Reading up in the Alexander and history of Russian threads, seems like the Slavs were very wide-ranging in their movements thru the centuries. So, who were these peoples; where did they come from? Where did they settle, intermix?
Who were the Slavs?
- Thread starter Knight-Dragon
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Companiero
proletarian par excelence
In short: The Slavs are the largest ethnic group in Europe. They are Indo-European people, whose migrations (V-VII century) started along with the other tribes during the Dark Ages. However they were much more peaceful than the other Barbaric tribes and dominated through shear numbers.
They spread in three directions and hence are divided into three groups: Eastern Slavs (Russians, Belorussians, Ukranians), Western Slavs (Chezcs, Slovaks, Poles) and Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenerians). I might have missed few other nations, sorry.
They spread and populated areas in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and in time created their own countries there.
They spread in three directions and hence are divided into three groups: Eastern Slavs (Russians, Belorussians, Ukranians), Western Slavs (Chezcs, Slovaks, Poles) and Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croatians, Slovenians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Montenerians). I might have missed few other nations, sorry.
They spread and populated areas in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and in time created their own countries there.
aaminion00
Stoned
The Slavs are the largest linguistic group in Europe, bigger even than the Germanic and Latin speakers. Their exact ancient homeland is unknown, although various nationalist historians during the 1800's suggested a number of locations for it... usually always in their own countries. Overall the only thing that is clear is that they were an Indo-European people who lived somewhere in East Europe North of the Danube, possibly the Carpathian region, since ancient times till the arrival of the Huns. The origin of the name is unknown, although the two most popular hypothesis are that "Slav" was either given to them by latin historians (as they were "slaves") or was their name for themselves, having something to do with the common slavic root word for "to glorify" (The general South Slavic word for the Orthodox church for example, Pravoslavna Crkva, means "Rightfully Glorifying" church).
Much like the Germanics crossed the Rhine and Danube into the Roman Empire, setting up states such as modern day France, Spain, and etc., the Slavs exploded after the arrival of the Huns pushed them in the various directions. The oldest Slavic state was Moravia, essentially an ancestor of Bohemia, and thus the modern day Czhech Republic. In those times there were thousands of Slavic tribes all over the place, but gradually certain ones established powerful kingdoms and spoke similar enough dialects of the common language that would end up creating today's slavic states. These were also sometimes the ones who had accepted Christianity the earliest, as Christianity proved to be an effective state religion. Since the migrations, the Slavs can be split up into three groups; the East Slavs, the West Slavs, and the South Slavs.
The Eastern Slavs, I am not too familiar with. Depending on where the ancestral homeland of the Slavs was, they probably didn't move around as much as their cousins to the West. Viking and Byzantine presence would eventually help them create their own states. The Eastern Slavsre the ancestors of todays Russians, Ukranians, Belarusians, and others.
The West Slavs were the first to establish themselves as strong kingdoms, and probably the earliest and best documented Slavs. They primarily include the Czhechs and the Poles, along with a couple others. They apparently had early contact with the Germanic peoples. Today the common Slavic name for Germans stems from the ancient root Niemcy, which meant "those who cannot speak". Even today a variation of it means "mute".
The South Slavs are a tricky buch. The earliest Slavs to arrive on the Balkans crossed the Danube shortly after the arrival of the Huns, and quickly replaced the local romanized populace in one way or another. The former inhabitants of the land (Dacians, Thracians, and Illyrians), were by now speaking a hybrid language that was a mix of their own and latin. Slavic quickly replaced that in the lands, and what remained of the former inhabitants moved up to the mountains. Later they would spread once again and form the vlachs. The vlachs would end up creating some states of their own (Romania for example), or be absorbed into the local Slavic populace (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, etc. etc.), but that's a whole 'nother story. Anyways, this 1st wave of South Slavs consisted of a bunch of tribes and has some contact with Christianity. The South Slavs as we know them today however would only be shaped with the coming of the 2nd wave of Slavs. The Serbs and the Croats were fairly powerful, and brought to the Balkans by Byzantine request, they set up states in the general region of where they are today. There is some indication that the Croat and Serbian nobility may be of Iranian origin... and considering that the Bulgars were originally of Asiatic origin (their early kingdom was known as a khanate) before being absorbed by the local Slavic population, the South Slavs were sort of crafted by foreign influences I guess you could say. Anyways, today the South Slavs are the Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians, Bulgars, and an assortment of others. They all speak a very similar language... although all Slavic languages are fairly similar.
