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Link to the article
https://www.academia.edu/25069525/F...ve_in_prehistoric_Slavs_and_other_fairy_tales
In one of the most popular fairy tales of Slovenia, Veronika of Mali Grad in Kamnik is turned into a snake as a punishment for having refused to give money for the building of a church. As a snake, she lives underground guarding treasures, and occasionally appears as a beautiful maiden on quarter evenings, when ghosts have power and haunt places. In some variants of the tale, only an honest young man, who is capable ›(answering correctly her many questions, can save her-a Slovenian variant of the Sphinx riddle motif. Far from being a treasure worth guarding, the current research on the early Slavs and the Slavic ethnogenesis is riddled with misconceptions and wishful thinking. Like the snake in the tale, they lurk in the underground of supposedly respectable scholarship and stick out their ugly heads only at the time when the ghosts of nationalism gain power and begin haunting scholars. Despite several signs that the traditional version of the story about how the Slavs came into being is little more than a scholarly fantasy, old habits die hard, and the orthodoxy is repeated ad nauseam, as if repetitioin can replace confidence. There are by now many holes visible in the story, all which must be exposed. The best way to do so is to raise questions about the key elements of the old fairy tale. Having offered an alternative view for some time, let me now attract attention to a few snags arising in consequence of the traditional interpretation of the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence, which, at any rate, will have to be explained before one restores any credit to discredited theories.
1. If the Slavic ethnicity is about language, how can people speak Slavic without being Slavs?
Much of the current debate surrounding the Slavic ethnogenesis may be attributed to the stubborn conviction held in many circles—among historians, as well as archaeologists—that language is the essential element of (any) ethnic identity. This idea goes back to Johann Gott- fried Herder (1744-1803) and constitutes a fundamental assumption of modern nationalism. However, modern studies have constantly shown that there is in fact no one- to-one correlation between ethnic groups and languages'.
In the case of the early Slavs, the problem is complicated by the fact that the language they supposedly spoke, which is known as Common Slavic, is not a “real” language, but an artificial, scholarly construct not attested by any piece of hard evidence'. That the people mentioned in the written sources as Sclavenes or Antes spoke what we now take to be a Slavic language is just an assumption, and a very weak at that’. Andrej Pleterski believes that the Slavic self-awareness is reflected in the very name of those people for “Slavs” supposedly derives from the Slavic term for “word.” The Slavs were therefore the people who spoke the same language, as opposed to Nemtsi, who spoke a language one could not understand’. However, the earliest ethnic name attested in the written sources for those whom modern historians call “Slavs” was not Slav, but Sclavene (Sklavenos , Sclavenes), and that is also how the name was rendered in the first Old Church Slavonic sources [Slovéne). The suffix “-ene” (-éne) is either possessive or locative and some have gone so far as to derive the name of the people from place name.Even if one accept Slavic etymology emphasizing membership in language group,the term could not have possible been created in contrast with speakers of others languages,since Nemtsi is only documented at much later time and in different cultural and political environment.
At stake,however is a different question.Assuming for the moment that the early Slavs spoke (common) Slavic,do all people speaking Slavic therefore have to be Slavs? Was language then,as Andrej Pleterski together with Soviet ethnographers would have it “precondition for the rise of ethnic communities” ? Judging from the existing evidence the answer to both questions must be negative,sixth and seventh century written sources mention individuals describe as Antes and Sclavenes who use more than one language.The phoney Chilbudius was able to claim successfully,that of a Roman general,because although of Antian origin he could speak Latin fluently.Perboundos the king of the Rynchines in souther Macedonia had a thorough command of Greek.But there are people not describe as Antes or Sclavenes but speak Slavic (or the language of Sclavenes whatever it was) fluently.During Priscus 593 campaign in Walachia,one of the captives turned out to be a Gepid,who was very close to the Sclavene king Musocius,with whom he communicated in the king language.Formerly a Christian he betrayed his leader and cooperated with Priscus,presumably using Latin as language of communication (much like phoney Chilbudius before him),for no mention is made of a translator.The Avars had no problem communicating with Sclavenes and Antes in whatever language(s) they may have used.The “Huns” who according to Fredegar slept with the wifes and daughters of the Wends(Slavs) must have been able to communicate with them in their of language or otherwise the Slavic woman knew the language of the Avars.In about 560 as the Avars made their entrance in the steppe lands north of the Black sea,the Antes sent envoy named Mezamer to ransom some of his fellow tribesman taken prisoners by Avars in recent raids,The envoy was killed by the order of the qagan but not before speaking.The qagan was able to understand what Mezamer was saying apparently without assistance of interpreter.Shortly before 578 ,the same qagan sent an embassy to the Sclavenes led by a chieftain named Dauritas asking them to accept Avar suzerainty and to pay tribute.The Avar envoys must have been able to speak the language of Dauritas,or he theirs.When in 592 ,the qagan of the Avars ordered the Sclavenes to build boats for his troops to cross the river Danube,they must have been able to understand his words.In the early seventh century Sclavene warriors fought under direct command of the qagan under the walls of both Thesalonika and Constantinople.The apocryphal life of st Pancritius written in the late seventh or early eighth century mention a group of Avars prisoners in Sicily,with whom communicaton was possible only trough a translator from the Slavic community near Syracuse.
