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Author Topic: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That  (Read 4437 times)

dionysiandame

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When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« on: October 08, 2013, 05:36:57 pm »
During the course my research I'm discovering that Slavs pretty much ended up EVERYWHERE short of Western Europe at some point. So I'm attempting to piece together a kind of "who's who" map so I can delve a bit deeper into various mythologies.

So who can we, in the current day, call Slavs? Romanians? Bulgarians? Russians? Lithuanians? Chechens?

With this kind of information, I'm hoping I can get a taste for how Slavic religion may have differed depending on region and who/what the peoples syncretized with.
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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2013, 07:26:25 am »
Quote from: dionysiandame;124451
During the course my research I'm discovering that Slavs pretty much ended up EVERYWHERE short of Western Europe at some point. So I'm attempting to piece together a kind of "who's who" map so I can delve a bit deeper into various mythologies.

So who can we, in the current day, call Slavs? Romanians? Bulgarians? Russians? Lithuanians? Chechens?

With this kind of information, I'm hoping I can get a taste for how Slavic religion may have differed depending on region and who/what the peoples syncretized with.

 
The thing to bear in mind is that in order to even start delineating 'families' of Slavs, you have to flip a dozen pages back in your imaginary historical atlas and work with the geo/politi/ethnographic boundaries present during the time periods you're wanting to focus on. Modern national boundaries and identities are pretty much useless in that regard as there are many countries that don't even exist anymore (Moravia and Ruthenia come to mind) that still cast shadows in terms of strong ethnic identities.
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Laveth

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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2013, 11:24:05 am »
Quote from: dionysiandame;124451
During the course my research I'm discovering that Slavs pretty much ended up EVERYWHERE short of Western Europe at some point. So I'm attempting to piece together a kind of "who's who" map so I can delve a bit deeper into various mythologies.

So who can we, in the current day, call Slavs? Romanians? Bulgarians? Russians? Lithuanians? Chechens?

With this kind of information, I'm hoping I can get a taste for how Slavic religion may have differed depending on region and who/what the peoples syncretized with.

 

I hope I'm understanding correctly (I'm still waking up, but I'll give it a shot and revisit later when I'm more awake).

There are dozens of perspectives regarding what qualifies an individual as being Slavic (and a few people who are from those specific countries actually consider it insulting to be called a 'Slav,' so bear that in mind). I have seen pages upon pages written on varying perspectives of who qualifies as being Slavic in this era, but the biggest indicators actually are based on culture rather than physical location.

Generally, these are the factors that come up the most: if you live that culture and if you speak the language (Slavic languages have a root language that they've all basically developed and diverted from.

The other two factors that aren't always accepted are blood ancestry and current residency, and those get highly debated because (as you've noticed) there are huge migrations in the  various histories and it wasn't uncommon for different tribes to accept non-Slavic people into their tribe entirely by marriage. The chances of an individual having entirely Slavic-ancestry is pretty minimal (and aside from getting a haplogroup DNA test, pretty darn hard to proof one way or another anyway).

There have been some studies that have gone into trying to determine where the original Indo-European group originated before they started to branch out (some say just north of the Alps, some say in a few regions of Russia, some say nearer the sea). I found the information interesting, but you're going so far back in human history that it's hard to really 'know.'

You might be interested in digging into specific country's/group's histories rather than trying to lump it all together into one group. There's a lot more information regarding Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Slovak, Ukraine, etc... histories rather than the entirety of Slavic history as a whole. I have come across a couple 'Slavic History' books, but I've found more valuable information by getting into the details myself. :)

I hope that made sense, I have a tendency of not being able to focus when I'm tired. :)

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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2016, 01:20:20 pm »
Quote from: dionysiandame;124451
So who can we, in the current day, call Slavs? Romanians? Bulgarians? Russians? Lithuanians? Chechens?

Romanians are not Slav, we mainly come from Thracians (Dacians) mixed with Romans with mixes of Greek, Slav, Goth, Hungarian, and Turkic peoples over the course of centuries.
Bulgarians also come from Thracians (mainly Odrysians and Moesi) mixed with Greeks and Romans, laterwards with Slavs and Turkic peoples (Bulgars). Now they're generally considered Slav.
Russians are generally considered Slavs, though since Russia is so big, and has so many different peoples (of different ethnic and even racial backgrounds), 'Russian' today is more a political identity than an ethnic one (though ethinic Slav Russians would disagree, considering themselves the only 'true' Russians, everyone else being 'untermensch' (of course, not all of them, but you get the idea)). The Russians from the European part of the country are mostly Slav, though there was some Germanic influence in the 10th century AD (from what I heard).
Lithuanians are not Slavs. From what I read, they came from a mix of original Europeans with Indo-Europeans somewhere in the 3'd millenium BC, with an addition of Slav and Germanic peoples over the course of the centuries.
Chechens are not Slav, they're Nakh, from North Caucasus. That's about all I know about them.

All that without additional mixes of Jews, Gypsies, and many other neighbor peoples.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2016, 01:28:34 pm by the_raven »

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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2016, 02:39:47 pm »
Quote from: the_raven;191276

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savveir

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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2016, 08:39:14 pm »
Quote from: dionysiandame;124451
During the course my research I'm discovering that Slavs pretty much ended up EVERYWHERE short of Western Europe at some point. So I'm attempting to piece together a kind of "who's who" map so I can delve a bit deeper into various mythologies.

So who can we, in the current day, call Slavs? Romanians? Bulgarians? Russians? Lithuanians? Chechens?

With this kind of information, I'm hoping I can get a taste for how Slavic religion may have differed depending on region and who/what the peoples syncretized with.

 
It's kinda messy, with migration, displacement and such, things get a bit blurred. The Early Slavs might help a bit history wise, to get a feel for different areas.
As far as differing in religious practices and syncretism, I don't really have much solid advice here. I kinda do my own thing and it works for me. I find it handy to keep geography in mind when researching, I figure that areas that share borders are likely to have a bit more in common than those that don't. That said, migration has an influence and so do trade routes, which comes up in  The Bathhouse at midnight along with discussing other influences in magic and religious practises from various places which is pretty interesting. Perhaps looking at current festivals in different countries and their similarities/differences will also help.

So in short, it's messy :P
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savveir

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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2016, 01:03:51 am »
Quote from: savvy;191701
snip

 
I may not have noticed how long ago OP posted
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Re: When a Slav is not a Slav or Something Like That
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2016, 01:41:18 am »
Quote from: savvy;191713
I may not have noticed how long ago OP posted

 
Eh, I think it's a useful conversation to have regardless.
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