We have been reluctant to take a definitive position on the question of the relatedness of the Slavs to the (Baltic) Venethi/Veneti/Venedi.  The reason for this is simple.  The connection is one which it is impossible to definitively establish with the information we have at thus far. Absent new data or new methodologies, it is unlikely that anyone will ever know the truth of he matter “for sure”.  But, that said, we can confess that we are leaning towards admitting a connection.  There are several reasons for this and we enumerate them here:

1) Jordanes – he makes the connection clear and, given his background as an Ostrogoth (or maybe an Alan) living close to the time when the Slavs would have separated themselves from the larger Venetic group, he is of all those who have offered an opinion on the topic, the one best qualified to do so; that his conqueror of the Antes is named Vinitharius also seems to bolster the argument (while it has been argued that this was really Vithimiris, the name Vinitharius is separately attested in the letters of Cassiodorus which, unlike his Gothic History, did survive);

2) Peutinger Map – the map which was put together prior to Jordanes’ Getica (two or three centuries earlier) clearly indicates a group of people named the Venethi at the mouths of the Danube where Slavs are “later” found.  At the very least this indicates yet another place (in addition to the Vistula basin) where we first see the Venethi and then see the Slavs.  Were that a coincidence, it would be a strange one indeed.  The same  map, of course, also shows the Sarmatian Venethi up in the North;

3) Wends – numerous Western European authors, none of whom are known to have relied on Jordanes, refer to the Westernmost Slavs as Wends.  Another coinicedence?  While some say that this is merely a case of a name transferred, it is an odd transfer if true.  The Germanic transferors namely are not “old” east Germanic tribes but relative newcomers to the area, the Franks, the Saxons and the Bavarians.  But these peoples would, if the common telling of the story is correct, have never shared a boundary with the Wends.  They would instead have bordered the east Germanic Goths, Vandals and others.  Thus, one may ask whether they should have instead referred to the Slavic “newcomers” as Goths and Vandals instead? (they did later refer to them as Vandals at least but this sems to hav be inspired by Slavic historiography rather than anything coming originally out of their own German tradition.  Moreover, the Bavarians and Longobards referred to the Carinthian Slavs as the Windische.  But this too is strange as the Venethi, in the usual telling of the story, were found on the Baltic not in the Alps so whose name was being transferred to them and why?;

4) Location, location, location – to put it simply, this is where the Venethi were and this too is where the Slavs now are.  While this may seem simplistic, the burden of proof is on those arguing that the Venethi were not Slavs to show that otherwise is the case.  While certain Germanic tribes may have stayed in and passed through, e.g., Poland, the fact of an army passing through a territory does not equal the automatic complete displacement of the population.  Thus, both Napoleon and Hitler conquered large swaths of Russia but, in the end did not replace the indigenous population.  But, you might say, they lost.  Ok, but what of the Golden Horde or the Lithuanians?  They actually did conquer and hold Russia.  Were the Russians gone then from Kiev?  Of course, not.  The Gothic and other armies were likely just that – marauding bands of warriors like the Vikings much later on (incidentally, no one has located their landing site – Gothiscandza – though logic would suggest that rather than crossing the wide Baltic Sea to land at the Vistula, they would have gone via island hopping over the Danish Jutland peninsula; th ‘three mouths’ of the Vistula suggests rather the Oder than the Vistula).  They may have even taken Slavic (and other) women as wives but in all likelihood they were mostly male marauders at least at the bginning of their journey.  This view is also consistent with today’s approach to the Volkerwanderung which stresses a rather limited role for the “Volk” in such a Wanderung;

5) Where are the Venethi? – anyone arguing for the nonautochtonous nature of the Slavs must also account for what happened to the Venethi, a nation described as “populous” by Jordanes and one which Ptolemy already divided into greater and lesser races suggesting, again, their copiousness;

6) Are they Slavs or rabbits? – many a commentator has over the years pointed out the demographic difficulty of Slavs taking over wide swaths of Europe in such a short timeframe.  This is, of course, possible (that is, this is not a mathematical and biological impossibility) but it is unlikely;  Moreover, it is worth pointing out that there is very little to show for the most famous of the Slavs, those of Procopius – it cannot be even shown that these Slavs are the ones that settled the former Yugoslavia without even looking at the Czech lands, Poland and Pomerania/Polabia; in fact, as we have discussed already earlier, it is likely that all of the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia as well as Poland and eastern Germany were settled by the Slavs from the North); the most that can be said of the southern Slavs is that they assimilated the Bulgars but otherwise dissolved themselves in the Greek speaking population of Greece; as pointed out before, if this is so then the group of Slavs responsible for the settlement of all the other Slavic lands would have had to come from an even smaller subgroup of the whole;