What then was the ethnic identity of those bi-or,possibly,multilingual individuals?should one count phoney Chilbudius out of ethnic group of the Antes because of him speaking Latin?Were the Avars brought to Sicily Slavs given that they could speak Slavic? Was Dauritas an Avar because he communicated with the Avar envoys in a language they all knew?
2.If the urheimat of the Slavs,at that time when they were still undifferentiated ethnic group,was in the region of Eastern Europe with the most archaic Slavic origin,why are there separate archeological cultures in that region?
There is currently no agreement as to exact location of the urheimat of the Slavs,if there was one.
Linguists have already expressed their distrust of the research based on river names,primarily because of the difficulties of proving etymologies of words that do not have meanings,in adition to difficulties in identifying specifically Slavic roots in a general Indo-European milieu.
Moreover, there is no agreement between advocates of the idea of looking for the Slavic origins by means of river names as to where exactly were the oldest names of supposedly Slavic origin. While the Soviet linguists place the Urheimat in Right -Bank Ukraine around Zhytomyr.Jurgen Udolph has pointed to an area of Subcarpathian Ukraine, farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia. Recently, Johanna Nichols has placed the locus for Slavic on the map "in the vicinity of the western Danube plain, which is the evident center of cultural influence from which the spread of Slavic speech emanated, combined with Avar political and ideological institutions'.Few scholars would now believe that there is a direct link between language and archaeological culture, but a certain degree of correlation between their developments is assumed when there is clear evidence of continuity.Andrej Pleterski is apparently convinced that the Zarubyntsi culture dated between the third century BC and the first century AD is the archaeological correlate of the proto-Slavic ethnicity (and language). If so, what happened to the proto-Slavs and their language after the complete disappearance of that culture, supposedly destroyed by Sarmatians"? A considerable gap of about 200 years separates the Zarubyntsi from the Kiev culture (dated between the third and the fourth century). which is attributed to The Kiev culture also ends with the abandonment of most sites. At least another century then separates the Kiev culture from the earliest assemblages of the Prague culture, which is autibuted to the early Slays.Where did the proto-Slavs go after the first century, and whence could they return, two centuries later, to the same region from which their ancestors had left? How did they then turn into the Slavs of the Prague culture, the earliest remains of which are documented archaeologically much farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia? Why did the migration of the Slavs in the direction of the Lower Danube and the Balkans leave no
remains of the Prague on the territory of present-day Romania, the region which Andrej Pleterski calls "alleged area of the Slavic culture'"?Was (Common) Slavic the language used for communication between the third century B.C. and the third century AD.in settlements attributed to the Zarubyntsi and Kiev culture? There is absolutely no shred of evidence of any language spoken on any of those sites in a region,which was too far away from the Roman world to be on the radar of the written sources. There is therefore no way to associate the material culture discovered on Zarubyntsi and Kiev sites either with an ethnic name known from the sources, or with a linguistic group. Moreover. the obvious cultural discontinuity in the region raises serious doubts about any attempts to write the history of the prehistoric Slavs as one of the continuous occupation of one and the same region between the late Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. Nor is any evidence of material remains of the Zarubyntsi. Kiev, or Prague culture in the southern and southwestern direction of the presumed migration of the ethnos Slavs towards the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire. Pleterski uses maps to show the distribution of archaeological cultures in Eastern Europe during the first to second and third to fourth century, respectively. The arrows indicating migration on those maps point to the northeast and northeast and north, respectively, exactly the opposite of direction of the-movement that would have brought the Slavs into the territories of the Prague and Pen'kivka cultures". If the Slavs were a fully-fledged ethnos since prehistoric times, why are there so many archaeological cultures attributed to them appearing in areas that are not known from the written sources to have been later inhabited either by Sclavenes or by Antes?
