ÿþ<html> <head> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <title>O. Pritsak, Slavs and Avars - 5</title> <style> <!-- p.MsoPlainText {margin-bottom:.0001pt; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"; margin-left:0pt; margin-right:0pt; margin-top:0pt} --> </style> </head> <body> <p class="MsoPlainText" align="left"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-weight:700"><font size="4">The Slavs and the Avars</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText" align="left"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-weight:700"><font size="3">Omeljan Pritsak</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> &nbsp;</p> <blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText"><b> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">V.</font></span></b></p> <blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font size="3"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-style: italic"> <a href="#5_1" style="text-decoration: none">__1_</a></span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font size="3"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-style: italic"> <a href="#5_2" style="text-decoration: none">__2_</a></span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font size="3"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-style: italic"> <a href="#5_3" style="text-decoration: none">__3_</a></span></font></p> </blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText">&nbsp;</p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><b> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3"><a name="5_1">1</a>.</font></span></b></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">When the charismatic clan of a steppe pax retained its charisma among the ruling elites but was forced to abandon its habitat, it would try to restore itself on another territory. Two patterns are observable. In the first, the ruling elites persuaded their partners and forced their chattel to accompany them. In the second, they sought new partners and chattel from among local peoples.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <font size="3"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype">&nbsp;</span></font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">417</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">A classic example of the first pattern were the originally Proto-Mongolian Säbirs (the ancestors of the Hungarians), who, when they left their Ob-Irtysh habitat in Siberia around 460, took with them several leading tribes of their confederation as well as their chattel, the cousins of the modern Mansi (Voguls) and Khanti (Ostjaks). In the course of its history this pax changed its charismatic clans with their official languages (Maj!ar, Lebed, Arpad, Anjou, Habsburg) and its name (Säbir, Turks, Onno!urs, etc.) several times. The speech of its chattel was to have a remarkable course of development: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, due to the impact of German Romanticism, it became the Hungarian national language <a href="#170">[170]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The (Pseudo-)Avars had arrived in the Maeotis-North Caucasus region as fugitives. The Byzantine sources give their number as twenty thousand <a href="#171">[171]</a> (two <i>tümäns</i>), and say that the vigorous young adventurers immediately caught the attention of the neighboring peoples.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The Avars brought with them the vision of a pax and they immediately began to try to establish it. They required the usual six elements for the formation of a pax:</font></span></p> <blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">1) moneylenders</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">2) new partners</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">3) new territory</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">4) military forces</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">5) chattel</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">6) provisions.</font></span></p> </blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="170">170</a></b>) See Pritsak, «From the Säbirs to the Hungarians», <i>Hungaro-Turcica. Studies in honour of Julius Németh</i>, Budapest 1976, pp. 17-30.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="171">171</a></b>) Menander Protector, ed. Dindorf, p. 48 (fragm. 18; a.a. 668).