Brief message about the Slavs. Slavic ancestors: who they are, where they lived, religion, writing and culture. The most difficult periods for the Slavs

We all know that the Slavs played an important role in the formation of the states of Eastern Europe. This group of related peoples, the largest on the continent, has similar languages ​​and similar customs. Its population is approximately three hundred million people.

Eastern Slavs in ancient times: settlement in Europe

Our ancestors were a branch of the Indo-European family of peoples, which dispersed throughout Eurasia during the Great Migration. The closest relatives of the Slavs are the Balts, who settled in the territories of modern Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Their neighbors were the Germans in the south and west, the Scythians and Sarmatians in the east. In ancient times, the Eastern Slavs traveled through Eastern and Central Europe, where, in the area between the Dnieper and Vistula rivers, they founded the first cities of Ukraine and Poland. Then they crossed the foothills of the Carpathians, settling along the banks of the Danube and on the Balkan Peninsula. The great territorial remoteness of the Proto-Slavs made adjustments to their language, customs and culture. Therefore, the group split into three branches: western, southern and eastern.

Eastern Slavs in ancient times

This branch of our forefathers occupied a vast territory. From Lakes Ladoga and Onega to the Black Sea region, from the Oka and Volga to the Carpathian Mountains, they plowed the land, conducted trade, and built temples. In total, historians name fifteen tribes of the Eastern Slavs. Next door to them, the Finno-Ugric tribes lived peacefully - our ancestors were not excessively belligerent, but preferred to support good relationship with everyone.

Activities of the Eastern Slavs

Our ancestors were farmers. They skillfully wielded a plow, a sickle, a hoe, and a plow with a ploughshare. The steppe inhabitants plowed expanses of virgin soil, first uprooted trees in the forest zone, and used the ash as fertilizer. Gifts of the earth were the basis of the Slavs' diet. Millet, rye, peas, wheat, barley, buckwheat, and oats were used for baking bread and cooking porridge. Industrial crops were also grown - flax and hemp, from whose fibers they spun threads and made fabrics. People treated domestic animals with special love, since each family raised cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, and poultry. Together with the Slavs, cats and dogs lived in their houses. Hunting, fishing, beekeeping, blacksmithing and pottery were developed at a very high level.

Religion of the Proto-Slavs

Before Christianity came to the Slavic lands, paganism reigned here. In ancient times, the Eastern Slavs worshiped a whole pantheon of gods who personified the forces of nature. Svarog, Svarozhich, Rod, Stribog, Dazhdbog, Veles, Perun had their own places of worship - temples where idols stood and sacrifices were made. The dead were burned on bonfires, and mounds were heaped over the ashes placed in a pot. Unfortunately, Eastern Slavs in ancient times they did not leave written evidence about themselves. The famous Veles book raises doubts among researchers about its authenticity. However, archaeologists have found a large number of household items, weapons, remains of clothing, jewelry, and religious things. They can tell about the life of our ancestors no less than chronicles and legends.

In the ancient Indian scripture "Rig Veda" it is written that the constellation of the "Seven Great Sages" (we know as the "Big Bear") is located at the top - directly overhead. The only place where this constellation can be overhead is in the far north, beyond the Arctic Circle, right at the site of the flooded continent of Hyperborea. This fact proves that the Vedas and the entire Vedic culture are the heritage of a highly developed ancient civilization, whose representatives were the ancestors of the ancient Slavs.

In the works of Titian and Hecataeus of Miletus there is mention of an ancient, highly developed civilization. “In the north, lived the people “Hyperboreans”, who did not eat meat at all, and therefore they were given the nickname “pure people”. They were very strong and lived to a ripe old age.”

About 12 - 13 thousand years ago, due to a catastrophe on a planetary scale, a sharp climate change occurred on Earth.

This fact was unexpectedly confirmed by American researchers. According to their research, one of the last major extinctions of the animal world was approximately 13 thousand years ago. Then the planet forever lost mammoths, large bison and giant sloths. One of the reasons is cooling and subsequent glaciation, which is known from the analysis of Greenland ice cores. In 2007, American researchers hypothesized that glaciation was the result of an asteroid or comet falling to Earth. Twelve years later, American scientists confirmed this by studying the concentration of platinum in several places on the planet. The fact is that this metal is contained in large quantities in meteorites: if there is a lot of it in the rock, this may indicate a cosmic impact.

Experts have discovered layers with high platinum content in South Africa, Greenland, Western Asia, South and North America and Europe. They all date from the same period - 12,680 thousand years ago.
The ancient Slavic writings say that after a sharp cold snap occurred, the tribes of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs ( Proto-Slavs- moved south to the place modern India. And later, further settlement of peoples from there went towards modern Eastern Europe. Genetic scientists, in confirmation of this, discovered genes in people living in the Urals that are found in both Indians and people living in Western Europe.

An international group of scientists from 19 countries, including geneticists, anthropologists and archaeologists, conducted a large-scale study of the DNA of ancient people, the results of which were presented in the scientific journal Science.

Having analyzed the genome of 524 ancient people, scientists received confirmation of the hypothesis of migration of people who spoke Indo-European languages ​​to India from the steppe regions of Eurasia. Among the people inhabiting the territory of India several thousand years ago, speakers of Indo-European languages ​​were found.

The study says that the discovery of ancient Aryans in northern India in the second half of the second millennium B.C. talks about the migration of ancient people from steppe Eurasia (including Siberia).

The natives of their Siberian territories among the Indians became the elite of society. It turned out that Brahmins (representatives of the highest caste) have a larger share of genes of Siberian settlers than in other groups of the population.

It is currently unknown what caused this migration. Independent researchers have two versions. One version is a sharp cooling, and the other is flooding of the northern territories. There is a hypothesis that there was once a continent on the territory of the Arctic Ocean, but it sank, and the population was forced to leave these places, moving in a southerly direction.

According to other historians, the settlers had well-developed astrology, alchemy, and theurgy, so it is quite logical that these people became brahmans (priests) in India. They also served as spiritual guides in families upper castes. If we take this information into account, then the statement of an international group of scientists about the migration of Aryans to Indian territory may well be justified.

The fact that the history of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs is directly connected with this ancient (Hyperborean) civilization is also evidenced by the fact that the ancient language Sanskrit, in which the VEDAS were written, has a clear similarity with the Slavic languages. Moreover, the greatest similarity is found with the Old Russian language. This also confirms that the settlement of the Hyperborean people passed through the territory of modern Russia. This also confirms that the ancient Aryans were the ancient ancestors of the Slavs.

Let's give just a few comparisons.