7) Furtive conquerors? – outside of the Balkans we do not have any contemporary records of Slav migrations.  This lack of documentation of Slav arrival is in obvious contrast to the arrival of just about any other group in Central and Eastern Europe including the Germanic tribes of all stripes, the Huns, the Alans, the Avars, the Hungarians, the Mongols, the Lithuanians and the Turks.  In fact, the Byzantines never mention the Slavs as arriving on the borders – they seem unsurprised that the Slavs are where they are complaining only about Slavic raids into Byzantine territory.  This is in stark contrast with their description of the arrival of the Avars at about the same time.  In fact, in several places, Byzantine authors (for example, Theophylact Simocatta) call Slavs Getae – a nation well known to the eastern Romans.  Of course, it’s possible that poor recordkeeping in the medieval, post Roman space and the relative remoteness of the Slavic lands are to blame but be that as it may this seems to be  another one of those not entirely convincing but highly suggestive pieces of information;

8) Genetics – recent genetic studies also seem to support an autochtonic concept of the Slavs (also of Indo Europeans generally but that is a separate discussion).  Although we have generally shied away from discussing genetics here as its application in historiography is in its infancy and virtually all the studies conducted involve rather small sample sizes, we again feel that what’s there now should be mentioned, if only tentatively (most of these studies look solely at the male-only or female-only line, leaving all the other stuff “in between”);

9) Heruli – in about 509-512, the Heruli remigrated from the Balkans back to Scandinavia (to Thule).  As per Procopius (Wars), they went first through the lands of the Slavs (before hitting some empty territories – we think in today’s eastern Germany since they then arrive among the Rugii – although it is possible that they passed through portions of Poland too, that seems a rather out of the way way to go – not to mention more mountainous).  This suggests that already then – only 60 years or so after the fall of Attila – the Slavs occupied lands north of the Danube; if they spread after the outmigration of the Germans, the Slavs did so very fast);

10) River Names – contrary to what had beeen asserted by some authors, it appears that the various river names in, e.g., Poland have a stronger Slavic connection than a Germanic one; take, Vistula; the Roman authors call it, in places, Vistla or Viscla – the Slavs Viswa (Wisla) but the Germans Weichsel; of course, this does not suggest tha the name is Slavic but it does suggest that the Slavs got the name right but the Germans did not; even if the Slavs would have gotten the name from the remaining Venethi, this raises the question how is it possible that th Slavs being newcomers were able to get that but the Germanics who lived next to the Venethi for centuries never appropriated the Venetic name; this is in addition to the curious fact the Roman spelling with the -st, -sc seems reminiscent of the same sound “w” found in Viswa (Wisla) and also in Greek sources in “Sclavenoi”; incidentally, Wisla has been derived from a Slavic word for bog (but also, e.g., ‘wiosla’ – paddles);

11) Other Place Names – We have a rather extensive etymology of many place names in Germany that clearly date back to the Wendish period.  The Germans (or Franks and Saxons really) came into these areas and assimilated the local population.  No one questions that.  And yet, all of that assimilation notwithstanding, we can easily show where the Obotrite, Veleti and Lutizi tribes lived just by opening up a modern map.  One might think, therefore, that a similar process would have taken place in Poland and the Czech/Slovak lands – indeed in Russia.  But that is not the case – we are not aware of any place names that have a Germanic etymology and that are dated to the era preceding the Frankish expansion.  None.

If the Germanic tribes (as opposed to bands of roving males and their slavegirls) lived here and left, they left in their entirety and in a major hurry.  But then how did the Slavs inherit the various hydronyms that supposedly do not have a Slavic etymology?  Were the Venthi the ones hiding in the forests as the Germanics roved the countryside? Then they suddenly came back only to run into Slavs?  Someone has to be hiding somewhere for this story to be true it seems.

12) Slavs – the name Slav deserves a separate blog post but we will say only this here – as of now we are not aware of any other ancient tribe name that would contain the VEN of the VeNEthi other than Zlovene (i.e., Slavs) with the Antes possibly picking up the NT of the VeNeThi.

Were the Slavs the Zlovenei? I.e., the ones that got “caught”?