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">418</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Thanks to the unusual sagacity of their leader (Kagan Bayan, ca. 558-582), they succeeded in securing all six within a decade (558-568). Evidently the Iranian merchants of the «Alan» confederacy, who immediately recognized that the future pax would hold great opportunities for them, provided the Avars with funds while they were still in the North Caucasus. Proof of this is that the Avars requested and received assistance from the «king» of the Alans in establishing contacts with Byzantium <a href="#172">[172</a>]. Subsequently, all territories important for commercial strategy, including the Danube <i>limes</i>, the Elbe frontier with the Franks, and the Baltic coast, immediately came under the control of the Iranian establishments, called in the sources <i>Serbs</i>, <i>Croats</i>, <i>Obotriti</i> and <i>Vilti</i> <a href="#173">[173]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The first to join the Avars as partners were the Hunnic <i>Onno!urs</i> and <i>Qutur!urs</i>, and, a little later, the <i>Tarniax</i> <a href="#174">[174]</a>. Soon they forced into the confederacy other Hunnic groups, the <i>Uti!urs</i> and the Proto-Mongolian </font> </span> <span lang="EL" style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"> <font size="3">–±²µ½´sÁ </font></span> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">= <i> Zäben-der</i> (= <i>Säbir</i>), who previously had ordinarily cooperated with Byzantium <a href="#175">[175]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">To organize a military force, the Avars needed the military and administrative specialists obtainable from sedentary states. At that time this meant Byzantium and the Frankish empire. Bayan, the new charismatic leader, chose to look to the Franks. His first attack on the Frankish frontier was defeated, in 562 <a href="#176">[176]</a>. Three years later, however, he won a great victory over the Frankish king Sigibert and, to judge from the data in</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="172">172</a></b>) Menander Protector, p. 4 (fragm. 4; <i>s.a.</i> 558).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="173">173</a></b>) Details in vol. 5 of my <i>The Origin of Rus&#39;</i> (in preparation).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="174">174</a></b>) Theophylact Simocattes, ed. de Boor/Wirth, p. 260.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="175">175</a></b>) Menander, pp. 62-65 (fragm. 28; <i>s.a.</i> 568); Theophylact Simocattes, p. 260.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="176">176</a></b>) Gregory of Tours, <i>Historiarum libri</i> X, ed. Beuno Krusch and Rudolf Buchner, Berlin 1961, p. 224; Book 4, ch. 2-3.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">419</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">both Frankish and Byzantine sources, he accomplished his objectives in 565 <a href="#177">[177]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The treaty Sigibert and Bayan that ensued was mediated by Sigibert&#39;s brother-in-law, Alboin, the new king of the Lombards and a determined foe of the Gepidae, who at that time lived in Pannonia. For his help in destroying the Gepidae, Bayan demanded and received from Alboin one tenth of the Lombardian livestock, half of their Gepidian booty, and the habitat of the Gepidae, Pannonia, for the Avars to settle in <a href="#178">[178]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Having accomplished all this, Bayan set to work on the three last items on his agenda - obtaining and training specialists, and establishing a standing military force.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Unfortunately, the existing sources do not touch directly upon these extremely important matters. They do, however, contain information which allows us to construct the following hypothesis.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Bayan wanted to station frontier warriors of Proto-Bulgarian, Antai and Sklavin type along the Byzantine limes. By this time he had already obtained military instructors of the Winidi class from the Frankish frontier. He still needed expendable soldiers for an army, a problem he solved by systematic capture of the local peasantry, ancestors of the future Slovenes, Czechs, Poles, and Sorbs. We can assume that he coopted peoples whose descendants even today use the name «Avar» (<i>obr</i>, etc.) with the meaning «giant» <a href="#179">[179]</a>. The <i>Winidi</i>, as this new</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="177">177</a></b>) Gregory of Tours, <i>Historiarum</i>, pp. 232-234 (Book 4, ch. 29); Menander Protector, p. 56 (fragm. 