Anyways, the whole Slavic history became a big issue in the 19th century. Driven mainly by idealists and nationalists, the idea of Pan-Slavism became very popular... many people strived for one giant Slavic state. Russia probably came the closest, and came to regard itself as the protector of all Slavs... this is partially responsible for the whole mess in Europe during the 1910's. Today the Slavs are all over the place. Chicago U.S.A. for example is basically Novi Slavigrad.
Much like the Germanics crossed the Rhine and Danube into the Roman Empire, setting up states such as modern day France, Spain, and etc., the Slavs exploded after the arrival of the Huns pushed them in the various directions. The oldest Slavic state was Moravia, essentially an ancestor of Bohemia, and thus the modern day Czhech Republic. In those times there were thousands of Slavic tribes all over the place, but gradually certain ones established powerful kingdoms and spoke similar enough dialects of the common language that would end up creating today's slavic states. These were also sometimes the ones who had accepted Christianity the earliest, as Christianity proved to be an effective state religion. Since the migrations, the Slavs can be split up into three groups; the East Slavs, the West Slavs, and the South Slavs.
The Eastern Slavs, I am not too familiar with. Depending on where the ancestral homeland of the Slavs was, they probably didn't move around as much as their cousins to the West. Viking and Byzantine presence would eventually help them create their own states. The Eastern Slavsre the ancestors of todays Russians, Ukranians, Belarusians, and others.
The West Slavs were the first to establish themselves as strong kingdoms, and probably the earliest and best documented Slavs. They primarily include the Czhechs and the Poles, along with a couple others. They apparently had early contact with the Germanic peoples. Today the common Slavic name for Germans stems from the ancient root Niemcy, which meant "those who cannot speak". Even today a variation of it means "mute".
The South Slavs are a tricky buch. The earliest Slavs to arrive on the Balkans crossed the Danube shortly after the arrival of the Huns, and quickly replaced the local romanized populace in one way or another. The former inhabitants of the land (Dacians, Thracians, and Illyrians), were by now speaking a hybrid language that was a mix of their own and latin. Slavic quickly replaced that in the lands, and what remained of the former inhabitants moved up to the mountains. Later they would spread once again and form the vlachs. The vlachs would end up creating some states of their own (Romania for example), or be absorbed into the local Slavic populace (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, etc. etc.), but that's a whole 'nother story. Anyways, this 1st wave of South Slavs consisted of a bunch of tribes and has some contact with Christianity. The South Slavs as we know them today however would only be shaped with the coming of the 2nd wave of Slavs. The Serbs and the Croats were fairly powerful, and brought to the Balkans by Byzantine request, they set up states in the general region of where they are today. There is some indication that the Croat and Serbian nobility may be of Iranian origin... and considering that the Bulgars were originally of Asiatic origin (their early kingdom was known as a khanate) before being absorbed by the local Slavic population, the South Slavs were sort of crafted by foreign influences I guess you could say. Anyways, today the South Slavs are the Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians, Bulgars, and an assortment of others. They all speak a very similar language... although all Slavic languages are fairly similar.
Anyways, the whole Slavic history became a big issue in the 19th century. Driven mainly by idealists and nationalists, the idea of Pan-Slavism became very popular... many people strived for one giant Slavic state. Russia probably came the closest, and came to regard itself as the protector of all Slavs... this is partially responsible for the whole mess in Europe during the 1910's. Today the Slavs are all over the place. Chicago U.S.A. for example is basically Novi Slavigrad.