Brother (Russian) – bratri (Sanskrit); alive - jiva; door - dvara; mother – matri; winter - Hima; snow – sneha; swim - swim; darkness – tama; father-in-law – svakar; uncle - dada; fool - fool; honey – madhu; bear – madhuveda; pleasant - accepted; shastra, astra (Sanskrit) – sharp, weapon (Russian).

smayanti – smile – smile (English); matta (Sanskrit) – maddened – mad (English)

You can find many similarities between Sanskrit and Slavic languages. There are hundreds of such comparisons. Several hundred other words that are similar to the Sanskrit language can be viewed by following the link: (will open in a new tab (“window”)).

According to, the progenitor of all humanity is Manu. On English person – “Man”. Could this be just a coincidence?

Origin story ancestors of the ancient Slavs is directly related to history ancient india. In ancient Rus' and India, the source of time calculation was also similar. The New Year began in the spring. Even modern names months reflect this calculation. For example, September comes from the Sanskrit “sapta” - seven. Similarly: October, November, December, respectively: eight, nine, ten. The fact that the names of the months in European languages ​​occur according to the numbering of the Vedic time calculus proves that the basis of European languages ​​was the Vedic civilization, originating from the history of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs - our ancestors.

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES THAT TALK ABOUT HISTORY VEDIC CIVILIZATION FROM WHICH COMES THE ORIGIN OF THE HISTORY OF THE SLAVS.

There are many place names originating from Sanskrit.

Varna (city in Bulgaria); Kama; Kryshneva; Khareva; Soma; Kalka; Moksha; Nara - rivers in Russia; Arya is a city in the Nizhny Novgorod and Yekaterinburg regions. Chita, the exact translation from Sanskrit is “to comprehend, understand, know.” Kharino is the name of several settlements at once. In Sanskrit, “Hari” is one of the names of the Almighty. Kalita - proud in the Kyiv region - “devoted” (Sanskrit). “Azova” – “the one who squeezes the juice of catfish” (Sanskrit). The name of the country Britannia comes from “brita” - “servant” and “bhrtha” - “donation”. Those. they were in the past devoted servants of the Vedic Gods, making donations. Yaksha, Ravan, Ganaly, Siva, Khara, Suhara, Vele and many other names of settlements and rivers are directly related to words from ancient Sanskrit.

The Bible also says that previously all people spoke the same language.

“On the whole Earth there was one language and one dialect. Moving from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.” (“Old Testament”, Genesis 11: 1-2)

The UN confirms that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages. The influence of this language has directly or indirectly spread to almost all languages ​​of the planet (according to experts, it is about 97%). If you speak Sanskrit, you can easily learn any language in the world. NASA has declared Sanskrit to be the planet's "only unambiguous spoken language" suitable for running computers. The same idea was expressed back in July 1987 by Forbes magazine: “Sanskrit is the language most suitable for computers.” Sanskrit is the only language in the world that has existed for millions of years.

Proto-Slavs - the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, spoke a language (Sanskrit) that became the original language for most of the world's languages ​​and dialects! (You can read more about Sanskrit by following the link given at the end of this article).

In the sacred Vedic scripture "Srimad - Bhagavatam" information about the structure of our universe is presented in detail. It is described where the planets of “hell” are located, where the planets of the “paradise” (highly developed) civilization are located. A description of the plants, environment and features of life on these planetary systems is given. (More details about this information are presented in the site article: - the page opens in a new - additional “WINDOW”).

The information that Western Europe was NOT historically the center of ancient culture obviously does not suit everyone. Until recently, on satellite maps, one could see that at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean there were clearly man-made structures. These are the rows of many pyramids built in in the right order, large areas with the correct geometric shape, and aligned at the same height, and perfectly straight roads. All these structures confirmed the presence of a highly developed civilization in this place. But for some time now, these structures, “mysteriously,” have ceased to be visible. A clear fact of correction, “blurring” of these ancient structures on the map was noticed. But some users recorded pictures from 2009 in advance. All this can be seen in this video:

VIDEO: Map of the seabed (later corrected by Google).

Unique, preserved satellite images of the seabed, which have been retouched on all publicly available maps (Google maps, Yandex maps, etc.).

Accounts with such videos are periodically deleted (You-Tube belongs to the same Google). But people have recorded videos and are opening new accounts to show us all the truth that is so heavily hidden by people who can influence Google Maps images.

Modern history suits many, and not everyone is ready to revise established opinions about the supposed “centers” of civilization.

The history of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs (Proto-Slavs) and the history of the ancient Hindus are much more connected than we imagined. Hindus, who still follow the rules of Vedic culture, also believe that the ancient Aryans were their ancestors, as well as the ancestors of the ancient Slavs. Many may be surprised, but the religion of the ancient Slavs and the religion of the Hindus are distinguished only by the peculiarities of the language, the differences in which began to appear only over time.

ABOUTSHOPVEDIC CULTURE, RELIGION AND HISTORY ANCIENT SLAVS AND ANCIENT HINDUS.

Here, for example Old Russian names Gods: Vyshny (Vyshen), Kryshen, Ramha, Svarog, Siva, Indra, Mara, Rada, Surya.

But the Indian names of the Gods: Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, Brahma (Ishvarog), Shiva, Indra, Mara, Rada, Surya.

Krishna (Kryshen), Vishnu (the Most High, later the Most High) and Rama (Ramha) are the Names of the Most High, the rest are the names of powerful highly developed beings (demigods) of our Universe, who have material bodies, but are more perfect. These highly developed creatures have much greater abilities than ordinary people.

The presence of a large number of Gods does not mean that the Aryans, the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, cultivated polytheism, or “paganism” in Vedic culture. The Almighty, that is, the source of all energies, of everything that exists, was recognized one Supreme Personality of Godhead.

IN "Vishnu Purana" (1.9.69) said:

yo 'yam tawagato maiden

sampapam devata-ganah

sa tvam eva jagat-srashta

yatah sarva-gato bhavan

“Whoever appears before You, even if he is a demigod, is created by You, O Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

The Almighty has many Names, and each Name is associated with certain actions, qualities, and incarnations in material bodies, with a specific purpose. These Names are: Krishna (Kryshen), Vishnu (the Most High), Rama, etc. Therefore, the Vedic religion, as well as Christianity and Islam, is monotheistic, that is, recognizing one Supreme Personality of God. Information about other highly developed beings of the Universe who have unique abilities speaks of high development knowledge that people who lived in the Vedic civilization had. The history of the Aryans (Aryans) as the ancestors of the Slavs and ancient Hindus was united by one thing - Vedic culture and civilization.

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Highly developed beings (demigods) are highly developed beings who have material bodies. They perform certain functions in the Universe. Any community of living beings, starting with insects (ants, bees), has a division of this community according to functional characteristics. And what more complex system habitat, the more necessary and complex the management structure. The Universe is the most complex system in its structure; it cannot be the only exception of its kind in the hierarchy of control. The complete picture of the structure of the Universe, starting from its creation, is presented in the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

In the “Book of Veles” - an ancient Russian source, in accordance with Vedic wisdom, the idea is given that the human soul, after a righteous life, is reborn in a material body on the heavenly planets (planets of highly developed civilizations), called “Svarga”. In the ancient Indian sources “Svargaloka” these are also heavenly, highly developed planetary systems.

