Balkan Slavs. Balkan wars VI-VII centuries. n. e. and the settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Slavs. Slavs of modern Bulgaria

Formation of the Avar Khaganate

The successes of the Byzantines in the Balkans were temporary. In the second half of the 6th century, the balance of power in the Danube region and Northern Black Sea region was disrupted by the arrival of new conquerors. central Asia, like an immense womb, continued to expel nomadic hordes from itself. This time it was the Avars.

Their leader Bayan took the title of kagan. At first, under his command there were no more than 20,000 horsemen, but then the Avar horde was replenished with warriors from the conquered peoples. The Avars were excellent horsemen, and it was to them that the European cavalry owed an important innovation - iron stirrups. Thanks to them, having acquired greater stability in the saddle, the Avar horsemen began to use heavy spears and sabers (still slightly curved), more suitable for hand-to-hand combat on horseback. These improvements gave the Avar cavalry significant striking power and stability in close combat.

At first, it seemed difficult for the Avars to gain a foothold in the Northern Black Sea region, relying only on their own strength, so in 558 they sent an embassy to Constantinople with an offer of friendship and alliance. Residents of the capital were especially struck by the wavy, braided hair of the Avar ambassadors, and the dandies of Constantinople immediately brought this hairstyle into fashion under the name “Hunnic”. The Kagan’s envoys frightened the emperor with their strength: “The greatest and strongest of the nations is coming to you. The Avar tribe is invincible, it is capable of repelling and destroying opponents. And therefore it will be useful for you to accept the Avars as allies and acquire excellent defenders in them.”

Byzantium intended to use the Avars to fight other barbarians. Imperial diplomats reasoned like this: “Whether the Avars win or are defeated, in both cases the benefit will be on the side of the Romans.” An alliance was concluded between the empire and the kagan on the terms of providing the Avars with land for settlement and paying them a certain amount of money from the imperial treasury. But Bayan had no intention of being an obedient instrument in the hands of the emperor. He was eager to go to the Pannonian steppes, so attractive to nomads. However, the path there was covered by a barrier of Ant tribes, prudently put up by Byzantine diplomacy.

And so, having strengthened their horde with the Bulgar tribes of Kutrigurs and Utigurs, the Avars attacked the Antes. Military luck was on the side of the Kagan. The Ants were forced to enter into negotiations with Bayan. The embassy was headed by a certain Mezamer (Mezhemir?), obviously an influential Ant leader. The Antes wanted to negotiate a ransom for their relatives captured by the Avars. But Mezamer did not appear before the Kagan in the role of a supplicant. According to the Byzantine historian Menander, he behaved arrogantly and even “insolently.” Menander explains the reason for this behavior of the Antian ambassador by the fact that he was “an idle talker and a braggart,” but, probably, it was not only the character traits of Mezamer. Most likely, the Antes were not completely defeated, and Mezamer sought to make the Avars feel their strength. He paid for his pride with his life. One noble Bulgarin, apparently well aware of Mezamer’s high position among the Antes, suggested that the Kagan kill him in order to then “fearlessly attack enemy land.” Bayan followed this advice and, indeed, the death of Mezamer disorganized the resistance of the Antes. The Avars, says Menander, “began to ravage the land of the Antes more than ever before, without ceasing to plunder it and enslave the inhabitants.”

The Emperor turned a blind eye to the robbery committed by the Avars over his Ant allies. One Turkic leader just at this time accused the two-faced policy of the Byzantines towards the barbarian peoples in the following expressions: “Caresing all peoples and seducing them with the art of speech and the cunning of the soul, you neglect them when they plunge into trouble with their heads, and you benefit from it themselves." So it was this time. Resigned to the fact that the Avars had infiltrated Pannonia, Justinian set them against Byzantine enemies in the region. In the 560s, the Avars exterminated the Gepid tribe, devastated the neighboring regions of the Franks, pushed the Lombards into Italy and thus became the masters of the Danube steppes.

To better control the conquered lands, the victors created several fortified camps in different parts of Pannonia. The political and religious center of the Avar state was hring - the residence of the Kagan, surrounded by a ring of fortifications, located somewhere in the northwestern part of the interfluve of the Danube and Tisza. Treasures were also kept here - gold and jewelry captured from neighboring peoples or received “as a gift” from the Byzantine emperors. During the Avar domination in the Middle Danube (approximately until 626), Byzantium paid the Khagans about 25 thousand kilograms of gold. Most of the coins were Avars who did not know money circulation, melted down into jewelry and vessels.

The Slavic tribes living in the Danube region fell under the rule of the Kagan. These were mainly antes, but also a significant part of the sklavens. The wealth looted by the Slavs from the Romans greatly attracted the Avars. According to Menander, Kagan Bayan believed that “the Sklavensian land abounds in money, because the Sklavens have long robbed the Romans... their land was not ravaged by any other people.” Now the Slavs were also subjected to robbery and humiliation. The Avars treated them like slaves. Memories of the Avar yoke remained in the memory of the Slavs for a long time. “The Tale of Bygone Years” left us a vivid picture of how the Obras (Avars) “primuchisha Dulebs”: the conquerors harnessed several Duleb women to a cart instead of horses or oxen and rode around on them. This unpunished mockery of the Duleb wives serves as the best example of the humiliation of their husbands.

From a Frankish chronicler of the 7th century. Fredegar we also learn that the Avars “every year came to spend the winter with the Slavs, took the Slavs’ wives and daughters to their bed; in addition to other oppressions, the Slavs paid tribute to the Huns (in this case, the Avars - S. Ts.).

In addition to money, the Slavs were obliged to pay a tax in blood to the Avars, participating in their wars and raids. In the battle, the Slavs became the first battle line and took the main blow of the enemy. The Avars at this time stood in the second line, near the camp, and if the Slavs prevailed, then the Avar cavalry rushed forward and captured the prey; if the Slavs retreated, then the enemy, exhausted in the battle with them, had to deal with fresh Avar reserves. “I will send such people to the Roman Empire, whose loss will not be sensitive to me, even if they completely died,” Bayan cynically declared. And so it was: the Avars minimized their losses even with major defeats. Thus, after the crushing defeat of the Avar army by the Byzantines on the Tisa River in 601, the Avars themselves made up only a fifth of all prisoners, half of the remaining captives were Slavs, and the other were other allies or subjects of the Kagan.

Aware of this proportion between the Avars and the Slavs and other peoples who were part of their kaganate, Emperor Tiberius, when concluding a peace treaty with the Avars, preferred to take hostage the children not of the kagan himself, but of the “Scythian” princes, who, in his opinion, could influence the kagan in the event , if he wanted to disturb the peace. And indeed, by Bayan’s own admission, military failure frightened him mainly because it would lead to a decline in his prestige in the eyes of the leaders of the tribes subordinate to him.

In addition to direct participation in hostilities, the Slavs ensured the crossing of the Avar army across rivers and supported the Kagan’s ground forces from the sea, and the Slavs’ mentors in maritime affairs were experienced Lombard shipbuilders, specially invited by the Kagan for this purpose. According to Paul the Deacon, in 600 the Lombard king Agilulf sent shipwrights to the kagan, thanks to which the “Avars,” that is, the Slavic units in their army, took possession of “a certain island in Thrace.” The Slavic fleet consisted of single-frame boats and fairly spacious longships. The art of building large warships remained unknown to Slavic sailors, since back in the 5th century the prudent Byzantines passed a law punishing death penalty anyone who dares to teach the barbarians shipbuilding.

Invasions of the Avars and Slavs in the Balkans

Byzantine Empire, who abandoned her Ant allies to the mercy of fate, had to pay dearly for this betrayal, which was generally common in imperial diplomacy. In the last quarter of the 6th century, the Antes resumed their invasions of the empire as part of the Avar horde.

Bayan was angry with the emperor for never receiving the promised places to settle on the territory of the empire; In addition, Emperor Justin II (565-579), who ascended the throne after the death of Justinian I, refused to pay tribute to the Avars. In revenge, the Avars, together with the Ant tribes dependent on them, began to raid the Balkans in 570. The Sklavens acted independently or in alliance with the Hagan. Thanks to the military support of the Avars, the Slavs were able to begin the mass settlement of the Balkan Peninsula. Byzantine sources telling about these events often call the invaders Avars, but according to archaeological data, there are practically no Avar monuments in the Balkans south of modern Albania, which leaves no doubt about the purely Slavic composition of this colonization flow.

An early medieval anonymous chronicle of the city of Monemvasia, expressing sadness over the humiliation of the “noble Hellenic peoples,” testifies that in the 580s the Slavs captured “all Thessaly and all Hellas, as well as Old Epirus and Attica and Euboea,” as well as most of the Peloponnese, where they held out for more than two hundred years. According to the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas III (1084-1111), the Romans did not dare to appear there. Even in the 10th century, when Byzantine rule over Greece was restored, this area was still called the “Slavic land”*.

*In the 30s of the 19th century, the German scientist Fallmerayer noticed that modern Greeks, in essence, descend from the Slavs. This statement caused a heated debate in scientific circles.

Of course, Byzantium ceded these lands after a stubborn struggle. For a long time, its forces were shackled by the war with the Iranian Shah, therefore, on the Danube front, the Byzantine government could only rely on the hardness of the walls of the local fortresses and the resilience of their garrisons. Meanwhile, many years of clashes with the Byzantine army did not pass without leaving a mark on the military art of the Slavs. 6th century historian John Ephesian notes that the Slavs, these savages, who previously did not dare to appear from the forests and did not know other weapons except throwing spears, have now learned to fight better than the Romans. Already during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (578-582), the Slavs quite clearly expressed their colonization intentions. Having filled the Balkans all the way to Corinth, they did not leave these lands for four years. Local residents were levied tribute in their favor.

Emperor Mauritius (582-602) waged cruel wars with the Slavs and Avars. The first decade of his reign was marked by a sharp deterioration in relations with the Kagan (Bayan, and then his successor, who remains nameless to us). The quarrel broke out over some 20 thousand gold coins, which the Kagan demanded to be attached to the amount of 80,000 solids annually paid to him by the empire (payments resumed in 574). But Mauritius, an Armenian by birth and a true son of his people, bargained desperately. His intractability will become clearer if we consider that the empire was already giving a hundredth of its annual budget to the Avars. To make Mauritius more compliant, the Kagan walked with fire and sword throughout Illyricum, then turned east and went to the Black Sea coast in the area of the imperial resort of Anchiala, where his wives soaked up the famous warm baths. Nevertheless, Mauritius preferred to suffer losses amounting to millions rather than sacrifice even gold in favor of the Kagan. Then the Avars set the Slavs against the empire, who, “as if flying through the air,” as Theophylact Simokatta writes, appeared at the Long Walls of Constantinople, where, however, they suffered a painful defeat.

Byzantine warriors

In 591, a peace treaty with the Shah of Iran freed Mauritius to settle matters in the Balkans. In an effort to seize the military initiative, the emperor concentrated large forces in the Balkans, near Dorostol, under the command of the talented strategist Priscus. Kagan was about to protest against the military presence of the Romans in this area, but, having received the answer that Priscus had arrived here not to fight the Avars, but only to organize a punitive expedition against the Slavs, he fell silent.

The Slavs were led by the Slavic leader Ardagast (probably Radogost). He had a small number of soldiers with him, since the rest were engaged in plundering the surrounding area. The Slavs did not expect an attack. Priscus managed to cross unhindered to the left bank of the Danube at night, after which he suddenly attacked Ardagast’s camp. The Slavs fled in panic, and their leader barely escaped by jumping on a bareback horse.

Priscus moved deep into the Slavic lands. The guide of the Roman army was a certain Gepid, who converted to Christianity and knew Slavic language and well aware of the disposition of the Slavic troops. From his words, Priscus learned that there was another horde of Slavs nearby, led by another leader of the Sklavens, Musokiy. In Byzantine sources he is called a "rix", that is, a king, and this makes us think that the position of this leader among the Danube Slavs was even higher than the position of Ardagast. Priscus again managed to approach the Slavic camp unnoticed at night. However, this was not difficult to do, for the “rix” and all his army were dead drunk on the occasion of the funeral feast in memory of the deceased brother Musokia. The hangover was bloody. The battle resulted in a massacre of sleeping and drunken people; Musokii was captured alive. However, having won the victory, the Romans themselves indulged in drunken revelry and almost shared the fate of the vanquished. The Slavs, having come to their senses, attacked them, and only the energy of the commander of the Roman infantry, Genzon, saved Priscus’s army from extermination.

Priscus's further successes were prevented by the Avars, who demanded that the captured Slavs, their subjects, be handed over to them. Priscus considered it best not to quarrel with the Kagan and satisfied his demand. His soldiers, having lost their booty, almost rebelled, but Priscus managed to calm them down. But Mauritius did not listen to his explanations and removed Priscus from the post of commander, replacing him with his brother Peter.

Peter had to start the business all over again, because during the time he took command, the Slavs again flooded the Balkans. The task before him of pushing them beyond the Danube was made easier by the fact that the Slavs were scattered throughout the country in small detachments. And yet, victory over them was not easy for the Romans. So, for example, some six hundred Slavs, whom Peter’s army encountered somewhere in northern Thrace, put up the most stubborn resistance. The Slavs returned home accompanied by a large number of prisoners; the booty was loaded onto many carts. Noticing the approach of superior Roman forces, the Slavs first began to kill captured men capable of carrying weapons. They then surrounded their camp with wagons and holed up inside with the remaining prisoners, mostly women and children. The Roman cavalry did not dare to approach the carts, fearing the darts that the Slavs threw at the horses from their fortifications. Finally, the cavalry officer Alexander forced the soldiers to dismount and storm. The hand-to-hand fight continued for quite some time. When the Slavs saw that they could not survive, they slaughtered the remaining prisoners and were, in turn, exterminated by the Romans who burst into the fortifications.

Having cleared the Balkans of the Slavs, Peter tried, like Priscus, to transfer military operations beyond the Danube. This time the Slavs were not so careless. Their leader Piragast (or Pirogoshch) set up an ambush on the other side of the Danube. The Slavic army skillfully camouflaged itself in the forest, “like some kind of grape forgotten in the foliage,” as Theophylact Simocatta poetically puts it. The Romans began crossing in several detachments, scattering their forces. Piragast took advantage of this circumstance, and the first thousand of Peter's soldiers who crossed the river were completely destroyed. Then Peter concentrated his forces in one point; the Slavs lined up on the bank opposite. The opponents showered each other with arrows and darts. During this skirmish, Piragast fell, struck in the side by an arrow. The loss of the leader led the Slavs into confusion, and the Romans, crossing to the other side, completely defeated them.

However, Peter's further campaign deep into Slavic territory ended in defeat for him. The Roman army got lost in waterless places, and the soldiers were forced to quench their thirst with wine alone for three days. When they finally reached a river, all semblance of discipline in Peter’s half-drunk army was lost. Not caring about anything else, the Romans rushed to the coveted water. The dense forest on the other side of the river did not arouse the slightest suspicion in them. Meanwhile, the Slavs were hiding in the thicket. Those Roman soldiers who were the first to reach the river were killed by them. But refusing water was worse than death for the Romans. Without any order, they began to build rafts to drive the Slavs away from the shore. When the Romans crossed the river, the Slavs fell upon them en masse and put them to flight. This defeat led to the resignation of Peter, and the Roman army was again led by Priscus.

Considering the forces of the empire weakened, the Kagan, together with the Slavs, invaded Thrace and Macedonia. However, Priscus repelled the invasion and launched a counteroffensive. The decisive battle took place in 601 on the Tisza River. The Avar-Slavic army was overthrown and thrown into the river by the Romans. The main losses fell on the Slavs. They lost 8,000 people, while the Avars in the second line lost only 3,000.

The defeat forced the Antes to renew their alliance with Byzantium. The enraged Kagan sent one of his confidants against them with significant forces, ordering the destruction of this rebellious tribe. Probably, the settlements of the Antes suffered a terrible defeat, since their very name has not been mentioned in sources since the beginning of the 7th century. But the complete extermination of the Antes, of course, did not happen: archaeological finds talk about the Slavic presence in the area between the Danube and Dniester rivers throughout the 7th century. It is only clear that the punitive expedition of the Avars dealt an irreparable blow to the power of the Ant tribes.

Despite the success achieved, Byzantium could no longer stop the Slavicization of the Balkans. After the overthrow of the Emperor Mauritius in 602, the empire entered a period of internal turmoil and foreign policy failures. The new Emperor Phocas, who led the soldiers' revolt against Mauritius, did not abandon his military-terrorist habits even after donning the purple imperial robe. His rule resembled tyranny rather than legitimate authority. He used the army not to defend the borders, but to plunder his subjects and suppress discontent within the empire. This was immediately taken advantage of by Sasanian Iran, which occupied Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and the Persians were actively helped by Byzantine Jews, who beat the garrisons and opened the gates of the cities to the approaching Persians; in Antioch and Jerusalem they killed many Christian inhabitants. Only the overthrow of Phocas and the accession of the more active Emperor Heraclius made it possible to save the situation in the East and return the lost provinces to the empire. However, fully occupied with the fight against the Iranian Shah, Heraclius had to come to terms with the gradual settlement of the Balkan lands by the Slavs. Isidore of Seville writes that it was during the reign of Heraclius that “the Slavs took Greece from the Romans.”

The Greek population of the Balkans, abandoned by the authorities to their fate, had to take care of itself. In a number of cases it was able to defend its independence. In this regard, the example of Thessalonica (Thessalonica) is remarkable, which the Slavs sought to master especially persistently even during the reign of Mauritius and then throughout almost the entire 7th century.

A great commotion in the city was caused by a naval siege in 615 or 616, undertaken by the tribes of the Droguvites (Dregovichs), Sagudats, Velegesites, Vayunits (possibly Voinichs) and Verzites (probably Berzites or Brezits). Having previously ravaged all of Thessaly, Achaia, Epirus, most of Illyricum and the islands coastal to these areas, they camped near Thessalonica. The men were accompanied by their families with all their simple belongings, since the Slavs intended to settle in the city after its capture.

From the harbor side, Thessalonica was defenseless, since all vessels, including boats, had previously been used by refugees. Meanwhile, the Slavic fleet was extremely numerous and consisted of various types of ships. Along with single-tree boats, the Slavs developed boats, adapted for sea navigation, of significant displacement, with sails. Before launching an assault from the sea, the Slavs covered their boats with planks and raw skins to protect themselves from stones, arrows and fire. However, the townspeople did not sit idly by. They blocked the entrance to the harbor with chains and logs with stakes and iron spikes protruding from them, and on the landward side they prepared pit traps studded with nails; In addition, a low chest-high wooden wall was hastily erected on the pier.

For three days the Slavs looked for places where it was easiest to make a breakthrough. On the fourth day, at sunrise, the besiegers, simultaneously emitting a deafening war cry, attacked the city from all sides. On land, the assault was carried out using stone throwers and long ladders; Some Slavic warriors launched an attack, others showered the walls with arrows to drive the defenders away, and others tried to set fire to the gates. At the same time, the naval flotilla quickly rushed to the designated places from the harbor. But the defensive structures prepared here disrupted the battle order of the Slavic fleet; the rooks huddled together, ran into spikes and chains, rammed and knocked over each other. Rowers and warriors drowned in the sea waves, and those who managed to swim to the shore were killed by the townspeople. A strong headwind arose and completed the defeat, scattering the boats along the coast. Dejected by the senseless death of their flotilla, the Slavs lifted the siege and retreated from the city.

According to detailed descriptions numerous sieges of Thessalonica, contained in the Greek collection “The Miracles of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica”, the organization of military affairs among the Slavs in the 7th century received further development. The Slavic army was divided into detachments according to the main types of weapons: bow, sling, spear and sword. A special category was made up of the so-called manganarii (in the Slavic translation of “Miracles” - “punchers and wall diggers”), engaged in servicing siege weapons. There was also a detachment of warriors, whom the Greeks called “outstanding”, “selected”, “experienced in battles” - they were entrusted with the most responsible areas during an attack on a city or when defending their lands. Most likely, these were vigilantes. The infantry constituted the main force of the Slavic army; cavalry, if there was any, was in such small numbers that Greek writers did not bother to note its presence.

Attempts by the Slavs to capture Thessalonica continued under Emperor Constantine IV (668-685), but also ended in failure*.

