Рани јужнословенски етноними и питање порекла и постанка јужнословенских племена

Abstract

Рани Словени нису имали своју писменост све до појаве Сoлунске браће св. Ћирила и Методија и настанка глагољице 863. године, тако да су пре тога, али у великој мери и после тога вести о њима забележене у страним изворима, пре свега на грчком и латинском језику. Старије форме словенског језика – прасловенски, а затим и старословенски, имали су фонолошки састав у извесној мери различит од оба сродна индоевропска језика, па су рани словенски етноними забележени у изворима онако како су их грчки и латински писци репродуковали у својим књижевним језицима. Тако је на пример прасловенско о у грчким и латинским текстовима углавном постајало а, прасловенски полувокали ъ и ь су по правилу били вокализовани, а на исти начин су били репродуковани и словенски слоготворни сугласници р и л (у старословенским текстовима и касније најчешће бележени као рь и ль). Научници, у првом реду историчари, најчешће су само преузимали облике забележене у грчкој и латинској изворној грађи, те су на основу њих изводили некад и врло далекосежне закључке. Међутим, када се реконструише њихов тачан словенски облик, ти етноними постају корисно сведочанство за изучавање проблематике порекла и постанка јужнословенских племена

Even after the creation of the Slavic alphabets, early information on the Slavs was for the most part recorded in Greek and Latin, and thus the names of the Slavic tribes have come down to us in somehow distorted forms, since the phonemic systems of those two languages did not match that of the early Slavic language. It is then necessary to establish the correct forms of the names of the Slavic tribes behind those recorded in Greek and Latin sources in order to investigate thoroughly their origins and formation. According to the sixth-century writers Procopius and Jordanes, the early Slavs were divided in many tribes even in their ancient homeland, north of the Carpathians. However, the names of the tribes appeared for the first time in written sources in the seventh century, with the names of the several Slavic tribes who invaded Greece and besieged Thessalonica in the 610s, among them the *Drъgъvitji,*Sagudati (*Sogъdati?), *Velejezitji, *Vojъnitji, *Bъrzitji. The *Smolěne, *Milenki, *Ezeritji were also present in Greece, as well as small parts of other tribes (Serbs, Croats, Kriviči, Czechs). Serbs and Croats settled in the western part of the Balkans, with their local branches such as the Diocletians, Terbunians, Zachloumians, Narentans, or *Gъtаnе, *Gъtьci. Various Slavic tribes settled in the Eastern Alps; the sources and local toponymy recorded the names of the Croats and Dulebs. The same was true about the old Roman Pannonia between the Danube and the Sava, where only Dulebs can be identified by name. In the eastern part of the Balkans, along the lower Danube, the sources mention the “seven Slavic tribes” subdued by the Bulgars in 680/681, but none of them by name. However, some of them could have later merged together into the new tribe of *Timočani. Along with them, the sources mention the Severi, but counted them apart from the “seven Slavic tribes”, and this was possibly because they were not Slavs in the strict sense of the word, but rather their relatives, the Antes. To the west of the *Timočani lived a southern part of the *Obъdritji, while at the confluence of the Great Morava and the Danube, lived the Balkan Moravians. As it could be deduced from their ethnonymy, some of those tribes brought their names from their ancient homeland in the North and it is there that we should look for their origins. The assumption is further corroborated by the fact that the names of some tribes appear in the other areas of the Slavic world as well, which means that the tribes in question must have split during the migrations. However, some of the tribes were formed only after the settlement in the Eastern Alps and the Balkans, as revealed by the geographic origin of their names. Some of them were geographically separated sections of the ancient tribes who developed a new identity while still retaining the old one. But in some cases, parts of several different Slavic tribes settled in the same area and organized into a new ethnopolitical entity, in which case they first used the common name of the Slavs as a symbol of their common identity along with a geographic determination (for example, Slavs of the Rychios, Slavs of the Strymon, Slavs of the Peloponnese, “seven Slavic tribes”, Slavs of Pannonia, the Eastern Alps Slavs), and only later came to use new names based on the geographic terms (Carantanians, Carnians, *Ezeritji, *Timočani, Moravians, etc.). There were also some minor tribes that in the course of the migrations merged with a stronger tribe and assumed its identity. This clearly indicates that different Slavic tribes during the migrations still shared a strong sense of common Slavic identity alongside their own tribal identity. Even later, in the 9th century, Frankish sources mention common legal traditions among the Slavs (“leges et consuetudines Sclavicae gentis”), and the language that Sts Cyril and Methodius first introduced into literary use was still sufficiently uniform to be named as the common Slavic language.