In the history of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, one can find stories that the Supreme Divine Personality was incarnated on Earth in human form “Kryshnya” (Krishna) , in order to restore lost Vedic knowledge and give it to the wise men. Exactly the same story set forth in the sacred scriptures of India: "Bhagavad-Gita" and "Srimad-Bhagavatam", about the incarnation "Krishna" described at the same time - about five thousand years ago. These sacred scriptures coincide so much with the writings of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs that there is no doubt that the history of India and the Slavs has the same source of Vedic civilization.

IN from an example excerpt from “Holy Russian Vedas. Book of Kolyada” author Asov A.I.

“And they sent with sad news not a sorcerer with a gray beard, but a young man, a boy without a mustache? And then the young man threw his staff and stuck it into the rock. Veles approached the staff, he took it with one hand, but the staff did not give up to him. He took the staff with both hands, but it did not move from its place. And God Veles strained all his strength and suddenly realized that together with the axis he was trying to raise the World...

Who are you? Veles then exclaimed.

I'm your son! I'm your parent!

I am the giver and the begotten.

I am the Son who begat the Father!

I was before, I will be after!

I am you, I am behind you!

What is your name?

I'm Kryshen! I was (was) Ramna! How Ramna are you!”

It tells about the incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in human form - “Kryshen” (All-covering). According to ancient Indian scriptures, the Supreme Personality of Godhead incarnated in human form under the name Krishna about 5 thousand years ago. His life, described in the Vedic scriptures, took place in India (in Vrindavan and other cities). “Ramna” (Slavic) or "Frame" (Indian), this is the previous incarnation of the Almighty in human form, with the name of Rama (about 2 million years ago). This also happened in the center of Vedic civilization, namely in South India.

Also: the ancient Bulgar-Primaks also have a scripture that describes the life of Kryshny (Krishna).

Imagine how bright these incarnations of the Almighty were, that peoples separated by thousands of kilometers from each other spoke about them for several thousand years!!

The incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in the form of Krishna is described in the Vedic scripture Srimad-Bhagavatam. But first, in order to understand the essence of the described actions, you need to familiarize yourself with (the page opens in a new “WINDOW”). In this scripture “BHAGAVAD-GITA (“Song of God”) you can learn about all the ways to achieve spiritual perfection. It also tells about the law according to which the eternal soul is forced to move again and again into a new physical body after the death of the old body.

TIBETAN SCRIPTURES ABOUT JESUS ​​CHRIST!

The apocrypha “Tibetan Gospel” tells about the journey of Jesus Christ from the ages of 14 to 29 years to India and Tibet. Here are some excerpts from this apocrypha:

1. At the age of fourteen, young Issa, blessed by God, crossed over to

the other bank of the Indus and settled with the Aryans, in a country blessed by God.

1. The fame of the miraculous youth spread into the depths of the northern Indus;

when he traveled through the country of Punjab and Rajputana, the worshipers of the god Jaina asked him to settle with them. (Jainism is a branch of religion in Hinduism in which there is no concept of the personality of the Almighty (site comment).

1. But he left the misguided worshipers of Jaina and stopped at Jaggerna, in the country of Orsis, where the mortal remains of Viassa-Krishna rest, and there the white priests of Brahma arranged for him

warm welcome. (Vyassa is the incarnation of the Almighty - Krishna, who wrote the Vedas and composed most of the Puranas, Vedanta Sutra, Mahabharata, Srimad-Bhagavatam. Note from the site administrator).

1. They taught him to read and understand the Vedas, to heal with prayers, to teach and explain the Holy Scriptures to the people, to expel an evil spirit from a person’s body and return him to a human image.
2. He spent six years in Juggernath, Rajagriha, Benares and other holy cities;

everyone loved him, since Issa lived in peace with the Vaisyas (merchant class) and Sudras (hired workers), whom he taught the Holy Scriptures.

Read the full text in the “Apocrypha” section .

From the above (points 3.4), where Jesus Christ himself learned to read and understand the Vedas, it follows that the information contained in the Vedas is authoritative and worthy of study for Jesus Christ himself.

In countless small villages, up until the sixteenth century, the majority of the inhabitants directly worshiped Kryshna (Kryshna. Krishto, Kristo). Yes, plus the Sanskrit word “kr’sshti” is translated as “sages, sedentary people, farmers.” This is why the villagers retained the nickname “Kristians”, “Christians”, which over time turned into “peasants”. And not at all from the enslavement of rural residents by the abolition of St. George’s Day.

Yu. Mirolyubov in his monograph “Sacred Rus'” wrote that at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the village of the Rostov region where he lived, people greeted each other with these words: “Glory to the Most High! Glory to the Roof!”

In Belarus and Ukraine the following surnames are still preserved: Kryshen, Krishnev, Krishtapovich, Kristopovich.

Among the Zaporozhye Cossacks, until recently, they shaved their heads, leaving a strand of hair on the very top of the head, just like in India, the clergy of the temples of Krishna and Vishnu.

Forelocks of the Zaporozhye Cossacks:

“Sikhi” of Vaishnavas - devotees of Vishnu (the Supreme)

This is what V.N. Tatishchev writes. "Russian History". Part I. Chapter 25. About the Bulgarians and the Khvalis, who among the ancients were Argypeans and Issedons.”

“...actually, the Volga Bulgarians (“Bulgars”) had from ancient times the law of the Brahmans, brought from India through the merchants, just as it was in Persia before the adoption of Mahometanism. And the remaining Bulgarian peoples, the Chuvash, are satisfied with the origin of the soul from one animal to another.”

The Slavic-Aryan Vedas say that the Vedas were given Slavic Gods Hindu Brahmins. The Indian Vedas say that they were received from the bright Rishis (white Gods) who came from the North. Thus, the primary source of Vedic Culture is one.

All this is numerous evidence that the ancient Aryans were the ancestors of the Slavs and Hindus.

In the writings about origin stories ancestors of the ancient Slavs, as well as in the Indian shastras (Holy Scriptures), aircraft were described ( vimanas ). In India, detailed drawings of four types of aircraft were found, with a description of the principle of manufacturing fuel for them. In the history of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, as well as in the ancient Indian Scriptures, there are references to inhabitants of other planets who flew to Earth and came into contact with them. All this speaks of the high development of a civilized society in which the ancestors of the ancient Slavs (Proto-Slavs) and the ancestors of the modern peoples of India lived.

