Whose blood flows in the veins of the Slavic peoples and are there "pure Slavs"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Slavs represent a large-scale ethnocultural community, but their emergence as a single people is associated with the unification and influence of different tribes, close to them in genetics, linguistics and culture. In the modern world, more than 400 million people consider themselves Slavs, most of whom live throughout Eurasia, from Central Europe to the Kuril Islands. None of the peoples can be called "purely Slavic", there is not a single scientific evidence of exactly how the Slavs should look and what anthropological signs they have. During the formation of each Slavic people, the local substrates of the indigenous tribes, whose territories were once occupied by the Slavs, had a great influence.

Baltic and Finno-Ugric roots of the Russian people

Before the arrival of the Slavic tribes, the territory of modern Russia was inhabited mainly by the Finno-Ugrians and the Balts (in the western part of the Volga-Oka interfluve). Slavic colonization of these lands began in the 6th century AD. during the great migration of peoples and lasted until the late Middle Ages.

The autochthonous population of the southwestern part of the Old Russian lands was made up of the Baltic tribes of the Semigallians, Latgalians (West Dvina basin) and Goliad (the banks of the middle Oka).

Archaeological excavations show that the Balts, who settled on the lands of ancient Russia, were carriers of the Corded Ware culture. This fact is indicated by copper bells in the places of the Baltic burials.

The peaceful merger of the Balts and the newcomer Slavs is due to the significant linguistic affinity and kinship of religious beliefs. In addition, they stood at approximately the same level of material culture, which greatly facilitated the process of assimilation of the two ethnic groups.

Another group of indigenous peoples of ancient Russia - the Finno-Ugrians, who lived in eastern Europe and the north. The Finno-Ugric tribes did not differ in hostility and voluntarily "mixed" with the Slavs, adopting their culture and customs.

In fact, the Slavs played a significant linguistic role in Russian ethnogenesis, but the anthropology and gene pool of the inhabitants of Russia were formed under the strong influence of the indigenous Slavic peoples.

The Baltic substrate among the Slavs (along with the Finno-Ugric) was identified in the works of anthropologists and genetic scientists.

The study of the gene pool of the Balto-Slavic populations under the leadership of OP Balanovsky and with the participation of geneticists from different countries confirmed that the Balts are the closest relatives of the East Slavic peoples, including the Russians.

Why Czechs are not exactly Slavs

On the territory of southern Bohemia - in the town of Tabor - the Lugnasad festival is held annually, the name of which translates as "gathering of the Luga" or "wedding of the Luga". This pagan holiday symbolizes the beginning of autumn and once again reminds of the Celtic roots of modern Czechs. At one time, the Celts inhabited almost the entire territory of Europe, from the Dnieper to the Irish Sea, and many European peoples adopted their traditions and culture.

The residence of the Celts in the Czech Republic dates from the middle of the 5th century to the end of the 1st century BC. It was from the most ancient Celtic people of Boyi that the country received its historical name - Bohemia. Czech writer and historian Ludek Fribort wrote in his writings that many Czech hydronyms are Celtic in nature. In particular, the Ysera River comes from the word "Isara", which in translation from the ancient Celtic language means "fast river". From Bohemia from the middle of the 1st century BC Germanic tribes drove out the Celts and partially assimilated with them.

Lucians, Moravians, Czechs, Lutomerichi, Gbans and other Slavic tribes came from Northern Transcarpathia and settled in Bohemia in the 4th-7th centuries A. D. At that time, the Czech territories were inhabited by the remnants of the Germanic tribes - the Lombards and Thuringians, who can be considered the descendants of the assimilated Celts.

Belarusians - Slavs or Balts?

The origin and formation of Belarusians as an ethnos is a complex and ambiguous process, in the study of which there is still no single point of view. The Soviet historian M. Dovnar-Zapolsky argued that the Belarusians are the "cleanest" of all the Slavs, and their ethnogenesis is defined mainly as a fusion of the ancient Slavic tribes of the Krivichi and Radimichi. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, a large number of archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic materials appeared that cast doubt on the "purity of Slavic blood" of Belarusians and testify that their ethnogenetics includes a significant Baltic substrate.

The Balts occupied the territory of modern Belarus presumably at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, in the 6th century AD. made up the bulk of the population of these lands. This is evidenced by numerous hydronyms of Baltic origin - Volcha, Drut, Polota, Drysvyaty, etc. In the 6th century AD. Slavic tribes began to slowly and peacefully migrate to the territories that united the basins of the Vistula and Neman, the Western Dvina and the Upper Dnieper. As a result of interethnic contacts, mixed Balto-Slavic groups arose. The involvement of the Balts in the Belarusian ethnogenesis is evidenced by various archaeological artifacts, for example, burial mounds with an eastern orientation of the dead, that is, according to the Baltic tradition.

How the Scythians and Sarmatians influenced the Ukrainian ethnos

Ukrainians are a mixed ethnolinguistic group, the formation of which was influenced by the Sarmatians, Greeks, Goths, Thracians, Turks and other peoples who once lived in the Ukrainian lands.

From the middle of the 2nd millennium BC the territories from the foothills of the Carpathians and the lowlands of the Danube to the Kuban were inhabited by the Cimmerian tribes. Mentions about this people are recorded in the written sources of the ancient Greek scientists Herodotus, Eustatius and Skimp, as well as in Homer's Odyssey. In the VIII century BC. The Cimmerians were driven out by the militant Scythians and created the very first state formation on the territory of Ukraine - Scythia.

In the III century. BC. Iranian-speaking tribes of the Sarmatians came to the south of Ukraine from the Volga and the Urals, which partially drove out, partially assimilated and absorbed the Sarmatians.

From IV Art. AD the great migration of peoples begins, and almost all waves of this migration passed through Ukraine. First, the Huns passed through these lands, then the Bulgarians, Avars, Ugrians (Hungarians), Pechenegs, Polovtsians and Mongol-Tatars moved along the steppe strip. Some of them completely (Pechenegs, Polovtsians), others partially settled in the Ukrainian territories.

Most archaeological scientists believe that the Scythians and Sarmatians, who mixed with representatives of the Ant tribe - the ancestors of the Slavs, left a significant imprint on Ukrainian ethnogenesis. Anthropologists call the carriers of the Chernyakhov culture of the Scythians the progenitors of the ancient glades, from which modern Ukrainians originated.

The peoples that have settled in Ukraine for many centuries constituted a huge ethnic cauldron. They replaced each other, assimilated with alien tribes, created interethnic groups and, of course, contributed to the development of the Ukrainian ethnos.

Non-Slavic origin of Bulgarians

It is rather difficult to determine the exact origin of the Bulgarians, since this people was formed under the influence of three ethnic groups: the ancient Bulgars, Slavs and Thracians. Bulgars, in turn, are nomadic tribes of Turkic origin, possibly related to the tribal alliances of the Huns. According to archaeological research and written evidence, in 681 the nomadic tribes of the Proto-Bulgarians defeated the Byzantine army in a battle and settled along the lower reaches of the Danube, where the Slavs already lived at that time. Together with the local population, the descendants of the Turks formed the first Bulgarian Kingdom. The Slavic basis in this ethnic community turned out to be stronger than the Turkic one and helped the nomadic people to create their own statehood on the territory of Europe.

For the same reasons there are non-Slavic peoples in which there is a lot or even a lot of Slavic blood.