Slavs in Peloponnes

Extensive geographical area Macedonia In ancient times, it was loosely populated by the Illyrian, ancient Hemacdonian and Thracian tribes, which, even in the days of early antiquity, were exposed to Hellenization or, as in the case of the Macedonians, were related to the Greeks (ancient Macedonia), and then as the province of Macedonia in the romanization in composition of the Roman Empire.

The population of Greece fell sharply after the campaigns of Alexander the Great And his diadokhov who has taken away a significant number of young men to Asia and Egypt. In the era of the rule of the Romans and the formation of their empire, all the most grandiose battles of the civil wars of the 1st century BC They occurred on the land of Greece, which also affected the density of the population. In the III -V centuries, the invasion of the Balkans, accompanied by the destruction of the local population, led to the fact that many areas were depopulated. In the era of the Byzantine Empire, as a result of the migration of the Slavs, the Balkans at the end of the VI – early VII centuries appeared Slavic settlements at its Danube border. The invasions of the Slavs in the Diocesus of Macedonia led to the formation of the wrecks-the early feudal associations of the Slavs there, including the largest tribal union of the Seven Births (70s of the 7th century) and Berziti (late VIII century). According to the historian who lived in that era, Procopius of Caesarea, the beginning of raids and military campaigns of the Slavs dates from the Byzantium 527.

The raids of the South Slavic tribes were accompanied by the capture of the population of diocet and the conclusion of prisoners as slaves in a wreck.

Intensive response actions were taken under the emperors of Tiberia II and Mauritius. Then, the Avar Kaganate, created by the nomads who came from East of Asia who came from East Asia, was involved in military operations. The relations of the three sides were extremely instability: if in 578–579 Tiberius took a joint campaign against the Slavs with Kagan Avar Bayan, who made a devastating raid on the lands of Byzantium, then already in 582, the Avars united with the Slavs, blocked the Byzantine Sirmius. This caused the devastating invasion of the Slavs in Misia and Thrace up to Constantinople, and under the Mauritius, the Slavs, together with the Avars, besieged thessalonics. In the “strategicon” of the Emperor Mauritius, the Slavs appear as enemies of the empire. The result was the capture of Sirmia by the Avars and the fall of the Danube line of defense of the empire, the situation aggravated the campaign of the Avars against the Slavs, which led to the massive crossing of the Slavs who became the Allies of the Greeks, to the Byzantine lands south of the Danube.

Another factor was the foundation of the Turks-Bulgars under the leadership of Khan Asparukh in the territory of the Misia of the Bulgarian kingdom, which included both captured Primorsky Byzantine cities and the territory of Malaya Scythia (Dobruji) and Misia with Slavic settlements, while Asparuch relocated the Severov tribe to the southern outskirts of his kingdom, bordering the empires. Some of the Severov, in order to get rid of the power of Asparukh, left his possessions to the Peloponnese.

In the VIII -IX centuries. The pressure of the Slavs was so powerful that their presence was felt even on the Peloponnes, where they settled the wasteland of rural areas, mixing with its rare population. In the cities of the coast and their districts, the Greek population remained.

In the 9th century, the Slavs make up a significant part of the inhabitants of the Fessaloniki district, where a special dialect of the South Slavic language develops, which formed the basis of the Old Slavonic (Old -Bulgarian) language. Around 863, the brothers Konstantin (Cyril), the philosopher and Methodius from Thessalonik, created on the basis of the Greek alphabet Cyrillic, who spread along with liturgical books in the Slavic countries of the Byzantine circle. In the second half of the 9th century, at the moment when Byzantium opposed the next offensive of the Arabs on its eastern lands, the territory of Macedonia was conquered by the troops of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. Under the rule of Byzantium, only thessalonics with the district remained. Fighting away from the Arabs, the Greeks in 1018 entered the war with the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian kingdom fell, its territory, including Macedonia, again became part of the Byzantine Empire.

Some of the Christianized Ants – the Slavs of the Allies of the Empire, who did not want to remain under the rule of the Bulgarians of the Turks alien to them, moved to the Peloponnese. This Ezerites (Greek. εζερίτες – ezerites) inhabited Peloponnese in the Middle Ages (from the 7th to the 10th century). These Slavs settled on the western slopes of the mountain range Tiegette near the ruins of ancient Sparta. The main occupation of the tribe was agriculture and partially cattle breeding, they differed from their neighbors of warlike miles (the Slavic tribe of the life of life settled before them).

Here is what the Byzantine contemporaries report about the Slavs who lived in the Peloponnese. “You should know that the Slavs of the Fema Peloponnes, rebelled in the days of Vasilevs Theophilus and his son Michael, became independent, creating robbery, enslavement, robbery, arson and theft. During the reign of Mikhail, the son of Theophilus, the strategiz was sent by the stratigig, Protospafariy Feoktist, whose nickname is from the Vristians, with an army and large forces, namely with the Thracians, Macedonians and other Western femels to fight with them and subordinate them. And he subjugated and conquered all the Slavs and other Peloponnes that were not subject to Fem, there were, however, only minging and Ezeritis in Lacedaemonia and Elos. ”