But why don’t representatives of other highly developed civilizations come into contact with us? Imagine that you have two options to spend your time. The first option is to fly to a country with a highly developed culture, science, and clean ecology. And the second option is to go to where the inhabitants dress in animal skins, kill each other, have weapons, and can even shoot down your plane. Where would you rather go? The thing is that the second option is our earthly modern “civilization”. Haven't we stopped killing animals just to wear their skins? But the Aryans, the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, did not kill animals even to eat their corpses!

Everything that is happening on the planet now fully reflects the level of “development” modern society, or rather, its degradation, in comparison with the society of the ancient Vedic civilization - the ancestors of the ancient Slavs. Surge of technological development last decades, only increased the number of victims of military conflicts. The fact that the ancient Vedic civilization was visited by inhabitants from other planets suggests that the society of that time had not only a high scientific development, but also was at a high spiritual level of knowledge. In particular, the Hyperboreans (Aryans (Aryans), Kharians, Rasens and Svyatorus) , did not eat meat, which is a sign of a highly developed civilization.

Unlike Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, or Ancient Greece, there has never been slavery on the territory of our country. For the Vedic Laws of Manu (from this word comes the English “ MAN” – person) – prohibit slavery. There was also no over-centralized imperial administration. For all the peoples and tribes of the Empire, regardless of their traditions and specific cultural and ethnic differences, lived according to the Laws of the Vedas.

The history of the origin of the ancestors of the ancient Slavs is not just historical events of the distant past. The Aryans, as the ancestors of the ancient Slavs, had their own philosophy, which was not equal to either the Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, or Ancient Roman civilizations. They had a religion based not on fanaticism or sentimentalism, but on perfect knowledge about the antimaterial (spiritual) world, and about other highly developed material civilizations. Both in the ancient Slavic and Indian Vedas, there is evidence of communication with representatives of other worlds.

Modern scientists have only recently begun to put forward a version of the existence of other dimensions. The fact that our ancestors had an idea of ​​different worlds, with different numbers of dimensions, can be judged from the information recorded in the Slavic-Aryan Vedas:

“...The worlds located along the Golden Path are those mentioned in the Ancient Vedas. If the World of People is four-dimensional, then the Worlds located along the Golden Path have the following number of dimensions: the World of Legs 16, the World of Arlegs 256, etc.

There are also intermediate Worlds: five, seven, nine, twelve and smaller in number of dimensions.” (Slavic-Aryan Vedas; Book of Light; Charter Four).

In the ancient Indian scripture "Srimad-Bhagavatam", a description is given that knowledgeable brahmins, having isolated a gene from the mummy of a deceased king, were able to give birth to his descendant. This suggests that in ancient times, people already had knowledge of genetic engineering.

Vedic culture contains extensive knowledge about the nature of life and vital energy. A person seriously engaged in the practice of yoga may demonstrate abilities that he cannot explain. modern science. For example, this is the ability to levitate - reducing body weight to the ability to “hover” above the ground. Many yogis can stop the breathing process for a long time. During meditation, they can make their body invisible for a while, leave the material body at will, and much more.

Vedic culture in its literature has left us extensive knowledge of the ancient Vedic civilization Ariev – ancestors of both the ancient Slavs and Hindus and their history. An inquisitive person, striving for perfect knowledge, should not miss the opportunity presented to him, to possess this knowledge, with which no other knowledge can still be compared in its perfection.

And here are some of Vanga’s prophecies: “Old Russia will return... Everyone recognizes its spiritual superiority... Before that, the three countries will come closer - India, Russia and China.”

“The earth is entering a new period of time, which can be called the time of virtues... The future belongs to good people, they will live in a wonderful world that is now difficult for us to imagine... All the hidden gold* will come to the surface, but the water will be hidden. It's predetermined.

The most ancient teaching will return to the world. There is an ancient Indian teaching. It will spread throughout the world. New books will be published about him, and they will be read everywhere on Earth.”

Since the 70s of the 20th century, the Vedic ancient Indian teaching - “Vaishnavism” (from the word “Vishnu” - the Most High) began to spread throughout the world. Everything is as Vanga predicted. People who study the principles of this ancient teaching are better known among us as “Hare Krishnas.” And indeed, thanks to the great guru - spiritual Teacher (Srila Prabhupada), who began to spread this ancient Vedic teaching in Western countries, we have the opportunity to read the main books that reflect the essence of all Vedic wisdom. The very first book that is recommended to be read is the complete answer to the question: “HOW to be happy in family life.”

You can become familiar with all the main types of spiritual development and subsequent achievement of spiritual perfection by reading one of the most ancient sacred scriptures, which contains the whole essence of Vedic wisdom - "Bhagavad Gita", published on our website.

“BHAGAVAD-GITA as it is” - book. which over five thousand years has changed the minds and lives of millions of people, read on our website.

A story about the life of the ancient Slavs will help you learn basic information about these peoples. The life and everyday life of the ancient Slavs will briefly help you compile a report.

“Life of the Ancient Slavs” report

The Slavs are the ancient indigenous people of Eastern Europe. It is one of the largest groups of ancient Indo-European culture. By archaeological excavations the ancient Slavs became known at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Famous historians of the 6th century divided the population into three groups - Antes (eastern), Wends (western) and Sklavens (southern). They settled from the Elbe and Vistula rivers to the Dnieper region and from the Carpathians and the Black Sea region to the Baltic states.

The main occupation of the Slavs was agriculture. It shaped the way of life, culture, way of life, and faith. The population believed in the higher powers of nature. Harvest, livestock, welfare - all this depended on the gods. Supreme deity The Slavs considered Dazhbog the patron saint of the sun. Also among the famous gods were Svarog and Kolyada - patrons of the sky, Yarilo - the god of spring, Lada - the goddess of happiness and others. Subsequently, such a faith would be called paganism.

The Slavs considered nature to be alive and life-giving. They believed that the forest was the home of goblin, and that mermaids lived in the water. Grandfather Domovoy was for the tribe the personification of the spirit of their ancestors. After all, the Slavs revered and protected their traditions.

The Slavs are Europe's largest ethnic group, but what do we really know about them? Historians still argue about who they came from, where their homeland was located, and where the self-name “Slavs” came from.

Origin of the Slavs

There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Slavs. Someone attributes them to the Scythians and Sarmatians, who came from Central Asia, some to the Aryans, Germans, others even identify them with the Celts. All hypotheses of the origin of the Slavs can be divided into two main categories, directly opposite to each other. One of them, the well-known “Norman” one, was put forward in the 18th century by German scientists Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, although such ideas first appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The bottom line was this: the Slavs are an Indo-European people who were once part of the “German-Slavic” community, but broke away from the Germans during the Great Migration. Finding themselves on the periphery of Europe and cut off from the continuity of Roman civilization, they were very behind in development, so much so that they could not create their own state and invited the Varangians, that is, the Vikings, to rule them.