Good write-up, aaminion00. I'll just add a few extra notes:
The Slavs entered Europe proper in the 6th and 7th centuries, piggy-backing with the Avars in the Danube Basin before spreading much farther afield. Like the Celts there was never a single unified Slavic political entity but instead hundreds of individual tribes and groups who were as eager to fight one another as non-Slavs. They flooded into northern Greece (as far south as Attica), all over the Balkans, and as far west as the Elbe River and Lusatia in modern Germany.
aaminion00's right about the huge impact of 19th century nationalism and Pan-Slavic romanticism, and it is very difficult to over-estimate the impact these movements had on how the Slavs were viewed and how they viewed themselves. Western researchers and ethnographers in particular fell in love with the Balkan Slavs and started making wild generailzations based on their studies of 19th century Balkan culture, so that still today I see textbooks on European ethnography describing the "zadruga" as an ancient Slavic Iroquois-style extended family unit when in reality this is a fairly exclusively Balkan trait, unknown to for instance the Western Slavs.
What is absolutely certain is that early Slavs, although varying by region, received a lot of technical and political schooling from many neighboring non-Slavic tribes and groups so that most modern Slavic languages for instance have a huge vocabulary pertaining to agriculture technologies deriving from early Iranian loan words.
The linguistic breakdown is like this:
Western Slavs: Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Sorbs/Wends
Eastern Slavs: Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians
Southern Slavs: Serbs, Croats, Bulgars, Macedonians, Slovenians.
This is a modern breakdown though, and was not always arranged this way. For instance, Serbs and Croats both most likely were either Slavic or Slavicized Iranian groups who migrated through southern Poland before moving southward into the Balkans. The area just south of Kraków today is known as "Biala Chorwacja", "White Croatia". Also, there's a small Slavic people (c. 200,000) living just south of Berlin in modern Germany who are left-overs from the 8th century when Charlemagne pushed the Slavs back across the Elbe and farther eastward. These people call themselves Serbs but the Germans call them "Wends" (an old term Germans used to apply to all Slavs, deriving from the ancient Venedii people) and the English-speaking world calls them "Sorbs". They are today a Western Slavic people but are likely the long-lost bretheren of the modern Balkan Serbs.
Although Romanian and Hungarian are not Slavic languages, both have absorbed a huge amount of Slavic vocabulary. Of the Indo-European language group, the Slavic, Germanic and Baltic language familes were the last three to break apart and all three bear a strong similarity still.
We're not sure exactly when the first Slavic state was established. Samo's 7th century state in modern eastern Czech republic is usually seen as the first contender but we know very little obout Slavic political development elsewhere. In any event the subsequent Moravian empire in the 9th and 10th centuries was most certainly the first Western Slavic state, and indeed early Poland owes much to its southern neighbor. 19th century nationalists drubbed up a ridiculous concept that the Moravian empire could have developed into a single Slavic state that would have been far more successful defending the Slavic peoples against the encroachments of empires and barbarians both east and west, but to believe this requires a considerable suspension of historical knowledge. The argument is that this unified Slavic state was on its way to being born when the damned Magyars invaded at the end of the 9th century, seizing the Carpathian Basin and thereby cutting the Slavic world in half, creating by proxy the Western and Southern Slavs. Load o' bunk, that; there was absolutely no sign that the Slavs of the 9th century were anywhere close to considering a single, unified state anymore than the Celts or Greeks ever got close to the same thing.
There are many theories on where the name "Slav" comes from; another popular (if unsubstantiated) one is the Slavic word for, well, "word": slow (Polish), slov {Russian). In other words, the Slavic name may have derived from a concept of "the people of the word"; i.e., those who speak a language we can understand.
The Slavs entered Europe proper in the 6th and 7th centuries, piggy-backing with the Avars in the Danube Basin before spreading much farther afield. Like the Celts there was never a single unified Slavic political entity but instead hundreds of individual tribes and groups who were as eager to fight one another as non-Slavs. They flooded into northern Greece (as far south as Attica), all over the Balkans, and as far west as the Elbe River and Lusatia in modern Germany.
aaminion00's right about the huge impact of 19th century nationalism and Pan-Slavic romanticism, and it is very difficult to over-estimate the impact these movements had on how the Slavs were viewed and how they viewed themselves. Western researchers and ethnographers in particular fell in love with the Balkan Slavs and started making wild generailzations based on their studies of 19th century Balkan culture, so that still today I see textbooks on European ethnography describing the "zadruga" as an ancient Slavic Iroquois-style extended family unit when in reality this is a fairly exclusively Balkan trait, unknown to for instance the Western Slavs.