*The salvation of Thessalonica from the Slavic invasions seemed to contemporaries a miracle and was attributed to the intervention of the holy great martyr Demetrius, executed under the emperor Maximian (293-311). His cult quickly acquired general Byzantine significance and was transferred to the Slavs by the Thessalonica brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century. Later, Demetrius of Thessalonica became one of the favorite defenders and patrons of the Russian land. Thus, the sympathies of the ancient Russian reader of “The Miracles of St. Demetrius” were on the side of the Greeks, brothers in Christ.

St. Demetrius defeats the enemies of Thessalonica

Subsequently, the settlements of the Slavs surrounded Thessalonica so tightly that it ultimately led to the cultural assimilation of the city’s inhabitants. The Life of Saint Methodius reports that the emperor, encouraging the Thessaloniki brothers to go to Moravia, made the following argument: “You are Thessalonians, and the Thessalonians all speak pure Slavic.”

The Slavic navy took part in the siege of Constantinople, undertaken by the Khagan in alliance with the Iranian Shah Khosrow II in 618. The Kagan took advantage of the fact that Emperor Heraclius and his army were at that time in Asia Minor, where he had returned from a deep three-year raid across Iran. The capital of the empire was thus protected only by a garrison.

The Kagan brought with him an army of 80 thousand, which, in addition to the Avar horde, included detachments of Bulgars, Gepids and Slavs. Some of the latter, apparently, came with the Kagan as his subjects, others - as allies of the Avars. Slavic boats arrived to Constantinople along the Black Sea from the mouth of the Danube and settled on the flanks of the Kagan’s army: on the Bosphorus and in the Golden Horn, where they were dragged by land. The Iranian troops that occupied the Asian shore of the Bosphorus played a supporting role - their goal was to prevent the return of Heraclius's army to help the capital.

The first attack took place on July 31. On this day, the Kagan tried to destroy the walls of the city with the help of battering guns. But the stone throwers and “turtles” were burned by the townspeople. A new assault was scheduled for August 7. The besiegers surrounded the city walls in a double ring: in the first battle line there were lightly armed Slavic warriors, followed by the Avars. This time the Kagan ordered the Slavic fleet to bring a large landing force to the shore. As an eyewitness to the siege writes: Fedor Sinkell, the kagan “managed to turn the entire Golden Horn Bay into dry land, filling it with monoxy boats (single-tree boats - S.Ts.) carrying multi-tribal peoples.” The Slavs performed mainly the role of oarsmen, and the landing party consisted of heavily armed Avar and Iranian warriors.

* The earliest evidence of the successful use of this flammable liquid dates back to the siege of Constantinople by the Arabs in 673.

The Kagan ordered the surviving Slavic sailors, who apparently were under Avar citizenship, to be executed. This cruel act led to the collapse of the allied army. The Slavs, who were not subordinate to the Kagan, were outraged by the reprisal against their relatives and left the Avar camp. Soon the Kagan was forced to follow them, since without infantry and navy it was pointless to continue the siege.

The defeat of the Avars under the walls of Constantinople served as a signal for uprisings against their rule, which Kagan Bayan had once so feared. Over the next two or three decades, most of the tribes that were part of the Avar Kaganate, and among them the Slavs and Bulgars, threw off the Avar yoke. The Byzantine poet George Pisida stated with satisfaction:

...a Scythian kills a Slav, and he kills him.
They are covered in blood from mutual murders,
and their great indignation erupts into battle.

After the death of the Avar Kaganate (late 8th century), the Slavs became the main population of the middle Danube region.

Slavs in Byzantine service

*Abd ar-Rahman, son of Khalid (nicknamed “The Sword of God”) is one of the four generals whom Muhammad placed at the head of the Arab army before his death (632).
**From the Byzantine “sklavena”.

The movements of large Slavic masses further south continued further. Under Emperor Justinian II, who occupied the throne twice (in 685-695 and 705-711), the Byzantine authorities organized the resettlement of several more Slavic tribes (Smolyans, Strymonians, Rynhins, Droguvites, Sagudates) to Opsikia - a province of the empire in the north-west of Malaya Asia, which included Bithynia, where there was already a Slavic colony. The number of immigrants was enormous, since Justinian II recruited an army of 30,000 people from them, and in Byzantium military recruitment usually covered a tenth of the rural population. One of the Slavic leaders named Nebulus was appointed archon of this army, which the emperor called “selected”.

Having added the Roman cavalry to the Slavic infantry, Justinian II in 692 moved with this army against the Arabs. In the battle near the Asia Minor city of Sevastopol (modern Sulu-Saray), the Arabs were defeated - this was their first defeat from the Romans. However, soon after that, the Arab commander Muhammad lured Nebula to his side, secretly sending him a full quiver of money (perhaps, along with bribery, the example or even direct admonitions of previous Slavic defectors played a significant role in Nebula’s desertion). Together with their leader, 20,000 Slavic warriors went over to the Arabs. Strengthened in this way, the Arabs again attacked the Romans and put them to flight.

Justinian II harbored a grudge against the Slavs, but took revenge on them not before he returned to the empire. By his order, many Slavs, along with their wives and children, were killed on the shores of the Gulf of Nicomedia in the Sea of Marmara. And yet, despite this massacre, the Slavs continued to arrive in Opsikia. Their garrisons were also located in Syrian cities. Al-Yakubi reports on the capture of the “city of the Slavs” bordering Byzantium in 715 by the Arab commander Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. He also writes that in 757/758, Caliph al-Mansur sent his son Muhammad al-Mahdi to fight the Slavs. This news echoes the data of al-Balazuri about the resettlement of the Slavic population from the city of al-Husus (Issos?) to al-Massisa (in northern Syria).

In the 760s, about 200,000 more Slavs moved to Opsikia, fleeing the internecine war of the Bulgarian clans that broke out in Bulgaria. However, the Byzantine government's trust in them dropped greatly, and the Slavic detachments were placed under the command of the Roman proconsul (later they were led by three elders, Roman officers).
The Bithynian colony of Slavs existed until the 10th century. As for the Slavs who remained with the Arabs, their descendants in the 8th century took part in the Arab conquest of Iran and the Caucasus. According to Arab sources, many thousands of Slavic warriors died in these campaigns; the survivors probably gradually mixed with the local population.

The Slavic invasions completely changed the ethnic map of the Balkans. The Slavs became the predominant population almost everywhere; the remnants of the peoples that were part of the Byzantine Empire, in essence, survived only in inaccessible mountainous areas.

With the extermination of the Latin-speaking population of Illyricum, the last connecting element between Rome and Constantinople disappeared: the Slavic invasion erected an insurmountable barrier of paganism between them. The Balkan routes of communication died down for centuries; Latin, which had been the official language of the Byzantine Empire until the 8th century, was now replaced by Greek and was happily forgotten. The Byzantine Emperor Michael III (842-867) wrote in a letter to the Pope that Latin is “a barbarian and Scythian language.” And in the 13th century, the Metropolitan of Athens Michael Choniates was already absolutely sure that “a donkey would sooner feel the sound of the lyre, and a dung beetle to the spirits, than the Latins would understand the harmony and charm of the Greek language.” The “pagan rampart” erected by the Slavs in the Balkans aggravated the gap between the European East and West, and moreover, precisely at the same time when political and religious factors were increasingly dividing the Churches of Constantinople and Rome.

The riddle of the scamars (on the issue of the Slavic presence on the Danube in the 5th century)

The earliest information about the Scamari contains the Life of Saint Severin (511). The compiler of the “Life”, Abbot Eugippius, a student of Severin (bishop of the Danube province of Norik) and an eyewitness to the events, essentially created a chronicle Everyday life northwestern Pannonia and the adjacent part of northeastern Noricum. This time, called by Eugippius “the cruel rule of the barbarians,” was marked by the invasion of Pannonia and Norik by individual barbarian tribes - the Goths, Rugs, Alemanni, Thuringians, as well as crowds of “robbers” and “robbers.” Suddenly appearing from the forest thickets, the latter ravaged fields, stole livestock, captives, and even tried to storm cities using ladders. In 505, the empire was forced to send quite a significant army against them.

These large gangs, apparently differing in some way from other barbarians, were called “scamaras” by local residents.

The etymology of the word "scamara" is unclear. For some reason, W. Bruckner associated the word “scamarae” with the Lombard language (W. Bruckner, Die Sprache der Langobarden, Strassburg, 1895, S. 42, 179-180, 211), although in the 5th century. there were no Lombards in Noricum and Pannonia yet. Author of "The Life of St. Severin" explained that the word "scamari" was a local, folk term common on the banks of the Danube in the 5th century. In the VI century. Skamarov was mentioned by Menander, again with an indication of the local use of this word (under 573, where it is said that the Avar embassy returning from Byzantium was attacked by “the so-called Skamars” and plundered it). Jordanes (Get., § 301) used the word “scamarae” along with the words “abactores” (horse thieves), “latrones” (robbers). Later it found its way into the oldest collection of common law of the Lombards (Edict of the Rotary of 643, § 5: “if anyone in the province hides a scamara or gives him bread, he will bring destruction on his soul”), probably having been borrowed during the stay of the Lombards in Pannonia from the local population. Finally, it appears in Theophanes’ “Chronography” (under 764).

The question of the social affiliation of scammers is discussed in some detail in the article by A. D. Dmitriev “Movement of scammers” ( Volume V of the Byzantine Temporary, 1952). The author was of the view that the Scamari were that part of the exploited population of the Danube provinces, which fled from the general economic devastation and from their oppressors and united with the barbarian tribes that raided the possessions of the empire: “Slaves, colons and other enslaved poor people fled from Roman oppression in inaccessible and impassable areas, and then united with the invading “barbarian” peoples and, together with them, took up arms against the slave owners and the slave state that immensely oppressed them.” But Dmitriev did not study the scamars in ethnic terms.

But, according to D. Ilovaisky, a more or less convincing origin of the word “skamary” is possible only from the Slavic “skamrakh” or “skomorokh”, as an abusive or mocking common noun ( Ilovaisky D.I. Research about the beginning of Rus'. M., 1876. P. 373). True, even if he is right, then, apparently, it should be clarified that the scamari were most likely a declassed part of the devastated peasant and urban population of the Danube regions, who sought salvation from starvation in robbery and robbery, and for this reason often joined the barbarians during their raids on the empire. But since, according to Eugippius, the term “Scamara” was local, common, this allows us to speak either about the constant presence of the Slavs among the local population, or about close and frequent contacts between them.

Test of strength

The first independent raid on the Balkans recorded in Byzantine sources was made by the Slavs during the reign of Emperor Justin I (518–527). According to Procopius of Caesarea, these were the Antes, who “crossed the Ister River and invaded the land of the Romans with a huge army.” But the Ant invasion was unsuccessful. The imperial commander Hermann defeated them, after which peace reigned for some time on the Danube border of the empire.

However, from 527, that is, from the moment of Justinian I's accession to the throne until his death in 565, a continuous series of Slavic invasions devastated the Balkan lands and threatened the very capital of the empire - Constantinople. The weakening of the northern border of the empire was the result of the majestic, but, as time has shown, the impossible plan of Justinian, who sought to restore the unity of the Roman Empire. The military forces of Byzantium were scattered along the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The wars were especially protracted in the east - with the Sasanian kingdom and in the west - with the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy. By the end of Justinian's reign, the empire had completely exhausted its financial and military capabilities.

Imperial ambitions did not extend to the Northern Danube lands, so the basis of the strategy of the local military authorities was defense. For some time they successfully held back the Slavic pressure. In 531, the talented commander Hilvudiy, an officer of the imperial guard and, possibly, an ant by birth, was appointed commander-in-chief in Thrace. He tried to transfer military operations to the Slavic lands and organize strongholds on the other side of the Danube, placing troops there in winter quarters. However, this decision caused a strong murmur among the soldiers, who complained of unbearable hardships and cold. After the death of Khilwoodius in one of the battles (534), the Byzantine troops returned to a purely defensive strategy.

And yet the Slavs and Antes managed to penetrate into Thrace and Illyricum almost every year. Many areas were robbed more than five times. According to the calculations of Procopius of Caesarea, each Slavic invasion cost the empire 200,000 inhabitants - killed and taken captive. At this time, the population of the Balkans reached its minimum size, falling from two to one million people ( History of the peasantry in Europe. In 2 vols. M., 1985. T. 1. P. 27).

Submission of the Antes to Byzantium

Fortunately for Byzantium, the internecine war that broke out between the Sklavens and the Antes stopped their further joint invasions across the Danube. Byzantine sources report that “... the Antes and Sklavens, finding themselves in a quarrel with each other, entered into battle, where the Antes happened to be defeated...”.

Justinian's diplomats at this time even managed to attract Sclaveno-Antian troops to military service in the ranks of the Byzantine army. It was these units that saved the commander-in-chief of the Italian army, Belisarius, from major troubles, who in the spring of 537 was besieged by the Ostrogoths in Rome. Reinforcements that arrived to the Romans, consisting of Sklavens, Antes and Huns (the latter most likely means the Bulgars), numbering about 1,600 horsemen, allowed Belisarius to defend the city and force the enemy to lift the siege.

Meanwhile, disagreements between the Sklavens and Antes prompted the latter to closer rapprochement with Byzantium. This idea was prompted by random circumstances. One Antian youth, named Khilvudiy, was captured by the Sklavens. After some time, a rumor spread among the Antes that this Khilvudiy and his namesake, the Byzantine commander, commander-in-chief in Thrace, were one and the same person. The creator of the intrigue was a certain Greek captured by the Antes in Thrace. He was driven by the desire to curry favor with his master and gain freedom. He presented the matter in such a way that the emperor would generously reward the one who would return Khilwoodia from captivity to him. The Greek master went to the Sklavens and ransomed False Khilvudii. True, the latter sincerely denied his identity with the Byzantine commander, but the Greek explained his objections by his reluctance to reveal himself incognito before arriving in Constantinople.

The Antes were excited by the prospects that the possession of such an important hostage promised. At a tribal meeting, Falsehilwoodius, to his despair, was proclaimed leader of the Ants. A plan arose for a peaceful resettlement to Thrace, for which it was decided to obtain from the emperor the appointment of False Khilvudii as commander-in-chief of the Danube army. Meanwhile, Justinian, knowing nothing about the impostor, sent envoys to the Antes with a proposal to settle on lands near the ancient Roman city of Turris (modern Ackerman) as federates, intending to use their military forces to protect the borders of the empire from Bulgar raids. The Antes agreed to become federates of the empire, and False Khilvudiy was sent by them to Constantinople for negotiations. However, on the way he encountered the commander Narses, who personally knew the real Khilwoodius. The unfortunate impostor was arrested and taken to the capital as a prisoner.

And yet the benefits of the imperial protectorate seemed more significant to the Antes than the insult due to the arrest of their leader. Barbarians in general, as a rule, sought allied relations with Byzantium, which promised them significant benefits in life. Procopius of Caesarea reports the complaints of one nomadic tribe, dissatisfied with the emperor's preference for their neighbors - another horde that received annual gifts from Constantinople. While we, the ambassadors of this tribe said, “live in huts, in a desert and barren country,” these lucky ones “are given the opportunity to gorge themselves on bread, they have every opportunity to get drunk with wine and choose all sorts of seasonings for themselves. Of course, they can wash themselves in baths, these tramps shine with gold, they also have thin clothes, multi-colored and decorated with gold.” This speech describes the cherished dreams of the barbarians in the best possible way: eating to your fill, drinking drunk, wearing expensive clothes and jewelry and washing in a bathhouse - this is a symbol of earthly well-being, the limit of aspirations and desires.

The Antes, presumably, were not alien to such a mentality. Flattered by the imperial gifts, they recognized the supremacy of Byzantium, and Justinian included the epithet "Antsky" in his imperial title. In 547, a small detachment of Antes of three hundred people took part in military operations in Italy against the troops of the Ostrogothic king Totila. Their skills in warfare in wooded and mountainous terrain served the Romans well. Having occupied a narrow passage in one of the difficult places in the hilly Lucania, the Antes repeated the feat of the Spartans at Thermopylae. “With their inherent valor (despite the fact that the inconvenience of the terrain helped them), as Procopius of Caesarea narrates, the Antes... overthrew the enemies; and a great massacre took place..."

Further penetration of the Slavs into the Balkans in the 6th century

The Sklavens, however, did not join the Byzantine-Antine agreement and continued their devastating raids on the lands of the empire. In 547 they invaded Illyricum, plundering, killing and capturing the inhabitants. They even managed to capture many fortresses that were previously considered impregnable, and not one of them offered resistance. The entire province was paralyzed with horror. The Archons of Illyricum, having an army of 15 thousand under their command, nevertheless were wary of approaching the enemy and only followed him at some distance, indifferently watching what was happening.

The next year the disaster repeated. Although the Slavs this time numbered no more than three thousand, and at the same time their detachment was divided in two, the Roman troops that entered into battle with them “unexpectedly,” as Procopius says, were defeated. The chief of the Byzantine cavalry and bodyguard of the emperor, Aswad, was captured by the Slavs and met a terrible death there: they burned him, having previously cut belts from his back. Then the Slavs spread throughout the Thracian and Illyrian regions and besieged many fortresses, “although they had not stormed the walls before.” During the siege of Topir, for example, they resorted to military stratagem. Having lured the garrison out of the city with a feigned retreat, the Slavs surrounded it and destroyed it, after which the entire mass rushed to attack. The inhabitants tried to defend themselves, but were driven off the wall by a cloud of arrows, and the Slavs, placing ladders against the wall, burst into the city. The population of Topir was partly slaughtered, partly enslaved. Having committed many more atrocities along the way, the Slavs returned home, burdened with rich booty and numerous captives.

Encouraged by their success, the Slavs became so bold that during the next raids they remained in the Balkans for the winter, “as if in their own country, and without fear of any danger,” Procopius writes indignantly. And Jordan noted with chagrin that the Slavs, who until recently were so insignificant, “are now rampant everywhere because of our sins.” Even the grandiose defensive system of 600 fortresses erected by order of Justinian I along the Danube did not help stop their invasions: the empire did not have enough soldiers to carry out garrison service. The Slavs broke through the border line quite easily.

On one of these campaigns, their troops reached Adrianople, which was only five days away from Constantinople. Justinian was forced to send an army against them under the command of his courtiers. The Slavs camped on the mountain, and the Romans - on the plain, not far from them. For several days neither one nor the other dared to start a battle. Finally, the Roman soldiers, driven out of patience by the meager ration, forced their commanders to decide on battle. The position chosen by the Slavs helped them repel the attack, and the Romans were completely defeated. The Byzantine commanders escaped, almost being captured, and the Slavs, among other trophies, captured the banner of St. Constantine, which, however, was later recaptured from them by the Romans.

An even greater danger loomed over the empire in 558 or 559, when the Slavs, in alliance with the Bulgar Khan Zabergan, approached Constantinople itself. Having discovered the openings created by the recent earthquake, they penetrated this defensive line and appeared in the immediate vicinity of the capital. The city had only foot guards, and in order to repel the attack, Justinian had to requisition all the city's horses for the needs of the army and send his courtiers to serve as guards at the gates and on the walls. Expensive church utensils were transported to the other side of the Bosphorus just in case. Then the guard units, led by the elderly Belisarius, launched a sortie. To hide the small number of his detachment, Belisarius ordered felled trees to be dragged behind the battle lines, which raised thick dust, which the wind carried towards the besiegers. The trick was a success. Believing that a large Roman army was moving towards them, the Slavs and Bulgars lifted the siege and retreated from Constantinople without a fight.

However, they did not think of leaving Thrace completely. Then the Byzantine fleet entered the Danube and cut off the Slavs and Bulgars’ path home to the other side. This forced the khan and the Slavic leaders to negotiate. They were allowed to cross the Danube without hindrance. But at the same time, Justinian set another Bulgar tribe, the Utigurs, allies of Byzantium, against the Zabergan horde.

A new stage of Slavic colonization of the Balkans began in the second half of the 6th century. - with the arrival of the Avars in the Danube region.

Formation of the Avar Khaganate

The successes of the Byzantines in the Balkans were temporary. In the second half of the 6th century, the balance of power in the Danube and Northern Black Sea region was disrupted by the arrival of new conquerors. Central Asia, like an immense womb, continued to expel nomadic hordes from itself. This time it was the Avars.

To better control the conquered lands, the victors created several fortified camps in different parts of Pannonia. The political and religious center of the Avar state was hring - the residence of the Kagan, surrounded by a ring of fortifications, located somewhere in the northwestern part of the interfluve of the Danube and Tisza. Treasures were also kept here - gold and jewelry captured from neighboring peoples or received “as a gift” from the Byzantine emperors. During the Avar domination in the Middle Danube (approximately until 626), Byzantium paid the Khagans about 25 thousand kilograms of gold. The Avars, who did not know how to handle money, melted most of the coins into jewelry and vessels.