This theory is based on the historiographical tradition of “The Tale of Bygone Years” and the famous phrase: “Our land is great, rich, but there is no side in it. Come reign and rule over us." Such a categorical interpretation, which was based on obvious ideological background, could not but arouse criticism. Today, archeology confirms the presence of strong intercultural ties between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but it hardly suggests that the former played a decisive role in the formation ancient Russian state. But disputes about the “Norman” origin of the Slavs and Kievan Rus do not subside to this day.

The second theory of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, on the contrary, is patriotic in nature. And, by the way, it is much older than the Norman one - one of its founders was the Croatian historian Mavro Orbini, who wrote a work called “The Slavic Kingdom” at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. His point of view was very extraordinary: among the Slavs he included the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gepids, Getae, Alans, Verls, Avars, Dacians, Swedes, Normans, Finns, Ukrainians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Thracians and Illyrians and many others: “They were all of the same Slavic tribe, as will be seen later.”

Their exodus from the historical homeland of Orbini dates back to 1460 BC. Where did they not have time to visit after that: “The Slavs fought with almost all the tribes of the world, attacked Persia, ruled Asia and Africa, fought with the Egyptians and Alexander the Great, conquered Greece, Macedonia and Illyria, occupied Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland and the coasts of the Baltic Sea "

He was echoed by many court scribes who created the theory of the origin of the Slavs from the ancient Romans, and Rurik from the Emperor Octavian Augustus. In the 18th century, the Russian historian Tatishchev published the so-called “Joachim Chronicle,” which, as opposed to the “Tale of Bygone Years,” identified the Slavs with the ancient Greeks.

Both of these theories (although there are echoes of truth in each of them) represent two extremes, which are characterized by a free interpretation historical facts and archaeological information. They were criticized by such “giants” of Russian history as B. Grekov, B. Rybakov, V. Yanin, A. Artsikhovsky, arguing that a historian should in his research rely not on his preferences, but on facts. However, the historical texture of the “ethnogenesis of the Slavs”, to this day, is so incomplete that it leaves many options for speculation, without the ability to finally answer the main question: “who are these Slavs after all?”

Age of the people

The next pressing problem for historians is the age of the Slavic ethnic group. When did the Slavs finally emerge as a single people from the pan-European ethnic “mess”? The first attempt to answer this question belongs to the author of “The Tale of Bygone Years” - monk Nestor. Taking the biblical tradition as a basis, he began the history of the Slavs with the Babylonian pandemonium, which divided humanity into 72 nations: “From these 70 and 2 languages ​​the Slovenian language was born...”. The above-mentioned Mavro Orbini generously gave the Slavic tribes a couple of extra thousand years of history, dating their exodus from their historical homeland to 1496: “At the indicated time, the Goths and Slavs left Scandinavia ... since the Slavs and Goths were of the same tribe. So, having subjugated Sarmatia, the Slavic tribe was divided into several tribes and received different names: Wends, Slavs, Ants, Verls, Alans, Massetians... Vandals, Goths, Avars, Roskolans, Russians or Muscovites, Poles, Czechs, Silesians, Bulgarians ...In short, the Slavic language is heard from the Caspian Sea to Saxony, from the Adriatic Sea to the German Sea, and within all these limits lies the Slavic tribe.”

Of course, such “information” was not enough for historians. Archeology, genetics and linguistics were used to study the “age” of the Slavs. As a result, we managed to achieve modest, but still results. According to the accepted version, the Slavs belonged to the Indo-European community, which most likely emerged from the Dnieper-Donets archaeological culture, in the area between the Dnieper and Don rivers, seven thousand years ago during the Stone Age. Subsequently, the influence of this culture spread to the territory from the Vistula to the Urals, although no one has yet been able to accurately localize it. In general, when speaking about the Indo-European community, we do not mean a single ethnic group or civilization, but the influence of cultures and linguistic similarity. About four thousand years BC, it broke up into conventional three groups: the Celts and Romans in the West, the Indo-Iranians in the East, and somewhere in the middle, in Central and Eastern Europe, another language group emerged, from which the Germans later emerged, Balts and Slavs. Of these, around the 1st millennium BC, the Slavic language begins to stand out.

But information from linguistics alone is not enough - to determine the unity of an ethnic group there must be an uninterrupted continuity of archaeological cultures. The bottom link in the archaeological chain of the Slavs is considered to be the so-called “culture of podklosh burials”, which received its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel, in Polish “klesh”, that is, “upside down”. It existed in the V-II centuries BC between the Vistula and the Dnieper. In a sense, we can say that its bearers were the earliest Slavs. It is from this that it is possible to identify the continuity of cultural elements right up to the Slavic antiquities of the early Middle Ages.

Proto-Slavic homeland

Where, after all, was the Slavic ethnic group born, and what territory can be called “originally Slavic”? Historians' accounts vary. Orbini, citing a number of authors, claims that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia: “Almost all the authors, whose blessed pen conveyed to their descendants the history of the Slavic tribe, claim and conclude that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia... The descendants of Japheth the son of Noah (to which the author includes the Slavs ) moved north to Europe, penetrating into the country now called Scandinavia. There they multiplied innumerably, as St. Augustine points out in his “City of God,” where he writes that the sons and descendants of Japheth had two hundred homelands and occupied lands located north of Mount Taurus in Cilicia, along the Northern Ocean, half of Asia, and throughout Europe all the way to the British Ocean."

Nestor called ancient territory Slavs - lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Pannonia. The reason for the resettlement of the Slavs from the Danube was the attack on them by the Volokhs. “After many times, the essence of Slovenia settled along the Dunaevi, where there is now Ugorsk and Bolgarsk land.” Hence the Danube-Balkan hypothesis of the origin of the Slavs.

The European homeland of the Slavs also had its supporters. Thus, the prominent Czech historian Pavel Safarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe in the neighborhood of related tribes of Celts, Germans, Balts and Thracians. He believed that in ancient times the Slavs occupied vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, from where they were forced to leave beyond the Carpathians under the pressure of Celtic expansion.

There was even a version about two ancestral homelands of the Slavs, according to which the first ancestral home was the place where the Proto-Slavic language developed (between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina) and where the Slavic people themselves were formed (according to the authors of the hypothesis, this happened starting from the 2nd century BC era) - the Vistula River basin. Western and Eastern Slavs had already left from there. The first populated the area of ​​the Elbe River, then the Balkans and the Danube, and the second - the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester.

The Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis about the ancestral home of the Slavs, although it remains a hypothesis, is still the most popular among historians. It is conditionally confirmed by local toponyms, as well as vocabulary. If you believe the “words”, that is, the lexical material, the ancestral home of the Slavs was located away from the sea, in a forested flat zone with swamps and lakes, as well as within the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, judging by the common Slavic names of fish - salmon and eel. By the way, the areas of the Podklosh burial culture already known to us fully correspond to these geographical characteristics.

