Academic literature on the topic 'Polabian Slavs'

The Polabian Slavs were the last refuge of paganism in the Slavic region. They survived until 1168, because then Rugen, the last pagan bastion of the Slavs after the destruction of Radgosc, was conquered by Waldemar I, king of Denmark. The Polabian Slavs put up the longest resistance to Christianization, seeing it as a threat to their identity, nationality and tradition, of which the pagan cult was an important part. Even in 1147 a crusade was organized against the pagan Polabians, for which St. Bernard of Clairvaux called. The world of pagan Slavs ended with the moment of fall of Rügen and its Arkona, which became the centre of Slavic pagan cult after Radogosc. Two or three centuries later, Polabian Slavs were germanized, losing their nationality and thus becoming the part of Germany.

Among Ukrainian slavists of the second half of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century A. Petrushevych occupies a prominent place. The scholar had made a substantial, although ambiguous in its scientific value, contribution to the development of the discipline. His Slavonic studies cover a variety of subjects and problems, in particular they include papers, which to the larger or lesser extent are concerned with the past of the Polabian Slavs. In them A. Petrushevych explored the earliest period of their history, pagan beliefs, material culture, etc. Until now there is no separate study, which would investigate these works. So, the article’s purpose is a historiographic analysis of the research work of A. Petrushevych in the field of Polabian studies, of the topics, problems, and methods of his papers and notes. In the works on the ancient and medieval history of the Polabian Slavs, scholar’s interest is evident in religious, philological, historical, archaeological, and ethnographic problems. The researcher has read a wide range of the newest scientific – historical, archaeological, philological literature. Antonii Petrushevych had analyzed specific evidence and plots of the history of the Polabian Slavs, foremost their pagan cults, compared them with beliefs of the eastern Slavs, the Scandinavians, and other people of the ancient world. However, Polabian studies do not occupy an important place in his research work and only rarely appear on the pages of his Slavonic papers. In the works devoted to pagan beliefs of the Polabian Slavs, an interest in comparative studies is obvious. Such an approach is not careful and reasonable, because the phenomenas that are compared are very distant in time and distinct from one another. The research on the history of the Polabian Slavs is not systematic and shows rather a sporadic interest in the topic. At the same time, such interest was not accidental, inasmuch as it could be traced on various stages of the scholar’s scientific life. Antonii Petrushevych had not written any special work on the history of the Polabian Slavs, but, despite this, his Polabian studies constitute an integral part of his Slavonic research legacy.

Рассматривается вопрос о возможном влиянии труда К.Г. Антона (1751-1818) «Первый опыт описания происхождения, обычаев, нравов, мнений и знаний древних славян» на формирование образа славян в трактате И. Г. Гердера (1744-1803) «Идеи к философии истории человечества». На основании сравнения содержания первого тома труда Антона (1783) и посвященной славянам главы из четвертой части трактата Гердера (1791) делается вывод о значительном сходстве представлений Антона и Гердера о славянах. Показано, что Гердер во многом основывал свои представления о славянах на историческом опыте «вендов», то есть полабских славян (включая лужицких сербов), подробно рассмотренных в труде Антона. The paper examines the question of the possible influence of the work of K. G. Anton (1751-1818) «The first experience of describing the origin, customs, morals, opinions and knowledge of the ancient Slavs» on the formation of the image of the Slavs in the treatise of I. G. Herder (1744-1803) «Ideas for the philosophy of the history of mankind». It is concluded that there is a significant similarity in the ideas of Anton and Herder about the Slavs. It is shown that Herder, like Anton, largely based his ideas about the Slavs on the historical experience of the Wends, that is the Polabian Slavs (including the Lusatian Serbs), examined in detail by Anton.

The publication analyzes the most important monographs on the medieval history of the Obotrites and the Lutici, published in Poland and the Czech Republic during the first two decades of the 21st century. The academic interest to this topic over the past two decades has culminated with valuable results, the most significant of which are covered in this book review. Most contemporary specialists who are interested in the Obotrites and the Lutici are Polish medievalists. For the Czech historiography, the history of the Polabian Slavs is on the periphery of research interests.

