How did the Slavs go from Slaves to Conquerors? History of the Slavic Peoples of Eastern Europe

on the fringes of the European continent lies a group with one of the most interesting histories in all of Europe often satirized here in the Western World both historically and in the present as dull yet Innovative uncoordinated but powerful when United as many people already know the English word slave actually derives from the word slav a reference to the Slavic people and their perilous position for well into the second Millennia as Slavs were often downtrodden by the byzantines Ottomans North Vikings Mongols and other aggressors in and around Europe and were very nearly Stamped Out of existence several times in the past fast forward to today in the slabs would be unrecognizable by their early forefathers far surpassing their former rivals in terms of economic output population and territorial expansion with around 40 percent of Europe's population currently belonging to the various Slavic Nations today so how on Earth did the Slavic peoples go from teetering on the brink of Extinction to one of the most powerful and influential people groups in Europe and the entire world today we're going to be looking at the origin history of the many Slavic peoples along with their rise to prominence as a major European and Global power and The Many Nations that make up this people group now the region of Eastern Europe is not completely synonymous with the Slavic World although nearly all of the nations in Eastern Europe Are Slavic and vice versa and it is quite difficult to quantify the exact number of Slavic nations in the world today as there are countless subgroups Within These various countries for instance the country of Poland today is seen as very ethnically homogeneous by many Outsiders however within the nation of Poland lies a few other Slavic groups such as the kashubian sometimes known as the Pomeranians located in the north of Poland or the salesians in the South although it is debatable whether salesian is a dialect of Polish or a separate language entirely however by far the largest and most well-known Slavic Nation would without a doubt be the Russian people who have had possibly the most shocking metamorphosis of any group on the planet from a historical standpoint on just how massively the Russians have expanded their territory looking at a map of Eurasia 500 years ago this was not the Russian Homeland this was the Russian Homeland a meager fraction of its current self not even 10 percent of the Russian Federation today the birth of the Russians and other East Slavic Nations such as Belarus and Ukraine first began in the 9th Century A.D with the foundation of the kievan ruse a Federation of Slavic tribes consisting mostly of territories in the modern day countries of Belarus Ukraine and Northwestern Russia with a capital located in Kiev being on the Borderlands of the continent of Europe these Slavic people specifically Russians have bore the brunt of almost all invasions in conquests originating from the Far East with various degrees of success as mentioned earlier the Mongol invasion of kievan Russ in the 13th century effectively destroyed all forms of independent governance for the Eastern Slavs and ruse with the people becoming a tributary the Mongol Empire for nearly two centuries after the collapse of the golden horde which was a successor state of the Mongols in Northern Eurasia the Eastern slabs United with the nov garage public in the north to create the grand principality of Moscow meanwhile to the West the Polish had managed to Stave off the Mongols and after the last of the Mongol hordes in the west had been absorbed by the Ottomans or the Russians the pose began to rise in prominence allying themselves with the lithuanians to form the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth a truly massive territory made up of many different nationalities and religions and thus was comparable to such an Empire like Austria-Hungary which was also a confederation between two European powers also it's important to note that the lithuanians along with the latvians are actually a Baltic people group and are generally considered to be distinct from Slavic peoples however the Baltic and Slavic language families are closely related and hence are sometimes grouped together for convenience sake the Commonwealth would eventually lose power and split up however being annexed by the rapidly expanding Russian Empire who had already begun to expand East in an ironic and dramatic reversal of the hundreds of years of subjugation at the hands of the mongolic and turkic tribes of North Asia in only a century the Russian sardom had conquered their former Masters in the East including the tartars Mongols and many other native peoples of Siberia who they had never been in conflict with before historians draw many parallels to the Russian conquest of Siberia and the conquest of the Americas by various Western European powers with both being detrimental to the native population of the regions both by the spread of new diseases active warfare and Colonial subjugation the closest approximation to Christopher Columbus for the Russians would probably be yermak to mifeovich also known as kosak yermak who led the Russian expeditions to the east battling the conic of siber and in founding Russian settlements along the way following the trailblazing Kozak streamed hundreds of thousands of Slavic settlers from Russia Ukraine and other nations of the Russian Empire replacing many of the Native Siberian peoples although a good portion of Siberia today still retains their indigenous culture and language therefore where it can be argued that the Modern Nation of Russia itself is in a way a type of settler State similar to the United States seeing how they spread out across an incredibly vast country the largest in the world as a