But what about the fact that:

i) Water – Slavs did not possess an extensive maritime vocabulary as would be found with seafaring peoples?  This argument is made by Antoine Meillet (others seem to parrot him with or without attribution but with no analysis in any event).  He bases his entire argument on three words (grebac, ostrov and something else)… Strangely, for Meillet already Pliny describes an island called “by the natives” Austrovia and it is not a river island it seems.  But undoubtedly it is an island of the East or where Eostre was worshipped or something like that…  He also does not show  which of the various peoples who were known to be seashore dwellers did possess a rich maritime vocabulary; that is there is no base case;  he appears dismissive and unconvincing in his rejection of various proposed Slavic water-related words;

As far as the amber/Bernstein argument is concerned (not something he discusses), all that proves – if even that – that a certain portion of the amber trade came to be dominated by Germanic speakers and that others may have adopted the successful German word (e.g., the Polabian Slavs had fallen so far as to use the Germanic word for ‘father’ yet no one (we think) would seriously suggest that the Polabians did not know the concept of fatherhood prior to meeting Germans);  we will return to this subject in the future;

Incidentally, in the Balkans, the Slavs were apparently seen as excellent mariners even if their ships were not large…

ii) Trees – Slavs did not know certain trees that grew in Germania? – objections to this claim were previously addressed in our prior posts (click here) and we will not revisit those at the present juncture;

iii) Tongues – Venetic is a centum language whereas Slavic languages are of the satem variety?; this is misleading.  No one knows what language was spoken by the Sarmatian Veneti (technically, we do not even know what language the Slavs spoke before the first written Slavic records began appearing at the end of the first millenium); the reference here is solely to the Adriatic Venetic which has had some words reconstructed on a limited set of inscriptions, i.e., no one even knows whether it was a centum language (although such a theory has been proposed by some scholars);

iv) Romans did not know of Slavs? – perhaps they did not; but if the Venethi were Slavs then this statement is misleading too – the Romans may not have known the term Slav or known Slavs by that name but that certainly does not prove that they did not know of people who – only later after the fall of the Empire – became known to the world as Slavs – which itself may have been merely a result of one of the Venethic tribes being the one stumbling into the Byzantines (as previously observed, in Western Europe, the alternative ‘Wends’ was used for a few hundred years more;

v) Those Slav Others – the word Venden/Venethen is Germanic for the generic “others”? – actually, that word is Walch or Wallach or Welch and that word certainly was used to describe various peoples at the edges of German influence (e.g., Wallachs in Moldavia or the Welch in Britain);

On the other hand, the etymology of Venethi is more than uncertain with Germanic, Celtic and Slavic being proposed – perhaps the most obvious is a connection with the Baltic languages, e.g., in Old Prussian (wundan) and Lithuanian (vanduo) refers to water such that the Venethi would mean simply those who live by the water; see the following (wasser = wundan) from the Elbing Dictionary:

So maybe the Venethi were Balts?  (Note that the Lithuanians, for example, refer to Belorussians not as Wends but as gudai, suggesting at the very least that some Goths have passed through Belorussia at some point).

However, “wedzic/vendzic” means to get rid of water (i.e., to smoke, e.g., fish) in Slavic – see also “wedka/vendka”, i.e., fishing rod.  We leave that for you to noodle on;

We note also that all the Venethi out there, i.e., the Adriatic Venethi, the Gallic Venethi, the Welsh (?) Venethi, the Paphlagonian Venethi, the Illyric/Macedonian Venethi and the Baltic Venethi seemed to have dwelt on one shore or another.  One might say that in Europe that is easy to do but surely there were plenty of tribes located inland as well.  Was this perhaps a designation, in some ancient tongue, of all such tribes that were coast dwellers?

Incidentally, it has been claimed that it was Safarik who first suggested the Venethi were Slavs.  This is not true – the first known connection comes from Martin Kromer, the Bishop of Warmia/Ermland who argued that the Slavs were not Vandals (the prevalent theory till then) but rather that they were Sarmatians and brethren to the Veneti.  He also came up with the idea that various tribes may well have passed over Venetic/Slavic lands while the locals just kept their heads down and went about their business – again, this is not therefore a 20th century invention by any means.

Finally, and this is important – no one is claiming that the Venethi were Slavs – quite the opposite – the argument is rather (consistent with Jordanes) that the Slavs were one of the tribes of the Venethi.  A tribe that was known to the Byzantines who were the cultural super power of the day and who then extended the Slav name to other Venethic tribes further away – see, for example, how the name Alemanni or Schwaben or Saxons became – for different people in different places – a name for all the Germans.  One might say, however, that the name Slav was also a name given by the Slavs to themselves in various geographies – this is fair but one also has to admit that all of those geographies were ascribed by chroniclers like Jordanes to the Slavs proper – what about central and northern Poland or north east Germany?  See for example the recent discussion of the Sukow-Dziedzice culture and its supposed differences with other “Slavic” cultures.

PS Some people have brought our attention to sources regarding the Enetoi that are older than the ones we have, thus far, discussed.  We are aware of those and will cover them at some point in the future – do not worry!