3. Why is there no archaeological evidence of a Slavic migration to the western Balkans?
A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct
and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history. For migration so be responsible for cultural change, four conditions have to be met. First, a constellation of new traits has to appear suddenly, and without local prototypes, in a given area. Second. the products of the migrant group should reflect elements of the destination area. Third, it should be possible to identify an area in which constellation of new traits is the normal pattern. Finally, expression of the "at home" and displaced traits should occur simultaneously
or in a sequence in the homeland and the destination area.
Where cultural changes are due so population movement. the pattern of cultural change is one where a new complex appears as a package on new sites. One should also observe a decline in homeland population that takes place over decades rather than all at once. Finally, one should be able to identify permanent, long-distance movement associated with the abandonment of sites, and an accelerating pace and scale of abandonment over time. If the migration of the Slavs began in the area of the Prague culture in Western Ukraine. it is remarkable that, instead of a rarefied
settlement network in that region, there are many more late sixth- to late seventh -century settlements than in the whole of the Balkan Peninsula. The supposed migration did not thin out the population of the supposed Urheimat.
The number of settlements in the homeland is in fact larger than that of the fifth century, and that number continued to grow throughout the seventh and eighth centuries. if as it seems likely, conditions in the supposed urheimat were
favorable to a population growth, why would anyone want to leave it for the distant lands in Slovenia and Croatia? So far, advocates of the migrationist model, from Valentin V. Sedov to Andrej Pleterski. has offered no answer to this question. The latter imagined the Slavs coming to the western Balkans directly from western Ukraine, across the northern and western parts of the Carpathian Basin". But the material culture attributed to the early Slavs in Slovenia and Croatia has nothing to do with that of the sites in northwestern Romania and northeastern Hungary, the region through which the Slays, according to Pleterski's model, must have gone in order to reach southern Pannonia and, from there, the western Balkans. There are no sunken -floored building of rectangular plan with stone or clay ovens, no clay rolls and lumps ("breadcakes") inside the ovens, no clay trays. and no pottery decorated with crosses incised on the vessel's shoulder". If, as Pleterski now claims, the Slavs settled in the Eastern Alpine area at the end of the 6" century, it is remarkable that the expression of the displaced traits does not appear either si-multaneously or in a sequence with that of the traits in the supposed homeland". Conversely, traits identified in eastern Slovenia and northern Croatia on such sites as reflected in any corresponding elements in the homeland.For example, there are no oval sunken -floored buildings without fireplaces in the northeastern region of the Carpathian Basin or in western Ukraine, such as found in Slovenia and Croatia".By contrast, there are very good matches between traits in the cremation cemetery from Regensburg and those from a number of similar sites in the western part of the Very similar urn cremations have been found on a number of sites in southwestern Hungary between the Zala and the Mura rivers. The earliest cremation burial of this group are dated to the early 735 century, and are therefore of the same age as those in Regensburg. To the same direction point some of the finds associated with cremations in Regensburg-Groflprufening , such as the trapeze -shaped" and the double -spiral bronze pendants". The urns have also good analogies among the handmade pots found in Pokaszepetk". Whether or not those who buried their dead in Regensburg-Groflprufening were Slavs, the cremation cemetery discovered there may be interpreted, at the most, as an indication of a relatively short -distance migration from the Carpathian Basin, and not of the movement of population from western Ukraine (or farther to the east) into the upper Danube region.
4. If the early Slavs in the northwestern Balkans had specific forms of social organization (e.g., the zupa). why is there no evidence of that in the Urheimat
in Eastern Europe, either before or after the presumed migration?