Old Russian warrior of the 10th century

The uprising of the Slavs caused by exorbitant taxes was one of the frequent phenomena and a series of rebellions, unrest in this state. The Byzantine Empire waged a fierce war with the Arabs during this period, which advanced on the lands of the Greeks, capturing one region after another. In the empire itself, an iconoclastic movement took place, which brought it to the inhabitants of innumerable troubles. After the death of Emperor Feofil, the rules declared by the regent under Minor Mikhail, his wife Theodore, who restored the icon rations. The empress managed to convince the king of Bulgaria Boris of the adoption of Orthodoxy and the baptism of the Bulgarians who represented themselves, who formed from the merger of the Slavs, Turks and autochthonous Hellenized population of this region. Due to her soft policy, Theodora managed to restore the world among the Byzantines. Like Ezerites, Minging is first mentioned in the leadership of the state management written by Emperor Konstantin VII Bagryanorodny (Rules in 945–959), “On the Office of the Empire”. The emperor mentions that at first the milers paid tribute to the Byzantine state in 60 gold nomisms, but after that both tribes rebelled and were defeated by the reign of Roman I Lakapin (rules in 920–945) by Fema Peloponnius crinite in the May-November 934 years, they had to pay a larger tribute-at 600 nomisma. During the Byzantine rule, Melings retained autonomy, but adopted Christianity and expelled in language and culture.

During the period when the crusaders were treacherously seized Constantinople and other Byzantine lands, along with the Peloponnese and the peninsula, found himself under the Frankish power in the XIII -XIV centuries, the Slavs were hired by both the French rulers of the Achaean principality and the Byzantine Greeks of the Seaso despotate as soldiers. So, according to the Sea Chronicle, Prince Guille II de Villarduen (rules in 1246-1278) awarded the “great Drung Meling” by exemption from all duties, except for military service. Minging is still mentioned in the 1330s in a number of inscriptions about the foundation of churches in Laconia. One of them, Konstantin Podsa, from the noble kind of spans, is called the Tzuziy Drung Minging, which indicates the long existence of milens as a separate community that lived in the north-west of the Mani Peninsula.

Rare material finds that archaeological science have (Slavic burials in the Olympia and disparate finds in Laconia) do not confirm the scale of the Slavic settlement. As for anthropology, science, who believes that “skulls are more solid arguments than vowels and consonants,” it does not confirm a significant change in anthropological material from at least a bronze age. On the contrary, the Soviet and Greek anthropologist A. Pulianos came to the opposite conclusion that “the anthropological unity south of the Balkan ridge and to the southern coast of the island of Crete is strikingly and is interrupted only by the anthropological island in the Rodop mountains, in places of residence of the perpetrators. The anthropological unity of the territory from today's Bulgarian deer Zagor to Crete is invariably from at least from the bronze age, regardless of today's languages ​​and religions of native speakers of this anthropological type. ” Greek Slavic and Byzantinism notes the appearance and presence of the Slavs on the Peloponnes without cataclysms and extermination inherent in the theory of Fallmeirier, tracing the process of their assimilation. Greek Slavics believes that the main reason for the appearance of the Slavs on the Peloponnes was the search for abandoned lands. Given the extensive nature of their agriculture, this is confirmed by a number of toponyms – the ax (Toporishta), Agolets (Gorelitsa). The Slavs settled on the territory of an organized state, the foundations of which they could not destroy, and throughout the entire period that they retained their tribal affiliation, they were subjects of the “king of the Romans.”

Russian prince with a squad. The first half of the XI century

Greek Slavic rejects – the use of the term “Bulgarian Slavs” for the Peloponnesian Slavs, for the period when the Slavic groups have not yet been formed. Greek Slavicism characterizes this approach as an example of a “provincial consideration of history”, the only achievement of which is the views, “strengthening only their nationalist narcissism.” It is noteworthy that the agricultural tool found in Laconia, where the Ezerites settled, typologically refers to the ants who belonged to the Eastern Slavs. These findings, combined with the fact that Anti, being the Allies of Byzantium, “disappeared” from the Lower Danube in 602, and along with confirmed written sources about the appearance of Ezerites in the finds of the finds, lead to at least Ezerites cannot be a priori as southern Slavs.

The study of the few Slavic language loans in Greek shows the presence of words that are absent in Bulgarian, but are found in the eastern and Western Slavic languages ​​- the thesis, which was also supported by the Soviet academician O. N. Trubachev. Slavic borrowings in medieval Greek language not only do not confirm the “Bulgarian origin” of the Slavs in Greece, but lead to the reverse results.

The warriors of the squads of Svyatoslav in Bulgaria, the second half of the X century.

By the beginning of the 9th century, the majority of the Slavs were linguisticly Hellenized. Not later than the middle of the 15th century, almost all Slavs lost their language. Greek and foreign researchers explain this to the assimilation by the power of Hellenism, the Christianization of the Slavs and the huge numerical outcome of the indigenous Greek population. From written sources it follows that the Slavic tribe of Minging, who settled in the west of the Mani Peninsula, last retained its Slavic dialect for eight centuries, almost until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Recognizing the etymology of the toponymy of Slavic origin, Greek Slavic rejects the Slavic etymology of the Sea herself, proposed by Fallmeraeier and supported by some of the today's “glory”. Fedon Mallingudis, while still a professor at the University of Münster, wrote: “If this glory has a rich fantasy, but does not have, however, elementary knowledge of Greek, he can succumb to temptation, like a Fallmeirier, to explain the etymology“ Sea ”from the Slavic“ Sea ”. Greek etymology connects the origin of the name of the peninsula with the Greek name of the mulberry (Greek μωρια), widespread on the peninsula during the period of Christianization, a gap with the ancient world and changes in the administrative structure and toponymy.

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