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It is common knowledge that much of the place names in eastern Germany are of Slavic origin.  In general, such names are characterized by endings such as -in (e.g., Berlin), -en (e.g., Dresden, Bremen), -an (Doberan), –ow (e.g., Guestrow) or -itz (e.g., Chemnitz). [1]  Here is a map of northeastern Germany:

So even in this small area we have: Berkenthin, Dobbertin, Kroepelin, Tessin, Penzlin, Murchin, Rambin, Warin, Dahmen, Demen, Gnoien, Goeren, Bad Doberan, Lassan, Buetzow, Ducherow, Krakow (!) am See, Neubukow, Rastow, Marlow, Malchow, Wustrow, Sassnitz, Zinnowitz, Crivitz, Ribnitz, etc.

And, of course, there are others of different types, e.g., Jatznick, Woldegk, Blowatz, Velgast or, in the south, Leipzig or Cottbus, etc.

None of this is surprising given the Slavic presence in those parts since, at least, the middle ages.

Since we were talking about Paphlagonia the prior time, let’s move to the opposite side of Europe now and ask a question.  This is the question.  Let’s say there were Slavic settlements in France and let’s say their endings would have been the same as the above types in Germany, i.e., -in, -en (call these group 1), -ow (call these group 2) and -itz (group 3), what would they look like in French?

We, of course, can’t be sure but we can guess.  Here are our guesses and you can tell us, of course, that we are way off.  We think the suffixes are likely to be the following: -in, -en  or -an as the first group; –off or -iff as the second group; and -ic or -ec corresponding to the third group.  Here is a map of a portion of France, specifically a part of Bretagne west of Vannes:

Here are some group 1s: Primelin, Plomelin, Goulien, Esquibien,  Plovan, Pluguffan;

Group 2: Plogoff;

Group 3: Plouhinec, Landudec, Plogonnec, Pouldreuzic;

And what of Douarnenez, Plozevet, Pouldergat, Guengat, Treogat (-gast?).  (Throwing in -on, you also get Gourlizon and Mahalon.  Adding in -oc, you get Tremeoc).

This pattern continues throughout Bretagne, particularly in its southern and southeastern portion (though not exclusively).  E.g., Meslin, Treffrin, Naizin, Credin, Quintin, Gourin, Penestin, Plerin, Goudelin, Lesneven, Pleven, Pleslin, Goven, Seglien, Plaudren, Pledran, Lehon, Guiscriff, Quistinic, Pourdic, Pornic, Binic, Briec, Ploubazlanec, Plouezec, Tredarzec, Landrevarzec, Locquirec, Severac, Plouagat, Pleumergat, Langast, Plouguenast. We also get other places that have vaguely Slavic names. E.g., Bubry, Bieuzy, Plesse, Plesidy, Plouisy, Plouha.  And near the town of Fougerges we have Vendel.  Much further south we have a few others.

Some of these suffixes are, occasionally, found outside of Bretagne (e.g, Hourtin) and there are many other names in Bretagne.  We must also point out that many of the above names ought to have clear French or Celtic etymologies.  So, of course, we are not suggesting that Bretagne is some sort of lost Slavic colony…

Though you will notice the Namnetes (Nemcy?) nearby.  And, of course, there are the Ossismi – they are, apparently, also known as Ostimioi – a name meaning “the last” – see, ost, last?  Of course, that name is actually closer to, e.g., the Polish ostatni (the last).   We could not resist…

Nevertheless, given the mention of the Venethi there during Ceasar’s times (after whom the town of Vannes is named) we must point out that nowhere else in Europe do we find so many Slavic-like (let’s call them that) names outside of areas that had previously been clearly settled by Slavs (i.e., Slavic countries and portions of Germany and Austria).  We must also remember that it has been two thousand years since the days of Ceasar…

When the Venethi with their neighbors fought the Romans they were referred to as Gauls.  What was that rebel leader’s name again?  Oh  yes, Viridovix say the learned books – Viridovix of the Venelli.

Except, funny, that the below says Viridovic…  maybe it’s just the particular case …or maybe it’s his Croatian brother…

“Multae res ad hoc consilium Gallos hortabantur: superiorum dierum Sabini cunctatio, perfugae confirmatio, inopia cibariorum, cui rei paum diligenter ab iis erat provisum, spes Venetici belli, et quod fere libenter. homines id quod volunt credunt. His rebus adducti non prius Viridovicem reliquosque duces ex concilio dimittunt quam ab iis sit concessum arma uti capiant et ad castra contendant. Qua re concessa laeti, ut explorata victoria, sarmentis virgultisque collectis, quibus fossas Romanorum compleant, ad castra pergunt.”