What is absolutely certain is that early Slavs, although varying by region, received a lot of technical and political schooling from many neighboring non-Slavic tribes and groups so that most modern Slavic languages for instance have a huge vocabulary pertaining to agriculture technologies deriving from early Iranian loan words.
The linguistic breakdown is like this:
Western Slavs: Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Sorbs/Wends
Eastern Slavs: Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians
Southern Slavs: Serbs, Croats, Bulgars, Macedonians, Slovenians.
This is a modern breakdown though, and was not always arranged this way. For instance, Serbs and Croats both most likely were either Slavic or Slavicized Iranian groups who migrated through southern Poland before moving southward into the Balkans. The area just south of Kraków today is known as "Biala Chorwacja", "White Croatia". Also, there's a small Slavic people (c. 200,000) living just south of Berlin in modern Germany who are left-overs from the 8th century when Charlemagne pushed the Slavs back across the Elbe and farther eastward. These people call themselves Serbs but the Germans call them "Wends" (an old term Germans used to apply to all Slavs, deriving from the ancient Venedii people) and the English-speaking world calls them "Sorbs". They are today a Western Slavic people but are likely the long-lost bretheren of the modern Balkan Serbs.
Although Romanian and Hungarian are not Slavic languages, both have absorbed a huge amount of Slavic vocabulary. Of the Indo-European language group, the Slavic, Germanic and Baltic language familes were the last three to break apart and all three bear a strong similarity still.
We're not sure exactly when the first Slavic state was established. Samo's 7th century state in modern eastern Czech republic is usually seen as the first contender but we know very little obout Slavic political development elsewhere. In any event the subsequent Moravian empire in the 9th and 10th centuries was most certainly the first Western Slavic state, and indeed early Poland owes much to its southern neighbor. 19th century nationalists drubbed up a ridiculous concept that the Moravian empire could have developed into a single Slavic state that would have been far more successful defending the Slavic peoples against the encroachments of empires and barbarians both east and west, but to believe this requires a considerable suspension of historical knowledge. The argument is that this unified Slavic state was on its way to being born when the damned Magyars invaded at the end of the 9th century, seizing the Carpathian Basin and thereby cutting the Slavic world in half, creating by proxy the Western and Southern Slavs. Load o' bunk, that; there was absolutely no sign that the Slavs of the 9th century were anywhere close to considering a single, unified state anymore than the Celts or Greeks ever got close to the same thing.
There are many theories on where the name "Slav" comes from; another popular (if unsubstantiated) one is the Slavic word for, well, "word": slow (Polish), slov {Russian). In other words, the Slavic name may have derived from a concept of "the people of the word"; i.e., those who speak a language we can understand.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
Good day
And very good breakdown Aaminino00 and Vrylakas
!
Companiero- not again the slavish Slav
.
Slavs were not anymore peacefull then any other tribal group. Though they style of warfare understandebly differed from others. Exact location of their homeland unknown, neverthless they had a long knowledge of nomad groups like Scythians, Huns and later Avarii who favored open battle. Due to these influences Slavs grow acustomed to prefer forested regions and use of ambush and concealment. This went so far, I think I read, that later Byzantine troops would be very explicitly warned about following Slavic raiders into forest. But it is true that their technology lacked at first edge to produce good iron swords and armor they fairly quickly mastered them and used well.
Culturally they were also bit behind not yet made fully the transition from animism to polytheism- the first true slavic polytheism was established by prince Vladimir of Kiev and later destroyed by his conversion to christianity. With animism in Slavs also existed shamans "zhrieci", also leader had spiritual power in their hands as etymology of slavic words for pries and certain rank of nobility (for long highest) clearly shows.
Slavs were able to understand beauty and once in possesion of technology proved extremely skilled at jewelry and everything else.
Unfortunately epidemic spread of Christianity destoyed most of original Slavic culture, so much in fact that many people for long believed that there was none. This precarious notion long dismissed, world still have to learn much more about old Slavs, if only did it care.
And very good breakdown Aaminino00 and Vrylakas
!Companiero- not again the slavish Slav
.Slavs were not anymore peacefull then any other tribal group. Though they style of warfare understandebly differed from others. Exact location of their homeland unknown, neverthless they had a long knowledge of nomad groups like Scythians, Huns and later Avarii who favored open battle. Due to these influences Slavs grow acustomed to prefer forested regions and use of ambush and concealment. This went so far, I think I read, that later Byzantine troops would be very explicitly warned about following Slavic raiders into forest. But it is true that their technology lacked at first edge to produce good iron swords and armor they fairly quickly mastered them and used well.
