The Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, Text

by Edward A. Freeman

♦Expedition to the east.♦

Against this vast range of Oceanic settlement there is as yet little to set in the form of Baltic conquest on the part of Norway and Denmark. Norway indeed hardly could become a Baltic power. ♦Danes in Samland. 950.♦ But there was a Danish occupation of Samland in Prussia in the tenth century, which caused that land to be reckoned among the kingdoms which made up the Northern Empire of Cnut.[56] ♦Jomsburg. 935-1043.♦ There is also the famous settlement of the Jomsburg Wikings at the mouth of the Oder. But the great eastern extension of Danish power came later. Nor did the lasting Swedish occupation of the lands east of the gulf of Bothnia begin till the twelfth century. But there is no doubt that, long before this, there were Swedish inroads and occasional Swedish conquests in other parts of the Baltic lands. ♦Swedish conquest of Curland.♦ Thus Curland is said to have been won for a while by Sweden, and to have been again won back by its own Lettic people.[57] The ninth century indeed saw a wonderful extension of Scandinavian dominion far to the east and far to the south. But it was neither ordinary conquest nor ordinary settlement. No new Scandinavian people was planted, as in Orkney and Iceland. Nor were Scandinavian outposts planted, as in Ireland. ♦Scandinavians in Russia.♦ But Scandinavian princes, who in three generations lost all trace of their Scandinavian origin, created, under the name of Russia, the greatest of Slavonic powers. The vast results of their establishment have been results on the history and geography of the Slaves; on Scandinavian geography it had no direct effect at all. Still it forms a connecting link between the Scandinavian lands west and north of the Baltic and the Slavonic region to the east and south of that sea.

§ 2. The Lands East and South of the Baltic at the Separation of the Empires.

♦Slaves between Elbe and Dnieper.♦

At the beginning of the ninth century the inland region stretching from the Elbe a little beyond the Dnieper was continuously held by various Slavonic nations. Their land marched on the German kingdom at one end, and on various Finnish and Turkish nations at the other. ♦Their lack of sea-board.♦ But their sea-board was comparatively small. Wholly cut off from the Euxine, from the northern Ocean, and from the great gulfs of the Baltic, their only coast was that which reaches from the modern haven of Kiel to the mouth of the Vistula. And this Slavonic coast was gradually brought under German influence and dominion, and has been in the end fully incorporated with the German state. It follows then that, in tracing the history of the chief Slavonic powers in this region, of Bohemia, Poland, and Russia, we are dealing with powers which are almost wholly inland. At the time of the separation of the Empires, there was no one great Slavonic power in these parts. One such, with Bohemia for its centre, had shown itself for a moment in the seventh century. ♦Bohemian kingdom of Samo. 623.♦ This was the kingdom of Samo, which, if its founder was really of Frankish birth, forms an exact parallel to Bulgaria and Russia, also Slavonic powers created by foreign princes.[58] ♦Great-Moravia. 884.♦ The next considerable power which arose nearly on the same ground was the Great Moravian kingdom of Sviatopluk, which passed away before the advance of the Magyars. Before its fall the Russian power had already begun to form itself far to the north-east. ♦Four Slavonic groups.♦ Looking at the map just before the beginning of the momentary Moravian and the lasting Russian power, the North-Slavonic nations fall into four main historical groups. ♦North-western group; thoroughly Germanized.♦ There are, first, the tribes to the north-west, whose lands, answering roughly to the modern Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Saxony, have been thoroughly Germanized. ♦South-western group under German supremacy♦ Secondly, there are the tribes to the south-west in Bohemia, Moravia, and Lusatia, which were brought under German dominion or supremacy, but from which Slavonic nationality has not in the same sort passed away. Silesia, connected in different ways with both these groups, forms the link between them and the third group. ♦Central group; Polish.♦ This is formed by the central tribes of the whole region, lying between the Magyar to the south and the Prussian to the north, whose union made up the original Polish kingdom. ♦Eastern group; Russian.♦ Lastly, to the east lie the tribes which joined to form the original Russian state. Looking at these groups in our own time, we may say that from the first of them all signs of Slavonic nationality have passed away. The second and third, speaking roughly, keep nationality without political independence. The fourth group has grown into the one great modern power whose ruling nationality is Slavonic.

With regard to the first group, we have now to trace from the Slavonic side the same changes of frontier which we have already slightly glanced at from the German side. ♦Polabic group.♦ In the land between the Elbe and the Oder, taking the upper course of those rivers as represented by their tributaries the Saale and the Bober, we find that division of the Slaves which their own historian marks off as Polabic.[59] These again fall under three groups. ♦Sorabi.♦ First, to the south, in the modern Saxony, are the Sorabi, the northern Serbs, cut off for ever from their southern brethren by the Magyar inroad. ♦Leuticii.♦ To the north of them lie the Leuticii, Weleti, Weletabi, or Wiltsi, and other tribes stretching to the Baltic in modern Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. ♦Obotrites:♦ In the north-west corner, in Mecklenburg and eastern Holstein, were the Obotrites, Wagri, and other tribes. ♦their relations to the Empire.♦ Through the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries the relations between these lands and the Western Empire was not unlike the relation of the southern Slaves to the Eastern Empire during the same ages. Only the Western Emperors never had such a rival on their immediate border as the Bulgaria of Simeon or Samuel. ♦Fluctuations of tribute and independence. 921-968.♦ The Slavonic tribes on the north-eastern border of the Western Empire were tributary or independent, according as the Empire was strong or weak. Tributary under Charles the Great, tributary again under the great Saxon kings, they had an intermediate period of independence. The German dominion, which fell back in the latter part of the tenth century, was again asserted by the Saxon dukes and margraves in the eleventh and twelfth. ♦Final conquest.♦ Long before the end of the twelfth century the work was done. The German dominion, and with it the Christian religion, had been forced on the Slaves between Elbe and Oder.

♦Conquest of the Sorabi.♦

The Serbs between Elbe and Saale seem to have been the earliest and the most thoroughly conquered. They never won back their full independence after the victories of the first Saxon kings. The Serbs between Elbe and Bober, sometimes tributary to the Empire, were also sometimes independent, sometimes under the superiority of kindred powers like Poland or Bohemia. ♦Meissen.♦ The lands included in the mark of Meissen were thoroughly Germanized by the twelfth century. ♦Lusatia.♦ But in the lands included in the mark of Lusatia the Slavonic speech and nationality still keep a firm hold.

♦The Leuticians.♦

The Leutician land to the north was lost and won over and over again. ♦927-1157.♦ Branibor, the German Brandenburg, was often taken and retaken during a space of two hundred years. ♦983.♦ Late in the tenth century the whole land won back its freedom. ♦1030-1101.♦ In the eleventh it came under the Polish power. ♦1134-1157.♦ At last, the reign of Albert the Bear finally added to Germany the land which was to contain the latest German capital, and made Brandenburg a German mark.