From a Frankish chronicler of the 7th century. Fredegar we also learn that the Avars “every year came to spend the winter with the Slavs, took the Slavs’ wives and daughters to their bed; in addition to other oppressions, the Slavs paid the Huns (in this case, the Avars. - S. Ts.) tribute".

In addition to direct participation in hostilities, the Slavs ensured the crossing of the Avar army across rivers and supported the Kagan’s ground forces from the sea, and the Slavs’ mentors in maritime affairs were experienced Lombard shipbuilders, specially invited by the Kagan for this purpose. According to Paul the Deacon, in 600 the Lombard king Agilulf sent shipwrights to the kagan, thanks to which the “Avars,” that is, the Slavic units in their army, took possession of “a certain island in Thrace.” The Slavic fleet consisted of single-frame boats and fairly spacious longships. The art of building large warships remained unknown to Slavic sailors, since back in the 5th century the prudent Byzantines passed a law punishing with death anyone who dared to teach the barbarians shipbuilding.

Invasions of the Avars and Slavs in the Balkans

The Byzantine Empire, which abandoned its Ant allies to the mercy of fate, had to pay dearly for this betrayal, which was generally common in imperial diplomacy. In the last quarter of the 6th century, the Antes resumed their invasions of the empire as part of the Avar horde.

Bayan was angry with the emperor for never receiving the promised places to settle on the territory of the empire; In addition, Emperor Justin II (565–579), who ascended the throne after the death of Justinian I, refused to pay tribute to the Avars. In revenge, the Avars, together with the Ant tribes dependent on them, began to raid the Balkans in 570. The Sklavens acted independently or in alliance with the Hagan. Thanks to the military support of the Avars, the Slavs were able to begin the mass settlement of the Balkan Peninsula. Byzantine sources telling about these events often call the invaders Avars, but according to archaeological data, there are practically no Avar monuments in the Balkans south of modern Albania, which leaves no doubt about the purely Slavic composition of this colonization flow.

An early medieval anonymous chronicle of the city of Monemvasia, expressing sadness over the humiliation of the “noble Hellenic peoples,” testifies that in the 580s the Slavs captured “all Thessaly and all Hellas, as well as Old Epirus and Attica and Euboea,” as well as most of the Peloponnese, where they held out for more than two hundred years. According to the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicholas III (1084–1111), the Romans did not dare to appear there. Even in the 10th century, when Byzantine rule over Greece was restored, this area was still called the “Slavic land” (in 3 In the 0s of the 19th century, the German scientist Fallmerayer noticed that modern Greeks, in essence, descend from the Slavs; This statement caused a heated debate in scientific circles).

Of course, Byzantium ceded these lands after a stubborn struggle. For a long time, its forces were shackled by the war with the Iranian Shah, therefore, on the Danube front, the Byzantine government could only rely on the hardness of the walls of the local fortresses and the resilience of their garrisons. Meanwhile, many years of clashes with the Byzantine army did not pass without leaving a mark on the military art of the Slavs. The 6th century historian John of Ephesus notes that the Slavs, those savages who previously did not dare to emerge from the forests and knew no other weapons except throwing spears, now learned to fight better than the Romans. Already during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (578–582), the Slavs quite clearly expressed their colonization intentions. Having filled the Balkans all the way to Corinth, they did not leave these lands for four years. Local residents were levied tribute in their favor.

Emperor Mauritius (582–602) waged cruel wars with the Slavs and Avars. The first decade of his reign was marked by a sharp deterioration in relations with the Kagan (Bayan, and then his successor, who remains nameless to us). The quarrel broke out over some 20 thousand gold coins, which the Kagan demanded to be attached to the amount of 80,000 solids annually paid to him by the empire (payments resumed in 574). But Mauritius, an Armenian by birth and a true son of his people, bargained desperately. His intractability will become clearer if we consider that the empire was already giving a hundredth of its annual budget to the Avars. To make Mauritius more compliant, the Kagan walked with fire and sword throughout Illyricum, then turned east and went to the Black Sea coast in the area of the imperial resort of Anchiala, where his wives soaked up the famous warm baths. Nevertheless, Mauritius preferred to suffer losses amounting to millions rather than sacrifice even gold in favor of the Kagan. Then the Avars set the Slavs against the empire, who, “as if flying through the air,” as Theophylact Simokatta writes, appeared at the Long Walls of Constantinople, where, however, they suffered a painful defeat.

Priscus moved deep into the Slavic lands. The guide of the Roman army was a certain Gepid who converted to Christianity, knew the Slavic language and was well aware of the location of the Slavic troops. From his words, Priscus learned that there was another horde of Slavs nearby, led by another leader of the Sklavens, Musokiy. In Byzantine sources he is called a "rix", that is, a king, and this makes us think that the position of this leader among the Danube Slavs was even higher than the position of Ardagast. Priscus again managed to approach the Slavic camp unnoticed at night. However, this was not difficult to do, for the “rix” and all his army were dead drunk on the occasion of the funeral feast in memory of the deceased brother Musokia. The hangover was bloody. The battle resulted in a massacre of sleeping and drunken people; Musokii was captured alive. However, having won the victory, the Romans themselves indulged in drunken revelry and almost shared the fate of the vanquished. The Slavs, having come to their senses, attacked them, and only the energy of the commander of the Roman infantry, Genzon, saved Priscus’s army from extermination.

The defeat forced the Antes to renew their alliance with Byzantium. The enraged Kagan sent one of his confidants against them with significant forces, ordering the destruction of this rebellious tribe. Probably, the settlements of the Antes suffered a terrible defeat, since their very name has not been mentioned in sources since the beginning of the 7th century. But the complete extermination of the Antes, of course, did not occur: archaeological finds indicate a Slavic presence in the area between the Danube and Dniester rivers throughout the 7th century. It is only clear that the punitive expedition of the Avars dealt an irreparable blow to the power of the Ant tribes.

According to detailed descriptions of the numerous sieges of Thessalonica, contained in the Greek collection “The Miracles of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica,” the organization of military affairs among the Slavs in the 7th century received further development. The Slavic army was divided into detachments according to the main types of weapons: bow, sling, spear and sword. A special category was made up of the so-called manganarii (in the Slavic translation of “Miracles” - “punchers and wall diggers”), engaged in servicing siege weapons. There was also a detachment of warriors, whom the Greeks called “outstanding”, “selected”, “experienced in battles” - they were entrusted with the most responsible areas during an attack on a city or when defending their lands. Most likely, these were vigilantes. The infantry constituted the main force of the Slavic army; cavalry, if there was any, was in such small numbers that Greek writers did not bother to note its presence.

Attempts by the Slavs to capture Thessalonica continued under Emperor Constantine IV (668–685), but also ended in failure.

St. Demetrius defeats the enemies of Thessalonica.Salvation of Thessalonica
from the Slavic invasions seemed like a miracle to contemporaries and was
attributed to the intervention of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius,
executed under Emperor Maximian (293–311). His cult
quickly acquired general Byzantine significance and was moved in the 9th century
Thessalonica brothers Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs. Later
Demetrius of Thessalonica became one of the favorite defenders and patrons
Russian land. Thus, the sympathies of the Old Russian reader
The “miracles of St. Demetrius” were on the side of the Greeks, brothers in Christ.

The first attack took place on July 31. On this day, the Kagan tried to destroy the walls of the city with the help of battering guns. But the stone throwers and “turtles” were burned by the townspeople. A new assault was scheduled for August 7. The besiegers surrounded the city walls in a double ring: in the first battle line there were lightly armed Slavic warriors, followed by the Avars. This time the Kagan ordered the Slavic fleet to bring a large landing force to the shore. As Fyodor Sinkell, an eyewitness to the siege, writes, the Kagan “managed to turn the entire Golden Horn Bay into dry land, filling it with monoxyls (one-tree boats. - S.Ts.), carrying multi-tribal peoples.” The Slavs performed mainly the role of oarsmen, and the landing party consisted of heavily armed Avar and Iranian warriors.

However, this joint assault by land and sea forces ended in failure. The Slavic fleet suffered especially heavy losses. Patrician Vonos, who led the defense of the city, somehow became aware of the naval attack. Probably, the Byzantines managed to decipher the signal lights, with the help of which the Avars coordinated their actions with allied and auxiliary units. Having pulled warships to the intended attack site, Vonos gave the Slavs a false signal with fire. As soon as the Slavic boats went out to sea, the Roman ships surrounded them. The battle ended in the complete defeat of the Slavic flotilla, with the Romans somehow setting enemy ships on fire, although “Greek fire” had not yet been invented (the earliest evidence of the successful use of this flammable liquid dates back to the siege of Constantinople by the Arabs in 673). It seems that the defeat was completed by a storm, thanks to which the deliverance of Constantinople from danger was attributed to the Virgin Mary. The sea and shore were covered with the corpses of the attackers; Slavic women who took part in the naval battle were also found among the bodies of the dead.

The Kagan ordered the surviving Slavic sailors, who apparently were under Avar citizenship, to be executed. This cruel act led to the collapse of the allied army. The Slavs, who were not subordinate to the Kagan, were outraged by the reprisal against their relatives and left the Avar camp. Soon the Kagan was forced to follow them, since without infantry and navy it was pointless to continue the siege.

...a Scythian kills a Slav, and he kills him.
They are covered in blood from mutual murders,
and their great indignation erupts into battle.

After the death of the Avar Kaganate (late 8th century), the Slavs became the main population of the middle Danube region.

Slavs in Byzantine service

Having freed themselves from the power of the Avars, the Balkan Slavs simultaneously lost their military support, which stopped the Slavic advance to the south. In the middle of the 7th century, many Slavic tribes recognized the supremacy of the Byzantine emperor. A large Slavic colony was placed by the imperial authorities in Asia Minor, in Bithynia, as military personnel. However, at every opportunity, the Slavs violated the oath of allegiance. In 669, 5,000 Slavs fled from the Roman army to the Arab commander and, after the joint devastation of the Byzantine lands, went with the Arabs to Syria, where they settled on the Oronte River, north of Antioch. The court poet al-Akhtal (c. 640–710) was the first of the Arab writers to mention these Slavs - the “golden-haired saklabs” (from the Byzantine “sklaveni.”) - in one of his qasidas.

The movements of large Slavic masses further south continued further. Under Emperor Justinian II, who occupied the throne twice (in 685–695 and 705–711), the Byzantine authorities organized the resettlement of several more Slavic tribes (Smolyans, Strymonians, Rynhins, Droguvites, Sagudates) to Opsikia, a province of the empire in the north-west of Malaya Asia, which included Bithynia, where there was already a Slavic colony. The number of immigrants was enormous, since Justinian II recruited an army of 30,000 people from them, and in Byzantium military recruitment usually covered a tenth of the rural population. One of the Slavic leaders named Nebulus was appointed archon of this army, which the emperor called “selected”.

In the 760s, about 200,000 more Slavs moved to Opsikia, fleeing the internecine war of the Bulgarian clans that broke out in Bulgaria. However, the Byzantine government's trust in them dropped greatly, and the Slavic detachments were placed under the command of the Roman proconsul (later they were led by three elders, Roman officers).

The Bithynian colony of Slavs existed until the 10th century. As for the Slavs who remained with the Arabs, their descendants in the 8th century took part in the Arab conquest of Iran and the Caucasus. According to Arab sources, many thousands of Slavic warriors died in these campaigns; the survivors probably gradually mixed with the local population.

The Slavic invasions completely changed the ethnic map of the Balkans. The Slavs became the predominant population almost everywhere; the remnants of the peoples that were part of the Byzantine Empire, in essence, survived only in inaccessible mountainous areas.

With the extermination of the Latin-speaking population of Illyricum, the last connecting element between Rome and Constantinople disappeared: the Slavic invasion erected an insurmountable barrier of paganism between them. The Balkan routes of communication died down for centuries; Latin, which had been the official language of the Byzantine Empire until the 8th century, was now replaced by Greek and was happily forgotten. The Byzantine Emperor Michael III (842–867) wrote in a letter to the Pope that Latin was “a barbarian and Scythian language.” And in the 13th century, Metropolitan Michael Choniates of Athens was already absolutely sure that “it is more likely for a donkey to feel the sound of the lyre, and a dung beetle for the spirits, than for the Latins to understand the harmony and charm of the Greek language.” The “pagan rampart” erected by the Slavs in the Balkans aggravated the gap between the European East and West, and moreover, precisely at the same time when political and religious factors were increasingly dividing the Churches of Constantinople and Rome.

1 The outer wall of Constantinople, built 50 km west of the city by Emperor Anastasius (491–518).
2 Abd ar-Rahman, son of Khalid (nicknamed “The Sword of God”) is one of the four generals whom Muhammad placed at the head of the Arab army before his death (632).

The Danube ceased to be the border that separated barbarians for hundreds of years from the Roman and then Byzantine world. The Slavs were able to freely populate the Balkan Peninsula. A series of invasions of the Balkans from land and sea follows. In 616 an attempt was made to take Thessalonica.

The beginning of the resettlement of Serbo-Croatian tribes to the Balkans and the unsuccessful campaign of the Avars against Constantinople in 626 led to the weakening of the Avar Khaganate and the withdrawal of some of the Slavs from under its power. In 630-640, the Slavs of Macedonia refused to recognize the power of the Kagan; at the same time, the Croats may have achieved independence. The main crossing of the Danube by Slavic migrants was carried out in its middle reaches, near Vidin. After crossing the river, the Slavic settlers, as a rule, moved in two directions. Some developed the lands of Macedonia, Thessaly, Albania, Greece, Peloponnese and Crete. Others. reached the northern coast of the Aegean Sea and headed to Marmara..

The migration of the Slavs to the Balkans led to the emergence at the end of VI -. Early 7th century Slavic settlements near the Danube border of the Byzantine Empire. In Macedonia, near Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki), a number of Slavic groups lived from the end of the 6th century. During the 7th century, they tried several times to take possession of Thessalonica, this is described in “The Miracles of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki.” They were then baptized and became subjects of the Byzantine Empire, with certain rights of autonomy. And these subterritories that were inhabited by these Slavic groups were called by the Byzantines with the term “Slovinia”. These Slavic tribal associations arose on a territorial basis and some of them existed for several centuries. The areas entirely inhabited by the Slavs in Northern Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly were called “Slovinia.” On the territory of the former Roman province of Moesia, in the 7th century, a large association of Slavs arose, the “union of seven Slavic tribes” with centers in Ruse, Dorostol and Rossava, which was not yet a state entity, but only a military alliance. In the second half of the 7th century, the lands of the “Seven Clans” were invaded by a nomadic horde of Proto-Bulgarians, a people of Turkic origin. Byzantium recognized the independent position of the unification of tribes. This is how the First Bulgarian State was formed in 681, which included many lands inhabited by the Slavs, who subsequently assimilated the newcomers.

Under Emperor Justinian II, who occupied the throne twice (in 685-695 and 705-711), the Byzantine authorities organized the resettlement of several more Slavic tribes to Opsikia, a province of the empire in the north-west of Asia Minor, which included Bithynia, where there was already a Slavic the colony. The Bithynian colony of Slavs existed until the 10th century.

The settlement of the Balkans by the Slavs was the result of the third stage of the Migration of Peoples. They settled Thrace, Macedonia, a significant part of Greece, occupied Dalmatia and Istria - right up to the coast of the Adriatic Sea, penetrated into the valleys of the Alpine mountains and into the regions of modern Austria. The colonization of the Balkan Peninsula was the result not of resettlement, but of the settlement of the Slavs, who retained all their old lands in Central and Eastern Europe. Slavic colonization was of a combined nature: along with organized military campaigns, there was a peaceful settlement of new territories by agricultural communities looking for new arable land.

State Samo

According to the Chronicle of the World by Fredegar (a Frankish chronicler of the 7th century), in 623-624 the Slavs rebelled against the Avars (obrov), nomads who occupied Pannonia - one of the Roman provinces - around the middle of the 6th century and constantly attacked the Franks, Byzantines and Slavs. The rebel Slavs were joined by Frankish merchants who had arrived at that time for trade, including Samo, a native of the Senonian region of Thrace. For some reason, Samo stopped trading with the Avars and, in battles against them on the side of the Wends, showed himself to be a skillful and brave warrior, a good strategist, able to lead people. After the victory over the Avars, Samo was elected leader of the Slavs. Samo's reign lasted thirty-five years. During this time, he created a vast state in the territory of modern Czech Republic and Lower Austria (as well as parts of Silesia, Slovakia and Slovenia), uniting the ancestors of modern Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Serbs and Slovenes. Accurate data on the borders of the state has not been preserved. Vysehrad on the Morava River became the main city of the Samo state.

The Samo state was a tribal union that both defended itself against enemies and carried out predatory raids on its neighbors. Judging by Fredegar's chronicle, Samo's power waged constant wars with the Huns, Avars, Franks, Alemanni and Lombards. In particular, Fredegar talks about three battles between the Slavs and the soldiers of the king of the eastern part of the Frankish state, Dagobert, which resulted from the murder of Frankish merchants by the Slavs and the daring refusal of Prince Samo to hand over the perpetrators to the king. In battles with the armies of the Alemanni (in the territory of modern Austria) and the Lombards (in Horutania), the Slavs were defeated, but in the last battle near the Vogastiburg fortress (according to Fredegar's chronicle, the battle lasted three days) Dagobert's army was defeated, and the Slavs plundered several regions of the Frankish state.

According to Fredegar, Samo ruled from 623 to 658, but after his death the state collapsed, despite the fact that Samo left behind twenty-two sons and fifteen daughters from twelve Slavic wives.

The emergence of the Bulgarian state

The Balkan Peninsula, especially its North-Eastern part, was very densely colonized by the Slavs when new newcomers appeared on the same territory. This time it was a Turkic tribe Proto-Bulgarians. One of the proto-Bulgarian unions settled in 70s VII century in the area between the Danube, Dniester and Prut rivers, in the area referred to in sources as “Ongle”. The Proto-Bulgarians managed to subjugate the Slavic tribes living along the Danube. And at the beginning 80s They also conquered the Slavic union “Seven Clans”. The Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians were also united by the danger that constantly emanated from Byzantium. Forced to live in one small territory, the two peoples were extremely dissimilar. Different ethnic groups had their own specific culture, habits and preferences. Therefore, the process of creating a single Slavic-Bulgarian nation lasted for centuries. Life, religion, way of farming - everything was different at first. The proto-Bulgarians were united by stable tribal ties; the despotic khan led a sharply militarized society. The Slavs were more democratic. In this regard, it is enough to recall the reviews of Byzantine authors about the Slavs. Both ethnic groups were pagans but they worshiped various gods, each to his own. They spoke different languages, using them as a language of communication and Greek writing. And finally, the Slavs were predominantly farmers, and the proto-Bulgarians pastoralists. The differences were overcome by approximately by the middle of the 10th century, when two nationalities, different economic systems formed a single economic synthesis, and the Turkic ethnonym “Bulgarians” began to be called a single Slavic nation.

A complex ethnic process took place within the framework of the state that arose on the former Byzantine lands, a state called “Bulgaria”. The initial steps of Bulgarian statehood took place in 681. This year, Byzantium was forced to make peace with them, and even on the terms of paying an annual tribute to the khan Asparukhu. These distant events are narrated by two Byzantine authors who, however, were not witnesses to what was happening - Theophan the Confessor and the Patriarch of Constantinople Nikephoros. On the Bulgarian side, the agreement was signed by Khan Asparuh. The history of the First Bulgarian Kingdom began. State building was embodied in the activities of the country's first khans. For quite a long time, almost two centuries, the highest government positions were occupied by proto-Bulgarians. The state was headed by a khan, who was the supreme ruler and commander-in-chief. Extensive range Proto-Bulgarian khans is opened by the founder of the Bulgarian state, Khan Asparukh (681-700), however, the historiographic tradition traces the beginning of Bulgarian statehood to the legendary tribes of the Hun leader Atilla (mid-5th century). The first state border of Bulgaria appeared. At the time of Asparukh, the border in the East was the Black Sea, in the South - Stara Planina, in the West - the Iskar River, possibly Timok, the northern border was along the Transdanubian lands. The khans of Bulgaria not only fought with their neighbors, but also dealt with the problem of the state structure of their country. Asparukh launched the construction of a vast khan's residence near the Slavic settlement Pliska. The resulting city became the capital of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. Peaceful activities to strengthen the Bulgarian state were often interrupted by military operations, most often against Byzantium.