The paper is a translation of Chapter 10 of the book Stopy zapomenutého lidu (“Traces of a forgotten people”), originally published in Czech in 2006. The author describes and analyzes different ways in which the history of Polabian Slavs was depicted in the works of Slavic and German scholars starting from the turn of the 19th century through the final years before the First World War. The paper traces the way in which the past has been (re)interpreted in the current political context and used to support cultural and social movements, notably, Pan-Slavist ideas on the one hand, and the unification of Germany on the other. The translator has complemented the text by adding a number of footnotes and bibliographic refe­rences not present in the original publication.

Background: In 1924, the Department of Ethnology under the leadership of the Polish ethnologist, Professor Adam Fischer was established at Lviv University. The department was to specialize in Slavic issues. Thus, since the founding of the unit, Slav-ic ethnography has been one of the main topics in A. Fischer’s courses. However, until the early 1930s, these disciplines were concluded in areas of culture. A. Fischer began to implement another concept of lecture courses (by peoples or their groups) in the 1930s, after traveling to Central and Eastern Europe(travel geography included ethno-graphic centers of cities such as Prague, Brno, Martin, Bratislava, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Budapest). It was then that the Lviv professor started the series “Slavic Ethnography”. It was to consist of a synthesis of “General Characteristics of Slavic Ethnography” and 11 parts of the complex characteristics of individual Slavic peoples (coverage of such issues as the boundaries of ethnic territory and ethnographic zoning, stages of ethnic history, dialectal and anthropological features, the history of ethnographic research, areas of folk culture). Purpose: The work is aimed to analyze the views of the Polish ethnologist of the interwar period Adam Fischer on the Western and Southern Slavs, in particular on the basis of the manuscripts of a professor from the Archives of the Polish Ethnological Society (Wrocław, Poland). Results: Among the West Slavic peoples, A. Fischer singled out the Polabians (German-assimilated Polabian tribes living in the area between the Elbe, the Oder and the Baltic Sea), Lusatians, Poles (the professor emphasized the population of Pomera-nia, in particular, the Kashubians, whose features against the background of the Polish people explained primarily by the Baltic influences), Czechs and Slovaks (in the series “Slavic Ethnography” two separate notebooks dedicated to these peoples were planned. Instead, in the Archives of the Polish Ethnological Society there is one manuscript of two parts – “Czechs” and “Slovaks”, respectively, which was obviously influenced by their stay in the interwar period within one state). In developing the general scheme of the series“Slavic Ethnography”, A. Fischer often used the principle of the existence of the state among the people (which is ethnologically incorrect).This can be seen primarily in the materials about the South Slavs: separate notebooks of the series were to be devoted only to such South Slavic peoples as Serbs and Croats (A. Fischer characterized them as separate peoples with one language), Slovenes, Bulgarians.In the manuscript “Ethnography of Bulgaria” the scholar paid special attention to the Macedonians, emphasizing that part of the then Bul-garian state was not Bulgarian ethnic territory.Instead, Montenegrins and Bosnians (A. Fisher used the term “Muslim Serbo-Croats”) were mentioned occasionally by the pro-fessor in the context of the characterization of the peoples of Yugoslavia.The lecture course “Balkan Peninsula” prepared by A. Fischer deserves special attention. Here, the scientist used the geographical factor to the grouping of the material. Key words: Adam Fischer, Lviv University, “Slavic Ethnography”, Western Slavs, Southern Slavs, Ethnic Processes, Folk Culture. Archives of New Files in Warsaw [unpublished sourse], Mf Nr. B 11453 (2442). (In Polish) Archives of Polish Ethnological Society [unpublished sourse], No. inv. 16, 22, 31, 64, 66, 73, 74, 76, 77, 81, 87, 123, 124, 136, 154, 280, 281. (In Polish) Burszta, J., 1971. Ethnography of Poland and the Western Territories. Lud, 55, pp.15–28. (In Polish) Falkowski, J., 1931. Fischer A. Slavic Ethnography. First issue: Polabian Slavs. Lviv-Warsaw 1932. Published by Książnica-Atlas. Page 40 + 1 map, with 18 engravings in the test. Price: 2.40 PLN. Lud, 30, pp.239–240. (In Polish) Fischer, A., 1932. Slavic Ethnography. First issue: Polabians. Lviv, Warsaw: Książni-ca-Atlas. (In Polish) Fischer, A., 1932. Slavic Ethnography. Second issue: Lusatians. Lviv, Warsaw: Książnica-Atlas. (In Polish) Fischer, A., 1934. Slavic Ethnography. Third issue: Poles. Lviv, Warsaw: Książnica-Atlas. (In Polish) Fischer, A., 1937. Trees in the beliefs and rituals of the Polish people, Lud, 35, pp.60–76. (In Polish) Kaminśkyj, W., 1927. Adam Fischer. Polish People. The Polish textbook, prepared with the allowance of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education. With 3 maps and 58 fig. in text. Lviv – Warsaw – Kraków 1926. S. IV + 240. Lud, 26, pp.104–106. (In Polish) Kujawska, M., Łuczaj, Ł., Sosnowska, J. and Klepacki, P., 2016. Plants in folk beliefs and customs – Adam Fischer’s Dictionary. Wrocław: PTL. (In Polish) Lorentz, F., Lehr-Spławiński, T. and Fischer, A., 1934. Kashubians: folk culture and language. Toruń: In-t Bałtycki. (In Polish) Program of lectures for the summer semester of 1910/1911 academic year. Emperor Francis I University in Lviv, 1911. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1st and 2nd trimester of the 1921/1922 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1921. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 3rd trimester of the 1921–1922 academic year. Jan Kazim-ierz University in Lviv, 1922. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1st and 2nd trimester of the 1922/1923 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1922. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1924/1925 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1924. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1925/1926 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1925. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1926/1927 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1926. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1927/1928 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1927. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1929/1930 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1929. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1930/1931 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1930. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1931/1932 academic year and the staff of the University in the 1930/1931 and 1931/1932 academic years. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1931. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures and the staff of the University in the 1932/1933 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1932. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1933/1934 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1933. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1934/1935 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1934. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1935/1936 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1935. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1937/1938 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1937. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) Program of lectures in the 1938/1939 academic year. Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, 1938. Lviv: Scientific printing house. (In Polish) State Archives of Lviv Region, [unpublished sourse], f. 26, 2, 543; 5, 1956. (In Polish) Staff of the University and the lecture program for the summer semester of 1900/1901 academic year. Emperor Francis I University in Lviv, 1901. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish) Staff of the University and the lecture program for the winter semester of 1901/1902 academic year. Emperor Francis I University in Lviv, 1901. Lviv: First Union Printing House. (In Polish)

