the term "Macedonia" had, in Byzantine times, lost the national and even the geographical meaning which it had had in antiquity is proved by the fact that the "Macedonian Dynasty" of Byzantine emperors actually consisted of princes from Thrace.

Source:
"MACEDONIA. History and Politics. Part One: Macedonia in History".
Center for Macedonians abroad. Society for Macedonian studies. Ekdotike Athenon S.A., Athens 1991.