23 <i>s.a.</i> 568); Paul the Deacon, <i>Historia langobardorum</i>, ed. Pertz, pp. 92-93 (Book 2, ch. 10).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="178">178</a></b>) Menander Protector, pp. 57-58 (fragm. 25, <i>s.a. </i>568); Paul the Deacon, p. 89 (Book 2, ch. 7).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="179">179</a></b>) Upper Sorbian <i>hobr</i>, Czech <i>obr</i>, Slovene <i>obYr</i>, Slovak <i>obor</i>, and, with a historical singulative suffix (cf. OR <i>ob-rinm</i>), Old Polish <i> obrzym</i>, further distorted to modern <i>olbrzym</i>. Cf. Bohumila Zástrová, «AvaYi a Dulebové v svdectví Povesti Vremennych Let», <i>Vznik a po átky slovano</i> 3, Prague 1960, 15-37.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">420</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">force was called, under the influence of the more developed Germanic lingua franca used by their military instructors, had considerable impact on the Slavophone masses (see below).</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The terminology of the Samo passage in Pseudo-Fredegar&#39;s «History» strengthens our hypothesis. As we saw above in section III.2., a close analysis reveals an opposition between the leaders, called <i>Winidi</i>, and the masses, called <i>Sclavi</i>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype; font-weight:700"><font size="3"> <a name="5_2">2</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Gradually a Slavic <i>lingua franca</i> developed in the military camps of the Avar pax, a language more sophisticated than the «hamlet idioms» and capable of conveying military orders, recording bureaucratic reports, and expressing ideas in the emerging, if limited, cultural life of the pax.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">This wholly contemporary common Slavic language was stabilized by the end of the eighth century, and even later borrowings from one area to another would be adapted to the local dialect variants. Thus the word for &#39;king&#39; among Catholic Slavs was taken from «Common Slavic» *<i>karl</i>-, derived from the name of the destroyer of the Avar Pax, Charlemagne (d. 814), becoming <i>kralj</i> in Croatian, <i> král</i> in Czech and Slovak, <i>król</i> in Polish and then <i>korol&#39;</i> in East Slavic, where the word referred to western rulers, or eastern rulers crowned by the pope <a href="#180">[180]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="180">180</a></b>) The word apparently contains a *<i>j</i>, *<i>karl-j</i>-, very likely a possessive formant, and therefore had the meaning of «Karl&#39;s [local] man, representative, governer»; see H. G. Lunt, «OCS &#39;*kralj&#39;?» <i>Orbis Scriptus. Dmitrij Tschi~ewskij zum 70. Geburtstag</i>, Munich 1966, pp. 383-490.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">421</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">By that time the first essential stratum of «Common Slavic» cultural borrowings is already in place. From Germanic, for example, we see such words as <i>kmndz-</i> &#39;prince&#39;, *<i>pmlkm</i> &#39;[military] unit: band&#39;, <i>me -</i> &#39;sword&#39;, *<i>almm</i> &#39;helmet&#39;, <i>brmnja</i> &#39;coat of mail&#39;, <i>brady</i> &#39;war-ax&#39;, <i>sedmlo</i> &#39;saddle&#39;, *<i>oldiji</i> &#39;boat&#39;, <i>greb</i>- in the sense of &#39;paddle, row&#39; (possibly also *<i>jkor-</i> &#39;anchor&#39;), <i>likm</i> &#39;triumphal dance&#39;, <i> istmba</i> &#39;[heated] room&#39;, <i>xlvm</i> &#39;cattle-shed&#39;, <i>tynm</i> &#39;stockade&#39;, <i>kladdz-</i> &#39;well&#39;, <i>plugm</i> &#39;plow&#39;, <i>os-lm</i> &#39;ass&#39;, <i>skotm</i> &#39;cattle: money&#39;, <i>gobino</i> &#39;riches&#39;, <i>kupiti</i> &#39;to buy&#39;, <i>pndz-</i> &#39;coin&#39;, <i>lixva</i> &#39;interest, profit&#39;, <i>mytar-</i> &#39;tax-gatherer&#39;, <i>st-klo</i> &#39;glass&#39;, <i>bljudo</i> &#39;plate&#39;, <i>kot-lm</i> &#39;cauldron&#39;, [<i>vm</i>-]<i>kusiti</i> &#39;to taste&#39;, <i>pila</i> &#39;file&#39;, <i>duma</i> &#39;thought&#39;, <i>x</i>o"</font></span><i><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">d</font></span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">o"</font></span><i><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">gm</font></span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3"> &#39;artistic&#39;, <i>l iti</i> &#39;to cure&#39;, The name of the frontier (limes) itself, &#39;Danube&#39;, <i>Dunaj</i>, is apparently derived from a Germanic