Culturally they were also bit behind not yet made fully the transition from animism to polytheism- the first true slavic polytheism was established by prince Vladimir of Kiev and later destroyed by his conversion to christianity. With animism in Slavs also existed shamans "zhrieci", also leader had spiritual power in their hands as etymology of slavic words for pries and certain rank of nobility (for long highest) clearly shows.
Slavs were able to understand beauty and once in possesion of technology proved extremely skilled at jewelry and everything else.
Unfortunately epidemic spread of Christianity destoyed most of original Slavic culture, so much in fact that many people for long believed that there was none. This precarious notion long dismissed, world still have to learn much more about old Slavs, if only did it care.
aaminion00
Stoned
Vrylakas said:
Very good post Vrylakas
. Although you might as well add Bosnian to the list. The, I guess you could say, "Central South Slavic" languages, spoken in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia, are very similar.. in fact, far more similar than similarities between any one of them with other languages such as Bulgarian or Slovenian. The histories of the Serbs and Croats prior to the arrival in the Balkans are also very closely related.. some arguements have been made that they both originate from the same tribe in ancient Iran. Considering this and the fact that the overwhelming majority of differences between the languages today (aside from the different alphabet, which I don't consider a dividing feature of language. After all Turkish, for example, has stayed the same even though it changed alphabets during Attaturk's reign) are mostly obscure differences in words and terminoligy. For example for the word thousand, Croats use "tisuca" whlie Serbs use "hiljada". Really however I don't think this means that they are very different languages, or at least were since ancient times. All it indicates is that the Serbian language was heavily influenced by the Greek language of the Byzantine Orthodox church, since Hiljada comes from a Greek root. Tisuca meanwhile is clearly Slavic, with similar words for thousand being found in Polish and Russian. Similarly, Croatian has some Germanic words that are sparsely used in Serbian. Overal nearly all differences in vocabulary can be attributed to differing influences, the Croats with the Avars and Germans, the Serbs with the Byzantines, and so on and so on. Of the few words that remain uniquely Serbian or Croatian and non-existent in the other, they are so few in either number or significance they can hardly be considered as forming two vastly different languages. The only significant difference that remains are the various dialects, but that's all they are.. dialects. In my opinion Serbian and Croatian were many centuries ago the same language, with different dialects due to tribal differences, similar to Germanic speak and the differing tribes of those. That said, I see no reason why Bosnian then as well shouldn't be considered a language equal to the above two. It often had differing alphabets throughout it's history from both Serbs and Croats (Mainly Arabic script and a unique form of cyrillic brought over by Croatian monks fleeing the country during the Hungarian take-over that would remain in wide-use only in the domains of the Bosnian kingdom), it has a great number of words that are unfamiliar to speakers of Serbian or Croatian, and it has it's own bit of a dialect that is scarcely used by Serbs or Croats. On top of all this the languaga, or at least this dialect of this greater one, has been documented numerous times in history dating back to the 12th century. Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that Serbs and Croats don't exist and that we're all one happy loving people who have been divided throughout history but should be united in some sort of socialist federal republic of "Yugoslavia" or something 
(Although I must say nationality and ethnicity are a bit over-done in the region), merely I'm saying that although different ethnicities based primarily on culture and religion, the language we speak is probably different dialects of the same thing. My two cents, no disrespect meant to anybody, although I believe my assesment was fair 
aaminion00
Stoned
p.s. nice post Gladi, the 'old' slavs probably were a very interesting people, pity we don't know more about them.
aaminion00
Stoned
mrtn said:I've heard that the differences are exagerated now by people not wanting to speak the same language as those "other bastards".Apparently old obscure words are "reinvented"...