(Ceasar, About the Gallic War, Book 3).

We gently remind our readers (even the ones with term papers or dissertations coming up) of the below copyright restrictions.

[1]  Other Slavic suffixes are also present in Germany though less commonly, e.g., -ast or -ost (e.g., Velgast).  And, of course, there are other Slavic places that do not contain any such suffix (e.g., Leipzig, Luebeck, Rostock).

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There are lots of Zagoras (literally “beyond the mountain”).

Some are in Poland.

Others in Croatia.

Yet others in Bulgaria (e.g., Stara Zagora).

There is one in Greece, where Slavs likely reached.

(Strangely, there is even one in Morocco (there it is likely a Berber name, see, e.g. Sahara although stories of a Moroccan Nekur/Nukur/Nakur/Nekor where the royal guard was composed of Slavs (though perhaps just slaves?) have come up in the past and it is told that after a rebellion they set up their own “village of the Slavs” though some argue it was just a “village of the slaves”).

However, what is interesting is that a Zagora has been in at least four different sources mentioned in Paphlagonia – a place where lived yet another tribe of the Venethi.  One of them is Arrian  of Nicomedia (c. AD c. 86 – c. 160) (Zagora).  The other Marcian of Heraclea (4th century) (Zagoron, p 73).  Ptolemy has his own version (Zagorum in Galatia).  Finally, the Peutinger Map shows a Zacoria.  There is also a local river, Zalecus mentioned in some of these sources (though as Halega in the Peutinger Map).  Zagora is likely the later Gazuron or Calippi.

Here is a nineteenth century version/imagining on a map by the geographer Heinrich Kiepert:

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Jews in Spain

Hasdai bin Shaprut was a vezir and maior domo to a local caliph Abd ar-Rahman in Cordoba.  The legends of his wisdom and learning are, well, legendary.  He was instrumental in curing the Christian King Sancho and helping him win back his crown (in exchange for a few border castles that went to the caliph).  He was involved in receiving embassies of Constantine Porphirogenetus (helping translate a tome of Dioskyrides) and Otto I, at that time not yet emperor (helping the ambassadors not insult the caliph).

Lastly, and in keeping with our theme here, we note that it was during Hasdai’s time in office that the famous four rabbis on the way from Bari to Sebast got themselves captured (or really the ship they traveled on was captured)  by admiral Romahis (aka Damahas) with the result that they got sold off in different ports – one, Moses, being sold in Cordoba.  It is likely that Hasdai was then Moses’ protector and sponsor.

All of which is irrelevant for our purposes here.

Except one thing.  Hasdai being in the thick of it all at the Cordoban court came across some traders who mentioned to him that there was in the East a Jewish state run by a khagan named Joseph.  Yes, it was the Khazars.  This piqued his curiosity (apparently he was tired of hearing that only the Jews can’t have their own state because they haven’t accepted Jesus as Christ – an assertion aid doff the mark in its very foundations even at the time as many stateless Slavs could testify, e.g., close to the events in question the Slavs of the Rus where the Rus ran things).   So he decide to send an emissary with the letter to the Khazars.

Which way to the Khazars?

The first attempt was unsuccessful at Constantinople as the Byzantines likely fearing some sort of alliance between the Khazars and the caliphate sent the embassy back on the apparent pretext that it was not safe to travel between Constantinople what with all the bandits, robbers and the generally deteriorating road conditions given the late season, etc, etc, etc.

Pissed, Hasdai sent another embassy but this time through the middle of the European continent.  It turned out that there were at that time in Cordoba as part of another embassy of a  two Jewish travelers – Joseph & Saul.  They came from the “country of Gebalim” who, we learn earlier from his letter, “of the Slavs” [al-sequeliba].  They told Hasdai that “iz no problem.”

“We will give your letter to the King of the Gebalim.  He will send the letter to the Israelites that live in Hungary.  Who will send it to the Rus who then will send it to the Bulgars [presumably Volga Bulgars even if those had already been driven towards the Danube by the Khazars] and from there the letter will be sent to where you want it to be sent.”

Who was this “King of the Gebalim”?  We will likely never know though there are some papers on the topic.  Perhaps a Croat king or one Serb?  But maybe a Czech potentate?  That would certainly be the simplest explanation for the path being suggested by the ambassadors.   (whether the letter and/or the response were opened and read by the Gebalim is not mentioned in the literature but it seems improbable that they would not be).

And no the letter was obviously not in German.  We are showing a German translation from 1840 by Joseph Zedner in his “Auswahl historischer Stuecke aus Hebraeischen Schriftstellern (2Jh – Gegenwart)” (Selection of historical pieces of Hebrew writers from the 2nd century to the present).