The idea that the supposedly rapid Slavicization of Eastern, Southeastern and East Central Europe in the early Middle Ages was the result of a specifically Slavic mode of life and society is rooted in nineteenth-century nationalist views. Procopius of Caesarea's account of the Slavic "democracy" became a favorite historiographic theme in the days of the Slavic Congress in Prague (1848). Both
Frantisek Palacky (1798-1876) and Pavel Josef Sararik (1795-1861) interpreted Procopius' text as referring to a distinctive quality of "Slavdom" as opposed to the aggres- siveness and brutality of the Germane'. To Niederle, the Slavic "democracy" was a pristine form of ancestral. Indo-European social structure based on social equality and cooperation between large families. He imagined these families as identical to the Balkan zadruga "discovered" by Western ethnographers in the late nineteenth century. Like Niederle, many still argue that the peculiar social organization of the early Slavs prevented centralization of economic and political power, despite clear evidence that the zadruga was a much later phenomenon'. During the first half of the twentieth century, it was also assumed that the migration of the early Slavs had resulted in a number of tribes settling in the newly conquered territories. Each tribe was made up of several zadrugas and the territory assigned to them was called a zupe" was thus a common Slavic institution, brought from the Urheimat to the new lands. Ever since Josip Mal (1884-1978), the zupa has been regarded in Slovenian historiography as the foundation of medieval Slavic society". Andrej Pleterski has embraced this concept with great enthusiasm. Like Niederle, he does not hesitate to use nineteenth-century oral history accounts as evidence for the migration of the Slavs in the late sixth century". According to him, the
zupa was the building block of Slavdom". Without any fear of anachronism, Pleterski engages boldly in comparing the Zupa with the polis in ancient Greece, the civitas in ancient Rome,the Gau in the Germanic world,and the opidum among Celts all being small units of spatial organization.
According to him, if one uses "the right key," the outlines of the older field division of any
may come to light. The basic premise is, of course, that the arable land divisions of the early medieval villages established by the early Slays have been preserved intact to this day". Pleterski thinks that the date for the establishment of a village (Zasip) may be derived from that of the graves excavated in a nearby cemetery (Zale), and is confident that a hoard of iron tools and weapons (Sebenje) can show, in and by itself, that the arable land, as well as the farming tools were taken by the Slavs from the native Vlachs in the region". Between 1050 and 1065, a certain Winrih left to the Diocese of Brixen his hereditary,estate in a place called "Summitas campi id eat a
felde situm".
From that, Pleterski draws the conclusion that the place in question was "at the upper field." All villages in the Gorje area of the Bled zupa inclusion of comparative material available on other (Zgomje Gorje, Poljiica. and Vigelnica) are "at the upper field ," but "the closest corresponding Slovene toponym is Gorje" This is the basis for Pleterski deciding that Spodne-Gorje must be Winrih's estates' This data manipulation is nothing but pure phantasmagoria, with sheer disregard for both logic and consistency. The only purpose of such carefully constructed aberration is a overwhelming desireto prove that the as a territorial unit, survived in-tact through the centuries following the arrival of the early Slavs on Slovenian soil. To be sure, Pleterski is not alone in such endeavors. A historian critical of the nationalist tendencies of Slovene historians still believes that through
"the inclusion of comparative material available on other(especially South Slavs) and backward deduction based on later periods in Slovene history," one can conclude that the Slavic ancestors of the Slovenes were familiar with the zupa system" already at the time of their settlement".What is the evidence of the zupa system in the region of central or western Ukraine from which the early Slavs supposedly migrated? During the Soviet regime, much
effort has been put into writing social history of Marxist inspiration, and the period
of the early Slays (fifth to seventh century) was particularly emphasized for such
approaches'°. Archaeologists looked at settlement layouts for clues about the social organization of the early Slavs. The concept of village community as put forward by Boris 0. Timoshchuk has absolutely nothing in common with the
zupa ,although it is believed to apply to the earliest form of social organization of the early Slavs'. Nor did the new preoccupation with the intrasire organization of
sixth- to seventh -century settlements attributed to the early Slavs reveal anything remotely rhyming with the zupa system, an envisioned by Andrej Pleterski.
If no evidence exists of the zupa system either in the East European Urheimat Or in other areas inhabited by
Slavs in the Middle Ages (e.g., Bulgaria or Poland), how did the system emerge in the northwestern Balkans? Why was it so prominent in Slovenia and Croatia in the central and High Middle Ages?
Most variants of the Slovenian folk tale mentioned in the beginning of this paper have the young man failing to answer correctly Veronika's questions. The bewitched girl is doomed to wait for her savior in the cradle, a man not yet born or not yet grown. The four questions addressed above at those who still believe in prehistoric Slavs and other such fairy tales raise similar concerns. Is any one out
there capable of answering them in a meaningful way, instead of clinging to outdated historical models? Or should one wait for the birth of another man capable of answering them correctly and returning the snake -like monster to its natural state of a human beig?