Bulgarian state in the 8th - first half of the 9th century.

Khan who took the Bulgarian throne after Asparukh Tervel (700-721) managed make friends with Byzantium and in 705 assisted in the restoration of the deposed Byzantine Emperor Justinian II to the throne, appearing under the walls of Constantinople with a large army. As a reward for his support, Tervel received the title "Caesar" and the Zagorje region, south of Stara Planina. A brief disagreement between Bulgaria and Byzantium over this area in 708 did not overshadow further peaceful relations. IN 716 we find Tervel signing a peace treaty with Byzantium that was beneficial for Bulgaria, by which was confirmed payment of tribute to Bulgaria. Tervel was an ally of Byzantium in the fight against the Arabs. IN 803-814 on the Bulgarian throne Khan Krum, no less brilliant than Tervel. So, Krum appeared first legislator of Bulgaria. The laws of the Khan were preserved in the retelling of the Greek encyclopedic dictionary - Courts (10th century) . Krum issued laws regulating legal proceedings, toughening penalties for theft, and also ordered the cutting down of vineyards in Bulgaria. Khan Krum managed to carry out administrative reform. The division of the country into tribal units - “Slovenia” - was eliminated, and instead of them “Comitat” were introduced, headed by representatives of the central government. The foreign policy activities of Khan Krum were no less successful. In 811, a large Byzantine army led by Emperor Nicephorus himself set out on a campaign against Bulgaria. The Byzantines managed to capture and plunder the Bulgarian capital of Pliska, after which Nikephoros hastened to return to Constantinople. But the path was blocked by the Bulgarian army. The army that was ambushed was defeated by the Bulgarians, and Emperor Nicephorus himself was killed. The victories of the Bulgarian Khan followed one after another. The central city of Thrace, Odrin, was in his hands. At the beginning of 814, Krum was ready to storm the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. However, in the midst of preparations, he suddenly died. Krum's reforms, in particular administrative ones, the annexation of regions populated predominantly by Slavs to Bulgaria, all this accelerated the process of assimilation of the Proto-Bulgarian ethnic group into the Slavic ones. Bulgaria was gaining strength.. Khan Omurtag (814-831), who replaced Krum, preferred to be friends with Byzantium rather than fight. The very next year after his accession to the throne, the Bulgarian khan concluded a 30-year peace treaty with Byzantium. And he confirmed his loyalty to this agreement by coming to the aid of the Byzantine Emperor Michael II in his fight against the illegal pretender to the throne, Thomas the Slav. Omurtag had to fight in the North-West of Bulgaria, on the Danube border and against the Franks in 824-825. In his domestic policy, Omurtag continued the measures begun by his father to strengthen state law and order and central government. Large construction took place. The capital of Bulgaria, Pliska, which was destroyed in 811 by Nikephoros, was restored. A new palace and a pagan temple were built there, and the city fortifications were updated. Khan's inscriptions indicate that the Bulgarian rulers preserved Proto-Bulgarian traditions. They also report on the system of proto-Bulgarian administration. That is, the ethnic division of the Proto-Bulgarians and the Slavs in the middle of the 9th century. was still preserved. It is hardly possible to determine the exact date of registration of the Bulgarian nationality. And yet, in the second half of the 9th century. the process has entered its final stage. The synthesis of two ethnic groups - the Slavs and the Proto-Bulgarians was accelerated by the real danger coming from Byzantium. A significant blow to the ethnic isolation of the two peoples was dealt by the khans Krum and Omurtag with their reforms, dividing the country into administrative districts that violated the previous ethnic isolation. The most important role in the unification of the two ethnic groups was played by the subsequent in the 60s of the 9th century. baptism of Bulgaria. The initial period of the country's history occurred in the 80s of the 7th century. and ended by the middle of the 9th century. Its central event was the appearance on the map of Europe of a new state - Bulgaria, created by two peoples - the Slavs and the Proto-Bulgarians, who subsequently formed a single Slavic nation.

Baptism of Bulgaria. The beginning of Christianity.

The baptism of Bulgaria, the invention of Slavic writing and the formation of a new Christian spirituality became the main events of Bulgarian history in the second half of the 9th - first quarter of the 10th centuries. Khan Boris (852-889), having decided to introduce a new faith in the country, had to simultaneously cope with two difficult tasks: to baptize his people forcibly or voluntarily and at the same time find a worthy place for Bulgaria among the Christian states. For Christian Europe and Byzantium, pagan Bulgaria was not a full partner. K ser. 9th century In Europe, a fairly stable church hierarchy had developed, which, however, did not exclude the struggle between the Pope and the Byzantine patriarch for the primacy role. . Bulgaria began its search for its place in the Christian world with the help of weapons. However, Boris was haunted by military failures, and the policy of maneuvering did not help. Soon after his accession to the throne, Boris, in alliance with Great Moravia, began a war against the German king Louis, but was defeated. Failure befell him in the fight against Byzantium in 855-856. Bulgaria then lost the region of Zagora and Philippopolis. The alliance with Louis the German did not help in the fight against Byzantium, and defeat followed again. And then Byzantium offered the Bulgarian khan peace and the rite of baptism in his country. The introduction of the new religion lasted for several years, from 864 to 866. Why did the Bulgarian ruler finally decide on baptism? Perhaps under the influence of a series of military failures, as well as attracted by the tempting offer of Byzantium to return to Bulgaria a number of areas seized from it. Boris's desire to fit into the Christian community of European peoples prevailed. At the beginning of 864, Khan Boris was baptized along with his family and closest dignitaries in his palace in an atmosphere of complete mystery. The act of baptism was performed by priests who arrived from Byzantium. This act was not solemn. The people as a whole did not understand and did not accept the new religion. A powerful pagan rebellion was not slow to arise, and was immediately brutally suppressed by Boris. The spiritual son of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, who was now the Bulgarian Khan, took the title of prince and the new name Michael. Having dealt with the anti-Christian movement, the ruler of Bulgaria was still very far from the cherished goal of establishing an independent Bulgarian church. Trying to achieve independence for his church, Boris maneuvered between two powerful Christian centers - Rome and Constantinople. Bulgaria sought the status of autocephaly of the church, or patriarchy. In an effort to obtain the necessary clarification regarding the situation of the Bulgarian Church, Prince Boris sends messages to various Christian centers. The Byzantine Patriarch Photius, in response to questions from the Bulgarian prince, sent a moral and ethical message, in which, however, he did not say a word about the position of the Bulgarian church in the hierarchy of the universal churches. In the message, he instructed Boris that the head of state is obliged to take care not only of his own salvation, but also of the people entrusted to him, to lead them and lead them to perfection. But Boris never received an intelligible answer about the status of the Bulgarian Church from the Patriarch of Constantinople. Then he decided to contact other addresses. Bulgarian embassies were sent to Louis the German, to Regensburg, and also to Rome, to the Pope (866). The Pope responded with a voluminous message, sending 106 answers to the Bulgarians' questions. Judging by the pope's message, the Bulgarian prince was most interested in the problems of establishing a patriarchate in Bulgaria and the procedure for ordaining a patriarch. Boris asked to explain the foundations of the new religion, to send liturgical books and preachers. The Pope explained that for now it is appropriate for Bulgaria to have a bishop, not a patriarch. Pope Nicholas I died in 867. In the same year, Photius was deposed from the patriarchal throne. Boris had to deal with new partners. The Bulgarian embassy went to Rome to the new pope with a request to ordain the candidate nominated by the Bulgarians as archbishop of Bulgaria. The Pope insisted on his candidate for the Bulgarian ecclesiastical throne. The history of determining the status of the Bulgarian Church ended at the Ecumenical Council of 870, where the Bulgarian Church was placed under the supremacy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. An archbishop, ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople, was placed at the head of the church.

Byzantine-Bulgarian wars under Simeon.

The brilliant king Simeon, a successful commander. In 893, at the People's Council in the new Bulgarian capital - the city of Veliky Preslav, Prince Boris solemnly transferred power to his third son - Simeon. Simeon was superbly educated. For more than ten years he studied in Constantinople with Patriarch Photius. The Byzantines themselves called him half-Greek and hoped for his pro-imperial policy in the future. Fate judged otherwise. In the history of Bulgaria there has never been such an independent and self-confident ruler, focusing only on the interests of his country, as Tsar Simeon (893-927) was. Was Simeon's policy straightforward and immediately geared towards war with Byzantium? It is not easy to give a definite answer. Thus, the cause of the Bulgarian-Byzantine war of 894 was the infringement of the interests of Bulgarian trade as a result of the transfer of the Bulgarian market from Constantinople to Thessalonica. Byzantium ignored the protests of the Bulgarian king. Simeon moved his troops, and the Byzantines suffered their first defeat at Odrina. Then Byzantium called for help from the Hungarians, who immediately devastated the northern regions of Bulgaria. Only the joint actions of the Bulgarians and Pechenegs against the Hungarians forced them to retreat to the Middle Danube Lowland. Deprived of allies, the Byzantine troops suffered another defeat in battles with the Bulgarians (894). It is absolutely clear that the clashes of this year were provoked by Byzantium. A number of subsequent military conflicts were also caused by Constantinople. The Empire, apparently, was testing the strength of Bulgaria and its prince. Circumstances changed dramatically in 912, when the Byzantine Emperor Leo died and the young Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus took the throne. In the new situation, the Bulgarian prince decided to take a closer look at Byzantine affairs and sent an embassy to Constantinople, which was received extremely coldly. Simeon considered this circumstance a sufficient reason for a military campaign against Byzantium, making a quick march, the Bulgarian troops appeared under the walls of Constantinople (913). The empire satisfied all of Simeon's demands. The title of Tsar of Bulgaria was recognized for him, and a possible future marriage was agreed upon between one of Simeon’s daughters and the Byzantine emperor. Thus, the Bulgarian prince was recognized by Byzantium as “basileus,” or emperor of Bulgaria. The mother of the young Byzantine emperor Zoe declared this agreement invalid. The answer was the military actions of the Bulgarian Tsar. In 914, Simeon's troops captured Thrace, captured Adrianople, devastated part of Macedonia and invaded the region of Thessalonica. In the summer of 917, Simeon defeated the Byzantine troops on the Aheloy River. In the same year, Serbia became a vassal of Bulgaria. The Bulgarian army entered Greece and Thebes was captured. It seemed that now Simeon could dictate his will to Byzantium and demand fulfillment of the terms of the treaty of 913. But, an Armenian by origin, the commander of the Byzantine fleet, Roman Lekapin, removed the mother of the young emperor Zoe from power and took the Byzantine throne. He betrothed his daughter to the emperor, and in 920 he was crowned co-emperor, becoming the de facto ruler of the country. Calming the Bulgarian king, Roman Lekapin offers him a marriage between his son and daughter Simeon. This dynastic marriage did not resist the Bulgarian ruler. His goal was now to seize the Byzantine throne. But his sovereign rival was now not the eight-year-old Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, but the daring usurper of imperial power Roman Lekapin, with whom Simeon chose to fight, especially since military superiority was on the side of the Bulgarians. Already in 921, Bulgarian troops appeared in Thrace, and then in the vicinity of Constantinople. However, the need to pacify the Serbs who rebelled against the Bulgarian government prevented the assault Byzantine capital. In the next 922, having defeated the Serbs, the Bulgarian troops again went to Constantinople, but the Bulgarians did not dare to storm the Byzantine capital, not having found reliable allies. And then military luck changed Simeon: in 927, the Croats defeated the Bulgarian troops. Probably unable to survive the defeat, Simeon died in May 927, leaving a state that significantly expanded its borders in the South, South-West and West.

Conquest of Bulgaria under John Tzimiskes. The power of Samuel and its destruction.

Peter's successor was Boris II (970–972). In the first year of his reign, Svyatoslav again invaded Bulgaria. This forced the Byzantine emperor John Tzimisces to take care of the defense of his country. In 972 he attacked Svyatoslav's army and won, which opened the way for Byzantium to penetrate Bulgaria. John Tzimiskes declared Bulgaria a Byzantine province, abolished the Bulgarian Patriarchate and placed Byzantine garrisons throughout the country.

Byzantium managed to gain a foothold only in the eastern part of Bulgaria. The western regions (Western Bulgarian Kingdom), with the capital first in Sofia, then in Ohrid, continued to remain an independent state led by Tsar Roman and with its own patriarchate. Samuel (997–1014), a nobleman from the Shishman family, strengthened this state and actually became its ruler. In 1014, Samuel's troops were defeated in the battle of Belasitsa by the army of Emperor Vasily II, who was nicknamed the Bulgarian Slayer. By order of the emperor, 15 thousand people were captured. 99 out of 100 prisoners were blinded. In 1021, the Byzantine army captured Srem, the last stronghold of Bulgarian independence.

In the 11th–12th centuries. Bulgaria was ruled by the plenipotentiary governor of the Byzantine emperor, who, however, interfered little in local affairs. However, when Byzantine feudal relations began to spread into Bulgarian territory, and its northern borders became open to invasion, the situation of the Bulgarian people deteriorated to such an extent that mass uprisings broke out twice.

Croatia in the 7th-11th centuries.

The history of the settlement of the Croats in the territory currently inhabited by them is very detailed in the work of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The author pays special attention to the Croats, since they took possession of the largest of the western provinces of the empire - Dalmatia, where there were ancient cities, the loss of which Byzantium did not want to put up with.

Particularly detailed is the capture and destruction of the city of Salona by the Slavs, refugees from which founded modern Split nearby (Salona was previously the administrative center of the province). A similar fate befell the city of Epidaurus, whose former inhabitants founded Rausium, present-day Dubrovnik.

The settlement of the Croats on Dalmatian territory is presented in the essay as the next (after the Avars and Slavs) wave of colonization, and the clearly legendary story of their arrival from Central Europe is introduced into the narrative. In historiography, the opinion is firmly established that a new wave of resettlement of the Slavs took place during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (the first half of the 7th century).

The next stage of Croatian history is associated with the development of Frankish expansion at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 9th century. In 812, Charlemagne concluded an agreement with the Byzantine emperor, according to which he acquired the right to Croatian lands. Frankish rule lasted until the end of the 870s, when two coups d'état took place one after another (as a result of the first, in 878, a Byzantine appointee was enthroned; as a result of the second, in 879, he was overthrown). After this, Croatia acquired the status of an independent principality, and its rulers began to have the right to levy tribute from the Dalmatian cities, which were still included in the Byzantine possessions. The uprising of Ljudevit Posavski is considered to be one of the brightest pages of Croatian history. The Annals report that in 818, at a congress in Geristal, the prince of Lower Pannonia (the continental part of modern Croatia - Slavonia) Ljudevit made accusations against the Frankish margrave and, not receiving satisfaction, rebelled the next year. The uprising also partly covered the Slovenian and Serbian lands and ended in 822 with the capitulation of Ljudevit, who in 823 fell victim to internecine strife. During the uprising, one significant event occurred: the prince of Dalmatian Croatia, Borna, who acted on the side of the Franks against Ljudevit, died. At the request of the people and with the consent of Emperor Charles, his nephew Ladislaus was appointed successor to the prince. This marked the beginning of the reign of a hereditary dynasty, which received the code name Trpimirovich dynasty on behalf of one of the heirs of a loyal Frankish vassal.

Second half of the 9th and first decade of the 10th century. were the heyday of the Trpimirovich state. From the east, Byzantium and the strengthened Bulgarian kingdom, who were fighting for hegemony on the Balkan Peninsula, attempted to kill the Croats; in the west, the policy of the Roman Curia intensified: the name of Pope Nicholas I is associated with the founding of a bishopric in the city of Nin (Dalmatia). The Curia was particularly active during the pontificates of John VIII (872-882, aggravation of rivalry between Rome and Aquileia) and John X (914-928). About the events of the beginning of the 10th century. one can only judge from the materials of a later chronicle. It contains information that served as the basis for far-reaching conclusions (especially the text of the decisions of the so-called “First Council of Split” in 925). In general terms, the events in the chronicle are presented as follows. During the reign of Prince Tomislav (conditional dates of reign - 910-930), a church council was held in Split, dating back to 925, which established (or restored) an archbishopric in Dalmatia with a see in Split, subordinate directly to Rome, and condemned the “doctrine of Methodius” (worship in Slavic), which spread in Central Europe and the Balkans from the second half of the 9th century. In 928, the Second Council of Split was convened, confirming the decisions of the First and liquidating the Bishopric of Nin, the head of which, the “bishop of the Croats,” claimed to be the metropolitan of Dalmatia and Croatia.

The impression of political rise and even prosperity of Croatia at the time in question is confirmed by the testimony of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, from which it follows that in the middle of the 10th century. the country was densely populated, and its archon had a large army and fleet, which, however, was used exclusively for peaceful purposes (trade).

However, already during the time of Constantine, an unfavorable turning point occurred: the Byzantine emperor writes about civil strife that arose in the country as a result of a coup d'etat carried out by a certain person who bore the title “ban”, and which led to a reduction in the number of troops and navy. Konstantin provides extremely valuable information about the administrative-territorial structure of the Croatian state: division into counties and regions, which were ruled by the ban. The system of division into counties was subsequently preserved, and the ban over time became the head of the military and judicial-administrative power - the first person after the king.

Second half of the 10th - first half of the 11th century. very poorly illuminated in the sources. However, it is reliably known that in 1000 the Croatian fleet was defeated by the Venetian and the Dalmatian cities temporarily came under the rule of the Republic of St. Brand.

Serbian lands in the 7th-11th centuries.

Judging by the reports of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (mid-10th century), the Serbs appeared in the 7th century. on the lands of the Balkan Peninsula (continental part), occupying the territory of present-day Serbia and Montenegro (southern part of the Dalmatian coast). Konstantin also calls the inhabitants of the Neretljan region (Pagania), Trebinja (Travuniya) and Zakhumia (Hum) - territories that later became part of Croatia and Bosnia - Serbs. The baptism of the Serbs took place under Emperor Heraclius (first half of the 7th century), and bishops and presbyters were invited from Rome. The main stronghold of Orthodoxy was Raska, which became at the beginning of the 13th century. the center of the formation of an independent state that united all lands with a Serbian population. The next stage in the history of Serbia, which received very detailed coverage from Constantine, covers the period from the middle of the 9th to the middle of the 10th century. Apparently, the Serbs took part in that anti-Byzantine movement, which culminated in the reign of Basil I of Macedon with the establishment of archons and the transfer to the Slavic rulers of the right to collect a pact from the Dalmatian cities: in particular, one Serbian prince received such a right allegedly in relation to Rausia (Dubrovnik). The main attention of the Byzantine author, however, was occupied by events related to the strengthening of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, which, from the time of Boris I, extended its power to the Macedonian lands, which were later included in Serbia.