PS The source documents were apparently discovered in the year 1562 by Isaac ben Abraham (ben Yehuda Akrish) on his trip from Constantinople to Egypt. He then published a 32 page book in Constantinople about the year 1577.  The book has four parts with the Hasdai letter and King Joseph’s reply being on pp 16-23 and 23-26, respectively.  (We are not currently in possession of it).  A reprint in Latin followed in 1660 in Basel by Johann Buxtorf.  A printing in Cracow also occurred.  After Zedner a French version was published by Carmoly in Brussels in 1847 and a German one (different from Zedner apparently) came out by Seeling Cassel in Berlin in 1848 (this one with the reply only).

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Of all the theories of Slavic origins none has been so convoluted as the “beech” theory and none has proven more resilient.  We will consider it in a few separate postings.

At the root(s) of the problem

The beech theory goes back to the speculations of Jozef Rostafinski in his 1908 article “O perwotnych siedzibach i gospodarstwie Slowian w przedhistorycznych czasach” (or “About the Prehistoric Dwellings of the Slavs”).

Rostafinski was neither a linguist nor an archeologist nor a historian but, appropriately for the theory, a botanist.  Undeterred by the apparent lack of relation between his chosen pursuit and the question of the Slavic homeland, he proudly decided to stake out a claim for the botanists in this debate.

We might begin by stating that he started off rather ambitiously by first taking a position on the name “Lach/Lech” and its etymology.  Having firmly established where that was from (we will not bore you with that part except to say he claims it is from “lenda” or “lyada” which meant an empty space later for cultivation – perhaps due to fire farming), he proceeded to locate the Slavic homeland by analyzing bushes and shrubs.  That was, however, not enough for him so, now really reaching, he stepped onto the ornithologists’ feet (claws?) and also analyzed bird names (vultures, storks, egrets).  With that done he proceeded to analyze the etymologies of the Slavic names for iron (concluding it had a Scythian origin but that that was ok because even the Greeks learned some iron making from the Scythians).  He then concluded that the name of the turnip has a Slavic root (repa) and that turnips made their way to the Greeks from the Slavs about five centuries before Christ (which, among other things, according to him, demonstrates conclusively that the Slavs were way ahead of the Germans at that time civilizationally).    Then it was onto grains and cereals (conclusion: initially Slavs did not know rye or wheat).  Then a discussion of the pastoral lifestyle of the Slavs and the circle the wagons origin of the stable (conclusion: Slavic stables were freestanding – Germanic part of the house).  In between Rosafinski threw in an etymology of the word “vend” – he claims it meant smoking (as in fish) (e.g., Polish word “wedzenie”).

Oh, we almost forgot, as to those shrubs and bushes.  Rostafinski was of the opinion that the Slavs did not know (originally) the following trees: beech (fagus silvatica), larch (larix), fir (abies) and yew (taxis baccata) (or at least some of their subtypes).  Incidentally, he makes the same claim about Balts.

Since, he reasoned, these trees did not (at his time) extend east past the so-called (made up) Koeningsberg-Odessa line and since the Slavs did not have their own names for these trees, they must not have originally lived in the areas where those trees grew.  Therefore in his map he places the Slavs east of this line. The map follows:

Rostafinski, based on other evidence (see above), specifically places the Slavs at the edge for the steppe-forest zone somewhere in Russia – in contact with the Greeks until the Scythians came in between them.  Note that most of the other points that Rostafinski made to support his thesis (see above) has been ignored but the tree stuff entered the mainstream of Slavic homeland research.  (All other beech theories are derivative of Rostafinski’s).

The argument is thus based on a number of premises (one might venture, principally, that a few tree names can be highly instructive in establishing the origins of entire peoples but let’s let that one lie).  Let’s list some of the more obvious ones:

1) The beech zone in antiquity was the same as the beech zone today.

That this is not true was supposedly shown already by Henrik Birnbaum in 1979 who placed the reach of the beech, so to speak, only up to the Elbe.

On the other hand, Bukovina is a historic country in Ukraine and Moldova.  What that specific part of the world was called during Roman times, we do not know nor do we know whether there were any beeches growing there.

More recent studies show that the current reach of the beech was reached only between 500-1000 A.D. (Giesecke, et al.).  This would be possibly consistent with Birnbaum.  (On the other hand, beech pollen has also been found in the Pripyet area – which would, no doubt, suggest to some that the homeland of the Slavs is in Siberia…)

2) The etymology of the above tree names is not Slavic and, in fact, is Germanic.  For example, the Germans must not have borrowed the name from the Slavs.  Nor can this be a common Indo-European name (or at least not one that the Slavs could partake in).