Yeah, that's true
. In the days of Yugoslavia the differences (vocabulary mostly) of the dialects were all resolved in this one lump of them all called "Serbo-Croatian". Today after the break-up of Yugoslavia, the Serbs are the ones having been left with "Serbo-Croatian" while the Croats and Bosniaks try to make their languages as different as possible. This leads to such absurd things as the ingridient lists on the back of snacks in Bosnia being written in all three languages... even though they all say the exact same thing. I remember my little cousin was reading a childrens' book written in Croatia, when she came upon some word called "Zdenac" who nobody had ever heard of before. Turns out it was some obscure word for "well" (noun) from some rural region in Croatia.How similar are Swedish Danish and Norweigen? I'm interested since I've heard differing things on this.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
aaminion00 said:
Thank you very much, it is alway nice to hear praise from those who are good. I would say more but you and Vrylakas have things very much covered.
Anyway in 19th century some Pan-Slavists argued that Slavic closeness is remembered among people as glorious times under ancient king Muzhik (his name in my country), they even wen to argue where jis kingdom was, but unfortunately his name too clearly means "son of man".
As the Serbs and Croatian northern ancestry goes. Some versions of Czech legend about our coming to Bohemia lists vary many brothers that went to all world sides plus idea that Czechs and Poles came from south. Thus some coclude that we all came from in-between. As a side note, I heard of claim that my tribe has been to Greece as there is some strange Greek-like influence in our original myths.
Also there is renewed debate on possibility of a Slavic Runic System but I do not anything about that maybe scholars can help?
Getting OT here...aaminion00 said:
It's definitely different languages. We also have some strange dialects; some Norwegian is very easy to understand, and some is completely impossible; it sounds as if you should understand it, but you don't...
There also are some dialects of Swedish that I don't understand, but this is just in rural areas, and those people can speak "real" Swedish too.
If you speak slowly you can make yourself understood in most places.
Companiero
proletarian par excelence
You are absolutely right saying that artificial divisions are being made, after the wars that ravaged us. Now they have 4 names for practically the same language: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and pretty soon Montenegran. And just try telling this to a Croatian or Serb. Great job, Balkan boys! When the world goes for integration, you go for desintegration.
And another remark: I believe that the Serbs you say live in Germany are known as "Luzhicki Srbi", ain't it true? Thanks for informing me more about them, cos up till now I could only read their name in the West Slavs list and nothing more.
And another remark: I believe that the Serbs you say live in Germany are known as "Luzhicki Srbi", ain't it true? Thanks for informing me more about them, cos up till now I could only read their name in the West Slavs list and nothing more.
I cannot agree by terming them "being behind". Cultures are not there to be rated. What the Slavs had was a rich and resourceful mythology, with lots of gods and creatures (clearly polytheism), although their way of worshipping and belief was highly animistic, I agree. Anyway, neither makes them more advanced or backwarded by any objective standards, only different.
No. Slavic culture is live and kicking, essentially implemented in the cultures of all Slavic people. Christianity has played its role, true, but the basis for the present Slavic cutures were the original old Slavic ones. I can only give example from my country. There are some really remote rural areas that have maintained their architecture and custums from God knows when. Their homes remind of the pra-Slavic ones found in the Baltic region (!). Also, many pagan religious elements have been preserved in the form of believes, legends and customs. The music, artistic patterns of national dress, songs and other orally transmitted literature forms are all part of the ancient Slavic heritage we share.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
Dobry Den
Here is an example why Slavia is so unpractical idea, put us together and soon we will start to argue. (plus imperialistic Poles and Russians )
There are New Guineans who few yers ago lived in tribal hunter-gatherer society, I take it they are also just different and in stone age? And there is nothing that would say it is because of us, but simply because of geography, we were simply islotad and without resources to create cities.
As animism goes, to some old Slavs ( and every other people once upon a time) every think had a spirit, a rock, a river and the tree you just cut down. BTW I am NOT demeaning our old religion, why should I demean my possible new religion??
As christianity goes, I may be bit biased being Czech and knowing all the "good" it did to my ancestors, but I still have to say that the resulting mix is normally much more christian than slavic. And if in mountains of FYRM are people who retained their slavicism more, than I also heard that in mountains of Greece there are Greeks who are actually ethnicaly Greek.
Oh and as far as I know only rest of Western Slavs call Sorbs "Lusatian Serbs".
