What does it mean to be Slav?

[Boyko_Lowlander]

Hi all!

This is my 1st post, but I've been reading topics on the history forum for some months now.

It's odd how many people from Eastern Europe boast how they are "Slav", yet few delve into who we are, what we look like and our temperaments.

My interest in being Slav probably started when my father mentioned the word when I was 8. Looking at the cover textbook "Kniaza Doba" I recall asking him: "Are Slavs Germans?" He replied: "No, they are close relatives of Germans!" Years after, I have pondered who/what Slavs are. Attending a Ukrainian grade school in Ontario I realized that so many Ukes differed in features. After several years I had just about given up about what look a Slav would have. In Saturday heritage language history class, there was more emphasis on Viking origins of Medieval Rus than a Slav one, and the latter origin was given less attention in many respects.

Slavs are a Nordic people, of which Balts, next to Germans, are the closest relatives. Slavs/Balts have blue/green/grey eyes(or a mix of 2 or all of those colours); hair ranging mainly from dark-brown to black. Fewer have light brown, hair(similarly red or strawberry-blond hair is rarer in Germans). A Serb might think that Slavs were warlike conquerors, but he might not realise that Slavs were generally peaceful settlers. Upon reading web pages from various countries, I found out that for a time Slavs had a democratic society, where they had open discussions on issues of concern.

Some comments and input would be apprectiated!

[Zbyszek]

Originally posted by Boyko_Lowlander
Hi all!

This is my 1st post, but I've been reading topics on the history forum for some months now.

It's odd how many people from Eastern Europe boast how they are "Slav", yet few delve into who we are, what we look like and our temperaments.

...

Some comments and input would be apprectiated!

Hello Boyko, I found your article after almost a year's delay and I read it with interest. Actually this History board is experiencing pretty bad time. There are not many disputants at the moment and some of them are not serious. Situation was quite different a year ago. We had a lively forum of committed people who were careful and provided us all with knowledge rather than prejudice.
I remember that not so long ago it was almost a shame to declare oneself as a Slav because it seemed to be close to a communist slav-e. Boyko, you are right that Slavic people used to be generally peaceful (particularly in the northern parts of the ethnic Slavic territory). Many of them paid high price for it and the Grunwald battle 1410 was, as you pointed correctly, the last moment to stand up and resist Teutonic flood.
Slavs are pious, deeply devoted to basic values and sentimental. Usually they did not protest until it was almost too late. Maybe because of it they had to suffer under various tyrannies like that of Russian Tzars. Poles were at the forefront of meeting/confronting Western cultures so their natural qualities were modified a little. Russians and Ukrainians did not manifest their nationalism for a long time. Boyko and Lemko people were particularly peaceful and and far from national divisions and for a long time they even did not bother to decide whether thay are Russians or Ukrainians. Boykos and Lemkos lived in Galicia under Polish rule for centuries and because the local lords did not discriminate their religion, they felt no need to rise up. I think they showed some typical Slavic features.
Religion has been playing a special role in the Slavic souls which were naturally disposed to Christianity. They were deeply devoted to their religious leaders which sometimes had unbelievably strong position against the rulers (see the example of Slanislav, a bishop in Cracow (XIth cent.) who dared accuse king Boleslav II the Bold of tyranny which it cost him life and eternal fame along with the successful beatification. Boleslav who allagedly personally executed Stanislav was eventually banished from his kingdom and spent the rest of his life as a monk in Hungary.

[Edited by Zbyszek on 5th December 2003 at 23:38]

[Boyko_Lowlander]

Hi Zbyszek! It's too bad that the forum is not as lively and serious as it should be(as I can see from the past as well).

Yes, I guess Lemkos and Boykos(Ukes) are much like Masurs and Kashubs, in that although they belong to larger ethnicities, but have distinct aspects of their own cultures.