matter of fact although the Russian settlers were treated as an integral part of the Empire rather than colonists leading to the high degree of integration when compared to other European Empires Central Asia and the Caucasus was also conquered by the Russians in the 1800s although their populations were never wiped out in the same manner as the Siberians and they weren't absorbed into Russia proper being administered later as autonomous republics in the Soviet Union the Eastern Slavic Nations consisting of Belarus Russia and Ukraine and Western Slavic Nations consisting of the Czech polish and slovaks or for the most part completely contiguous although the southern Slavic nations are a bit of a conundrum seeing how they're separated from the larger Slavic Homeland it was around the 6th Century A.D that Slavic peoples from Ukraine migrated South into the Balkans which at the time was under the rule of the byzantines and the slabs gradually assimilated the previous people of the Balkans including the Dalmatians and Thracians they are comparatively far more divided when compared to other Slavic groups where there being at least seven Slavic nationalities in the Balkans although recently all but Bulgaria were United under the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which literally translates to South slavia the bosniak Croatian montenegrin and Serbian people as effectively all speak dialects of the same language classified as serbo Croatian and they're considered separate languages only for political reasons as most can easily understand each other the large degree of ethnic separatism following the dissolution of Yugoslavia has led to massive political and ethnic conflict in the region and has coined the term balkanization meaning political Devolution over ethnic linguistic or religious distinctions similarly bulgarians and macedonians speak very similar dialects of what many classifies the the same language although for ethnic and political disputes the two are considered to be separate languages and people two groups that are commonly mistaken to be Slavic are the Romanians and hungarians in Southeastern Europe who are of italic and erlic extraction linguistically in understandable misconception that arises due to their proximity and immersion in the Slavic world of Eastern Europe additionally although many Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern and Central Europe may speak the Slavic languages of their home countries as is the case for Russian Ukrainian and polish Jews the majority of their population does not identify a Slavic but rather as their own ethno-linguistic population and Slavic peoples also see them as such so in Eastern European Jew could very well be of Russian or another Slavic nationality although ethnically and culturally they are very distinct now the macedonians and bulgarians are an interesting Bunch ask anyone from the country of Greece and they will insist that macedonians are not the successors of the ancient Hellenistic Macedonian people whose ranks included the likes of Alexander the Great and Aristotle similarly the original bulgar language and people were turkic in nature hailing from North Asia or modern Russia however were assimilated by the Slavic peoples of the Balkans and hence now only a small proportion of the Bulgarian gene pool and vocabulary is from the ethnic bulgars this is similar to how the hungarians and Turks speak in Ehrlich and turkic language respectively although genetically they are far more similar to central European and Middle Eastern populations respectively the Slavic people practice a wide variety of religious faiths with the majority practicing Eastern Orthodox mostly in the East stretching from the Russians to the serbians while the Western half including the poles to the croatians are traditionally Catholic although the Czech Republic is notable for being the most irreligious country in the world with over 70 percent of the population identifying as atheists and lastly there are also Islamic Slavic groups including the bosniaks pomax and torbesh although many of these Islamic Slavs had fled to Turkey following the dissolution of the onman Empire and subsequent explosion of Islamic and turkic groups from the Balkans either way it truly is astounding how the Slavic peoples who were effectively the historic Canon father of Europe managed to not only survive throughout the Millennia but actually managed to overthrow their former conquers and in the case of the Russians completely turned the tables dominating the Eurasian land mass from the old cave and ruse to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Soviet Union and now the many Slavic nations of Europe Asia and the global diaspora the Slavic peoples have definitely made their mark on history and during this period of mass politicization and polarization it's important to learn who the historic and modern Slavic people are go ahead and let me know your thoughts on the Slavic peoples and languages and it would be very interesting to hypothesize what a unified Slavic country would look like but that currently seems improbable with the massive tensions and conflicts arising in the region as always thanks for watching everyone this has been Mason and I'll see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 890,043

Keywords: masaman, How did the Slavs go from Slaves to Conquerors, History of the Slavic Peoples of Eastern Europe, Slav, Slavic, Slavic Languages, Slav Dance, Slav Memes, Russia, Russians, Putin, Vladimir Putin, Russian National Anthem, Russian Music, Ukrainians, Polish People, Poles, Polish Music, Polish Accent, Russian Americans, Polish Americans, Russian Conquest of Siberia, Yermak, Cossaks, Ukraine, Poland, History of Russia, Geography, история россии, Mongol Empire, Serbia, Slave

Id: NrBzU9o5o5w

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017