Florin CURTA
Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology
Department of History
202 Flint Hall, P.O. Box 117320
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7320
E-mail: [email protected]
https://www.academia.edu/25069525/F...ve_in_prehistoric_Slavs_and_other_fairy_tales
In one of the most popular fairy tales of Slovenia, Veronika of Mali Grad in Kamnik is turned into a snake as a punishment for having refused to give money for the building of a church. As a snake, she lives underground guarding treasures, and occasionally appears as a beautiful maiden on quarter evenings, when ghosts have power and haunt places. In some variants of the tale, only an honest young man, who is capable ›(answering correctly her many questions, can save her-a Slovenian variant of the Sphinx riddle motif. Far from being a treasure worth guarding, the current research on the early Slavs and the Slavic ethnogenesis is riddled with misconceptions and wishful thinking. Like the snake in the tale, they lurk in the underground of supposedly respectable scholarship and stick out their ugly heads only at the time when the ghosts of nationalism gain power and begin haunting scholars. Despite several signs that the traditional version of the story about how the Slavs came into being is little more than a scholarly fantasy, old habits die hard, and the orthodoxy is repeated ad nauseam, as if repetitioin can replace confidence. There are by now many holes visible in the story, all which must be exposed. The best way to do so is to raise questions about the key elements of the old fairy tale. Having offered an alternative view for some time, let me now attract attention to a few snags arising in consequence of the traditional interpretation of the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence, which, at any rate, will have to be explained before one restores any credit to discredited theories.
1. If the Slavic ethnicity is about language, how can people speak Slavic without being Slavs?
Much of the current debate surrounding the Slavic ethnogenesis may be attributed to the stubborn conviction held in many circles—among historians, as well as archaeologists—that language is the essential element of (any) ethnic identity. This idea goes back to Johann Gott- fried Herder (1744-1803) and constitutes a fundamental assumption of modern nationalism. However, modern studies have constantly shown that there is in fact no one- to-one correlation between ethnic groups and languages'.
In the case of the early Slavs, the problem is complicated by the fact that the language they supposedly spoke, which is known as Common Slavic, is not a “real” language, but an artificial, scholarly construct not attested by any piece of hard evidence'. That the people mentioned in the written sources as Sclavenes or Antes spoke what we now take to be a Slavic language is just an assumption, and a very weak at that’. Andrej Pleterski believes that the Slavic self-awareness is reflected in the very name of those people for “Slavs” supposedly derives from the Slavic term for “word.” The Slavs were therefore the people who spoke the same language, as opposed to Nemtsi, who spoke a language one could not understand’. However, the earliest ethnic name attested in the written sources for those whom modern historians call “Slavs” was not Slav, but Sclavene (Sklavenos , Sclavenes), and that is also how the name was rendered in the first Old Church Slavonic sources [Slovéne). The suffix “-ene” (-éne) is either possessive or locative and some have gone so far as to derive the name of the people from place name.Even if one accept Slavic etymology emphasizing membership in language group,the term could not have possible been created in contrast with speakers of others languages,since Nemtsi is only documented at much later time and in different cultural and political environment.
At stake,however is a different question.Assuming for the moment that the early Slavs spoke (common) Slavic,do all people speaking Slavic therefore have to be Slavs? Was language then,as Andrej Pleterski together with Soviet ethnographers would have it “precondition for the rise of ethnic communities” ? Judging from the existing evidence the answer to both questions must be negative,sixth and seventh century written sources mention individuals describe as Antes and Sclavenes who use more than one language.The phoney Chilbudius was able to claim successfully,that of a Roman general,because although of Antian origin he could speak Latin fluently.Perboundos the king of the Rynchines in souther Macedonia had a thorough command of Greek.But there are people not describe as Antes or Sclavenes but speak Slavic (or the language of Sclavenes whatever it was) fluently.During Priscus 593 campaign in Walachia,one of the captives turned out to be a Gepid,who was very close to the Sclavene king Musocius,with whom he communicated in the king language.Formerly a Christian he betrayed his leader and cooperated with Priscus,presumably using Latin as language of communication (much like phoney Chilbudius before him),for no mention is made of a translator.The Avars had no problem communicating with Sclavenes and Antes in whatever language(s) they may have used.The “Huns” who according to Fredegar slept with the wifes and daughters of the Wends(Slavs) must have been able to communicate with them in their of language or otherwise the Slavic woman knew the language of the Avars.In about 560 as the Avars made their entrance in the steppe lands north of the Black sea,the Antes sent envoy named Mezamer to ransom some of his fellow tribesman taken prisoners by Avars in recent raids,The envoy was killed by the order of the qagan but not before speaking.The qagan was able to understand what Mezamer was saying apparently without assistance of interpreter.Shortly before 578 ,the same qagan sent an embassy to the Sclavenes led by a chieftain named Dauritas asking them to accept Avar suzerainty and to pay tribute.The Avar envoys must have been able to speak the language of Dauritas,or he theirs.When in 592 ,the qagan of the Avars ordered the Sclavenes to build boats for his troops to cross the river Danube,they must have been able to understand his words.In the early seventh century Sclavene warriors fought under direct command of the qagan under the walls of both Thesalonika and Constantinople.The apocryphal life of st Pancritius written in the late seventh or early eighth century mention a group of Avars prisoners in Sicily,with whom communicaton was possible only trough a translator from the Slavic community near Syracuse.