form, *<i>Dunwios</i>. It was very likely borrowed as late as the Avar period, approximately 550-650; in any case the very early date of 400-250 B.C.E. suggested by Max Vasmer is implausible <a href="#181">[181]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Concurrently, a uniform material culture of «lower upper classes» was developing (as archeological finds have demonstrated) which adopted Avar metal art, primarily the Keszthely metal culture. As Helmut Preidel has shown, artifacts of this Avar metal culture became a status symbol among all non-Avar peoples of the pax <a href="#182">[182]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The bearers of this refined culture - the new military and administrative elites of non-Avar origin - separated themselves from the «lower classes» (<i>smerdi</i> &#39;paesants&#39;) <a href="#183">[183]</a></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="181">181</a></b>) My list is based on Vasmer&#39;s «Urheimat der Slaven» [1926], repr. in his <i>Schriften zur slavischen Altertumskunde und Namenkunde</i>, ed. Herbert Brauer, vol. 1, Berlin 1971, pp. 38-42, with some additions and corrections kindly supplied by H. G. Lunt.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="182">182</a></b>) See his paper «Awaren und Slawen», cited above in footnote 4.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="183">183</a></b>) On this group see Juliusz Bardach, «Smerdowie», SSS, vol. 5, pp. 312-316.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">422</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">and adopted designations and titles of Germanic or Oriental origin that survived the Avar catastrophe. Thus we find <i>edlinger</i> and <i>casenz</i> in Carinthia, <i> vitez</i> and <i>~upan</i> in Sorbia (Saxony), and <i>szlachta</i> in Poland <a href="#184">[184]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The forcible destruction of parochial kinship ties and the amalgamation of disparate primitive elements into professional units which had a larger group culture, were turbulent experiences that left an indelible mark on popular tradition. Witnesses to this are the stories about Avar oppression preserved in Pseudo-Fredegar <a href="#185">[185]</a> and the <i>Povèst&#39; vremennyx lt</i> <a href="#186">[186]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">After the demise of the Avar Pax (ca. 796), several successor states emerged in which the Slavic-speaking, Avar-trained charismatic clans (of both Slavic and non-Slavic origin, especially Iranian) of Serbs and Croats were all-powerful. This process was documented in part by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in «De administrando imperio» (ca. 948) <a href="#187">[187]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="184">184</a></b>) See P. Lessiak, «Edling-Kasaze», Carinthia I 103 (1913) 81-94; Ljudmil Hauptmann, «Politische Umwälzungen unter den Slowenen vom Ende des 6. bis zur Mitte des 9. Jh.», <i>Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung</i> 36, Vienna, 1915 230-287; Id., «Die Herkunft der Kärntner Edlinge», <i> Vierteljahrschrift für Social- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte</i> 21, Stuttgart 1928, pp. 245-279; Josef Peisker, «Die älteren Bezeichnungen der Slawen zu Turkotataren und Germanen und ihre sozialgeschichtliche Bedeutung», in <i> Vierteljahrschrift f. Soc. u. Wirtschaftsges.</i> 3 (1905) 187-360, 465-533; Adolf Stender-Petersen, «La conquète danoise de la Samlande et Vitingi prusiens», repr. in his <i>Varangica</i>, Aarhus 1953, pp. 43-63; Zygmunt Wojciechowski, «La condition des nobles et le problème de la féodalité en Pologne de moyen-âge», <i>Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger</i>, 4 ser. 15, Paris 1936, 651-700, 16 (1937) 20-76; Id., «Powstanie szlachectwa w Polsce», <i>Miesiecznik Heraldyczny</i> 12 (1936) 97-110.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="185">185</a></b>) <i>The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar</i>, ed. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, London 1960, p. 40.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="186">186</a></b>) Ed. D. S. Lixa ev, vol. 1, Moscow-Leningrad 1950, p. 14. Cf. Zástrová, «Avari a Dulebové», cited in fn. 179 above.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="187">187</a></b>) Ed. Moravcsik, vol. 1 (1949), ch. 29-36 (pp. 122-165) and Francis Dvornik&#39;s commentary, vol. 2 (1962), pp. 93-142. See also Relja Novakovic, <i>Odakle su Srbi doali na Balkansko poluostrvo</i>, Belgrade 1978, and Bogo Grafenauer, «Prilog kritici izveataja Konstantine Porfirogenita o doseljenju Hrvata», <i> Historiski zbornik</i> 5, Zagreb 1952, 1-56.