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Post by insomniac on Feb 21, 2009 14:24:00 GMT -5
Im trying to learn more about this event.
Im interested to know more about Avaro-Slavic invasion of Balkans. Why did this migration happen? What conflicts arouse in Balkans as a result of their invasion?
From a FYROM source The arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans marked the process of integration of the inter-Balkan substratum with the Slavs. Lidija Slaveska suggests that the synthesis of the material, cultural and spiritual values of natives and conquerors is an inevitable process and lasts for many centuries. In Balkans, she suggests that the beginnings of their cohabitation is an additional factor in ascertaining that Slavic tribes did not settle in a deserted and empty territory. Rather, by coming into contact with an entirely new culture, with people who spoke differently and whose way of thinking was different from theirs, the intermingling of two different civilizations and cultures was inevitable.
and more
Byzantine documents provide information about the siege of Thessaloniki by the Avaro-Slavs in 586: "If one would imagine that all Macedonians, Thracians and Achaeans gathered in Thessaloniki at that time, all of them together would not represent even a small part of that barbarian multitude which then besieged the town."
Did the Balkan locals at that time accept this new massive immigration or did they fight it?
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Post by insomniac on Feb 21, 2009 14:38:32 GMT -5
Interesting
It appears as if the main goal of the penetration of the Slavic tribes to the south was Thessaloniki. "And they [the Slavs] stated that they came to besiege and conquer Thessaloniki and the surrounding towns. When the emperor heard this, he grew upset and wrote to German immediately to postpone his journey to Italy and to help Thessaloniki and the other towns", writes Procopius Kesariski, in mentioning Macedonia in his History of the Wars.
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Post by insomniac on Feb 21, 2009 14:39:53 GMT -5
More about their way of life and christianization of Slavs
By settling in Macedonia, the Slavs made profound changes in the social-economic relations in the life of Byzantium. They ruined towns, replaced money with barter as the means of payment, made fundamental changes in agriculture, established independent tribal units and destroyed the last remnants of the Roman system of slaveholding, creating conditions for instituting entirely new, feudal social relations. From the native population the newcomers inherited Christianity, which penetrated deep in Macedonia as early as in the 4th century. The Christianizing of the Slavs was neither rapid nor easy, and it was recorded that they "did not know anything about Christ's name; they served the Scythian insanity, believed in the Sun, the Moon, as well as other stars, while some of them even made sacrifices to dogs... They closed their eyes and ears not to see and hear when conquered Christians... in conversations with them mentioned Christ's teaching...".
Since 530 and till the end of the 6th century Slavic tribes spread over the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire. In 582 they first tried to capture Thessaloniki and settled around it. After 602, when emperor Mauricius died, the Danube fortification system was crushed, and waves of Slavic migrations became uncontrolled. In 617 Slavs occupied Greece and besieged Constantinople. Only in the early 9th century they stopped their movement and settled down where they now live as Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 805 Byzantine forces managed to regain back the Peloponnese. By that year the Slavic community was already divided into three branches: Southern, Western, Eastern, each having their own language.
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Post by rusebg on Feb 22, 2009 12:34:28 GMT -5
Distorted fyromian source once again. The quote is correct but it refers Bulgars.
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Post by Caslav Klonimirovic on Feb 22, 2009 23:23:14 GMT -5
Most original sources I've seen on the matter are actually Greek. And as you can already see you will really struggle to find much information at all about "slav invasions," nevermind reliable information. Those first few quotes are a joke and most of it is fantasy. Greeks & Albanians have a common agenda here to make slavic imigration sound as barbaric as possible. Albanians also try to make it sound as if there was some kind of super massively populated Illyrian civilization they were a part of. Actually there is also a school of thought amongst the FYROMians who try to promote it as well in order to make themselves sound like purely slavicised original Macedonians...
But hey if there are any sources of information bring it on. I'd love to hear it myself.
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Post by supergreek on Mar 9, 2009 0:14:06 GMT -5
Most original sources I've seen on the matter are actually Greek. And as you can already see you will really struggle to find much information at all about "slav invasions," nevermind reliable information. Those first few quotes are a joke and most of it is fantasy. Greeks & Albanians have a common agenda here to make slavic imigration sound as barbaric as possible. Albanians also try to make it sound as if there was some kind of super massively populated Illyrian civilization they were a part of. Actually there is also a school of thought amongst the FYROMians who try to promote it as well in order to make themselves sound like purely slavicised original Macedonians... But hey if there are any sources of information bring it on. I'd love to hear it myself. Slavs came as enemies my friend. We are no longer enemies but now friends. I don't think Greeks try to paint the pic of slav invasion as barbaric but it was a traumatic event for the Balkans which led to many wars.
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