Vlastimir is conventionally considered the founder of the first Rashka dynasty. Although Konstantin names the names of his predecessors, he does not provide specific information about them. During the reign of Vlastimir and his three sons, who divided the country among themselves, the Serbs twice repelled the campaign of the Bulgarians (first by the troops of Khan Presian, then by Boris). However, a struggle began between the brothers, and Muntimir, who emerged victorious, sent the captured brothers to Bulgaria. Before his death, the prince transferred the throne to one of his sons, Pribislav, but a year later (in 893 or 894) he was overthrown by a cousin who came from Croatia. New Prince, Peter Goinikovich, reigned for more than twenty years. He was a contemporary of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon, with whom he maintained peaceful relations for some time and even “insulted”. He managed to repel two attempts cousins (Bran from Croatia and Clonymyr from Bulgaria) take over the throne. The end of Peter's reign is associated with significant events. First of all, around this time, the culminating moment of Bulgaria's political rise came - the famous Battle of Aheloy (917). A certain Archon Michael, a representative of a noble Serbian family, took advantage of this. Ruler of the coastal region of Zakhumye, he was “jealous” of Peter and reported to Tsar Simeon that the Rashka prince had come into contact with Byzantium. Simeon undertook a campaign, as a result of which Peter was captured, where he died, and his nephew Pavel became prince. From that time on, a period of unrest began, when Byzantium and Bulgaria took turns trying to establish their protege on the Rashka throne. Finally, Caslav Klonimiovich appeared on the scene. At first he acted as a Bulgarian creature, but after the death of Simeon in 927 he managed to achieve an independent position and ruled the Serbian and Bosnian lands for about a quarter of a century. Since the mid-960s. A new stage is beginning in the history of Serbian lands. After the death of Caslav, his power disintegrated, and the territories that were part of it found themselves for several decades under the rule of Tsar Samuil, who extended his rule right up to the Adriatic coast. That is why some historians use the name Samuil’s Power to designate the emerging state. Samuel united under his rule almost all the lands that Bulgaria owned under Tsar Simeon (except for Northern Thrace), also Thessaly (in the south), Raska and the coastal Serbian lands. The latter, however, enjoyed great independence. After the tragic outcome of the Battle of Belasitsa and the death of Samuel, all of his possessions became part of the Byzantine Empire (1018). Since then, the center of political life of the Serbian lands has temporarily moved to the coastal regions, i.e. to the territory of present-day Montenegro, then called Duklja or Zeta. Already as a result of the anti-Byzantine uprising led by Peter Delyan (1040), the Dukljan ruler was able to somewhat emancipate himself, and by the time of the second major uprising (1072 under the leadership of George Vojtěch), the Dukljan prince Mikhail acquired such political weight that the rebels asked for his help, as wai was provided. . The main focus of both uprisings was Macedonian territory. The uprising of 1072 was defeated, but Mikhail managed to free his son Konstantin Bodin from captivity, who with his detachment fought on the side of the rebels and was even proclaimed their king. After the death of his father, Konstantin Bodin inherited the Dukljan throne. In 1077, Prince Michael received the right to the royal title from Pope Gregory VII. This is where the history of the Kingdom of Duklyan (or the Zeta Power) begins. It should be noted that the policy of Gregory VII regarding Slavic countries was particularly active: his name is associated with the recognition of royal titles for three monarchs - Demetrius-Zvonirum, Boleslav II (Polish) and Mikhail Zetsky. After the death of Bodin (c. 1101), who temporarily united the coastal and continental Serbian lands under his rule, the Zeta Empire disintegrated and the lands that were part of it again became the prey of the Byzantine Empire.

Great Moravia and its destinies.

There is no information about the political history of society in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the disappearance of the Samo tribal union. The Slavs of these regions belonged to the same ethnic group, but, having settled in different places, they developed public relations with some differences. The conditions were most favorable in Moravia. In written sources of the 9th century. The Moravians always act under a single name and are led by a single prince, whose power was hereditary. The Moymir clan ruled (according to Prince Moymir, c. 830-846). The crystallization of the state, later called Great Moravia, began. Louis the German, considering Great Moravia to be his area of influence, placed on its throne after the death of Mojmir (846) his nephew Rastislav, who had been raised at the East Frankish court. Rastislav (846-870) however sought to free himself from guardianship. In 853, Louis the German began a war against Rastislav, and in 855 the Frankish army invaded Moravia and devastated it. However, Rastislav, having sat in the fortification, launched a counter-offensive and drove out Ludvik’s army. In 864, Louis the German again invaded the territory of Moravia with an army and this time forced Rastislav to recognize his dependence on Franconia. However, the Moravian prince did not remain faithful to Ludwik. At the same time, Rastislav also came into conflict with his nephew Svyatopolk, who ruled the Nitra principality as an appanage prince. In 869, Louis's son Carloman ruined the Nitra inheritance, and Svyatopolk decided to overthrow his uncle from the throne. In 870 he captured Rastislav and handed him over to Carloman. The Moravian prince was blinded in Regensburg, and Svyatopolk began to rule in Moravia as a Frankish vassal. However, in 871, Carloman put Svyatopolk in prison and declared Moravia part of the Eastern March, transferring its control to Counts Engelschalk and Wilhelm. The Moravans rebelled against the governors and, believing that Svyatopolk was no longer alive, elected his relative Slavomir as prince. Then Carloman came to an agreement with Svyatopolk, released him from prison and sent him to Moravia. He, however, destroyed the Bavarian garrisons in Moravia. In 872, King Louis the German himself, at the head of the Saxon and Thuringian troops, invaded Moravia, but suffered a severe defeat. Peace was concluded in 874. Svyatopolk swore allegiance to the king and undertook to pay tribute, that is, certain amounts of money for maintaining peace. But in fact, Louis came to terms with the independence of Moravia, and after his death, Svyatopolk’s power achieved the greatest expansion of its territory. His state included Moravia, Western Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Serbian tribes along the river. Sala, Lusatian Serbs, Silesian tribes, Vistula people of Krakow land, Slavs of Pannonia. But the state was not centralized and did not have a unified management system. Svyatopolk ruled only in the Moravian territory itself, in the rest - local princes, who, however, obeyed Svyatopolk, paid him tribute and deployed military forces at his request. Thus, Great Moravia was a conglomerate of dependent territories united around the central part by military-administrative ties. The East Frankish Empire was unable to prevent the growth of Svyatopolk's power; his power remained unshakable until his death in 894. Great Moravia was one of the forms of the early medieval state. The prince was at the head, there were nobles with their own squads; the rest of the population was called “the people.” These were free farmers with still weak social differentiation. Statehood was represented by the Moymir dynasty, which had hereditary rights of reign. One of the main functions of the state apparatus was the collection of tribute and taxes. The members of the administrative apparatus were nobles. The main support and body of executive power was the well-armed princely squad concentrated in the main centers: Mikulčice, Břeclav=Pohansko, Dutsovo, Starý Mesto, etc. There were squads at the courts of nobles. They were supported by war booty and tribute from the population. After the death of Svyatopolk in 894, the state began to disintegrate. Svyatopolk divided the power between his sons Mojmir II and Svyatopolk II. But soon Pannonia fell away, then part of the Nitra inheritance, where Svyatopolk the Younger ruled. In 895, the Czech Republic found itself outside the Great Moravian territory. In 897, the Serbs also moved away from Great Moravia. The process of disintegration of the state was a consequence of both internal and external reasons. In particular, the nomadic Magyars during the 9th century. advanced to the West and in subsequent decades began to attack the Slavic regions. It was an alliance of 8 tribes. They captured the Slavic regions of Great Moravia in 907, and later also devastated the Czech Republic. But Moravian culture did not disappear. The Magyars adopted a lot of information from the Slavs and quickly adapted to new places. The liquidation of the Great Moravian State led to the political separation of Czechs and Slovaks. The Czech state began to develop in the western part of the former state, while Slovakia became part of the emerging Hungarian state. The Great Moravian era represents one of the progressive stages in the history of the Slavs, when their own culture was created, equal in maturity to the then Western European civilization. Great Moravia also played an important role in the historical development of Europe in the 9th century. generally

Cyril and Methodius Mission

863 and 864 Constantine the Philosopher and his brother Methodius, both from Thessaloniki, arrived in Moravia. They knew the Slavic language, and Konstantin compiled a special alphabet that corresponded to the structure of the sounds of Slavic speech. Constantine and Methodius were not the first missionaries to this territory. In 831, several Moravian princes were baptized in Regensburg, and in 845, 14 Czech princes and their squads did the same. But the missionary activity of those decades was closely connected with the strengthening of Frankish political influence, and, realizing this, Rastislav took measures to create his own clergy. In a short time, Constantine and Methodius prepared a group of candidates for priesthood. In 867 Constantine, Methodius and a group of their disciples went to Rome and the candidates were ordained. Constantine entered a monastery in 868 and took the monastic name Cyril, and died in January 869. Pope Guardian II allowed the Slavic liturgy in Moravia and appointed Methodius as head of the church there. But the Bavarian bishops had a negative attitude towards the Slavic liturgy, because their own clergy gave the Moravans the opportunity to refuse the Bavarian missionaries. Methodius was imprisoned and kept there for three years. After the intervention of the new Pope John VIII, Methodius was released, and then, already in the rank of archbishop, he arrived in Great Moravia. However, a conflict arose between Svyatopolk and Methodius: in 879, the prince turned to the pope with a complaint that the archbishop was “teaching incorrectly.” But Methodius was acquitted. In 880, a papal bull was issued approving the writing created by the late Constantine and ordering that Christ be glorified in the Slavic language, and the Gospel read in it in churches. The pope subordinated two bishops to Methodius - Vikhing of Nitra and another, whose name is unknown to us. The German Wiching intrigued against Methodius, denounced him to the pope, and forged documents. Before his death in 885, Methodius cursed Vikhing, appointing Gorazd as his successor. The death of Methodius meant the end of the Slavic mission. Svyatopolk no longer had any interest in supporting it; Methodius’s disciples were expelled from the country and went to the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. The Slavic mission lasted 21 years, but the activities of Cyril and Methodius had a great influence on the beginning of Slavic education. Constantine the philosopher created the “glagolitic alphabet”, and in the 10th century. The Cyrillic alphabet arose in Bulgaria. Both of them came from different versions of the Greek script and were used in parallel for a long time, especially among the eastern and southern Slavs. Constantine translated liturgical texts into Slavic and wrote a preface to the translation of the Gospel, in which he defended the need for writing in national languages. He worked on the translation of the entire Bible, completed by Methodius. This is how the foundations of all Slavic writing were laid. Subsequently, Methodius also wrote “On the Duties of Rulers,” and his authorship is recognized for the monument “The Law of Judgment for People.” The first lives of both enlighteners are of Moravian origin; they are also sources on the history of Great Moravia. The basis of the language of ancient Slavic literature was the Macedonian dialect, which was spoken in the Soluni region. This first Slavic literary language is one of the main sources of knowledge of the patterns of development of individual Slavic languages. Such is the cultural significance of Great Moravia.

The fate of the Cyril and Methodius tradition after St. Cyril and Methodius.

Cyril and Methodius and their disciples-followers were called the Seventh Numbers:

Gorazd Ohridski- student of Methodius, compiler of the Slavic alphabet. The first archbishop was a Slavic Slovak - he was the archbishop of Great Moravia. In 885-886, under Prince Svatopluk I, a crisis arose in the Moravian Church, Archbishop Gorazd entered into a dispute with the Latin clergy, headed by Wichtig, bishop of Nitrava, who was once the target of St. . Methodius imposed an anathema. Wichtig, with the approval of the pope, expelled Gorazd from the diocese and 200 priests with him, and he himself took his place as archbishop. Ultimately, worship in Moravia in the Slavic language was stopped and began to be performed in Latin. He, together with Klement Ohridski, fled to Bulgaria, where he founded famous literary schools in Pliska, Ohrid and Preslav.

Kliment Ohridski- participant of the Moravian expedition of Cyril and Methodius. Currently, the prevailing theory in science is that Cyril and Methodius created the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet was created later, possibly by their students; There is a point of view that it was Kliment Ohridsky who created the Cyrillic alphabet; supporters of this point of view include I. V. Yagich, V. N. Shchepkin, A. M. Selishchev and others.

Naum Ohridski- Saint Naum, together with Saints Cyril and Methodius, as well as with his ascetic Saint Clement of Ohrid, is one of the founders of Bulgarian religious literature. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church includes Saint Naum among the Seven.

Baptism of the Czech Republic. The fate of the Czech Republic at the end of the ΙΧ-beginning of the 10th century. (before 935)

The Czech tribe, living in the center of the country, sought to extend its power to neighboring tribes. The political center of the Czechs was originally Budec, but by the 10th century the center shifted to the territory of present-day Prague, where the Vysehrad fortress and, a little later and on the opposite bank, Prague Castle were founded on the banks of the Vltava.

The first prince of the Czechs was Krok. His daughter and heir, Libuše, married Přemysl, a simple plowman, a native of the village of Staditsa, in the land of the Lemuz tribe. The names of the descendants and successors of Přemysl - the first Přemyslids - are given by Kozma of Prague in the following sequence: Nezamysl, Mnata, Vojon, Unislav, Kresomysl, Neklan, Hostivit and Borzhivoy, who converted to Christianity. The chronicler adds to the names of these princes a story about the struggle of the Czech prince Neklan with Vlastislav, prince of the Luchan tribe.

At the beginning of the 9th century, the Czech lands were subjected to Frankish aggression. The first campaign of Charlemagne's army in the Czech Republic (805) was not successful, but the next year a new Frankish invasion followed, as a result of which the Czech tribes agreed to pay tribute to the Frankish Empire - 500 hryvnias of silver and 120 bulls. The imperial claims of Charlemagne to subjugate the Czech Republic were inherited by the East Frankish Kingdom.

In January 845, 14 Czech princes (representing the Lucians and other western Czech tribes), having decided to convert to Christianity, arrived in Regensburg to King Louis II of Germany and were baptized by his order. However, the very next year (when Louis II made a campaign against Moravia and installed Rostislav on its princely throne instead of Mojmir), they attacked the king’s army returning from Moravia and inflicted a heavy defeat on him (so this episode did not lead to the founding of the Christian church in the Czech Republic) .

In the 880s, the Czech lands came under the control of the Great Moravian prince Svyatopolk. Svyatopolk chose the Central Bohemian prince Borzhivoj from the Přemyslid family as his protege in the Czech Republic. Around 883, Borzhivoy and his wife Lyudmila were baptized in Velehrad by Archbishop Methodius (who had led missionary work in Moravia since 863, initially together with his brother Cyril, as a result of which Christianity spread there according to the Greek-Byzantine rite using Church Slavonic as the language worship services). Borzhivoj received baptism without the consent of the Czech Sejm, for which he was deposed, and the Sejm chose another prince - named Stroymir. However, in 884, Svyatopolk again placed his protege on the throne and established his supremacy over the other Czech princes; Borzhivoy, having defeated the Sejm, built his fortress (modern Prague Castle) on the old Seim field in 884-885, on the territory of which he erected the first Christian temple.

After Borzhivoy died (889), Svyatopolk himself took the Czech throne; soon the East Frankish king Arnulf abandoned (890) his claims to the Czech Republic. However, after the death of Svyatopolk (894), the Czech princes Spytignev and Vratislav, sons of Borzivoj, hastened to get rid of Moravian dependence: they came to Regensburg (895), took a vassal oath to Arnulf with the obligation to pay tribute in the old days and agreed to the subordination of the Czech Republic to the church authority of Regensburg bishop (after which the Latin church rite began to penetrate into the Czech Republic). The princes who arrived in Regensburg were led by a certain Vitislav and Borzhivoj’s son Spytignev I (894-915).

As for the Slavic rite of worship, it was partially preserved in the Czech Republic for more than two hundred years. The basis of this rite was the Slavic rite monastery on Sazava, founded by St. Procopius of Sazavsky. In 1097, the place of the Greco-Slavic monks on Sazava was taken by the Benedictines.

Prince Vratislav I (915-921), younger brother and the successor of Spytignev I, successfully repelled the attack on the Czech Republic by the Magyars, who had previously defeated the Great Moravian Empire, and, taking advantage of the unrest that arose in Germany, stopped paying tribute to the German king, as a result of which the Czech Principality temporarily gained independence.

The beginning of the reign of his son Saint Wenceslas (921-935) was marred by evil deeds. Dragomira, the prince's mother, seized power and ordered the death of St. Lyudmila, fearing her influence on the young prince. Wenceslas waged a war with Radislav, the prince of the Zlichan tribe (their main city was Libice) - and forced him to recognize the supreme power of the Czech prince. Coping with internal enemies, Vaclav did not have enough strength to fight Germany. The powerful King Henry I (King of Germany) approached Prague in 929 and forced Wenceslas to pay tribute.

Czech Republic in the mid-second half of the 10th century.

Brother of St. Wenceslas Boleslav I the Terrible (935-967), who reigned in the land of Pshovan, the patrimony of the father of St. Lyudmila, invited his brother to a church celebration in Old Boleslavl, which he had recently rebuilt, and there he killed him, seizing power in the Czech Republic. For 14 years Boleslav waged a stubborn struggle against the Germans, but in 950 he recognized dependence on the German state. At the Battle of the Lech River (955), the Czechs fought against the Magyars as allies of the Germans. The victory of Christians over the Hungarians made it possible for Boleslav I the Terrible to annex Moravia and the Polish lands located along the upper reaches of the Oder and Elbe to the Czech Republic.

The son of Boleslav the Terrible, Boleslav II the Pious (967-999), founded - with the assistance of Emperor Otto I - a bishopric in Prague, subordinate to the Archbishop of Mainz. The first bishop of Prague was the Saxon Detmar, who knew the Slavic language well, and the second was Vojtech, also known as Adalbert of Prague, a friend of Emperor Otto III. Vojtěch was the son of Slavnik, who created a virtually independent principality on the lands of the Zličians and gradually extended his power to a third of the territory of the Czech Republic. Vojtech did not get along with the prince and the nobility, left the department twice and ended his life as a martyr in the land of the Prussians (997).

Brothers of St. Vojtecha - Slavnikovichi - sought complete independence from the Czech Republic and were in relations with both the Polish prince Boleslav I the Brave and the imperial court. Boleslav II the Pious attacked the Slavnikovich capital Libice, ruined it and finally annexed the lands of the eastern and southern parts of the Czech Republic, subject to this princely family, to his state (995). Thus, the work of unifying the lands of the Czech Slavs under the rule of the Přemyslid dynasty was completed.

History of the Czech Republic in the 10th century.

Boleslav I of Poland, taking advantage of the discord under the Czech prince Boleslav III the Red, the son and successor of Boleslav II, placed his brother Vladivoj on the princely throne in Prague, after his death he seized power into his own hands and expelled Jaromir and Oldrich (Ulrich), his younger sons, from the country Boleslav II. With the help of Emperor Henry II, power was returned to the Přemyslids, but the Czech lands conquered by Bolesław I of Poland and Moravia remained in the hands of Poland. At the end of Oldrich's reign (1012-1034), his son Bryachislav I took Moravia from the Poles, and from then on this country finally became part of the Czech state. The reign of Bryachislav I (1035-1055) was marked by the Czech conquest of Poland and an attempt to found a powerful West Slavic empire. This attempt was unsuccessful due to the intervention of Pope Benedict IX and Emperor Henry III, who, after an unsuccessful campaign (1040) and defeat at Domazlice, marched to Prague in 1041 and forced the Czech prince to admit his dependence on the empire. From that moment on, the Czech Republic became part of the Holy Roman Empire.

History of the Czech Republic in the 19th century.

Wratislav II (1061-1092) received the title of king for loyalty to Emperor Henry IV, although without the right of inheritance. Vratislav's descendants also fought for the throne. At the same time, the Czech Republic's fief relations with the empire had a number of features. Imperial laws were not in effect in the Czech Republic, but the empire recognized as rulers of the country only those individuals who were elected by the warriors and who had real power. The Czech princes remained allies of the German emperors in the 12th century. Thus, Vladislav II (1140-1173) participated in the second crusade, supported Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) in his struggle in Italy and was proclaimed king with the right to transfer this title to his heirs. Last quarter of the 12th century. - a period of deep decline of the Czech state. Frederick Barbarossa tried to tear Moravia away from the Czech Republic and installed Konrad Ota (1182) as the Moravian margrave, who became a direct fief of the empire, was elected to the Czech throne in 1189 and ruled both lands until 1191. End of the 12th century. was marked by the decline of the power of the German emperor and the Staufen dynasty, which allowed the Czech state to maintain independence.

Ancient Poland. Settlement of Polish tribes. Christening of Poland. Meshko I.

It is almost impossible to calculate what the population of Polish lands was in the 6th – 9th centuries. The basic demographic, industrial, social unit of society was a large patriarchal family, uniting several generations of relatives under one roof or in one yard. The two main types of settlements were villages and towns. At the same time, the village was not at all similar to the village familiar to modern people under the same name. At best, it united several courtyards.

A dozen neighboring villages of this type made up an opole - a social, economic and political structure of a communal type. Grody acted mainly as defense and administrative centers, the very size and location of which from a quarter to three quarters of a hectare, on the hills, in river bends or on capes) suggests that they served as the residence of the squad and a refuge for the surrounding population in case of an external threat.

Starting from the 6th century, stable arable farming spread in Polish lands, the main tool in which was the plow. New territories are developed by burning forests; the plow makes it possible to raise previously inaccessible soils.

In the Polish past, the state entered the historical arena in the 9th – 10th centuries, but the first decades of its existence are not covered by sources that would describe the genesis of Polish statehood. In the second half of the 10th century, the state of the first dynasty of Polish rulers - the Piasts - appeared as an already established and fairly developed military-administrative machine. The first monarch about whom more reliable data has been preserved was Mieszko I (about 960 - 992).