"Slavs"

The word “Slavs” itself is a mystery. It firmly came into use already in the 6th century AD; at least, Byzantine historians of this time often mentioned the Slavs - not always friendly neighbors of Byzantium. Among the Slavs themselves, this term was already widely used as a self-name in the Middle Ages, at least judging by the chronicles, including the Tale of Bygone Years.

However, its origin is still unknown. The most popular version is that it comes from the words “word” or “glory,” which go back to the same Indo-European root ḱleu̯- “to hear.” By the way, Mavro Orbini also wrote about this, albeit in his characteristic “arrangement”: “during their residence in Sarmatia, they (the Slavs) took the name “Slavs”, which means “glorious”.

There is a version among linguists that the Slavs owe their self-name to the names of the landscape. Presumably, it was based on the toponym “Slovutich” - another name for the Dnieper, containing a root with the meaning “to wash”, “to cleanse”.

At one time, a lot of noise was caused by the version about the existence of a connection between the self-name “Slavs” and the Middle Greek word for “slave” (σκλάβος). It was very popular among Western scientists of the 18th-19th centuries. It is based on the idea that the Slavs, as one of the most numerous peoples in Europe, made up a significant percentage of captives and often became objects of the slave trade. Today this hypothesis is recognized as erroneous, since most likely the basis of “σκλάβος” was a Greek verb with the meaning “to obtain spoils of war” - “σκυλάο”.

Origin of the Slavs

Until the end of the 18th century, science could not give a satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs, although it already attracted the attention of scientists. This is evidenced by the first attempts dating back to that time to give an outline of the history of the Slavs, in which this question was raised. All statements connecting the Slavs with such ancient peoples as the Sarmatians, Getae, Alans, Illyrians, Thracians, Vandals, etc., statements appearing in various chronicles from the beginning of the 16th century, are based only on an arbitrary, tendentious interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and church literature or on the simple continuity of peoples who once inhabited the same territory as the modern Slavs, or, finally, on the purely external similarity of some ethnic names.

This was the case before early XIX century. Only a few historians were able to rise above the level of science of that time, in which the solution to the question of the origin of the Slavs could not be scientifically substantiated and had no prospects. The situation changed for the better only in the first half of the 19th century under the influence of two new scientific disciplines: comparative linguistics and anthropology; both of them introduced new positive facts.

History itself is silent. There is not a single historical fact, not a single reliable tradition, not even a mythological genealogy that would help us answer the question of the origin of the Slavs. The Slavs appear on the historical arena unexpectedly as a great and already formed people; we don't even know where he came from or what his relations were with other peoples. Only one piece of evidence brings apparent clarity to the question that interests us: this is a well-known passage from the chronicle attributed to Nestor and preserved to this day in the form in which it was written in Kyiv in the 12th century; this passage can be considered a kind of “birth certificate” of the Slavs.

The first part of the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years” began to be created at least a century earlier. At the beginning of the chronicle there is a fairly detailed legendary story about the settlement of peoples who once tried to build tower of babel in the land of Shinar. This information is borrowed from Byzantine chronicles of the 6th–9th centuries (the so-called “Easter” chronicle and the chronicle of Malala and Amartol); however, in the corresponding places of the named chronicles there is not a single mention of the Slavs. This gap obviously offended the Slavic chronicler, the venerable monk of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. He wanted to make up for it by placing his people among those peoples who, according to tradition, lived in Europe; therefore, by way of clarification, he attached the name “Slavs” to the name of the Illyrians - Illyro-Slavs. With this addition, he included the Slavs in history, without even changing the traditional number of 72 peoples. It was here that the Illyrians were first called a people related to the Slavs, and from this time on this point of view was dominant in the study of the history of the Slavs for a long time. The Slavs came from Shinar to Europe and settled first on the Balkan Peninsula. There we must look for their cradle, their European ancestral home, in the lands of the Illyrians, Thracians, in Pannonia, on the banks of the Danube. From here individual Slavic tribes later emerged, when their original unity disintegrated, to occupy their historical lands between the Danube, the Baltic Sea and the Dnieper.

This theory was first accepted by all Slavic historiography, and in particular by the old Polish school (Kadlubek, Bohuchwal, Mierzwa, Chronica Polonorum, Chronica principum Poloniae, Dlugosh, etc.) and Czech (Dalimil, Jan Marignola, Przybik Pulkawa, Hajek of Libočan , B. Paprocki); Later it acquired new speculations.

Then a new theory appeared. We don't know where exactly it originated. It should be assumed that it arose outside the mentioned schools, because for the first time we encounter this theory in the Bavarian chronicle of the 13th century and later among German and Italian scientists (Flav. Blondus, A. Coccius Sabellicus, F. Irenicus, B. Rhenanus, A. Krantz etc.). From them this theory was adopted by the Slavic historians B. Vapovsky, M. Kromer, S. Dubravius, T. Peshina from Chekhorod, J. Bekovsky, J. Matthias from the Sudetenland and many others. According to the second theory, the Slavs allegedly moved north along the Black Sea coast and initially settled in Southern Russia, where history first knew the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians, and later the Alans, Roxolans, etc. This is where the idea of ​​the kinship of these tribes with the Slavs arose , as well as the idea of ​​the Balkan Sarmatians as the ancestors of all Slavs. Moving further west, the Slavs allegedly split into two main branches: the South Slavs (south of the Carpathians) and the Northern Slavs (north of the Carpathians).

So, together with the theory of the initial division of the Slavs into two branches, the Balkan and Sarmatian theories appeared; both of them had their enthusiastic followers, both of them lasted until the present day. Even now, books often appear in which the ancient history of the Slavs is based on identifying them with the Sarmatians or with the Thracians, Dacians and Illyrians. Nevertheless, already at the end of the 18th century, some scientists realized that such theories, based only on the supposed analogy of various peoples with the Slavs, have no value. The Czech Slavist J. Dobrovsky wrote to his friend Kopitar in 1810: “Such research pleases me. Only I come to a completely different conclusion. All this proves to me that the Slavs are not Dacians, Getae, Thracians, Illyrians, Pannonians... The Slavs are Slavs, and the Lithuanians are closest to them. So, they need to be looked for among the latter on the Dnieper or beyond the Dnieper.”

Some historians held the same views even before Dobrovsky. After him, Safarik in his “Slavic Antiquities” refuted the views of all previous researchers. If in his early writings he was greatly influenced by the old theories, then in Antiquities, published in 1837, he rejected, with some exceptions, these hypotheses as erroneous. Safarik based his book on a thorough analysis of historical facts. Therefore, his work will forever remain the main and indispensable guide to this issue, despite the fact that the problem of the origin of the Slavs is not resolved in it - such a task exceeded the capabilities of the most rigorous historical analysis of that time.

