Slavs
Slavs: A diverse group of peoples speaking Slavic languages, with a rich history spanning Eurasia.
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout regions of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Northern Asia, though there is a large Slavic minority scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia, and a substantial Slavic diaspora in the Americas, Western Europe, and Northern Europe.
- language_family
- Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European
- earliest_mention
- 6th century AD
- major_groups
- West Slavs, East Slavs, South Slavs
- religion
- Majority Christian; some groups (e.g., Bosniaks) mostly Muslim
- known_for
- Formation of medieval Christian states; pan-Slavic movement from mid-19th century
Lore & Background
Early Slavs lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th century AD), and came to control large parts of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe between the sixth and seventh centuries. Beginning in the 7th century, they were gradually Christianized. By the 12th century, they formed the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus', South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire, the Principality of Serbia, the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra, Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Poland.
Reader's Guide
The Slavic languages belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Present-day Slavs are classified into three groups: West Slavs (Czechs, Kashubians, Moravians, Poles, Silesians, Slovaks, and Sorbs); East Slavs (Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians); South Slavs (Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Gorani, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Pomaks, Serbs, Slovenes and Torbeši). Though the majority of Slavs are Christians, some groups, such as the Bosniaks, mostly identify as Muslims.
Did You Know?
- The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius used forms such as Sklaboi.
- The reconstructed autonym Slověne is usually considered a derivation from slovo ('word'), originally denoting 'people who speak (the same language)'.
- Byzantine records note that Slav numbers were so great that grass would not regrow where the Slavs had marched through.
More in Ethnic Groups 1-22
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