The main organizing principle of the political life of any early medieval society is war. Internal political changes and events most often appear as a consequence of military-political conflicts. Poland of the 10th and early 12th centuries is no exception. The reign of Mieszko I (until 992) was marked by the territorial expansion of the Greater Poland state, which subjugated Silesia, Pomerania, and part of Lesser Poland. Another important event of this time was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in 966, dictated largely by political considerations, and the symbolic transfer of Polish lands under the guardianship of the Roman throne. While fighting for Western Pomerania and facing the threat of German political and religious expansion, Mieszko I sought to find an ally in the Czech rulers and stand on an equal footing in political and diplomatic relations with Germany. The alliance with the Czech Republic was strengthened by a marriage with the Czech princess Dubrava, which was accompanied by the baptism of Mieszko I himself and his immediate circle. Apparently, the act of baptism itself took place not in Poland, but in Bavaria. Mieszko I and other Polish rulers faced a difficult twofold task: to introduce Christianity into the practice of everyday life and into the consciousness of Polish society; to ensure the independence of the emerging Polish Church from the German hierarchy. The latter need was especially urgent, since Poland, as a field of activity for Christian missionaries, would have to fall into ecclesiastical and administrative dependence on the Magdeburg Archdiocese. The first Polish monarchs, however, managed to avoid this: at first, the clergy who arrived in Poland were headed by Bishop Jordan (Italian by birth), who arrived from the Czech Republic; later, in 1000, the Poznań archdiocese subordinate directly to Rome was created, headed by Gaudent, a representative of the Czech aristocracy and a Czech by birth. blood. Of course, the network of parishes did not take shape right away. Initially, the main strongholds of Christianity became monasteries, which converted the local population to the new faith and were centers for training the Polish clergy. The Polish bishops, apparently, remained generals without an army for a long time, and the church itself was an actual part of the state apparatus, completely dependent on the prince. Only in the 12th century, after the reforms of the famous Pope Gregory VII spread to Poland, the clergy acquired class privileges and rights that gave the church independence from the state.

Poland in ΧΙ in

The reign of Bolesław the Brave (992 – 1025) was marked by the annexation of Krakow to his state in 999, the conclusion of a close military-political alliance with the Holy German Emperor Otto III during the so-called Gniezno Congress of 1000. This union was accompanied by the creation of an independent Gniezno archdiocese, which guaranteed Poland ecclesiastical and political independence from the German church. The rapprochement with Germany gave way to a period of long wars with the successors of Otto III in 1002 - 1018. After the conclusion of the Peace of Bulyshyn with the Empire in 1018, Boleslav undertook a victorious campaign against Kievan Rus and annexed a number of cities in Galician Rus to Poland (1018). The apogee of Bolesław's political activity was his coronation in 1025. The reign of Mieszko II (1025 - 1034) saw a number of defeats: the crown and part of the acquired lands were lost, internal strife broke out in the country, forcing Mieszko II to flee Poland, the monarchy sank into a political and social crisis. The apogee of this crisis falls on the reign of Casimir I the Restorer (1034 - 1058): almost the entire territory of Poland in 1037 was swept by a popular uprising, directed both against feudalization, which was in full swing, and against the church that had taken root in the country. In Polish historiography it is sometimes called the social-pagan revolution. The consequences of this social explosion were catastrophic: the existing state-administrative and church systems were almost destroyed, which the Czech prince Břetislav took advantage of by undertaking a devastating campaign against Poland in 1038. Nevertheless, Casimir managed to defend the independence of the Polish principality, calm the country and restore the shaken social, state and church order. The reign of Bolesław II the Bold or Generous (1058-1081) was marked by Poland's participation in the conflict between Pope Gregory VII and the German Emperor Henry IV, which brought Bolesław the royal crown in 1076. However, in 1079 he faced a feudal conspiracy led by his brother Władysław and, perhaps the Bishop of Krakow, Stanisław. Although Boleslav even decided to execute Stanislav, his strength was not enough to maintain power in the country, and he was forced to flee to Hungary in the same 1079. The transfer of power to his brother Vladislav I Herman (1081-1102) meant the victory of the centrifugal forces of the feudal opposition over the central government. In fact, on behalf of Vladislav, the country was ruled by his governor Sieciekh, which meant Poland entered into a period of new political strife and feudal fragmentation.

Poland in ΧΙΙ century. Collapse of the unified Polish state.

The reign of Bolesław III Wrymouth (1102-1138) led to a temporary victory over opposition forces during the struggle against Sieciech and Bolesław's brother Zbigniew. This was largely the result of successful wars for the reunification and Christianization of Pomerania. In his will in 1138, Boleslav tried to prevent the disintegration of the country into separate principalities and appanages by introducing the rule of principate in the succession to the grand-ducal throne, that is, transferring supreme power to the eldest of four sons. However, this state act could no longer stop the inevitable processes of decentralization, and after the death of Boleslaw, Poland finally entered a period of feudal-political fragmentation. The eldest son of Boleslav Wrymouth, Wladyslaw the Exile (1138-1146), was defeated in a military-political clash with his younger brothers and was forced to flee Poland. His successor on the grand-ducal throne was Boleslav Curly (1146-1173), under whom the struggle between the heirs of Boleslav Curly-mouth continued. After the death of Bolesław Kudryavy, Mieszko III the Old (1173 - 1177) became the formal supreme ruler of Poland for several years, but was overthrown by Casimir the Just. The Łęczycki Congress of the Polish nobility sanctioned the seizure of power by Casimir the Just, contrary to the principle of lordship. After the death of Casimir the Just in 1194 (possibly he was poisoned), the Lesser Poland rulers once again confirmed their rejection of the idea of seignorate, supporting not the legitimate claimant Meszko the Old, but his opponents. Poland entered the 13th century as a conglomerate of principalities warring among themselves.

Czech Republic in ΧΙΙ century.

Polish lands in the ΧΙΙΙ century. Poland, Mongols, Crusaders and Rus'

Poland entered the 13th century as a conglomerate of principalities warring among themselves. But it was within the individual principalities that the formation of those institutions took place, which later served as the social basis of the united Polish kingdom. The feudal estate and the accompanying vassal-feudal relations acquired a mature appearance. To establish control over the appanage prince, the feudal lords used the tradition of veche meetings - the prototype of future diets. The veche, in which small knights and sometimes peasants also took part, resolved a wide range of issues: taxes, positions, disputes between individual feudal lords and between them and the prince, controversial court cases, military actions, etc. Thanks to the veche Institutions of appanage principalities became similar to small class states. By uniting the Polish lands, the future all-Polish monarch could turn this tradition into a all-Polish one. Several contenders (Leszek White, Władysław, Mieszko, Konrad Mazowiecki) continued to fight for the Krakow throne. By the middle of the 13th century. a new unifying trend emerged - this time associated with the names of the Silesian princes Henry the Bearded (1230-1238) and Henry the Pious (1238-1241), however, the invasion of the Tatars and the defeat of the Polish army in the battle of Legnica in 1241, where Henry the Pious also died , led to a new round of feudal strife. In the second half of the 13th century, political fragmentation reached its apogee - for each of the Polish historical lands was in turn divided into separate principalities. Konrad of Mazowiecki (1241-1243), Bolesław V the Bashful (1243-1279), Leszek the Black (1279-1288), Henry IV the Honest (1288-1290) succeeded each other on the Krakow throne, but their political influence was limited to Lesser Poland. By the end of the 13th century, however, the prerequisites for unification processes were taking shape. Chivalry becomes a supra-natural social force; Groups interested in restoring a unified monarchy appear in the environment of government; the clergy, by nature gravitating towards centralization, suffering from strife more than other ruling groups, becomes the support of centripetal tendencies; Cities enter the arena of political life, whose role in the conditions of strengthening commodity-money relations is becoming more and more noticeable. Finally, an external factor hastening the unification was the Order of the Crusaders, called to the Polish lands in the 1230s by Konrad of Mazovia. The Crusaders (the Order of the Virgin Mary, active first in the Middle East, then moved to Hungary) were invited to promote the Christianization of Prussia and Lithuania and enjoyed the active support of the Polish princes. Over time, however, their strength increased so much that the order became an essential factor in Polish political life. The fight against him pushed the Polish princes towards each other. The unification of Polish lands is associated with the name of Władysław Lokietka, who, in the fight against Henry the Honest, Przemysl II of Greater Poland and Wenceslas II of Bohemia, already in the 1290s, twice seized the Krakow throne. But this does not mean that only he was able to complete the unification processes. Even when the throne fell into the hands of his opponents, centripetal forces clearly prevailed over feudal separatism. This was reflected in the fact that Przemysl II managed to unite Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and Eastern Pomerania for a short time and was crowned in 1295 by the Gniezno Archbishop Jakub Świnka. Przemysl II was poisoned by his rivals, but unifying tendencies won again: the same Jakub Swink crowned Wenceslas II in 1300, who was the first to subjugate almost all Polish territories to his power, with the exception of Silesia and the Dobrzyn Land. That is why 1300 can be considered a turning point in the history of medieval Poland.

In 1240 the Tatar-Mongols invaded Poland, and in March 1241 they captured and burned Krakow. In 1257 and 1287 the raids were repeated.

Czech Republic in ΧΙΙΙ century. The last Přemyslids.

In 1197, Přemysl I became prince, who managed to raise the prestige of the Czech state. He intervened in the struggle for the imperial throne and, speaking on the side of various contenders, received rewards from each. One of these awards was the granting of the Sicilian Golden Bull in 1212 to Přemysl I and the Czech state, which recognized the indivisibility of the Czech state, the right of Czech feudal lords to choose a king, the right of investiture by the Czech king of Czech bishops and only the minimal duties of Czech sovereigns in relation to Roman kings and emperors. In general, the bull confirmed what had already been achieved by the Czech state earlier. The Premyslids were active foreign policy . Already Wenceslas I (1230-1253) replaced the throne by the right of “primogeniture” (the right of the firstborn son) contrary to the “seignorate” established in 1055, i.e. replacement of the throne by the eldest representative of the clan as a whole. Wenceslas I took part in the fight against the Tatars who had penetrated into Central Europe, as well as in the fight for the “Babenberg inheritance,” i.e. for the Austrian lands of Carinthia and Styria. Wenceslas I was opposed by a coalition led by the Hungarian king Béla IV. During the war with her, Wenceslas I died (1253), and his heir Přemysl II Otakar (1253-1278) abandoned part of Styria in favor of Hungary. He also put forward his candidacy for emperor, but was not successful. In 1259, a war began between the Czech Republic and Hungary over Styria; in 1260, Přemysl defeated the Hungarian army, and the Hungarian king renounced his claims to the Babenberg inheritance. Hegemony in Central Europe passed to the Czech king, he began to expand his possessions, bringing them to the Adriatic Sea. Owning nine countries (lands), Přemysl II reached the pinnacle of his power and in 1272 again put forward his candidacy for the imperial throne. But his further rise was extremely undesirable for the pope and many imperial princes, who elected the low-authority Rudolf Habsburg as emperor. Přemysl II began to prepare for a war for the imperial throne, but ran into opposition not only external, but also internal. In the Czech Republic, opposition to the king, who sought to curtail the rights of the gentry, formed. He enforced the rule of the king's supreme ownership over land ownership, founded cities and monasteries, expecting their support in the fight against powerful lords, changed the structure of government and legal proceedings, and eliminated the system of dividing the country into castles with their surrounding territories. Přemysl II supported the development of mining, crafts, trade, and completed the process of colonization of the border areas, settling them with Germans. These actions caused dissatisfaction. The contradictions between the gentry and the king manifested themselves in all their severity in 1276, when representatives of the largest gentry families of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and the Czech Republic itself, led by the Vitkov clan, rebelled against Přemysl. The key figure was Zawisza of Falkenstein, who established contact with Rudolf Habsburg and promised him support in the war against Přemysl. In the war that began, Přemysl had no chance of victory. On August 26, 1278, Přemysl II Otakar was killed and his army was defeated. Rudolf captured most of Moravia, and the Vitkovites devastated the royal lordships, monasteries and cities. The nephew of the deceased king, Otto of Brandenburg, moved against Rudolf and defeated his army. After this, Otto was recognized as the ruler of the Czech Republic for five years, and Rudolph for the same period as the ruler of Moravia. In the Czech Republic, antagonism between the cities that supported the new king and the gentry intensified. Fearing the opposition of the Czech lordship, Otto in 1279 imprisoned Queen Kunguta and the heir to the throne, the young Wenceslas, in the Bezdez castle. As a result, the Czech gentry, led by the Prague bishop Tobias from Bechyne, decided to defend the rights of the Czech state and the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1282, the zemstvo administration, with the support of the majority of the gentry, took power in the country into its own hands. Wenceslas was rescued from prison, and Rudolf Habsburg returned Moravia to the Czech Kingdom. After five years of turmoil, stabilization came. The gentry became very strong, becoming, together with the king, the bearer of state power. Wenceslas II (1283-1305) returned from captivity at the age of twelve. Queen Kunguta married Zawisza from Falkenstein, who began to energetically restore the devastated country. In 1285, Kunguta died. Fourteen-year-old Wenceslas II was betrothed to the daughter of Rudolf Habsburg and, under the influence of the latter, ordered Zawisza to be imprisoned, and he was soon sentenced to death. The Vitkovites rebelled, military operations began, as a result of which the uprising was suppressed. Nineteen-year-old Vaclav decided not to share power with anyone. Without encroaching on the political influence of the lordship, he nevertheless sought to return royal property to the crown. Leaving the highest nobles in the main zemstvo positions, he simultaneously created a royal council of financiers, lawyers, economists, specialists in church affairs, foreign policy, and culture. The king established a state monopoly on silver mining, increasing the revenues of his treasury. In 1300, a legal code was issued to regulate the relationship between mine owners and royal financial institutions. This Kutnogorsk law then received further distribution. At the same time, Wenceslas II carried out a monetary reform. 60 Prague groschen began to constitute a “cop”, used throughout medieval Europe. The king gave privileges to newly emerging cities and donated lands to monasteries. Royal power in the Czech Republic increased. It relied on cities and the church. In 1300, Wenceslas II was also crowned King of Poland, and in 1301, his son Wenceslas was crowned King of Hungary. The strengthening of the Premyslids worried the papal curia. Pope Boniface VIII declared the Premyslid claims to the Polish and Hungarian thrones invalid. The Roman king Albrecht of Habsburg went to war against the Czech Republic in 1304, but the Czech army defeated him, forcing Albrecht to be satisfied with minor concessions from Wenceslas II. In 1305, Wenceslas II died, and his seventeen-year-old son Wenceslas III, who reigned for only one year (1305-1306), was killed, after which the male line of the Premyslid dynasty ended.

31.Serbian lands in ΧΙΙ century. Formation of the Serbian county. Stefan Nemanja.

In 1077, Prince Michael received the right to the royal title from Pope Gregory VII. This is where the history of the Kingdom of Duklyan (or the Zeta Power) begins. It should be noted that the policy of Gregory VII in relation to the Slavic countries was particularly active: his name is associated with the recognition of royal titles for three monarchs - Demetrius Zvonirum, Boleslav II (Polish) and Mikhail Zetsky. After the death of Bodin (c. 1101), who temporarily united the coastal and continental Serbian lands under his rule, the Zeta Empire disintegrated and the lands that were part of it again became the prey of the Byzantine Empire. From the end of the 12th century. A new stage has emerged in the development of international relations on the Balkan Peninsula, associated with the fall of the influence of the Byzantine Empire and the emergence of independent South Slavic states. Around 1190, the Raska great župan Stefan Nemanja took advantage of the weakening of Byzantium, achieving full sovereignty and laying the foundation for the new Nemanjić dynasty. The history of the rise of the Nemanjićs and the reign of the founder of the dynasty can be reduced to the following points: 1) the end of the 60s - the beginning of the 70s. XII century: having taken the Great Župan throne against the will of the Byzantine emperor and at the same time displacing his older brother, Nemanja nevertheless managed to reconcile with Byzantium (1172); 2) early 1180s: 10 years later the Župan opposes the emperor, annexing (with Hungarian help) lands in the area of the cities of Nis and Sredets, as well as Zeta, where his eldest son Vukan became the ruler, who inherited the royal title according to the old tradition , however, in 1186, Nemanja failed in his attempt to take possession of Dubrovnik; 3) late 1180s - 1190s: the culmination of political rise and the removal of Stephen to a monastery under the name Simeon. The circumstance that stimulated Nemanja’s special activity at the beginning of this period was the difficult situation of Byzantium in connection with the Third Crusade (Župan even tried to enter into an alliance with one of its leaders, Frederick Barbarossa), and the result of this activity was a major political success - the conquest of independence ( despite the military defeat on the Morava River). In 1196, Nemanja abdicated the throne in favor of his middle son Stephen and soon went to Athos, to the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, where his youngest son Savva (worldly name - Rastko) was staying at that time. Two years later, thanks to the joint efforts of father and son, the first Serbian monastery arose on the Holy Mountain - the later famous Hilandar. The name of Stefan (1196-1227), who inherited the Great Župan title, is associated with the next stage in the rise of the young state - the emergence of the Serbian kingdom, which for a century and a half united continental and coastal lands, and subsequently even Macedonian and Greek. Stefan the First-Crown (under this name he mostly appears in historiography) needed to break the stubborn resistance of the Dukljan kings, and above all his brother Vukan. In this he was supported by Savva, who acted as a supporter of the “Rashk concept”; to give weight to Stephen's claims to a new title, in particular, the transfer of the relics of St. Simeon (Stefan Nemanja) to the Studenitsky Monastery, in the territory of Raska. This act took place in 1208, and in 1217 Stephen's coronation followed. In 1219, another important event took place: the proclamation of an autocephalous Serbian archdiocese with a see in the Žiča monastery. Sava became the first head of the new archdiocese.

32. Serbia at the beginning of the ΧΙΙΙ century. Formation of the Serbian kingdom and archbishopric.

On the periphery of the Nemanjić state there already existed two large church centers: the archdiocese in the coastal city of Bar, founded at the end of the 11th century, and the Ohrid Patriarchate, reduced during the Byzantine rule to the rank of an autocephalous church, but retaining significant influence not only in Macedonia, but also in Serbia. The Bar archbishops carried out the policy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Ohrid metropolitans acted in the interests of Constantinople. The rivalry of the spiritual rulers made itself felt during the reign of the Nemanjić, since both Rome and Constantinople wanted to strengthen their positions in the Serbian lands, which, however, did not lead to too acute conflicts. Stephen I, who acquired the crown with the sanction of Pope Honorius III, without changing his Orthodox orientation, sought to maintain contact with the Catholic world. This is evidenced by his marriage to the granddaughter of the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo, a famous politician of his time, with whose name the history of the IV Crusade is inextricably linked, which had such an important influence on the history of the southern Slavs (we recall that during this period the Bulgarian Tsar negotiated with Rome about conclusion of the union). Savva also knew how to get along with his western neighbors. After the death of Stephen (1227) in Serbia, a period of weakening of central power began for a while. His two closest heirs found themselves dependent first on the despot of Epirus, and then - after the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230 - on the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II (during this period the Archbishop of Ohrid became especially active). From the middle of the 13th century. There was a new political upsurge associated with the reign of Uros I the Great and his successors.

Serbian kingdom in ΧΙΙΙ century. (before 1282)

For a century and a half, Serbia prospered. Saxon miners from Transylvania, fleeing the devastation brought by the Tatars who invaded the Pannonian Basin, settled in Serbia in the 1240s and helped establish the mining of gold, silver and lead. The population of Serbia was increasing; its trade with Venice, Ragusa (Dubrovnik Republic), Bulgaria and Byzantium expanded; cities grew; Literacy was widespread; The Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos became an important center of Serbian culture. Support from kings and princes made it possible for foreign and domestic artists to create vibrant works of medieval art, following Western and Byzantine models, but Serbian in spirit. In the search for new lands, estates, wealth and glory, the Serbian nobles pushed the representatives of the Nemanjić-Milutin dynasty. Urosh 1 the Great managed to restore the independence of the state, and his successors, Dragutin and Milutin, who ruled from 1276 to 1321, achieved significant territorial expansion.

Serbian kingdom at the end of ΧΙΙΙ-beginning of ΧΙV century/ (1282-1331)

From the middle of the 13th century. There was a new political upsurge associated with the reign of Uros I the Great and his successors. Uros managed to restore the independence of the state, and his successors, Dragutin and Milutin, who ruled from 1276 to 1321, achieved significant territorial expansion. The first, as a Hungarian fief, acquired the region of Belgrade (lost in 1316 after his death), the second, married to a Byzantine princess, acquired the Macedonian lands with the cities of Prizren and Skopje. Finally, through joint efforts the brothers captured the Branichev region, which was previously part of the Bulgarian kingdom. A negative point for this period was the loss of the Hum region (Zahumje), captured by the Bosnian ban Stjepan Kotromanich and subsequently inherited by the Hungarian king Charles II Robert.