However, the reasons for asserting this word as German are less than clear.  The Gothic word is posited to be bok or boka.  It has been stated that, in some cases, the German o, corresponds to the Slavic u (e.g., Donau <> Dunaj).  This is obviously true except that (A) it is true in some cases only, (B) this argument says absolutely nothing about the necessary direction of the borrowing (if there were any) in the general case nor in the specific case of buk.

Alternatively, it has been stated that the old German word was buohha, i.e., with a u and that the k (as in book) shows that the Slavic is a borrowing (the u is not a problem here because the Slavic and the AHDeutsch both feature a u – now the h vs k is the problem).  In this context, it is worth noting that, as per the Elbing dictionary, the old Prussian name for the tree was bucus or bukus.  Now the old Prussians lived within the Kaliningrad-Odessa line so the question would have to be asked whether these forest dwellers also learned the name buk (maybe some late borrowing?) or whether they learned from the Slavs who first learned it from the Germans… (BTW German authors actually make this claim for Lithuanian – but a bit harder to do so for Old Prussian).

Incidentally, the beech is also part of an argument made by Johannes Hoops that Indo-Europeans originated in Germany precisely because the beech does not grow east of the Kaliningrad-Odessa line and because they had their own word for it.  It is not clear if that would make Slavs live next to the Germans or simply not Indo Europeans (we suspect the latter).

3) The Germans lived in the “beech zone” throughout antiquity.

We can assume that this is true for some though, possibly, not all Germanics (e.g., Goths in the Ukraine).

4) Had they been able to, the Slavs would have (before they met the Germans) taken their time to distinguish and name these trees.

The German-Polish historian Brueckner, however, claimed that the Slavs have called the beech tree grab, i.e., the hornbeam.  That is they either did not differentiate between the two trees or transferred grab to the hornbeam from the beech.

5) The Slavs did not, for example, have their own names for these trees which they then only changed to the German names.

See above.

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Travelers from far off places, if they manage to have their travels recorded, are a real boon to historians.  Thousands of gallons of ink have been spilled and many an academic post obtained and maintained thanks to a fortuitous turn at a fork taken by a few strangers from a strange country or by a couple of sailors way out of their depth.  We tell now some of their stories as they relate (perhaps) to the story of the peoples discussed here.

Indian (?) Sailors in Gaul 

“…there is Cornelius Nepos, who is more dependable as an authority because he is modern.  Nepos… adduces Quintus Metellus Celer as witness of the fact, and records, that Metellus reported it as follows.  When Celer was proconsul of Gaul, certain Indians were presented to him as a gift by the king of the Boii.  By asking what route they had followed to reach there, Celer learned  that they had been snatched by storm from Indian waters, that they and traverse the intervening region, and that finally they had arrived on the shores of Germany.“

Venethi?

This is from Pomponius Mela‘s Description of the World Book 3, par 45 – section on Scythia (written about AD 43).  Mela was using this anecdote (as related by Nepos c110 BC – c25 BC originating from, ultimately, proconsul Celer c103 BC – c59 BC) to illustrate that beyond the Caspian Sea there was also the same Ocean as surrounded the rest of the world (since Indians came from that direction) and not some frozen land instead (“without a border and without end”).  Later some Slavicists used the same story to argue that these Indians were really Vindians or Venethi.  Others argued against that interpretation.  It seems to us that the story is more likely to refer to the Venethi than true Indians from India (although it’s more likely to refer to a number of peoples than to Indians).  On the other hand, Celer was consul in Cisalpine Gaul (Italy, really), not even Narbonensis (the province in the south of France) and that is presumably where he met the Celtic (?) Boii gift givers of humans (the Boii who gave their name to Bohemia were also at times located in Cisalpine Gaul) so where these gentle sailors got caught, where they came ashore, where they were from and, ultimately, who they were, is anyone’s guess.  Nonetheless, whatever the truth as to that matter, such a truth bears no light on the question of the identity of the Venethi as nothing more is said by Mela of these travelers, their customs, their language or anything else relating to them for at all that matter.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Pliny retells the same story but with Suevi as the gift givers of the “Indians”.  Does that mean that the Boii were Suevi? (like Bohemians are now Slavs?)