Here is an example why Slavia is so unpractical idea, put us together and soon we will start to argue. (plus imperialistic Poles and Russians
)There are New Guineans who few yers ago lived in tribal hunter-gatherer society, I take it they are also just different and in stone age? And there is nothing that would say it is because of us, but simply because of geography, we were simply islotad and without resources to create cities.
As animism goes, to some old Slavs ( and every other people once upon a time) every think had a spirit, a rock, a river and the tree you just cut down. BTW I am NOT demeaning our old religion, why should I demean my possible new religion??
As christianity goes, I may be bit biased being Czech and knowing all the "good" it did to my ancestors, but I still have to say that the resulting mix is normally much more christian than slavic. And if in mountains of FYRM are people who retained their slavicism more, than I also heard that in mountains of Greece there are Greeks who are actually ethnicaly Greek.
Oh and as far as I know only rest of Western Slavs call Sorbs "Lusatian Serbs".
aaminion00
Stoned
Still I feel Slavs have taken Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam and made unique Slavic versions of it. I think people underestimate how much of our culture today is based on the old slavs and the ancient peoples. In Bosnia for example, one of the most important days for Muslims is based off of I believe a Celtic/Christian ritual. Not Slavic, but it gives you an idea of how things can be passed on.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
Well, not in Bohemia. Jesuits did here, post 30-year war, a lot to destroy Czech culture. But yes I do not really know that much abut christianity as practised by my fellow Slavs.
Ah, the Lech, Czech & Rus legends.
There were some primitive Slavic runes but you have to be very suspicious of sources. Essentially, the West in the 19th and 20th centuries absolutely fell in love with Celtic and Scandinavian pre-Christian cultures and developed many (often very distorted and romanticized) notions of things like sacred valleys, runes, etc. They tried to make the Celtic and Norse metaphysical belief system fit neatly into a Greek-style regular pantheon of deities, and in short tried to make these pre-Christian cultures' beliefs fit into a neat and clean formalized religious structure. Some Slav nationalists/Pan-Slavists reacted by trying to do the same with the scant information we have about the pre-Christian Slavic metaphysical beliefs, trying to make them appear as similar and romantic as the Celtic and Norse-inspired New Age cultures that had sprung up in the West. Of course, to do this they needed to fill in many gaps in our knowledge and distort many of the things we do know to make them fit better into the popular culture conceptions of Celt and Norse beliefs. It's all a bit ridiculous but nonetheless there are many books out there (and by now websites) claiming to be able to give very detailed descriptions of things that we in reality know little about. It's all the more pathetic because although some fools gather their scattered wits and try to recreate (their sadly lacking understanding of) Celtic rituals at Stonehenge on the solstices, nobody - NOBODY - anywhere today tries to worship Perun, Triglav, etc. Here is just such a pathetic website, this one dealing with "Polish mystical runes"...
Yes, that's how we call them in Polish: "Serboluzyczanie" ("Serbian Lusatians"), or sometimes just "Luzyczanie" (Lausatians).
Same in Poland, really. Obviously we are Slavs but Pan-Slavism has never appealed to Poles. (We didn't have to imagine Russian rule anyway, and couldn't see why everyone got so excited by it...) Modern Polish identity has been firmly locked westward and Poles spent most of the 19th and 20th centuries trying desperately to be someone else, just not the Slavs. There was a belief among Polish nationalists c. 1900 that claimed that we were actually descendants of the Iranian Sarmatians, and just became "lightly Slavified" over time by Slavic immigrants. Uh huh. Sarmatian warriors sitting on a white, powerful horse and founding one of the earlier Steppe empires sure sounds a lot more romantic than having ancestors who lived in mud huts and having to learn basic civilizational skills rfom someone else... There's an old English saying; You can choose your friends but not your family.
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
Gladi
The ignored thread killer
bohové 
Before the Maudghter comes, Vrylakas just said "Oh God" and repaired to "oh gods"
To feel less chatty, there is actually somebody in almost every traditional slavic country, like US. and there are some numbers of them though not very much.
Before the Maudghter comes, Vrylakas just said "Oh God" and repaired to "oh gods"
To feel less chatty, there is actually somebody in almost every traditional slavic country, like US. and there are some numbers of them though not very much.
aaminion00
Stoned
Vrylakas said:O Boze....
O Boze...
Hey, I can speak Polish now! 