Milutin's heir, Stefan Decani (who received this name from the monastery he founded in Decani, where he was buried), entered Serbian history as one of the most mysterious and tragic figures. In his youth, accused of plotting against his father, he was allegedly blinded, and then miraculously regained his sight and ruled the country for 10 years. His reign ended with a victory over the Bulgarian troops in the Battle of Velbudzhd (1330), and then came the fatal end: his son, Stefan Dusan, who, according to historians, distinguished himself in the mentioned battle, overthrew his father from the throne and took his life in 1331. The legend of the “strangulation of King Dečanski” became one of the characteristic plots of Serbian folklore and was accepted by some historians who portrayed Dušan as an insidious killer.

Kingdom of Stefan Dusan 1331 - 1355. Lawyer.

The assessment of Dusan as a political figure in literature is unequivocal: he is an outstanding personality, a talented commander and diplomat, and also a legislator, whose name is associated with the publication of one of the most remarkable legal monuments of the Slavic Middle Ages - the famous Lawyer. The main facts related to Dusan’s foreign policy allow us to draw the following conclusions: 1) the main direction in his activities was the struggle with Byzantium for hegemony on the Balkan Peninsula, which was crowned with brilliant success - by the end of Dusan’s reign, the southern border of the Serbian state reached almost the Peloponnese, covering all Macedonian, Albanian and partly Greek lands (Epirus, Thessaly, Acarnania); 2) there were attempts, albeit unsuccessful, to return Khum; 3) relations with the Bulgarian kingdom after Dushan’s marriage to the sister of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander remained good neighborly. At the end of 1345, a council was held in Skopje, where Dusan proclaimed himself king of the Serbs and Greeks, and the following year at Easter the establishment of the Serbian Patriarchate was proclaimed (with the blessing of the Tarnovo and Ohrid rulers, as well as the representative of the Holy Mountain). The final ceremonial chord of Dusan's reign was the adoption of the aforementioned Lawyer, approved by the councils of 1349 and 1354. Although territorial acquisitions by the end of the 1340s. already completed, Dushan did not abandon plans for further expansion, aiming at Constantinople, but his premature death in 1355 prevented the implementation of his plans.

"Stefan Dusan's Lawyer" The period was marked in Serbia by an increase in the number of legal monuments. Firstly, these are the so-called “chrysovuls” (a Greek term similar to the Latin bulla aurea “character with a golden seal”), containing the grant of privileges to the clergy and secular nobility. The oldest of these letters date back to the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th century. The chrisovuli known to modern historians contain almost exclusively privileges for monasteries; There are no foundation documents in favor of the cities, which can hardly be explained only by their poor preservation. The basis for doubt is also the analysis of the Lawyer, where there are references to the issuance of chrisovuls for land holdings to secular gentlemen, but there is not a single mention of foundation charters. From the text of the Law Book itself it is clear that its composition dates back to the period 1349-1354. From the introduction to the Lawyer it follows that by the middle of the 14th century. A class monarchy had already emerged in Serbia. The king appears here only as the first among equals in relation to the ruler, vested with legislative rights. The preamble in the Law Book is followed by articles defining the legal status of the first two classes of the state - the clergy and the rulers. It is clear from them that the mentioned classes had special tax benefits, and the ruler also had broad hereditary rights to estates granted by the king (the main object of grants was the zhupa, the main administrative-territorial unit of the state). To designate the lower layer, the Law Book uses the term “people” and normalizes the legal status of this class. True, along with this, special terms are also used, borrowed from the Byzantine lexicon, such as: “wigs” (in chrisovuls) and “merophi”; a prominent place in Serbian society of the period under review was also occupied by the “Vlachs” - the descendants of the Romanized pre-Slavic population, whose main occupation was nomadic cattle breeding; finally, two more terms denoted special categories of the population excluded from the upper class - youths and sebres. In Serbia, there were two fundamentally different categories of property - bashtina: the ruler's bashtina, or free, and the bashtina of the earthling people. Every person had to pay the tax, i.e. a peasant, and responsibility for his actions rested with the ruler.

The regulation of payments and services, which took place in one form or another in all countries of late medieval Europe, is particularly pronounced in Serbia. Another feature of socio-economic relations in Serbian society is even more significant. This was an unusually high standard of labor for that time: according to Article 68, two days a week, not counting the specially stipulated “zamanitsa”, of collective work in haymaking and the vineyard. It is known that such a structure of rents (a high proportion of corvee labor) certainly implies the existence of personal dependence of the peasants. The example of Serbia confirms this. In conclusion, let us dwell on another complex problem - the situation of the so-called “sebrov”. Some believe that the term “Sebras” denotes the entire mass of the country’s population that does not belong to the upper classes, others believe that the Sebrs represented the so-called “free peasantry.” O Thus, it seems that the sebr, unlike the meropha or youth, could perform special duties that excluded his inclusion in the ordinary peasant class.

Collapse of Dusan's power. The beginning of the Turkish offensive in the Balkans.

During the reign of Dusan's son, King Urosh, the Nemanjić state actually disintegrated into a number of possessions, the rulers of which ceased to take into account the central government and waged an internecine struggle, forming various coalitions and redrawing borders. Already in the 60s. Epirus and Macedonia separated. Dushanov's brother settled in Epirus with the title of king of the Serbs, Greeks and all Albania, and in Macedonia, pushing aside Dushanov's widow (sister of the Bulgarian king), the Mrnjavcevich brothers seized power: king Vukashin and despot Uglesha. At the same time, the rise of the Balšić family in Zeta, and in the central regions - of the Župan Nikola Altomanovich and Prince Lazar Khrebelianovich. In 1369, Nikola and Lazar jointly made an attempt to deprive the Mrnjavcevics of power (the battle took place on the Kosovo field), which, however, was unsuccessful - the king and the despot retained their positions. The weakening of the Serbian kingdom occurred at a time when the Ottomans appeared on the Balkan Peninsula. Having captured Thrace, they began to threaten the possessions of the Mrnjavcevic brothers. In 1371, one of the decisive events on the Balkan Peninsula took place - the battle on the river. Maritsa, where the Mrnjavcevic troops were defeated and both brothers died. The political outcome of the battle was the division of Macedonian lands between Serbian and Greek magnates and the recognition of Vukashin's heir, King Marko, as a vassal of the Sultan. After the death of the Mrnjavcevics, Nikola Altomanovich and Prince Lazar become the main characters in the political arena of Serbia, who turn from allies into rivals. Lazar won a decisive victory in 1373 and became the richest of the Serbian rulers, since he controlled the largest mining centers of medieval Serbia - Novo Brdo and Rudnik. True, at first the Serbian prince was forced to reckon with the claims of the Hungarian king, recognizing vassal dependence on Lajos I, but after the death of the latter he was completely freed. Lazar concentrated in his hands power over the lands in the northern and central parts of the country and maintained peaceful relations with the rulers of the southern (Vuk Branković) and coastal regions. In 1386, Prince Lazar and the Bosnian king Tvrtko jointly inflicted a serious defeat on the Turks, but the success turned out to be fragile. 15 June 1389(St. Vid's day) a great battle took place on the Kosovo field. The Serbian troops set out under the leadership of Prince Lazar and, despite the heroism shown (history includes the feat of one of the Serbian soldiers, who, sacrificing his life, penetrated the enemy’s headquarters and stabbed Sultan Murad to death), suffered a severe defeat, and Lazar was captured and executed . After Kosovo, the minor heir of Lazarus, Stefan, was forced to admit vassalage to the Sultan.

Battle of Kosovo. The fate of the Serbian despotism.

Stefan Lazarevich fought in the ranks of the Ottoman troops at Nikopol as a vassal, and, judging by the memoirs of one of the participants in the crusade, it was the skillful actions of the “Duke of Serbia” at a critical moment that saved the Turks from defeat. However, after the brutal defeat of Sultan Bayezid in 1402 at Ankara from the troops of Tamerlane (which ultimately cost the head of the Sultan himself), Stephen was able to free himself from the Turkish overlord. At first, he chose to accept the title of despot from the Byzantine emperor - this is where the brief but vivid history of the Serbian despotism originates, and then turned to the patronage of the Hungarian king Sigismund, from whom he acquired the region of Belgrade during his stay in power. The first quarter of the 15th century, when Serbia was ruled by Despot Stefan, went down in the history of the country (despite the extremely difficult foreign policy situation) as a time of quite significant successes in the development of its economy and culture. The name of Stefan Lazarevich is associated, in particular, with the publication of legislative monuments regulating the development of non-agrarian areas of the economy (“Mine Law” and “Novo Brda Law”). Stefan died in 1427, bequeathing the throne to Yuri (Djurdzhu) Brankovich, the heir of Vuk, who ruled the despotism for 30 years under extremely unfavorable conditions. By the end of the 1430s. The Turks launched a campaign against him, forcing him to flee for a time to the possessions of the Hungarian king. This event coincided with the end of the reign of Sigismund in the Kingdom of Hungary and the onset (after the brief reign of Albert of Austria) of an interregnum, accompanied by a fierce struggle and ending in the victory of the party that supported the candidacy of the young Polish king Ladislaus Jagiellon. His name is associated with the second (after Nikopol) unsuccessful attempt of the Hungarian king to delay the Ottoman expansion - the crusade of 1443-1444, which ended in the ill-fated battle of Varna. The campaign began successfully: on August 1, 1444, a truce was concluded, which led to the restoration of the Serbian despotism; however, already at the end of the next month it was violated on the initiative of the papal legate. A fatal battle broke out, the result of which was the defeat of the Christian troops and the death of the king, and for Brankovich - the recognition of vassal dependence on the Sultan. The alliance with Hungary gave way to conflict: the despot not only did not provide assistance to Janos Hunyadi (who at that time was the de facto ruler of the lands of the “Crown of St. Stephen” and led the campaign, which again failed on the Kosovo field in 1448. ), but also kept him under arrest for some time, remaining faithful to the vassal oath. The “reward” for loyalty was that by the end of his reign the despot lost almost all of his possessions (this was the time of the famous Mehmed the Conqueror, under whom Constantinople fell): in 1455, after a staunch defense, Novo Brdo surrendered, and in 1459, After the death of the despot, the Turks took possession of his former residence - the newly built fortress of Smederevo. This effectively put an end to the existence of the despotism.

The emergence and formation of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom (1187-1241).

Among the rulers of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom there are very bright figures. The end of anarchy and the period of numerous palace coups was put by Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207), who managed to significantly expand the borders of his country. The Black Sea cities, which previously belonged to Bulgaria, were liberated from the power of Byzantium, the areas near Vidin, Belgrade and Branichev, as well as part of Macedonia, were annexed. In an effort to restore the patriarchate in Bulgaria and not receiving the “go-ahead” of Constantinople for this, Kaloyan decided to turn to the pope, trying to achieve what he wanted by concluding a union with the Catholic Church. Early in his reign, Kaloyan entered into intensive negotiations with Pope Innocent III. In 1204, Kaloyan received confirmation of the title of “King of Bulgaria” from the papal envoy in Tarnovo, and the archbishop was recognized as “primate”. A union was also concluded (1204), which was only a short-term episode in the history of the country. It was quickly put to an end by the invasion of the Crusaders in the Balkans, the fall of Constantinople under their blows (1204) and the struggle of Bulgaria against the uninvited knights. Already in 1205, the Bulgarians successfully defeated the crusader troops near Odrin. The “Latin Emperor” Baldwin of Flanders himself was captured. Under the current conditions, the union with Catholics became meaningless and ceased to exist. The powerful Kaloyan was forcibly removed from power by the Bolyar conspirators, who elevated his nephew Boril (1207-1218) to the throne. This was a rather weak ruler, compared to Kaloyan, who suffered defeat after defeat from external enemies. True, he glorified himself by fighting against heretics who had never calmed down in the country. It was this king who convened the anti-Bogomil Council in Tarnovo in 1211, as evidenced by the source that has reached us - the Synodik of Tsar Boril. This tsar, who was essentially a usurper, was removed from power in 1218, and the throne passed to the legal heir - the son of Tsar Asen I - Ivan Asen II. In his person, Bulgaria received a brilliant ruler, who succeeded in a lot in terms of organizing government affairs in the country. Under him, internal strife subsided, central power strengthened, and state borders expanded far. The warlike and powerful Bulgarian ruler remained in the memory of his contemporaries as a humane ruler who, having won military victories, released prisoners captured in battles to their homes. The Bulgarian Tsar left a good memory not only in his country, but also among his neighbors. Apparently, luck contributed to Ivan Asen II. Soon after his accession to the throne (1221), he returned to Bulgaria the areas previously captured by the Hungarians near Belgrade and Branicevo, and achieved this peacefully by marrying the daughter of the Hungarian king. In 1225, the Bulgarian king made another successful diplomatic step - he gave one of his daughters in marriage to the brother of Fedor Komnenos, the powerful ruler of the Epirus Despotate. At the same time, Ivan Asen II receives a tempting offer from the Latins themselves, who rule in Constantinople, to conclude a peace treaty with the Latin Empire, and at the same time seal it with the marriage of Baldwin II with the daughter of the Bulgarian king. Having thus acquired powerful allies, Ivan Asen II managed in the late 20s of the 13th century. return part of Thrace and Plovdiv to Bulgaria. And then the recent ally of the Bulgarian king and his close relative Feodor Komnenos, in the spring of 1230, moved troops against Bulgaria. A military clash with Greek troops took place near Plovdiv, in the village of Klokotnitsa. The total defeat of Komnenos' troops and his capture opened the way for the victorious march of the Bulgarian troops. The Bulgarians captured Western Thrace, all of Macedonia, part of the Adriatic coast, part of Thessaly and Albania. Having won such impressive victories, the Bulgarian Tsar considered it necessary to change his title supreme power and from now on began to call himself “the king of the Bulgarians and Greeks.” In 1241, Ivan Asen II died. This Bulgarian king was an extraordinary and simply rare ruler for the Middle Ages.

Sunday, April 27, 2008 11:35 + to quote book

Oleg Veletsky "The creation and fall of medieval Serbian statehood"

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The Slavs are the autochthonous population of the Balkans. Relations between the Serbs and Byzantium.

In modern history, the theory of the settlement of the Slavs from the Carpathians, completely unproven by archaeological research, has become an axiom. Meanwhile, with this interpretation, the answer to the question is avoided: where did the Slavs come from in modern East Germany, and who are the Scythians, especially the Scythian farmers, and how did the Scythian mounds appear in Siberia? How could the Slavs, who, naturally, were called by different names by ancient historians, not only expand throughout Eastern Europe, but also establish states there, and at the same time there would be no traces of wars with any “autochonous” population? The fact that the Slavs attacked certain Roman fortresses does not mean anything, because, for example, the troops of Emelyan Pugachev and Stepan Razin took Russian fortresses, but these troops consisted of Russians, and not of any other peoples. As for certain raids of the Slavs, then the Greeks - Dorians, having come to Ancient Greece, conquered the states of the Greek-Achaeans, and in Sparta the latter became slaves and helots of the former. Therefore, the theory that the Slavs are the indigenous inhabitants of the Balkans still has a right to exist, especially since the language issue, so often mentioned by the Thracians and Illyrians, has not yet been resolved. Calling Albanians descendants of the Illyrians is unsubstantiated. For the northern Albanians - the Ghegs, are quite different from the southern Albanians - the Tosks, and many of their surnames are of Serbian origin, while the Albanian language itself is for the most part a mixture of the languages of the surrounding peoples, and even then, of not so long ago, that for the "autochonous" "and cultured people in general is quite unusual. There is no evidence of the autonity of the Albanians in the Balkans, because even in Kosovo and in the territory of Northern Albania they appeared in the 16th-17th centuries, that is, with the arrival of the Turks, and then as a people without any traces of culture. Why did the Turks use the Serbian language in official correspondence, while the Albanians, until the 19th century, practically did not have their own literary works, and even those were created to a large extent in the Hellenized and Orthodox south, while the modern Albanian alphabet was created by the Austrian government. There is no evidence of the presence of the Albanian people in medieval Serbia or the Byzantine Empire, but Albania in the Middle Ages was a famous land in Transcaucasia, until the Turkish language reigned there. There is no evidence that the Slavs came to the Balkans in any chronicle, epic or legend, and it is not entirely clear in what way modern science was ahead in knowledge about any events of those who were their contemporaries. Historians do not have a time machine, but modern scientific achievements the only real evidence is from archeology, which in the Balkans finds the same Slavic traces, interspersed only with traces of Roman and Greek culture. Who the Illyrians are has not been explained by anyone, and their language, the foundation of any people, has not yet been found. What kind of fantastic people are they then? As for the Tsintsars or Vlachs, this nomadic people, numbering half a million people in the 18th century, was indeed largely Romanized, but the Balkans were under Hellenic influence, and the Romans could not Romanize the Greeks. Rome had a huge influence on all the peoples living within the Roman Empire, and it is not clear why the Slavs could not have been neighbors of the Tsintsars in ancient times, or why the Tsintsars could not migrate to the Balkans, from somewhere in the north or east. In this way, Bulgarians appeared in the Balkans, settling in a Slavic environment. It is also illogical why there were no Tsintsars on the Adriatic islands, since they were the original inhabitants of the Balkans, although the barbarians attacked the Roman Empire by land, and not by sea, especially the Adriatic. The Normans dominated the Adriatic at that time, but this was practically after the Great Migration. But on the islands in the Adriatic the Slavs lived and live, and not real Croats, but Catholic Serbs.

Ancient historians often called local tribes Scythian, which was also done by Herodotus, who called Scythia - the whole future Kievan Rus, within its practically unchanged boundaries. And it is not entirely clear why the Scythian farmers, who, according to Herodotus, lived in the upper reaches of rivers flowing into the Black Sea, according to some modern historians, became an Iranian tribe. The Albanians certainly have nothing to do with the Scythians. If they were an autonomous tribe, they could now be found (or their historical monuments) in hard-to-reach areas not only of Montenegro and Herzegovina, but possibly also in the neighboring Carpathians. Meanwhile, although the Slavs, in accordance with the Tale of Bygone Years, came from the Carpathians to the territory of Kievan Rus, it should be taken into account that nowhere is it indicated that they came to the Balkans from the Carpathians. The Carpathians are broad concept; and just as Transcaucasia, the Kuban and Terek regions were and are called the Caucasus, the Carpathians cover vast areas, and the foothills of the Carpathians begin at Varshets in Serbia. And since the Slavs could live in the Carpathians, where logically their capital should be, what prevented them from living a couple of hundred kilometers to the west, especially since the navigable rivers flowing into the Danube/Sava, Drava, Ibr, etc., covered the entire territory of modern Serbia. And in general, since the Montenegrins were able to survive in their mountains under the Turks, why couldn’t the Slavs do this during the Great Migration of Peoples? In the end, even during the uprisings against the rule of Rome, the Dardanian tribes living in today's Serbia left the Roman troops for the Carpathians, and this is a centuries-old and undisputed tradition of leaving for related tribes. Consequently, the Slavs lived there just then.

It should be taken into account that the Eastern Roman Empire was very strong in the sixth century - the time when the Slavs allegedly appeared in the Balkans. In the 7th century, they could no longer appear there, since the Bulgarians who came here found a settled Slavic settlement that had assimilated its conquerors. The sixth century for Byzantium is the century of Justinian (572-568), whom even Procopius, although he discredits in his “Secret History” - a work with a rather unclear origin - still does not deny that this emperor returned the empire North Africa and Italy. Why then could Justinian allow the seizure of lands in the heart of his empire? Yes, there were wars with the Slavs, but they were the result of uprisings of the Slavs themselves, and such a Slavic uprising also took place in Asia Minor, where, as is known, there were never any Slavic states. The chronicles of Byzantium speak of the uprising of the imperial commander Vitalian under Emperor Anastasia (491-518), calling him a Scythian. And Comes Marcelinus writes that in 493 the “Scythians” defeated the imperial troops. All the chronicles of Byzantium talk about battles with these Scythians, Sklavins, and Ants, but nowhere is it written about their resettlement. But Julius Caesar in his “Notes” always mentioned the resettlement of the Germans to Gaul. The fact that other Ants appeared much later and attacked the Byzantine troops from the outside, again does not contradict this, for the Celts, the Britons, attacked Roman possessions in Gaul from Britain, but the Gauls remained Celts. The fact that Emperor Heraclius II (610-641) allowed the “Sklavins” to settle around Thessaloniki is also quite natural in a devastated country, especially since enough people settled near such an important city famous people your "cultural circle". And, in the end, this does not mean that the Slavs could not live in Serbia. In the 20th century, Russian white emigration settled in Serbia because the Serbs were Slavs Orthodox faith. In general, the Slavs were a very vast people, and if the Slavs were in the wars of the Avar Kagan who attacked Byzantium, then they were also in the imperial troops that defeated the Avars in 626.