Slavic Hippies (?) in Constantinople

“Three men, Sclavenes by race, who were not wearing any iron or military equipment, were captured by the emperor’s [Heraclius’] bodyguards.  Lyres [or, perhaps, the Slavic gusle] were their baggage, and they were not carrying anything else at all; and so the emperor enquired what was their nation, where was their allotted abode, and the cause of their presence in the Roman [i.e., Byzantine] lands.  They replied that they were Sclavenes by nation and that they lived at the boundary of the western ocean, the kagan had dispatched ambassadors to their parts to levy a military force ad had lavished many gifts on their nation’s rulers; and so they accepted the gifts but refused him the alliance, asserting that the length of the journey daunted them, while they sent back to the kagan for the purpose of making a defence these same men who had been captured;  they had completed the journey in fifteen months; but the kagan had forgotten the law of ambassadors and had decreed a ban on their return; since they had heard that the Roman nation was much the most famous… for wealth and clemency, they had exploited the opportunity and retired to Thrace; they carried lyres [or gusle?] since it was not their practice to fire weapons ohm their bodies, because their country was ignorant of iron and thereby provided them with a peaceful and trouble free life; they made music on lyres because they did no know how to sound forth on trumpets.  Because for whoever finds war foreign, it is said that such a person should take up musical exercises.  Listening to this the sovereign, liked this nation, welcomed them warmly, and them alone among all the other barbarians who came into contact with him, admiring their height and the bountifulness of their members, he sent on to Heraclea.”

The story comes from Theophylact Simocatta‘s Histories (at 160).  A substantially similar tale is relayed also by Theophanes in his Chronographia (226) except that here the trip took place in 18 months, the Slavs never made it to the kagan but went straight to the Byzantines and the emperor admired their age/youth (?) (not their height) and their bodybuild (not their members). The story seems curious on a number of levels.

Slavic Hippie becomes temporarily agitated as he recounts his experience with Khan

For one, if the Slavs were not familiar with ironmaking, why bring them in as allies as the kagan intended apparently?  Further, whether the trip to the kagan was 15 or 18 months, it seems exceedingly long unless the Slavs were traveling  from Ireland or Siberia.  That any people, hippies, beatniks, peaceniks or whatever, would willingly travel to anyone styling himself a kagan (the etymology proposed being that of “khan of khans”) to tell him basically “Here we are to give you word from our leaders.  Ok, you ready?  Here it is: fuck off”, seems slightly doubtful (though stranger things have, on occasion, happened; on this at least Theophanes seems more convincing since in his telling the Slavs went straight to the Romans).

One thing is, of course, for sure: Byzantine emperor Heraclius (reigning in 610-640) was way flaming gay (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Rus Spies (?) in the Frankish Lands

“[Emperor Theophilius] sent with them some men who called themselves, that is the people to which they belonged, Rhos; according to them, their king, called kagan, sent them to [Theophilius] in friendship.  [Theophilius] asked in [his] letter that the emperor graciously give them permission and help to return to their country through his empire because the roads by which they had travelled to Constantinople fell into the hands of barbarian and exceedingly wild trines and would not wish to expose them to great danger.  Having diligently investigated the reasons for their arrival, the emperor [Louis the Pious] established that they belonged to the people of the Sueoni [Swedes].“

This little juicy tidbit comes from the Annals of Saint Bertin and describes a Byzantine embassy out of Constantinople to the Franks bringing with it these “Rhos”.  The Byzantine emperor is  Theophilus (ruling 829-842) and the Frankish emperor is Louis the Pious (in power 814-840) with the incident taking place in the year 839 at Ingelheim on Rhein (where Louis held court).

There was something about the leader of the Rus that made Louis the Pious suspicious

It seems, at least from today’s perspective (thus far), strange that such a long detour would have been advisable to return the Rhos back to the “kagan”.  Of course, much here is rivetingly strange.  First, again the kagan (see the story of the Slavenes above)?  What’s up with that guy?Why did the kagan send these tokens of his friendship to the Byzantine emperor?  Did they have any special talents?  Why did the emperor decide to send them back?  Why is the Rhos leader called a kagan?  Were the Rhos under the Khazars then?

The French/German emperor was also confused it seems.  Seeing as Germany was at the time being raided by Vikings, knowing that such Vikings were Swedes and suspecting these ones may well be spies, the Frankish emperor thought better of aiding these particular Rhos and decided to keep them around explaining to the Byzantine embassy that he would aid them should they turn out to be ok.

However, Louis the Pious died the next year at Ingelheim and the Frankish country fell into a civil war resulting in the creation of future France, Germany and an in-between land (disputed territory).  It is not clear, whether the poor (or not so poor) Swedes were able to make it back home or whether they perished of hunger in some dungeon once their jailer fell in the fighting.

So that’s for Part 1 of this mini-series.

Next up, Histories of the World Part 2, the long-awaited, much-demanded, Jews in Space!

Oh, wait, actually Jews in Spain but it’s almost as good!

But this blog is about Slavs!?  What gives?  Stay tuned!

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