What then was the ethnic identity of those bi-or,possibly,multilingual individuals?should one count phoney Chilbudius out of ethnic group of the Antes because of him speaking Latin?Were the Avars brought to Sicily Slavs given that they could speak Slavic? Was Dauritas an Avar because he communicated with the Avar envoys in a language they all knew?
2.If the urheimat of the Slavs,at that time when they were still undifferentiated ethnic group,was in the region of Eastern Europe with the most archaic Slavic origin,why are there separate archeological cultures in that region?
There is currently no agreement as to exact location of the urheimat of the Slavs,if there was one.
Linguists have already expressed their distrust of the research based on river names,primarily because of the difficulties of proving etymologies of words that do not have meanings,in adition to difficulties in identifying specifically Slavic roots in a general Indo-European milieu.
Moreover, there is no agreement between advocates of the idea of looking for the Slavic origins by means of river names as to where exactly were the oldest names of supposedly Slavic origin. While the Soviet linguists place the Urheimat in Right -Bank Ukraine around Zhytomyr.Jurgen Udolph has pointed to an area of Subcarpathian Ukraine, farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia. Recently, Johanna Nichols has placed the locus for Slavic on the map "in the vicinity of the western Danube plain, which is the evident center of cultural influence from which the spread of Slavic speech emanated, combined with Avar political and ideological institutions'.Few scholars would now believe that there is a direct link between language and archaeological culture, but a certain degree of correlation between their developments is assumed when there is clear evidence of continuity.Andrej Pleterski is apparently convinced that the Zarubyntsi culture dated between the third century BC and the first century AD is the archaeological correlate of the proto-Slavic ethnicity (and language). If so, what happened to the proto-Slavs and their language after the complete disappearance of that culture, supposedly destroyed by Sarmatians"? A considerable gap of about 200 years separates the Zarubyntsi from the Kiev culture (dated between the third and the fourth century). which is attributed to The Kiev culture also ends with the abandonment of most sites. At least another century then separates the Kiev culture from the earliest assemblages of the Prague culture, which is autibuted to the early Slays.Where did the proto-Slavs go after the first century, and whence could they return, two centuries later, to the same region from which their ancestors had left? How did they then turn into the Slavs of the Prague culture, the earliest remains of which are documented archaeologically much farther to the southwest, in Bukovina and Galicia? Why did the migration of the Slavs in the direction of the Lower Danube and the Balkans leave no
remains of the Prague on the territory of present-day Romania, the region which Andrej Pleterski calls "alleged area of the Slavic culture'"?Was (Common) Slavic the language used for communication between the third century B.C. and the third century AD.in settlements attributed to the Zarubyntsi and Kiev culture? There is absolutely no shred of evidence of any language spoken on any of those sites in a region,which was too far away from the Roman world to be on the radar of the written sources. There is therefore no way to associate the material culture discovered on Zarubyntsi and Kiev sites either with an ethnic name known from the sources, or with a linguistic group. Moreover. the obvious cultural discontinuity in the region raises serious doubts about any attempts to write the history of the prehistoric Slavs as one of the continuous occupation of one and the same region between the late Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. Nor is any evidence of material remains of the Zarubyntsi. Kiev, or Prague culture in the southern and southwestern direction of the presumed migration of the ethnos Slavs towards the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire. Pleterski uses maps to show the distribution of archaeological cultures in Eastern Europe during the first to second and third to fourth century, respectively. The arrows indicating migration on those maps point to the northeast and northeast and north, respectively, exactly the opposite of direction of the-movement that would have brought the Slavs into the territories of the Prague and Pen'kivka cultures". If the Slavs were a fully-fledged ethnos since prehistoric times, why are there so many archaeological cultures attributed to them appearing in areas that are not known from the written sources to have been later inhabited either by Sclavenes or by Antes?
