The East Slavs

The Slavs evolved from the autochthonous Indo-European population of Eastern Europe. Most modern scholars adhere to the view that the original homeland of the Slavs encompassed the northern slopes of the Carpathians, the Vistula valley, and the Prypiat marshlands.

From there, the Slavs spread out in all directions, particularly in the early 7th century. In the northeast, they reached deep into Finno-Ugric lands around the Oka and upper Volga rivers; in the west, their settlements extended to the Elbe River in northern Germany. But the greatest flow of Slavic colonization was to the south into the Balkans where fertile land, a warmer climate, and wealthy cities exerted a powerful attraction. Compared with the nomadic invasions, Slavic expansion was a slow movement that radiated out from the core Slavic lands without ever losing touch with them. As a result, it covered a large, contiguous area. A striking feature of this expansion was its relative peacefulness. Except for some fighting along the Byzantine borders, the Slavs generally moved into the new lands as colonists, not as invaders. But as the Slavs spread out, they also became more fragmented. The linguistic analysis of the noted Russian scholar Aleksei Shakhmatov indicates that by the 6th century the common language of the Slavs was evolving into three subgroups: West Slavic, from which such languages as Polish, Czech, and Slovak eventually developed; South Slavic, from which Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Serbo-Croatian arose; and East Slavic, from which Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorussian developed.

Map 5a Slavic dispersion Map 5b East Slavic tribes

In the 7th century, the East Slavs were based on the right bank of the Dnieper River. Soviet scholars, intent on establishing the oldest possible pedigree for the Slavic inhabitants of Ukraine, argue that the East Slavs or their immediate predecessors, the Antes, were native to the region.

Western specialists, in contrast, cite the lack of evidence to support this thesis and generally contend that the East Slavs were newcomers to the area. Throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, the East Slavs continued to subdivide and expand. Eventually they consisted of about fourteen large tribal confederations that inhabited parts of Ukraine, Belorussia, and Russia. Of these, the most prominent were the Polianians who lived in central Ukraine, on the banks of the Dnieper. Other East Slav tribes who inhabited Ukraine were the Derevlianians who occupied the northwest, the Severians who lived in the northeast, and the Ulychians and Tivertsians in the southwest. Located in the westernmost part of the land were the Volhynians and the Dulibians.

The settlements of the East Slavs were numerous but small. Villages, consisting of as few as four and as many as seventy log dwellings, were built one or two miles apart. Thirty or forty miles away, another cluster of villages would be established. At the center of these inhabited areas were fortified strongpoints or grady that provided defense and served as tribal meeting places and sites of cult worship. Hundreds of these stockades dotted the East Slavic lands. Hence, the Scandinavian term Gardariki – “the country of strongholds” – for this territory. Little is known about the political organization of the East Slavs. Apparently, they had no supreme rulers or centralized authority. Tribes and clans, linked by their worship of common gods and led by patriarchs, most probably reached important decisions by means of communal consensus. Although eventually a class of tribal leaders called kniazi did emerge, socioeconomic differentiation did not appear to be great among the tribesmen, who considered land and livestock to be the communal property of extended families. In warfare, the East Slavs were known to be tough, stubborn fighters who could endure extremes of cold and heat and survive with a minimum of provisions. Unsure of themselves in the open plain, they preferred to fight in forests and ravines, where they often employed ambushes to overwhelm their enemies.

In both war and peace, persistence and endurance appear to have been their strongest assets.

Trade among the early East Slavs was poorly developed. It received a stimulating impetus in the 8th century, however, when Oriental traders, especially Muslim Arabs, began to penetrate into East Slavic lands. In exchange for precious metals, fine textiles, and jewelry, the East Slavs could offer the traditional products of their land: honey, wax, furs, and a commodity that the Arabs prized most – slaves. In the late 8th century, this trade flourished when the Turkic Khazars, founders of a unique commercial empire on the lower Volga and the Caspian Sea who later converted to Judaism, established contacts with the East Slavs. Some of these, notably the Severians, Viatichians and a part of the Polianians, were even forced to pay tribute to the Khazars. As they became less isolated, the East Slavs entered a new and momentous epoch in their history.

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Source: Subtelny Orest. Ukraine: A History. Fourth Edition. — University of Toronto Press,2009. — 888 р.. 2009

The East Slavs

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