A History of Central Eastern Europe

SPIŠSKA STARÁ VES,
THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVAKIA
AND THE
WESTERN SLAVIC TRIBES
The 12 or 13 Slavic tribes are divided into 3 broad categories
that reflect both their supposed common origins: VÉNÈDES, SCLAVINI & ANTES; and their
final location: WESTERN, SOUTHERN & EASTERN. These divisions are location-specific,
though not all are in full agreement with the tribal divisions or even if a particular tribe
was Slavic. The following represents the current majority opinion and accords with most
of the linguistic and archeological evidence:
A) VÉNÈDES became the WESTERN SLAVS: appear about 400 B.C.E:
1) POLES: from Polanie (field dwellers), only people to remain in Vistula and Oder river
basin homelands;
2) KASHUBIANS: near G’dansk
3) POLABIANS: from Pol L’bab or “near the banks of the Elbe.” Some include the Lusation
Serbs (aka Sorbians or Wendish) in this tribe; others maintain they were a separate, but
close, tribe. Marked the Westernmost expansion of the Venedi
4) CZECH: westernmost of the two tribes inhabiting Silesia and the Upper Vistula region,
covering Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia.
5) SLOVAK: easternmost tribe inhabiting Silesia and the Upper Vistula region.
B) SCLAVINI became the SOUTHERN (YUGO) SLAVS: appear about 200 B.C.E:
6) MACEDONIAN: first to arrive 5 th c. Earliest converts to Christianity and under rule of
Byzantium earlier.
7) BULGARS: origins may be Slavic or Turco-Ugarian. If they were the latter, they had
become so completely Slavicised by the 7 th c that they can not be accurately identified
as non-Slavic. If Slavic, it remains unclear if they were of the Sclavini or Antes group.
Bulgars resisted their aggressive neighbor Byzantium and, by default, Catholicism. This
early schism with Slavic groups is still very much present today. Bosniacs is reserved for
any Southern Slavic adherents of Islam of which Bulgars are the majority.
8) CROATS: may have been in southeast Poland, moved to the eastern shores of the
Adriatic Sea around 7 th c, established Dalmatia.
9) SERBS: moved almost simultaneously with the Croats from and to same areas. The
Slavic Serbs are not the same as today’s “Serbians” who are a native Balkan people.
10) SLOVENES: followed above groups, moving into area much larger than present Slovenia,
penetrating deep into the Eastern Alps to the head of the Adriatic Sea.
C) ANTES became the EASTERN SLAVS: appear about 500 C.E:
11) RUSSIAN
12) BELARUSSIAN or WHITE RUTHENIAN: Grand Duchy of Lithuania 13 th – 18 th c.
13) UKRAINIANS: in the Ukraine by 5 th c when Kiev is established.
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