3. Why is there no archaeological evidence of a Slavic migration to the western Balkans?
A fundamental proposition of historical anthropology is that human genes, language, and culture represent distinct systems of inheritance. The three systems are distinct
and have no necessary relationship because each bears a different relation to population history. For migration so be responsible for cultural change, four conditions have to be met. First, a constellation of new traits has to appear suddenly, and without local prototypes, in a given area. Second. the products of the migrant group should reflect elements of the destination area. Third, it should be possible to identify an area in which constellation of new traits is the normal pattern. Finally, expression of the "at home" and displaced traits should occur simultaneously
or in a sequence in the homeland and the destination area.
Where cultural changes are due so population movement. the pattern of cultural change is one where a new complex appears as a package on new sites. One should also observe a decline in homeland population that takes place over decades rather than all at once. Finally, one should be able to identify permanent, long-distance movement associated with the abandonment of sites, and an accelerating pace and scale of abandonment over time. If the migration of the Slavs began in the area of the Prague culture in Western Ukraine. it is remarkable that, instead of a rarefied
settlement network in that region, there are many more late sixth- to late seventh -century settlements than in the whole of the Balkan Peninsula. The supposed migration did not thin out the population of the supposed Urheimat.
The number of settlements in the homeland is in fact larger than that of the fifth century, and that number continued to grow throughout the seventh and eighth centuries. if as it seems likely, conditions in the supposed urheimat were
favorable to a population growth, why would anyone want to leave it for the distant lands in Slovenia and Croatia? So far, advocates of the migrationist model, from Valentin V. Sedov to Andrej Pleterski. has offered no answer to this question. The latter imagined the Slavs coming to the western Balkans directly from western Ukraine, across the northern and western parts of the Carpathian Basin". But the material culture attributed to the early Slavs in Slovenia and Croatia has nothing to do with that of the sites in northwestern Romania and northeastern Hungary, the region through which the Slays, according to Pleterski's model, must have gone in order to reach southern Pannonia and, from there, the western Balkans. There are no sunken -floored building of rectangular plan with stone or clay ovens, no clay rolls and lumps ("breadcakes") inside the ovens, no clay trays. and no pottery decorated with crosses incised on the vessel's shoulder". If, as Pleterski now claims, the Slavs settled in the Eastern Alpine area at the end of the 6" century, it is remarkable that the expression of the displaced traits does not appear either si-multaneously or in a sequence with that of the traits in the supposed homeland". Conversely, traits identified in eastern Slovenia and northern Croatia on such sites as reflected in any corresponding elements in the homeland.For example, there are no oval sunken -floored buildings without fireplaces in the northeastern region of the Carpathian Basin or in western Ukraine, such as found in Slovenia and Croatia".By contrast, there are very good matches between traits in the cremation cemetery from Regensburg and those from a number of similar sites in the western part of the Very similar urn cremations have been found on a number of sites in southwestern Hungary between the Zala and the Mura rivers. The earliest cremation burial of this group are dated to the early 735 century, and are therefore of the same age as those in Regensburg. To the same direction point some of the finds associated with cremations in Regensburg-Groflprufening , such as the trapeze -shaped" and the double -spiral bronze pendants". The urns have also good analogies among the handmade pots found in Pokaszepetk". Whether or not those who buried their dead in Regensburg-Groflprufening were Slavs, the cremation cemetery discovered there may be interpreted, at the most, as an indication of a relatively short -distance migration from the Carpathian Basin, and not of the movement of population from western Ukraine (or farther to the east) into the upper Danube region.
4. If the early Slavs in the northwestern Balkans had specific forms of social organization (e.g., the zupa). why is there no evidence of that in the Urheimat
in Eastern Europe, either before or after the presumed migration?