Other scientists turned to the new science of comparative linguistics in order to find an answer that history could not give them. The mutual kinship of Slavic languages ​​was assumed at the beginning of the 12th century (see the Kievan Chronicle), but for a long time the true degree of kinship of the Slavic languages ​​with other European languages ​​was unknown. The first attempts made in the 17th and XVIII centuries, to find out this (G. W. Leibniz, P. Ch. Levesque, Fr?ret, Court de Gebelin, J. Dankowsky, K. G. Anton, J. Chr. Adelung, Iv. Levanda, B. Siestrzencewicz, etc.) had the disadvantage that were either too hesitant or simply unreasonable. When W. Jones in 1786 established the common origin of Sanskrit, Gaulish, Greek, Latin, German and Old Persian, he had not yet determined the place Slavic language in the family of these languages.

Only F. Bopp, in the second volume of his famous “Comparative Grammar” (“Vergleichende Grammatik”, 1833), resolved the question of the relationship of the Slavic language with the rest of the Indo-European languages ​​and thereby gave the first scientifically substantiated answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs, which historians unsuccessfully tried to resolve . The solution to the question of the origin of a language is at the same time an answer to the question of the origin of the people speaking this language.

Since that time, many disputes have arisen about the Indo-Europeans and the essence of their language. Various views have been expressed which are now rightly rejected and have lost all value. It has only been proven that none of the known languages ​​is the ancestor of other languages ​​and that there has never been an Indo-European people of a single unmixed race that would have a single language and a single culture. Along with this, the following provisions have been adopted that form the basis of our current views:

1. Once upon a time there was a common Indo-European language, which, however, was never completely unified.

2. The development of dialects of this language led to the emergence of a number of languages ​​that we call Indo-European or Aryan. These include, not counting the languages ​​that have disappeared without a trace, Greek, Latin, Gaulish, German, Albanian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Persian, Sanskrit and Common Slavic or Proto-Slavic, which over quite a long time developed into modern Slavic languages. The beginning of the existence of the Slavic peoples dates back to the time when this common language emerged.

The process of development of this language is still unclear. Science has not yet advanced enough to adequately address this issue. It has only been established that a number of factors contributed to the formation of new languages ​​and peoples: the spontaneous force of differentiation, local differences that arose as a result of the isolation of individual groups, and, finally, the assimilation of foreign elements. But to what extent did each of these factors contribute to the emergence of a common Slavic language? This question is almost unresolved, and therefore the history of the common Slavic language is still unclear.

The development of the Aryan proto-language could occur in two ways: either through a sudden and complete separation of different dialects and the peoples speaking them from the mother trunk, or through decentralization associated with the formation of new dialect centers, which were isolated gradually, without completely breaking away from the original core, that is, not having lost contact with other dialects and peoples. Both of these hypotheses had their adherents. The pedigree proposed by A. Schleicher, as well as the pedigree compiled by A. Fick, are well known; The theory of “waves” (?bergangs-Wellen-Theorie) of Johann Schmidt is also known. In accordance with various concepts, the view on the origin of the Proto-Slavs also changed, as can be seen from the two diagrams presented below.

Pedigree of A. Schleicher, compiled in 1865

Pedigree of A. Fick

When the differences in the Indo-European language began to increase and when this large linguistic community began to split into two groups - the Satem and Centum languages ​​- the Proto-Slavic language, combined with the Proto-Lithic language, was included in the first group for quite a long time, so that it retained special similarities with the ancient Thracian (Armenian) and Indo-Iranian languages. The connection with the Thracians was closest in the outlying areas where the historical Dacians later lived. The ancestors of the Germans were in the Centum group of peoples among the closest neighbors of the Slavs. We can judge this from some analogies in the Slavic and German languages.

At the beginning of the second millennium BC. e. all Indo-European languages, in all likelihood, have already formed and divided, since during this millennium some Aryan peoples appear as already established ethnic units in Europe and Asia. The future Lithuanians were then still united with the Proto-Slavs. The Slavic-Lithuanian people to this day represent (with the exception of the Indo-Iranian languages) the only example of the primitive community of two Aryan peoples; its neighbors have always been the Germans and Celts on one side, and the Thracians and Iranians on the other.

After the separation of the Lithuanians from the Slavs, which most likely occurred in the second or first millennium BC. e., the Slavs formed a single people with a common language and only faint dialect differences, and remained in this state until the beginning of our era. During the first millennium AD, their unity began to disintegrate, new languages ​​developed (though still very close to each other) and new ones emerged. Slavic peoples. This is the information that linguistics gives us, this is its answer to the question of the origin of the Slavs.

Along with comparative linguistics, another science appeared - anthropology, which also brought new additional facts. The Swedish researcher A. Retzius in 1842 began to determine the place of the Slavs among other peoples from a somatological point of view, based on the shape of their heads, and created a system based on the study of the relative length of the skull and the size of the facial angle. He united the ancient Germans, Celts, Romans, Greeks, Hindus, Persians, Arabs and Jews into the group of “dolichocephalic (long-headed) orthognaths”, and the Ugrians, European Turks, Albanians, Basques, ancient Etruscans, Latvians and Slavs into the group of “brachycephalic (short-headed) ) orthognathates". Both groups were of different origins, so the race to which the Slavs belonged was completely alien to the race to which the Germans and Celts belonged. Obviously, one of them had to be “Aryanized” by the other and take on the Indo-European language from it. A. Retzius did not particularly try to define the relationship between language and race. This question arose later in the first French and German anthropological schools. German scientists, relying on new studies of German burials of the Merovingian era (V-VIII centuries) with the so-called “Reihengr?ber”, created, in accordance with the Retzius system, a theory of an ancient pure Germanic race with a relatively long head (dolichocephals or mesocephals) and with some characteristic external features: fairly tall, pink complexion, blond hair, light eyes. This race was contrasted by another, smaller, with a shorter head (brachycephals), darker skin color, brown hair and dark eyes; the main representatives of this race were supposed to be the Slavs and the ancient inhabitants of France - the Celts, or Gauls.

In France, the school of the outstanding anthropologist P. Broca (E. Hamy, Ab. Hovelacque, P. Topinard, R. Collignon, etc.) adopted approximately the same point of view; Thus, in anthropological science, a theory appeared about two original races that once populated Europe and from which a family of peoples speaking the Indo-European language was formed. It remained to be seen - and this caused a lot of controversy - which of the two original races was Aryan and which was “Aryanized” by the other race.