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">423</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Later, after Christianization, the local charismatic clans, now the ruling classes, regarded it as incumbent upon them to abandon their Avar past in favor of their alleged true peasant and Slavic origin. There is good documentation about this development in Slavonia <a href="#188">[188]</a>, Bohemia <a href="#189">[189]</a>, and Poland <a href="#190">[190]</a>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><b> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3"><a name="5_3">3</a>.</font></span></b></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The Avar Pax, which existed throughout Central Europe for some two and a half centuries (558-796), left an indelible mark on European development. During that time, the local peasants, disparate in language, with horizons not reaching beyond their own hamlets, were uprooted and brought together into larger communities in military colonies on the Danube frontier, thereby setting the stage for the development of a common Slavic language, which would be capable of serving as a means of communication for a larger territory.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">Speakers of this new lingua franca now began to appropriate the professional term <i>Sklavin</i> (of non-Slavic origin) as a self-designation, with the result that it created the illusion that an ethnic consciousness had existed long ago in remote Proto-Slavic periods.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The old tradition (especially that of the <i>Povst&#39; vremennyx lt</i>) <a href="#191">[191]</a> about the origin of the Slavs along the Da-</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="188">188</a></b>) K. Rauch, «Die Kärntner Herzogseinsetzung nach allemanischen Handschriften», <i> Abhandlungen zur Rechts- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für Adolf Zycha</i>, Weimar 1941, pp. 185-188; Johannis abbatis Victoriensis, <i>Liber certum historiarum</i>, ed. Fedor Schmeidler (Hannover), vol. 1 (1909), Book 1, ch. 13, vol. 2 (1910), Book 6, ch. 6.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="189">189</a></b>) <i>Cosmae Pragensis Chronica Boemorum</i>, ed. Bertold Bretholz and Wilhelm Weinberger, <i> MGH</i>, <i>SS</i> n.s., Hannover 1923, Book I, chapters 4-8.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="190">190</a></b>) <i>Anonima tzw. Galla. Kronika czyli dzieje ksi|t i wladców polskich</i>, ed. Karol MaleczyDski, <i>Monumenta Poloniae Historica</i>, ser. 2, vol. 2, Cracow 1952, Book 1, ch. 2.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">(<b><a name="191">191</a></b>) Ed. Lixa ev, vol. 1, p. 11.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;<img border="0" src="line_down.gif" width="596" height="18"></font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="2">424</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">nube should not be understood in the Romantic sense of an <i>Ur-Heimat</i> or original home from which the Slavio ethnic tribes migrated in different directions. Instead, it refers to the period of Avar military colonies along the Danube frontier, where untutored parochial peasants were trained, were formed into larger communities, and worked out a more capacious and sophisticated <i>lingua franca</i>.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The puzzle of rapid Slavic «colonization» along the great Central and East European rivers during the 6th to 9th century can now be regarded as solved: as the «marines» of their time, the Sklavins (the future Slavs) were trained to move swiftly along the rivers, the only local highways of the epoch.</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">The activity on the Avar-Byzantine and the Avar-Frankish frontiers was, indeed, a requisite stage for the future development of the Slavic cultures and nations.</font></span></p> </blockquote> <p class="MsoPlainText"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font face="Palatino Linotype" size="3">[<a style="text-decoration: none" href="op_slavs_avars_4.htm">Previous</a>] [<a style="text-decoration: none" href="op_slavs_avars_biblio.htm">Next</a>]</font></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><font face="Palatino Linotype" size="3">[<a href="op_slavs_avars.htm" style="text-decoration: none">Back to Index</a>]</font></p> </body> </html>