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The beginning of Slavic settlement in the Balkan peninsula.
Already at the commencement of the third century A.D. we find Slavs settled between the Danube and the Balkan. A constant immigration was going on till the middle of the seventh century, as these hordes were more and more pushed southwards by new invaders from the East.
I found a couple of interesting excerpts (presented below), which I wanted to share with everyone. Admins, please feel free to move this to a different thread if required.
1) Excerpts from the History of the Byzantine Empire, A. A. Vasiliev
Link:
"As to the rather vague names of Getae and Scythians, the chroniclers of that period were not well informed about the ethnographic composition of the northern peoples; hence it is very likely that these were collective names, and historians consider it probable that some Slavic tribes were included among them. Theophylact, the Byzantine writer of the early seventh century, directly identified the Getae with the Slavs. Thus, during the reign of Anastasius, the Slavs, together with the Bulgarians, first began their irruptions into the Balkan peninsula. According to one source, “a Getic cavalry” devastated Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus, and reached as far as Thermopylae. Some scholars have even advanced the theory that the Slavs entered the Balkan peninsula at an earlier period. The Russian scholar Drinov, for example, on the basis of his study of geographical and personal names in the peninsula, placed the beginning of Slavic settlement in the Balkan peninsula in the late second century A.D."
2) The Westminster Review, Volumes 110-111
Link:
Page 183
"Already at the commencement of the third century A.D. we find Slavs settled between the Danube and the Balkan. A constant immigration was going on till the middle of the seventh century, as these hordes were more and more pushed southwards by new invaders from the East."
3) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2, Edward Gibbon
Link:
APPENDIX, Page 563
"... it is extremely likely, though it cannot be absolutely proved, that in the great settlements of non-German peoples, made in the third and fourth centuries in the Illyrian peninsula by the Roman Emperors, some Slavonic tribes were included. This is an idea which was developed by Drinov in his rare book on the Slavic colonization of the Balkan lands, and has been accepted by Jirecek. There is much probability in the view that Slavonic settlers were among the 300,000 Sarmatae, to whom Constantine assigned abodes in 334 A.D. It is an hypothesis such as, in some form, is needed to account for the appearance of Slavonic names before the beginning of the sixth century in the Illyrian provinces."
Quotes and excerpts below do not deal directly with the topic of Slavic migrations -- they only reveal thoughts and theories from historians and scholars who believed that the Sarmatians were ethnologically identical or closely related with the Slavs. I believe most of these historians lived and wrote prior to the formation->creation->acceptance of the "6th-7th cent. Slavic invasions".
4) British Association for the Advancement of Science -- Twenty-First Meeting; Held at Ipswich in July 1851: 20
Link:
Page 145
"That the ancient Sauromatae or Sarmatians were ethnologically identical with the Sclavonians appears to me to be certain. The grounds on which Schafarik has maintained the contrary opinion do not amount to a valid argument."
5) A dissertation on the geography of Herodotus: with a map, Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Link:
Page 82: "But the Sarmatian Jazyges were Sclavonians, and the root of their name jazyk, "speech, language," corresponds exactly with the meaning of slovene"
Page 83: "... no one can doubt that the Sarmatians were Sclavonians"
Already at the commencement of the third century A.D. we find Slavs settled between the Danube and the Balkan. A constant immigration was going on till the middle of the seventh century, as these hordes were more and more pushed southwards by new invaders from the East.
I found a couple of interesting excerpts (presented below), which I wanted to share with everyone. Admins, please feel free to move this to a different thread if required.
1) Excerpts from the History of the Byzantine Empire, A. A. Vasiliev
Link:
"As to the rather vague names of Getae and Scythians, the chroniclers of that period were not well informed about the ethnographic composition of the northern peoples; hence it is very likely that these were collective names, and historians consider it probable that some Slavic tribes were included among them. Theophylact, the Byzantine writer of the early seventh century, directly identified the Getae with the Slavs. Thus, during the reign of Anastasius, the Slavs, together with the Bulgarians, first began their irruptions into the Balkan peninsula. According to one source, “a Getic cavalry” devastated Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus, and reached as far as Thermopylae. Some scholars have even advanced the theory that the Slavs entered the Balkan peninsula at an earlier period. The Russian scholar Drinov, for example, on the basis of his study of geographical and personal names in the peninsula, placed the beginning of Slavic settlement in the Balkan peninsula in the late second century A.D."
2) The Westminster Review, Volumes 110-111
Link:
Page 183
"Already at the commencement of the third century A.D. we find Slavs settled between the Danube and the Balkan. A constant immigration was going on till the middle of the seventh century, as these hordes were more and more pushed southwards by new invaders from the East."
3) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2, Edward Gibbon
Link:
APPENDIX, Page 563
"... it is extremely likely, though it cannot be absolutely proved, that in the great settlements of non-German peoples, made in the third and fourth centuries in the Illyrian peninsula by the Roman Emperors, some Slavonic tribes were included. This is an idea which was developed by Drinov in his rare book on the Slavic colonization of the Balkan lands, and has been accepted by Jirecek. There is much probability in the view that Slavonic settlers were among the 300,000 Sarmatae, to whom Constantine assigned abodes in 334 A.D. It is an hypothesis such as, in some form, is needed to account for the appearance of Slavonic names before the beginning of the sixth century in the Illyrian provinces."
Quotes and excerpts below do not deal directly with the topic of Slavic migrations -- they only reveal thoughts and theories from historians and scholars who believed that the Sarmatians were ethnologically identical or closely related with the Slavs. I believe most of these historians lived and wrote prior to the formation->creation->acceptance of the "6th-7th cent. Slavic invasions".
4) British Association for the Advancement of Science -- Twenty-First Meeting; Held at Ipswich in July 1851: 20
Link:
Page 145
"That the ancient Sauromatae or Sarmatians were ethnologically identical with the Sclavonians appears to me to be certain. The grounds on which Schafarik has maintained the contrary opinion do not amount to a valid argument."
5) A dissertation on the geography of Herodotus: with a map, Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Link:
Page 82: "But the Sarmatian Jazyges were Sclavonians, and the root of their name jazyk, "speech, language," corresponds exactly with the meaning of slovene"
Page 83: "... no one can doubt that the Sarmatians were Sclavonians"
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