In my Dark Ages book, it claims that so many "Slavs" were taken prisoner by Vikings that the former took on the old Scandinavian term for slave - "slavar". This is more of a Western/Anglo view which, is perhaps intentionally portraying Slavs in a negative light. Whether true or not, this is only confined to Slavs captured by Vikings.

Slavs, in the more original tounges refer to themselves as "Sloviany" meaning slovo - word. Even today Germans are addressed as Niemtsy(Nimtsy) "mute" those which can not speak - the Slav language(s) that is. An ethno-centric view, albeit more universal than the "Western" view.

Preview Reply does not work(errases your post).

[Volodya987]

To be "Slav" means to be "Celt".
Foreign objects, which planted themselves in Eastern Europe, after turning Northern Africa and most of the "Middle East" into a sandpit.

[Norse_Slav]

Actually the Slavs and Vikings were in pretty good relationships. There is lots of common in northern slav and viking culture, traditions pagan religion. The first Russian state-Kiyevan Rus was actually founded by Vikings.

[Boyko_Lowlander]

@ Volodya987

I believe you're referring to how the Celts settled/invaded all over Europe, as well as present-day Turkey. The Czechs are mainly a Celt-Slav mix. Celts settled in parts of the Balkans, Poland, Ukraine, even Romania. But the two groups are distinct from one another. Slavs are Nordic, and I think Celts(who have brown eyes, dark hair) are Dinaric. I've been intending to do a post on Celts in present Ukraine.

@ Norse_Slav

Rus was not really a Russian state, nor was it Ukrainian or Belarusian. A more proper term would be "the first East Slav" state; or, if you want to use "Russia" "the first state including present-day Russia(or European Russia)." The Viking founding of Rus is a popular theory. There's almost no doubt that Vikings played an essential role in establishing Rus. But, to this day there are Normanist and Anti-Normanist theories as to the founding of Rus.

Normanists first used the Novgorod First Chronicle(1071) and the Rus' Primary Chronicle(written in the mid 1000's) to justify their view of a Viking founding of Rus. Both chronicles tell of the invitation to the Varangians and equate them with the term Rus. Scholars such as Kunik, Thomsen, etc. also wrote of political and legal structure art and Religion, (some of which you mentioned) was of Scandinavian origin. Subsequent research downplayed much of this. Later, nineteenth and twentieth century mostly Russian and Ukrainian historians gave evidence for some possible Rus homelands in Sweden.

Anti-Normanists from the nineteenth century onward Filevich, Vernadsky, Hrushevsky and others often used archaeological evidence to support East Slav statehood proir to the Vikings, or disapproved of certain aspects of the Normanist stance. Soviet historians Grekov and Rybakov attribute Slav origins of Rus to various Slav tribes around Kiev forming alliances. According to Anti-Normanists, the name Rus comes from a tribe Ros along the Dnieper south of Kiev, who united other Slavs into an alliance in the sixth century C.E. Anti-Normanists also claim that ninth century Arab/Islamic writers tell of Rus as a tribe of Slavs as well as various East Slav states. Anti-Normanists reject the invitation to the Vikings(Varangians) and their Rus designation from the Rus Chronicles as altered corruptions from copyists from the fourteenth century who justified the Viking Riuryk along with his dynasty as the first ruler of the Rus state.

At the present there is no final answer as to how Rus was founded.

[Norse_Slav]

Boyko_Lowlander

Kiyevan Rus was a state from which Russia, Ukraine and Belarus came out. I am not saying that it was directly founded by Vkings. But at some point Slavs called the Vikings led by Rurik who established a united state with center in Kiyev. The famous Rurikovich dynasty(whom belong the famous Ivan the Terrible) have a viking roots.

There are similarities between pagan slav and viking cultures. Ever saw old Russian boats(ladya) and how they are similar to ones of Vikings. There us also cultural heritage which was forgotten after acepetance of Christianity.

If you look in Russian history they often didnt like and felt mistrust toward Germans and West-Europeans(French, British), but feel warm feelings toward Scandinavians(who are basically also Germanic peoples). That is because of this common Northern root.