The idea that the supposedly rapid Slavicization of Eastern, Southeastern and East Central Europe in the early Middle Ages was the result of a specifically Slavic mode of life and society is rooted in nineteenth-century nationalist views. Procopius of Caesarea's account of the Slavic "democracy" became a favorite historiographic theme in the days of the Slavic Congress in Prague (1848). Both
Frantisek Palacky (1798-1876) and Pavel Josef Sararik (1795-1861) interpreted Procopius' text as referring to a distinctive quality of "Slavdom" as opposed to the aggres- siveness and brutality of the Germane'. To Niederle, the Slavic "democracy" was a pristine form of ancestral. Indo-European social structure based on social equality and cooperation between large families. He imagined these families as identical to the Balkan zadruga "discovered" by Western ethnographers in the late nineteenth century. Like Niederle, many still argue that the peculiar social organization of the early Slavs prevented centralization of economic and political power, despite clear evidence that the zadruga was a much later phenomenon'. During the first half of the twentieth century, it was also assumed that the migration of the early Slavs had resulted in a number of tribes settling in the newly conquered territories. Each tribe was made up of several zadrugas and the territory assigned to them was called a zupe" was thus a common Slavic institution, brought from the Urheimat to the new lands. Ever since Josip Mal (1884-1978), the zupa has been regarded in Slovenian historiography as the foundation of medieval Slavic society". Andrej Pleterski has embraced this concept with great enthusiasm. Like Niederle, he does not hesitate to use nineteenth-century oral history accounts as evidence for the migration of the Slavs in the late sixth century". According to him, the
zupa was the building block of Slavdom". Without any fear of anachronism, Pleterski engages boldly in comparing the Zupa with the polis in ancient Greece, the civitas in ancient Rome,the Gau in the Germanic world,and the opidum among Celts all being small units of spatial organization.
According to him, if one uses "the right key," the outlines of the older field division of any
may come to light. The basic premise is, of course, that the arable land divisions of the early medieval villages established by the early Slays have been preserved intact to this day". Pleterski thinks that the date for the establishment of a village (Zasip) may be derived from that of the graves excavated in a nearby cemetery (Zale), and is confident that a hoard of iron tools and weapons (Sebenje) can show, in and by itself, that the arable land, as well as the farming tools were taken by the Slavs from the native Vlachs in the region". Between 1050 and 1065, a certain Winrih left to the Diocese of Brixen his hereditary,estate in a place called "Summitas campi id eat a
felde situm".
From that, Pleterski draws the conclusion that the place in question was "at the upper field." All villages in the Gorje area of the Bled zupa inclusion of comparative material available on other (Zgomje Gorje, Poljiica. and Vigelnica) are "at the upper field ," but "the closest corresponding Slovene toponym is Gorje" This is the basis for Pleterski deciding that Spodne-Gorje must be Winrih's estates' This data manipulation is nothing but pure phantasmagoria, with sheer disregard for both logic and consistency. The only purpose of such carefully constructed aberration is a overwhelming desireto prove that the as a territorial unit, survived in-tact through the centuries following the arrival of the early Slavs on Slovenian soil. To be sure, Pleterski is not alone in such endeavors. A historian critical of the nationalist tendencies of Slovene historians still believes that through
"the inclusion of comparative material available on other(especially South Slavs) and backward deduction based on later periods in Slovene history," one can conclude that the Slavic ancestors of the Slovenes were familiar with the zupa system" already at the time of their settlement".What is the evidence of the zupa system in the region of central or western Ukraine from which the early Slavs supposedly migrated? During the Soviet regime, much
effort has been put into writing social history of Marxist inspiration, and the period
of the early Slays (fifth to seventh century) was particularly emphasized for such
approaches'°. Archaeologists looked at settlement layouts for clues about the social organization of the early Slavs. The concept of village community as put forward by Boris 0. Timoshchuk has absolutely nothing in common with the
zupa ,although it is believed to apply to the earliest form of social organization of the early Slavs'. Nor did the new preoccupation with the intrasire organization of
sixth- to seventh -century settlements attributed to the early Slavs reveal anything remotely rhyming with the zupa system, an envisioned by Andrej Pleterski.
If no evidence exists of the zupa system either in the East European Urheimat Or in other areas inhabited by
Slavs in the Middle Ages (e.g., Bulgaria or Poland), how did the system emerge in the northwestern Balkans? Why was it so prominent in Slovenia and Croatia in the central and High Middle Ages?
Most variants of the Slovenian folk tale mentioned in the beginning of this paper have the young man failing to answer correctly Veronika's questions. The bewitched girl is doomed to wait for her savior in the cradle, a man not yet born or not yet grown. The four questions addressed above at those who still believe in prehistoric Slavs and other such fairy tales raise similar concerns. Is any one out
there capable of answering them in a meaningful way, instead of clinging to outdated historical models? Or should one wait for the birth of another man capable of answering them correctly and returning the snake -like monster to its natural state of a human beig?
Florin CURTA
Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology
Department of History
202 Flint Hall, P.O. Box 117320
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7320
E-mail: [email protected]
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