I wouldn’t like to prove all this for a long time, but it’s simply amazing how people don’t see that in many official multi-volume publications on history, not a single line is given to the question of language and its origin. Or, at best, there follows a couple of lines with axioms that must be accepted without evidence, discarding numerous evidence about Slavic roots as supposedly unscientific. But scientifically, in the German historical school of the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a widespread opinion that German blood is the guarantee of the civilization of all peoples, and that even Alexander the Great was a German? With the Slavs, even modern Western historical science doesn't know what to do. Admit that they are from the Balkans, but then it will turn out that they are the heirs of Roman statehood, and they adopted Christianity during its still apostolic period. And if you place them on the territory of Ancient Rus', then what to do with the theory of their historical state inability, because even Herodotus writes about cities in the area that provides for the presence of precisely this very statehood. And it is unpleasant for many Western scientists to consider the Slavs as Scythians. In this case, the story of Darius’s failed campaigns in the Tabernacle and the death of Cyrus at the hands of the Scythian-Masagetians, in what is now Central Asia, may give rise to unpleasant associations for many modern rulers. And there will already emerge widely known archaeological evidence of Scythian settlements in Siberia, which they are now in a hurry to take away from Russia.

So the question about the place of the Slavic homeland is not at all a consequence of the excessive politics of history. On the contrary, the silencing of this issue is a consequence of the adherence of many modern historians to ideological dogmas, such as Lenin’s famous sayings about the scientific nature of Marx’s teaching, since “it is true,” and his absurd “straight lines” in the development of human society from the “primitive communal system to communism.” But Lenin only logically crowned the direction in which Western social sciences were developing. The true story of the origin of the Slavs was harmful for the West because it gave the Slavs the right to be called heirs great civilization, and thereby forced, first of all, Russians and Serbs, to turn to their history.

In any case, I agree with you. There are several unanswered questions. As for Alexander the Great, the Bulgars, Macedonians, Greeks and now the Germans consider him one of their own! Heh! The Americans consider him gay, which made the Greek patriots very angry, and if they read some Croatian, they would be very angry. But you also have “Croats” in the image of Ukrainians. It’s as if they believe that there are no Russians in Ukraine, but only Ukrainians, and that you, the Russians, “took their history” (this is the opinion of one Ukrainian - Yaroslav Kozak).

An excerpt about the resettlement of the Slavs to the Balkans from the book of the modern Serbian historian Sima Cirkovic.

This map of the Balkans shows the early years (ca.

This map of the Balkans shows the first years (c. 530-550 AD) after the Slavs migrated to the Balkans.

On the map, on a pink background, the Slavic tribal formations are written in italics: Serbs, Dukljans (future Montenegrins), Croats, Karantans (future Slovenians), Druguvits (or Dragovichi), Konavlians, Neretlyans, Zahumlyans, Severets (or Severians), Strimonians, Obodrits, Dulebs and a number of others;

On a red background, the joint territory of the Slavs and the Avars is written in italics (the Avars are a tribe with strong Turkic influence);

Blue indicates the territory of the Byzantine Empire.

Also in capital letters the provinces of the Byzantine Empire were signed: Dalmatia, Dacia, Moesia, Pannonia, Macedonia, Achaea, Thrace, over which, after the arrival of the Slavs in alliance with the Avars, Byzantium began to lose control, although some of the provinces were later able to be returned by the Byzantine Empire;

The territory of the Proto-Bulgarian Turks is indicated in green;

Also on the territory of Italy, in the middle of the Byzantine possessions, two Lombard (Germanic) principalities are designated - Spoleto and Beneveto.

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Sima Cirkovic writes:

“The resettlement of the Slavs became the final stage in a process called in history the Great Migration of Peoples. The Slavs began their powerful movement when most other peoples and tribes had already found a new refuge in different regions of the Roman Empire. The directions of migration of the Slavs are even less known than the waves of movement of most Germanic tribes and other participants in the Great Migration.

Spreading beyond the boundaries of their mysterious, unreliably known “ancestral home”, which, according to various assumptions, was located somewhere between the Vistula and the Pripyat swamps, the Slavs filled the spaces that were abandoned by the Germanic tribes, moving westward and heading deep into the Roman Empire. To the south, to the Danube Limes (limes is the fortified border of the Roman Empire. Note site), two streams of Slavs went: one, passing east of the Carpathians, descended through the Mediterranean and Pannonian lowlands. Defeat of the Hypid(s) (also a Germanic tribe, but allied with Byzantium) in the war with the Lombards (also one of the Germanic tribes) (567) and the departure of the Lombards to Italy helped the Slavs in the Middle Danube reach the borders of the Roman Empire...

On the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Slavs encountered other tribes who also sought to advance into its territory. The largest among them were (Turkic tribal union) Avars: they reached the Danube region in 558 and subjugated the Slavs, who were closest to them than everyone else. Often, detachments of Slavs led by Avars raided Byzantine territories.(At the same time, the Slavs in the Balkans encountered those who came there. Approx. website).

In the 6th century, during a period of severe crises in Byzantium, references to the Slavs began to appear in the works of Byzantine scientists and writers. Rare witnesses to those events mainly describe what worried them most: the suffering of people in the provinces, their being taken into slavery, devastation and ruin.

Based on the evidence scattered throughout their writings, it is possible to compile an incomplete chronicle of barbarian attacks on the territory of the Empire. At that time, according to these sources, the barbarians had no goals of conquest: they were content with seizing property and taking the booty back across the border. Only a few of these raids were distinguished by the depth of penetration into the territory of the Empire or their massive nature. For example in 550 Slavs reached the Mesta River (Mesta is a river in modern Bulgaria and Greece, flowing into the Aegean Sea. Note website), and in 550-551 They wintered for the first time on Byzantine territory “as if on our own land”

IN last decade In the 6th century, the troops of the Byzantine Empire, thanks to the fact that it concluded a short-term peace with Persia, managed to go on the offensive and not only return the important border cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, occupied by the Avars by that time, but also transfer military operations to the other side of the Danube. Thus, the empire weakened the pressure on its borders, defeating the barbarian detachments closest to them. However, it so happened that it was this offensive in 602 that led to an undesirable turn of events: the soldiers, who were forced to winter in enemy territories, rebelled and overthrew the warlike Emperor of Mauritius (582-602), and most importantly, the army left the Limes area (remember, from Latin Limes - “road”, “border path”, later “border”, here meaning border region Note site), going to Constantinople in order to ensure power for the newly proclaimed Emperor Phocas (602-610).

It was after the unrest on the border that the Slavs, like a stormy stream, poured into the territory of Byzantium and within a few years reached the farthest corners of the Balkan Peninsula.

Around 614, under their onslaught, the city of Salona (Solin near modern city Split) is the capital of one of the provinces; around 617 they besieged Thessaloniki; around 625 they attacked the islands in the Aegean Sea, and in 626 they generally threatened the existence of Byzantium by besieging Constantinople under the leadership of the Avars, simultaneously with the Persians who came from Asia Minor.

The beginning of the resettlement of the Slavs: under the leadership of the Avars

The Slavs, who were then mainly subordinate to the Avars from the Danube region, accompanied them in raids, and in serious military operations they provided the Avars with massive numbers. The Slavs were well versed in the art of combat on water and attacked the fortress walls of Byzantine cities from the sea, while on land the striking force - the Avar cavalry, distinguished by its excellent maneuverability - entered the battle. After the victory, the Avars usually returned with their spoils to the Pannonian steppes, and the Slavs remained in the conquered territory and settled there. (Pannonia is one of the historical Roman provinces, now in Croatia. Approx. website).

In those years, the Byzantine Empire lost all territories in the continental part of the Balkan Peninsula; only coastal cities on all four seas (Aegean, Mediterranean, Adriatic, Black) and islands with which Constantinople maintained contact thanks to its powerful fleet and advantage at sea were subordinate to it.

Having survived one of the most serious crises in 626, Byzantium gradually came to its senses during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (610-641) and, thanks to its retained advantage in Asia Minor and internal reforms, consolidated the remaining lands, and then began a stubborn struggle that lasted centuries for the return of lost provinces.

Migration of the Slavs: settlers among the remaining population of the Roman Empire

The Slavs could not completely and evenly populate the vast and diverse spaces of the Balkan Peninsula. Apparently, they moved along ancient Roman roads and settled in those areas that had already been developed and turned out to be suitable for life.

Behind the backs of the Slavs or among them there remained small enclaves with remnants ancient population provincial The number of these native “islands” and their location in the Slavic sea surrounding them can no longer be determined based on later data.

It is very likely that during the earliest period of Slavic settlement of the Balkans, most of the autochthonous population remained in the mountains and other inaccessible places. It is known that a considerable number of them lived in the territory of modern Northern Albania, in the neighboring regions of Macedonia and in Thessaly, which in the early Middle Ages was called “” (walh - from ancient German “alien” or “foreigner.” Approx. site).

Most likely, some groups of autochthonous population lived throughout the entire Dinaric massif in the early Middle Ages (now in Slovenia. Note. They were found there in the late Middle Ages.

In their new homeland, the Serbs, like most other Slavic tribes, met many peoples and tribes.

First of all, these were the Romans, subjects of the Byzantine emperors, then the Romans, inhabitants of the coastal Adriatic cities and islands, who retained their language, derived from vulgar Latin, during the Byzantine era. These were also the Moors, or Moors, who lived in small groups inside the peninsula and had no connection with the Byzantine centers, and, finally, the Arbanas (Albanians), who lived in the mountains outside the city of Drach. They were close to the Vlachs in their lifestyle and economic structure, but differed from them in that they retained their archaic language, only partially romanized.

There is no evidence of the earliest contacts of the Slavs with the remnants of the old Balkan population. Traditions from much later times speak of enmity between local Christians and pagan newcomers. Some ideas about these contacts can be obtained from linguistic data - from traces of mutual influences and borrowings. For example, it was revealed that the Slavs borrowed the names of large rivers from autochthonous languages, and small tributaries received Slavic names. The names of a significant number of mountains and cities are also of Romanesque origin. Even Slavic ethnonym for Hellenes - Greek, Greeks - comes from the Latin graecus. Some Romanesque and Albanian elements in Serbian pastoral terminology and Slavic elements in the agrarian terminology of the Vlachs and Albanians also owe their origin to the era of the settlement of the Balkans by the Slavs.

Tribes of the first Slavs in the Balkans

About the composition of the Proto-Slavic community and what it was like as a social structure before its division as a result of migrations into eastern, western and southern branches, as little is known as about the ancestral home of the Slavs.

With the help of the study of the most ancient linguistic layers, it was possible to reliably establish only that the Eastern and Western Slavic communities were initially different. This conclusion corresponds to data obtained as a result of attempts to reconstruct the most ancient layers of the Slavic religion.

Contemporaries of the migrations of the Slavs call them by three common names: Wends, Sklavins and Antes. The first name was used by the western neighbors of the Slavs, the other two were used by their southern neighbors.

The last name - Ants - was subsequently quickly forgotten, so that the most common ethnonym, undoubtedly preceding in time the names of individual Slavic tribes, turned out to be an ethnonym of Slavic origin - Sklavins.

The Slavs became known to other peoples under their common name, and for centuries it served the Arbanas and Romans to designate their closest Slavic neighbors.

The name "skye" among the Vlachs and Arbanas, derived from the word "sklavins", served as a designation for the Serbs.

In novels, both in the works of writers and in the most ancient legal documents, the neighbors were called Slavs (sclavi, slavi), and only much later would Croats appear in the north and Serbs in the south.

Italians and Western authors called the entire western part of the Balkan Peninsula by the name Sciavonia, and for the Venetians and Dubrovniks (residents of Dubrovnik), Sciavonia was the territory of the Serbian state in both the 14th and 15th centuries. (Tsar Dusan - Imperator Sclavonie, and the rulers of the 15th century - despoti Sclavonie).

Currently, the memory of the common Slavic name is retained only in the ethnonym Slavonia (regnum Slavonie, Slovinje) - this is the name of the territory between the Drava and Sava rivers.

Within the eastern and western groups of the Proto-Slavic community, even before the era of the Great Migration, there were tribal unions, the names of which were later found in different parts of the territories inhabited by the Slavs. The names Croats, Severets (or Northerners) and Dulebs are attested among the Eastern, Western and Southern Slavs; the names Serbs and Obodrits are used by the western and southern ones; the name Drugovites (or Dragovichi) - among the eastern and southern ones.

Modern science does not provide any reliable data on the differences between them. Probably, these were indeed tribal unions that existed for a long time and realized what exactly makes them one community and separates them from others. Origin legends, beliefs, and cultural symbols likely played an important role in this awareness.

How great was the participation of a particular tribal union in the process of resettlement can be judged by the territory that it eventually occupied. The prevalence of the tribe's self-name over a vast territory suggests that a significant part of it settled here. But even in such territories there remains evidence of the presence of other tribes. Thus, parts of the ancient Croatian tribe left traces in the toponymy of Epirus and Kosovo Polje; traces of Serbian toponymy were preserved in the Croatian lands (župa, i.e. region, Srb in the Middle Ages), as well as in Thessaly near the town of Srbica and in the vicinity of the Druguvites, who settled in the territories of Macedonia and Thrace.

We do not have any information relating to the era of migration, and we cannot say exactly how this process took place. Only legends written down much later have survived about how the Serbian and Croatian tribes came to the Balkans. The work of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenet (913-959) tells that the Croats and Serbs came to the Balkans during the reign of Emperor Heraclius (610-641), that is, during the period when the first wave of Slavs had already swept throughout peninsula. This work says that the Serbs responded to the emperor’s invitation and came as his allies and assistants in the defense of the Byzantine Empire. They moved to the peninsula from the so-called “White Serbia”, which was located next to “Franacka” (the lands that would later be settled by the Hungarians) and “White”, or “Great” Croatia.

One day, the son of the leader “took half the people” and came to Emperor Heraclius, who accepted him and gave him a region called Servia (Srbitsa) near Thessaloniki to settle. But the Serbs did not stay here for long: after some time they wanted to return and had already crossed the Danube, but suddenly changed their minds and again demanded that the emperor give them land.

Then the emperor gave the Serbs the empty spaces between Sava and the Dinaric massif, facing the sea, next to the Croats, who also moved to the peninsula (from “White Croatia”) under the leadership of three brothers and two sisters and fought with the Avars for several years.

The Slavic tribes that settled in the Balkan Peninsula did not have a single political organization. Quite a lot of large and small principalities soon arose on the territory of their settlements, which gave the Byzantines a reason to call all these lands with a characteristic word in the plural - sclavinia. It is known that the Byzantines originally used the word “Sclavinia” to refer to the Slavic territories on the other side of the Danube. Of all the Slavic settlements of that time, only about this one some information has been preserved thanks to one Byzantine manual on the art of war, intended for the Byzantines who fought against the Slavs.

This work was purely practical in nature and therefore contained information only about specific enemies - the Slavs, and not about barbarians in general. It says, among other things, that the Slavs settled near rivers and forests; that their settlements were so situated that they could communicate with each other; at the same time, they were well protected by natural obstacles. It is also mentioned that the Slavs were farmers and stored food supplies in their homes, and that in addition to farming they were engaged in raising livestock. As warriors, the Slavs were stubborn and cunning and had special tactics. They had light weapons and light armor (from the Byzantine point of view, of course).

The spaces on the other side of the Danube were dotted with a large number of rivers, the territory between which was inhabited by many small tribal unions. They were ruled by local princes (archons, reges). The Byzantines conquered some and won others over to their side, fearing that these tribes might unite into a kind of “monarchy” - a strong political structure with sole power.

After the Slavs settled throughout the Balkan Peninsula, Byzantine sources contain references to many “sclavinia” in the area from Thessaloniki to Constantinople, and later also in areas located above the Dalmatian cities.

Information about the Slavs during the “Dark Ages” (after they settled the Balkans) remains scarce and corresponds to what was known about them when they still lived outside the borders of the Byzantine Empire. Nevertheless, already around 670, information appears about individual Slavic tribes inhabiting the Thessaloniki region. Some Slavic leaders fight with the Byzantines, others negotiate with them. While some Slavic tribes keep Thessaloniki under siege, others supply the city with food.

We have no information about the number of Balkan "sclavinia". The very approximate and incomplete map can only be partially reconstructed on the basis of scanty data from that time, as well as thanks to the later names of administrative units, bishoprics and geographical areas. In the space from the Vienna Woods to the Black Sea, about twenty names of once existing Slavic principalities and tribal unions have been preserved. Some of them had names of common Slavic origin, for example Croats, Serbs, Severtsy, Dragović, Dulebs; for others, the names arose in a new habitat. Sometimes they were formed from ancient names of rivers (Strimontsy, Neretlyans), sometimes from ancient names settlements(Carantans - from the name civitas Carantana, Dukljan - from the name of the ancient city of Doclea (now Montenegrins. Note website).

In the karst fields suitable for agriculture between the Dinaric massif and the Adriatic coast, inhabited by the Serbs, the principalities of the Neretlians (from the Cetina River to the Neretva River), the Zahumlians (from the Neretva to the outskirts of Dubrovnik) and the Travunians (from Dubrovnik to Boka Kotorska) arose.

Directly adjacent to them was the Principality of Dukljan (in the valleys of the Zeta and Morač rivers, its border stretched from Boca to the Boyana River). In the depths of the peninsula, all these principalities bordered on a vast territory that retained the tribal name of Serbia.

Continuity for the Serbs was ensured by a dynasty of rulers, consisting of the descendants of the very “son of the leader” who led them to the Balkan Peninsula. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (Porphyrogenet) calls this very extensive Serbian principality “Baptized Serbia”, in contrast to the unbaptized “White Serbia” in the north. In the west, “Baptized Serbia” bordered on Croatia, primarily on its most eastward-promoted counties (regions) of Pliva, Hleven (Livno) and Imot. The eastern border region of “Baptized Serbia” was Ras (near the modern city of Novi Pazar), beyond which Bulgaria began.

But the Serbian principality did not exist for long within such extended borders. By the middle of the 10th century. inside it, the contours of the region of Bosnia, located at the sources of the river with the same name, have already been outlined. Subsequently, Bosnia will begin to develop independently and expand its territory.

Even later (XII-XIII centuries) in the north of “Baptized Serbia” the land of Usora appeared, stretching from Vrbas to the Drina. And someday the border town of Ras will become the center of the Eastern Serbian lands.

The first Slavs and their opponents in the Balkans

Slavic tribal unions (sclavinia) were threatened by three main opponents.

On the one hand, these were the already mentioned Avars, under whose frequent leadership the Slavs developed the Balkans. From the end of the 7th century. the power of the Avars weakens, and in the next century their state is destroyed by the Franks, who thus become direct and very dangerous neighbors of the Slavs, especially the Croats.

And the Serbs are exposed to an even stronger threat from two other centers - Bulgaria and Byzantium. Bulgaria arose in 680, when the (Turkic) Proto-Bulgarians conquered seven Slavic tribes (one of them was the Severets tribe) living between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains. They did not interfere in the internal structure of the conquered Slavic tribes, but used them as a military force in the conquest of their Slavic neighbors.

The lands of the Sclavinians from the south were absorbed by Byzantium, gradually expanding beyond the boundaries of its strongholds - coastal cities. Byzantine emperors usually turned the conquered Slavic principalities into military-administrative units - themes. Themes were ruled by a strategist appointed by the emperor. Slavic ethnonyms have been preserved in the names of individual themes; for example, the theme of Vagepetia (opposite the island of Corfu) received its name from the Slavic tribe of Vayunits, and the theme of Strymon - from the principality of the Strumlians.

The conquest of the Sclavinians proceeded gradually. The triumph was the breakthrough of the army of Emperor Justinian II (685-695) overland from Constantinople to Thessaloniki in 689.

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