In the article on the basis of narrative sources and special historical literature analyzes the process of emergence, features of political development and decline of the Lutytskyi Union in the late X – early XII centuries. The research is based on the principles of historicism, scientific and authorial objectivity, as well as on the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison) and special-historical (historical-typological, historical-systemic) methods. It is noted that the decisive moment in the formation of the Lutytskyi Union was the uprising of the Polabian-Baltic Slavs in 983, the reason for which was increased tax oppression and the forcible planting of Christianity by German secular and spiritual feudal lords on the territory of Polabia. Specific issues of the political system of the Lutytskyi Union are analyzed. At the same time, the importance of people’s meetings in the social and political life of Lyutichy is emphasized. Most likely, it was a gathering of representatives of tribes, probably heads of small burgh districts, who discussed the main issues of the life of the Lutytskyi Union, under the roof of the temple in Retra. Undoubtedly, the voice of the priesthood was strong at the meeting. The military-diplomatic relations of the Lyutichy people with neighboring peoples, primarily Germans and Poles, during the period under consideration are followed. The conducted analysis allowed the author to establish that the Lutytsky Union, which arose at the end of the 10th century, in order to repel external aggression, was a kind of «aristocratic republic» with rather strong remnants of military democracy. It was established that the Lutychi did not realize the state-consolidating role of Christianity in time. A negative role in the process of forming their statehood was played by pagan religion, which helped the nobility preserve and maintain the disunity of the tribes. It is proved that the integrative role of the Svarozhich cult turned out to be insignificant, it could not compensate for the lack of a strong central power among the Lyutichi. The desire of the caste of priests to usurp power in the Lutyk union led in the middle of the 11th century to the internecine struggle between the tribes that were part of it. This convincingly testifies to the weakness of the Lyutichy confederation as a political organism which became one of the main factors of the enslavement of the Lyutichy in the 12th century German state.