The Germans almost always considered the first race, long-headed and blond, to be a race of ancestral Aryans, and this view was shared by leading English anthropologists (Thurnam, Huxley, Sayce, Rendall). In France, on the contrary, opinions were divided. Some adhered to the German theory (Lapouge), while others (the majority of them) considered a second race, dark and brachycephalic, often called Celtic-Slavic, the original race that transmitted the Indo-European language to the northern European fair-haired foreigners. Since its main features, brachycephaly and dark coloration of hair and eyes, brought this race closer to the Central Asian peoples with similar features, it was even suggested that it was related to the Finns, Mongols and Turanians. The place intended, according to this theory, for the Proto-Slavs is easy to determine: the Proto-Slavs came from Central Asia, they had relatively short heads, dark eyes and hair. Brachycephals with dark eyes and hair settled Central Europe, mainly its mountainous regions, and mixed partly with the northern long-headed and blond neighbors, partly with more ancient peoples, namely with the dark dolichocephals of the Mediterranean. According to one version, the Proto-Slavs, having mixed with the first, passed on their speech to them; according to another version, on the contrary, they themselves adopted their speech.

However, supporters of this theory of the Turanian origin of the Slavs based their conclusions on an erroneous or, at least, insufficiently substantiated hypothesis. They relied on the results obtained from the study of two groups of sources, very distant from each other in time: the original Germanic type was determined from early sources - documents and burials of the 5th–8th centuries, while the Proto-Slavic type was established from relatively later sources, since the early the sources were still little known at that time. Thus, incomparable values ​​were compared - the current state of one nation with the former state of another nation. Therefore, as soon as ancient Slavic burials were discovered and new craniological data came to light, supporters of this theory immediately encountered numerous difficulties, while at the same time, an in-depth study of ethnographic material also yielded a number of new facts. It was found that skulls from Slavic burials of the 9th–12th centuries are mostly of the same elongated shape as the skulls of the ancient Germans, and are very close to them; it was also noted that historical documents give descriptions of the ancient Slavs as a blond people with fair or blue eyes, pink faces. It turned out that among the Northern Slavs (at least among the majority of them) some of these physical traits prevail to this day.

Ancient burials of the South Russian Slavs contained skeletons, of which 80–90% had dolichocephalic and mesocephalic skulls; burials of northerners on Psela - 98%; burials of the Drevlyans - 99%; burials of glades in the Kyiv region - 90%, ancient Poles in Plock - 97.5%, in Slabozhev - 97%; burials of ancient Polabian Slavs in Mecklenburg - 81%; burials of Lusatian Serbs in Leibengen in Saxony - 85%; in Burglengenfeld in Bavaria - 93%. Czech anthropologists, when studying the skeletons of ancient Czechs, found that among the latter, skulls of dolichocephalic forms were more common than among modern Czechs. I. Gellikh established (in 1899) among the ancient Czechs 28% of dolichocephalic and 38.5% of mesocephalic individuals; these numbers have increased since then.

The first text, which mentions the 6th century Slavs who lived on the banks of the Danube, says that the Slavs are neither black nor white, but dark blond:

„?? ?? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ????, ? ?????? ?????, ???? ?? ?? ?? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????????, ???? ????????? ????? ???????“.

Almost all ancient Arabic evidence from the 7th–10th centuries characterizes the Slavs as fair-haired (ashab); Only Ibrahim Ibn Yaqub, a Jewish traveler of the 10th century, notes: “it is interesting that the inhabitants of the Czech Republic are dark.” The word “interesting” betrays his surprise that the Czechs are dark-skinned, from which one can conclude that the rest of the northern Slavs in general were not dark-skinned. However, even today among the Northern Slavs the predominant type is blond, not brown-haired.

Some researchers, based on these facts, took a new point of view on the origin of the Slavs and attributed their ancestors to the blond and dolichocephalic, so-called Germanic race, which formed in Northern Europe. They argued that over the centuries the original Slavic type had changed under the influence of the environment and crossing with neighboring races. This point of view was defended by the Germans R. Virchow, I. Kolman, T. Poesche, K. Penka, and among the Russians A. P. Bogdanov, D. N. Anuchin, K. Ikov, N. Yu. Zograf; I also subscribed to this point of view in my early writings.

However, the problem turned out to be more complex than previously thought and cannot be resolved so easily and simply. In many places, brachycephalic skulls and remains of dark or black hair were found in Slavic burials; on the other hand, it must be recognized that the modern somatological structure of the Slavs is very complex and indicates only the general predominance of the dark and brachycephalic type, the origin of which is difficult to explain. It cannot be assumed that this predominance was predetermined by the environment, nor can it be satisfactorily explained by later crossing. I tried to use data from all sources, both old and new, and, based on them, I came to the conviction that the question of the origin and development of the Slavs is much more complex than it has hitherto been represented; I believe that the most plausible and probable hypothesis is built on the combination of all these complex factors.

The Proto-Aryan type did not represent a pure type of a pure race. In the era of Indo-European unity, when internal linguistic differences began to increase, this process was influenced by different races, especially the Northern European dolichocephalic light-haired race and the Central European brachycephalic dark race. Therefore, individual peoples formed in this way during the third and second millennium BC. e., were no longer a pure race from a somatological point of view; this also applies to the Proto-Slavs. There is no doubt that they were not distinguished by either purity of race or unity of physical type, for they received their origin from the two mentioned great races, at the junction of whose lands their ancestral home was; The most ancient historical information, as well as ancient burials, equally testify to this lack of racial unity among the Proto-Slavs. This also explains the great changes that have occurred among the Slavs over the last millennium. Undoubtedly, this problem remains to be carefully considered, but the solution to it - I am convinced of this - can be based not so much on the recognition of environmental influences as on the recognition of the crossing and "struggle for life" of the basic elements available , that is, the northern dolichocephalic fair-haired race and the central European brachycephalic dark-haired race.

Thousands of years ago, the type of the first race prevailed among the Slavs, which has now been absorbed by another, more viable race.

Archeology is currently unable to resolve the question of the origin of the Slavs. It really can't be traced Slavic culture from the historical era to those ancient times when the Slavs were formed. In the ideas of archaeologists about Slavic antiquities before the 5th century AD. e. Complete confusion reigns, and all their attempts to prove the Slavic character of the Lusatian and Silesian burial fields in eastern Germany and to draw appropriate conclusions from this have so far been unsuccessful. It was not possible to prove that the named burial fields belonged to the Slavs, since the connection of these monuments with undoubtedly Slavic burials still cannot be established. At best, one can only admit the possibility of such an interpretation.

Some German archaeologists suggest that the Proto-Slavic culture was one of the constituent parts of the great Neolithic culture called “Indo-European” or better “Danubian and Transcarpathian” with a variety of ceramics, some of which were painted. This is also acceptable, but we have no positive evidence for this, since the connection of this culture with the historical era is completely unknown to us.