Published: 2023-12-27 — Updated on 2023-12-27

Slavs as a “product” of a historical coincidence!?

Przemysław Urbańczyk
Archeologia Polski
Section: Discussions and polemics
DOI https://doi.org/10.23858/APol68.2023.010

Abstract

Deteriorating environmental conditions from the end of the 3rd c., which peaked in the 2nd quarter of the 6th, seem to have coincidentally promoted the “Slavic” way of life. The Slavs did not emerge from a single cradle, but were “produced” by an unusual coincidence of historical circumstances that imposed over a vast territory similarly simplified social and economic relations, based on the already available knowledge. Those observing these processes from outside gave people living this way the collective name of “Slavs” in the east and “Veneti” in the west. The process itself was triggered by a global climatic crisis reinforced by an episode of the plague, whereas the collective name was promoted by Byzantine diplomacy and Slavic languages were proliferated by Avar imperial policy. The Slavs themselves did not begin to refer to their pan-Slav
unity before the 19th c.

Keywords:

Slavs, ethnogenesis, early Middle Ages, climatic anomalies

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Urbańczyk, P. (2023). Slavs as a “product” of a historical coincidence!?. Archeologia Polski, 68, 285–315. https://doi.org/10.23858/APol68.2023.010

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