Based on narrative sources and special historical literature, the article analyzes the process of consolidation of the Obodrit tribes within a relatively single early feudal state in the 11th – first third of the 12th century. The research is based on the principles of historicism, scientific and authorial objectivity, as well as on the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison) and special-historical (historical-typological, historical-systemic) methods. It is noted that the military successes of the late 10 – early 11 centuries and the gaining the Polabian Slavs’ independence from the German feudal lords did not, however, lead to the final strengthening of the central princely power in Obodrites, which at that time had to wage aт exhausting struggle against strong groups of the nobility, which considered aggravating dependence on the supreme prince. The author came to the conclusion that the greatest power of the Obodrit state was achieved under Gottschalk and his son Henry of the Nakonid family, under whose rule were not only Obodrit, but also Lutici lands. It is noted that the consolidation course of the Nakonids was carried out in different directions: they created a system of princely fortresses with officials to control the districts adjacent to the fortresses, increased his military presence and by all means contributed to Christianization. In foreign policy, the Nakonid princes sought to strengthen allied relations with the Saxons and Danes and, as far as possible, used their assistance to strengthen positions within the country. However, this policy did not succeed.

The essay organizes a picture of homologous series of correspondences in the phenomena of Ukrainian and neighboring languages discovered over several centuries and collected in the author’s research in 2002–2021. Two groups of correspondences — inter-Slavic (1–6) and peri-Slavic (7–10) — became the cornerstones of the topic. These correspondences are found: (1) in the Upper Lusatian language (1st–2nd centuries) — discovered by H. Schuster-Ševc, the common compensatory lengthening of е, о > i in a closed syllable, which, according to the priority assessment of O. Stryzhák (1991), legalizes the concept of the Proto-Ukrainian language; in addition, there are common prothetic wand massive separate lexical and grammatical matches; (2) in Polabian — according to K. Polański, common systematic replacement of length with the result o > ü (still preserved in the Ukrainian dialects of Siverian Region: cf. Ukr. Siver. p[ü]dkladý, p[ǘ]ydem, v[ǘ] z’mem, k[ǘ]stka), and also ě («yat’») > i; prothetic w-, vocalization l̥ > åł > åŭ (as in Slovenian); (3) in the Oskol relic area of Polissia dialects of the Ukrainian language, also in manifestations of the rule of peripheral archaisms and the rule of G. Ascoli; (4) in Belarusian — along with massive lexical and grammatical matches (H. Pivtorák), the key evidence is, according to Yu. Shevelyóv, the contrast of the linguistic landscape on both sides of the Lida-Loiv isogloss strand; (5) in the Novgorod charters (XI-XII centuries) — according to H. Pivtorák as well as to the data provided by V. Yanin and A. Zaliznyak, in some of these charters the systematicity of proto-Ukrainian features indicates the separate influences of Kyiv speech; the lexicographer V. Dahl points to the same; (6) in Proto-Slavic (II century) — there are 18 (Proto-)Ukrainian innovations in the Proto-Slavic dictionary according to the list of M. Swadesh, from this group one innovation is shared with the group of 14 Russian innovations (khoróshyi); (7) in Gothic (III-IV centuries) — Gothic influence was