13? 



SCL.VVONIANS. 



t^e north-eastern countries of Germany ; the Scla- 

 vonians occupied the country between the southern 

 bank of the Vistula and the Dniester; the Antes 

 fcetween the Dniester ;m<l the Dnieper. The irrup- 

 tion ot the Huns into Europe freed them from the 

 yoke of the Goths, and the death of Attila from that 

 of the Huns. They were afterwards urged by the 

 same impulse which impelled the German tribes to 

 the south and west, while at the same time Scy- 

 thian or Mongolian-Tartar hordes came down upon 

 them, almost uninterruptedly, from the Wolga and 

 the Caucasus, and drove them from the northern 

 banks of the Black sea, some to the north, and 

 others to the west. In the sixth century, the 

 Wends, strictly so called (afterwards the Northern 

 Sclavonians), took possession of the regions on the 

 Elbe, which had been deserted by the Goths and 

 Suevi, while the proper or eastern Sclavonians oc- 

 cupied the banks of the Danube to the Noricanand 

 Julian Alps. But the two tribes intermingled, and 

 there arose two great Wendish Sclavonian unions ; 

 that in Great Croatia (East Bohemia, Silesia, and 

 Lodomiria), and that in Great Servia (Misnia, West 

 Bohemia, and Moravia). Under the yoke of the 

 Franks and the Avars, they split into various bodies 

 which were united, about 623, by Samo, the Frank, 

 into a powerful empire ; but after his death, it again 

 tell to pieces, and formed numerous waywodeships, 

 from which arose new national names before the | 

 end of the sixth century. All this rests only 

 on tradition. In the eighth century, St Boni- 

 face led some Sclavonic tribes into the vicinity 

 of Fulda, Bamberg, Wiirzburg, and Bayreuth. In 

 Bohemia reigned Libussa, the founder of Prague, 

 about 722, and Przemisl, first duke of the Bohe- 

 mian!!, afterward called Czechen. The tribe of the 

 Liaches (probably a branch of the Antes) retired 

 from the eastern shore of the Danube to the Vistula, 

 and, under the name of Polijanes, diffused them- 

 selves abroad in modern Poland. Branches of this 

 race, the Pomeranians and Lutitzians, advanced to 

 the north-eastern part of Germany (Pomerania, 

 Lower Lusatia). The Wilzians, a branch of the 

 Wends, spread from the Oder through the Mark to 

 the other side of the Elbe ; and the Serbians, after 

 640, settled in the territory deserted by the Her- 

 munduri, on the Upper Elbe (the present Misnia, as 

 far as to the Saale), and the Havel. The Obotri- 

 tes, still later, became powerful in Modern Meck- 

 lenburg. The Wends contended, on the west, with 

 the Thuringians and Franks. Charlemagne sought 

 the alliance of some of these tribes, and conquered 

 others. In the war with the Avars, he subdued the 

 southern Sclavonic territories, Carinthia, Stiria, and 

 Carniola, where he and later emperors founded 

 German Margraviates. (See Austria.) The Nor- 

 thern Wends were subsequently driven, by the Saxon 

 kings of Germany, beyond the river Elbe ; and in 

 the tenth century were formed the Margraviates of 

 Misnia, Lusatia and Brandenburg. About the same 

 period the Antes who still remained at the mouth 

 of the Danube, were exterminated by the irruptions 

 of the Avars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and others, 

 or driven to distant lands. The name of Antes dis- 

 appeared. Probably some of this race retired to 

 the Dnieper and to the Wolchow. On the former 

 they built Kiev, and on the latter Novgorod, the 

 two Sclavonic pillars of the Russian state. (See 

 Russia.") The proper Sclavi maintained their posi- 

 tion on the northern bank of the Danube, and often 

 invaded and devastated the Roman provinces, de- 

 fended their independence against the Bulgarians 



and Avars, received emigrants from great Servia and 

 Great Croatia, and, in connexion with them, 

 founded Sclavonic settlements in Dulmatia (see 

 Dalmatia, and Illyria'), Servia, Croatia, and Sclavo- 

 nia. On the fall of the kingdom of Great Moravia, 

 at the close of the ninth century, that of the Obo- 

 trites arose (in Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, &c.), un- 

 der king Gottschalk (he was assassinated in lOiiC, , 

 and king Henry (he died 1126), till, in the twelfth 

 century, it was conquered, partly by Saxon dukes 

 (see Henry the Lion), and partly by the Danish 

 kings. Bohemia retained its Sclavonic line of 

 princes, but acknowledged the sovereignty of the 

 German emperors till 1306. Russia and Poland 

 slowly unfolded into independent states ; while on 

 the other hand, the Sclavi on the Danube, the Scla- 

 vonians, the Bosnians, and Croatians, were never 

 powerful, but almost always in subjection to the 

 adjacent nations the Greeks, Hungarians, Vene- 

 tians, and Titfks. 



Meanwhile, centuries of emigration and war had 

 transformed the democratic governments of the 

 Wendish (Sclavonic) tribes into limited monarchies. 

 Their first princes were the oldest members of the 

 tribe ; afterwards the leaders of their armies, styled 

 gospodin, or hospodar, knees, waywode, ban, hral, &e. 

 The heathen priests exercised a great authority over 

 the rulers, and the high priests at Arcon on the is- 

 land of Riigen, governed all the Wendish tribes. 

 The principle deity of the Sclavonians was called 

 Bog, and his wife Siwa. They also worshipped 

 good spirits (Bellog) and evil spirits (Czerncbog~). 

 Almost every village had its divinity. At Riigen, 

 Swantewit was chiefly revered ; the Obotrites wor- 

 shipped Radegast ; the Havlers, Herowit. A mong 

 the Apostles of the Sclavonians, in the ninth cen- 

 tury, Cyril and Methodius are worthy of notice. 

 As the kings of the Sclavonians were hereditary 

 monarchs, and all the nobles might be said to par- 

 ticipate in the government, the common people be- 

 came, gradually, more and more oppressed, and 

 sunk, at length, into complete slavery. They re- 

 mained, after a dreadful war, in the same condition 

 under their German conquerors, who forcibly intro- 

 duced Christianity among them in the tenth and 

 eleventh centuries. After the fall of Henry the 

 Lion, however, in 1180, some Wendish- princes 

 succeeded in holding their lands as immediate vas- 

 sals of the emperor. Pribislaw, the son of Niklot, 

 the last Wendish king of the Obotrites, assumed the 

 title of prince of Mecklenburg, from the ancient ca- 

 pital of his country; and his posterity still reign 

 in Schwerin and Strelitz. Thus the family of 

 Niklot, in Mecklenburg, is the only Sclavonic 

 (Wendish) house of princes remaining in Europe. 

 Bogeslaw and Casimir maintained themselves as 

 princes of the empire in the duchies of Pomerania, 

 from the Oder to the Vistula. In Pomerania Pro- 

 per, the Wendish house of princes, notwithstanding 

 many divisions, did not become extinct till 1637. 

 German colonists settled in the Wendish territories 

 which were depopulated by war; and thus their 

 language and manners, in a great measure, disappeared 

 (partially as early as the fifteenth century, e. g. on 

 Rugen ;) but bondage still remains. The old Wend- 

 ish stock, however, has maintained its existence 

 in several parts of Eastern Germany, as in Lusatia 

 and Altenburg. Since the fall of the Wendish em- 

 pire, the name of Sclavonians has become more ge- 

 neral. The inhabitants of Poland, Galicia, Russia, 

 Bohemia, Moravia, Sclavonia, Servia, Bosnia, 

 Croatia, Illyria, and Dalmatia, are still, in a great 



