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The origin of the Slavs is obscure and we
don't know if and when they came to Europe from Asia, as most other tribes. In
the absence of specific historical data, the whole question has become a matter
of individual interpretation o f a single or of a group of historians and
archaeologists. The majority of Russian historians of the pre-Soviet era tend
to agree that the Slavs existed as tribes previous to the appearance of the
Scythians in Southern Russia. They believe that they lived next to other
tribes, and sometimes mixed with them, for many centuries before they emerged
as a distinctive ethnic group. Russian historians and especially Russian
archaeologists are considerable more audacious. Some of them have already
concluded that the forefathers of the Slavic tribes populated Eastern Europe
some thirty to forty centuries B.C. and were experienced in cattle-rearing and
knew quite much about land cultivation. The attempt of Soviet scholars to
conceal the history of their ancestors and further sink it into oblivion
deserves a note of praise, however one should be cautious not to accept their
learned conjectures as substitute for facts. In all probability and long before
history started to account for them, some Slavic tribes lived in relative
security further north of the steppes in the remote regions (glush), protected
from Asiatic incursions by deep and impenetrable woodlands, while the others,
in the south, eventually shared the fate of those who inhabited the rich river
basins. It was here the many sided intercourse of the Slavs with other tribes
resulted in the assimilation of the Scythians and the Sarmatians and their
disappearance as ethnic groups. Similar processes happened in the north between
the Slavic and Finish tribes, but on a considerably smaller scale.
Russian archaeologists turned many stones and opened hundreds of burial
mounds in search of vestiges that could support the "official "
version of the Slavs' origin. They have found several remnants of ancient
dwellings and many tombs. When excavated most of them clearly show that they
belonged to the Scythians or Sarmatians and very seldom are these indications
that the dead bodies were cremated- a custom typical of the funeral ceremony of
the ancient Slavs; though the cremation was not practiced by the Slavs
exclusively. Nevertheless, an increasing number of Russian archaeologists want
to believe that there are certain genetic connections between the Slavs and the
Scythians and Sarmatians, many of them readily see in the Scythians, the
prestigious ancestors of the Slavs, while the old and less pretentious theory
simply stated that the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Khazars and other tribes
were assimilated by the Slavs.
Latin sources of the first and second centuries A.D., including the works
of their historian Tacitus mentioned Slavs for the first time, calling them
Veneds, a name used primarily to identify the tribes that populated a that time
the central part of Eastern Europe. Most historians agree that Veneds was
merely another name for Slavs, a variation of which were recorded for the first
time in the sixth century A.D. by some Latin and Greek authors. They called the
Slavic tribes that menaced in the 6th century the northern borders of the
Byzantine Empire; Sclavi, Sclavini (Slavs of the left bank of the Danube
river), and in some cases Anti (Slavs of the Eastern European plains). At this
time and during the first half of the 7th century there was an important
movement of the Slavic tribes followed first by dissensions and then by their
consolidation into three major groups: Western, South and Eastern Slavs. The
Poles, Moravians and Checks belonged to the Western group and founded their new
home in Moravia and Tchekhia (present day Bohemia). Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes
compose the southern group that penetrated deep into the Balkans; and the
largest group comprises the Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians Russians who
are known as the Eastern Slavs.
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