widespread among the Slavs (V. Toporov, V. Martynov); it is followed by common-, East-Slavic and exclusively Ukrainian Gothicisms — both lexical (stráva, vára, tsiámryna, skýba, lýkhva, mýto, shéliah etc.) and grammatical — noun suffix -ar, verb prefix us-; the systematicity of Gothic influences in the toponymy of Ukraine is also proven (Piskáva r. IF, Tanyskáva r. Pl, Frumýliv stream IF, villages Trakhtemýriv Kv, Hovýliv Tr etc.); (8) in Celtic languages (II century) — noun suffix of the singulativ -yna, which arose in the Celtic world (L. Bednarczuk), lexical Celticisms (smeréka, bevz’, oboríh, cheliadýn), onomastics data (Kamúla mt., Rádorobel r.; Dazhdboh, Viy); counterparts in archaeological finds (Potýssia, Ólbia, Kániv, Chornóbyl, Súbotiv); (9) in the vernacular Latin language (II century) — an exclusive Ukrainian analogy with the grammar of Western Romance languages (I. Sharovólskyi) is the simple future imperfect tense (yístymu, znáty-mesh, bráty-mete... /manger-ò, sapr-ai, prender-ete/); contact (rather than book) lexical Latinisms are also here (tsybúlia, chynsh, tsiátka... /cepola, census, centus/); (10) in Scythian (-V / +II centuries) — according to 38 examples attested by Aristophanes, the Scythian pronunciation of Greek words had the same sound substitutions as the current Ukrainian («θ > t»: Téklia, Tanasiychúk; «χ > k»: Kryshtópivka; «φ > p»: Stepán, Panás, Pylýp, Suprún); according to V. Abaev, the Ukrainian phoneme г [ɦ] is a Scythian heritage; Iranian names of Kyiv residents are known from the annals (Прастѣнъ, Истръ, Съфандръ), Ukrainian has lexical Scythisms (potvóra, pochvára, sharováry), surnames (Perederíy, Peredríy), numerous toponyms; historical theonyms (Khors, Symárgl). The final picture can be seen from the features of Ukrainian itself — the all-Slavic character of its material; among its 82 defining features (40 phonetic and 42 lexicalgrammatical), 34 features are unique, and 48 are common to the languages of other Slavs, including: 31 with Upper Lusatian, 29 with Belarusian, 27 with Lower Lusatian, 19 with Polabian, 11 with Russian, from 23 to 20 with each of other 8 Slavic languages. The unique combination of these diagnostic facts from different epoques constitutes the specific essence of Ukrainian. Most of them are self-sufficient.

Key Words Polabian Slavs, Polabian area, Obodrite, Populus, Gens, Nacio, State, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Obotritic confederation tribes Abstract The thesis analyses and interprets the key events in the state-forming process of so-called Obotritic confederation tribes in 789 - 1178. It focuses on the analysis of written sources, which serve as a basis for three models of inter-tribal units in Polabian area. The thesis argues against the traditional evolutionistic point of view, which considers the confederation tribes to be the predecessors of early medieval states. The main focus of the analysis is put on the starting point form which the Obotritic state-forming process originated. The main question is whether the Obodrite, upon their first appearance in written history, were more federation of tribes or one large tribe, whose break-up at the turn of 9th and 10th century started a new phase of the process. For the next period, the thesis introduces unique model of so-called tribal state, created by the combined effects of various factors, such as location, political situation, social changes in 11th and 12th century etc. The inner and outer factors that lead to the break-up of the Obotritic tribe state in 1270s are discussed in the same manner. The last part of the thesis is an analysis of later...