White Serbia
Encyclopedia
White Serbia or Bojka is the mythical homeland of the ancestors of the Serbs
, of the White Serbs .
The area adjacent to White Serbia was known as White Croatia
, where the Croats
trace their origin. White Serbia and its ethnic designates, the White Serbs, could be interpreted through attributes such as "the unbaptized" or "pagan" (Pre- Christian
), according to the De administrando imperio.
(White Rus), in this case it may refer to it being an unbaptized land, in relation to the Serbs of the Balkans who were Christian.
Bojka, (Boiki, derived from the Proto-Slavic *bojь. = battle, war, fight) may be connected with the ethnographic group of Ukrainians, the Boyko
, and the Celtic tribe of Boii, who in the 2nd century BC dwelled around the Danube.
, adjacent to White Croatia
.
The tribe was ruled by an archont, who was succeeded by two sons, one of them, the Unknown Archont
, led a part of his tribe against Byzantine lands during Emperor Heraclius rule (610-641). While Heraclius had fought the Persians, the Avars
became a great threat in the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire
, capturing cities: Singidunum
(Belgrade
), Viminacium
(Kostolac
), Naissus (Niš
), Sardica (Sofia
), and destroying Salona
in 614. At this time the Serbs had come into connection with the Emperor. The White Serbs were first given the area of Servia (Σέρβια, transliteration: Serbia) in the province of Thessalonica by the Roman emperor
Heraclius
as a gift following their victory against the Avars
of Dalmatia
. They soon contact the Byzantine stratēgos of Singidunum
(modern Belgrade) and settle down in the Serbian lands, today's Bosnia
, Croatia
, Montenegro
and Serbia
, administrated into župa
s; Pagania, Rascia
, Travunia
, Doclea
, Bosnia and Zachlumia
, all incorporated in the 14th-century Serbian Empire
.
The descendants of the White Serbs (proto-Serbs) are thus the Serbs and the Sorbs
of Lusatia
(Sorbian language: Serbja).
(DERVANUS) is mentioned by Fredegar in his Latin chronicle as "dux gente Surbiorum que ex genere Sclavinorum: "ruler of the people of the Serbs (Sorb autonym: Serby, Serb autonym: Srbi) from the nation of the Slavs". He is the first ruler of the tribe mentioned by name. Fredegar says that he had been subordinate to the Franks
for a long time. After the defeat of the Frankish king Dagobert I
by the Slavic king Samo
near Wogastisburg
in 631 or 632, Dervan declared independence from the Franks and "placed himself and his people under the rule of Samo". Dervan joined Samo in his subsequent wars against the Franks. Further reports of Fredegar imply that Dervan and his people lived to the east of the Saxon Saale
. The reference to Dervan in 631/632 is also the first written confirmation of the presence of Slavs north of the Ore Mountains. He was fighting against Thuringia
631-634 and Derwan was finally defeated by duke Randulf, governor of Thuringia (636). The next mention of Sorb statehood is of Miliduch
and his duke Nussito, who liberated the Sorbs from Frankish rule, but were subsequently killed during Frankish campaigns in 806 by Charles the Younger.
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, of the White Serbs .
The area adjacent to White Serbia was known as White Croatia
White Croatia
White Croatia is a vaguely defined area, said to lie somewhere in Central Europe, near Bavaria, beyond Hungary on south of Poland and west of Ukraine, and adjacent to the Frankish Empire from which the part of White Croats crossed the Carpathians and migrated in the 7th century into Dalmatia...
, where the Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
trace their origin. White Serbia and its ethnic designates, the White Serbs, could be interpreted through attributes such as "the unbaptized" or "pagan" (Pre- Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
), according to the De administrando imperio.
Etymology
The term White Serbia (Bela Srbija) is connected with that of BelarusBelarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
(White Rus), in this case it may refer to it being an unbaptized land, in relation to the Serbs of the Balkans who were Christian.
Bojka, (Boiki, derived from the Proto-Slavic *bojь. = battle, war, fight) may be connected with the ethnographic group of Ukrainians, the Boyko
Boyko
Boyko or Boiko are a distinctive group of Ukrainian highlanders or mountain-dwellers of the Carpathian highlands. The Boykos inhabited the central and the western half of the Carpathians in Ukraine, including the Dolynskyi and a part of the Rozhniativskyi Raions in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast ,...
, and the Celtic tribe of Boii, who in the 2nd century BC dwelled around the Danube.
Location
The location of White Serbia has been disputed. It has been described as:- north of the DanubeDanubeThe Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
and the Carpathians - the modern Czech RepublicCzech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
- BohemiaBohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
- Bohemia
- between the ElbeElbeThe Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
and SaaleSaaleThe Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...
Rivers - PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
- Red RutheniaRed RutheniaRed Ruthenia is the name used since medieval times to refer to the area known as Eastern Galicia prior to World War I; first mentioned in Polish historic chronicles in the 1321, as Ruthenia Rubra or Ruthenian Voivodeship .Ethnographers explain that the term was applied from the...
- RügenRügenRügen is Germany's largest island. Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of the Vorpommern-Rügen district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.- Geography :Rügen is located off the north-eastern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea...
, Svantevit's island in northern Germany. - LusatiaLusatiaLusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...
, triangle of Germany, Czech republic and Poland.
History
The White Serbs were a Polabian Slav tribe that lived in Central EuropeCentral Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
, adjacent to White Croatia
White Croatia
White Croatia is a vaguely defined area, said to lie somewhere in Central Europe, near Bavaria, beyond Hungary on south of Poland and west of Ukraine, and adjacent to the Frankish Empire from which the part of White Croats crossed the Carpathians and migrated in the 7th century into Dalmatia...
.
"The Serbs are descended from the unbaptized Serbs, also called 'white', who live beyond Turkey in a place called by them Boiki, where their neighbour is Francia, as is also Great Croatia, the unbaptized, also called 'white': in this place, then, these Serbs also originally dwelt. But when two brothers succeeded their father in the rule of Serbia, one of them, taking a moiety of the folk, claimed the protection of Heraclius, the emperor of the Romans, and the same emperor Heraclius received him and gave him a place in the province of Thessalonica to settle in, namely Serbia, which from that time has acquired this denomination."... ..."Now, after some time these same Serbs decided to depart to their own homes, and the emperor sent them off. But when they had crossed the river Danube, they changed their minds and sent a request to the emperor Heraclius, through the military governor then governing Belgrade, that he would grant them other land to settle in."... ..."And since what is now Rascia Rascia Rascia was a medieval region that served as the principal province of the Serbian realm. It was an administrative division under the direct rule of the monarch and sometimes as an appanage. The term has been used to refer to various Serbian states throughout the Middle Ages... (Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... ) and Pagania and the so-called country of the Zachlumi Záchlumí Záchlumí is name of several locations in the Czech Republic:* Záchlumí , a village in Pardubice Region* Záchlumí , a village in Plzeň Region... and Trebounia and the country of the Kanalites Kanalites Kanalites were a Serb tribe in what is now present-day Dalmatia who were under Roman dominion. No more is known about the Kanalites after the unification of Serbia... were under the dominion of the emperor of the Romans, and since these countries had been made desolate by the Avars (for they had expelled from those parts the Romans who now live in Dalmatia and Dyrrachium), therefore the emperor settled these same Serbs in these countries, and they were subject to the emperor of the Romans; and the emperor brought elders from Rome and baptized them and taught them fairly to perform the works of piety and expounded to them the faith of the Christians."... ..."And since Bulgaria was beneath the dominion of the Romans * * * when, therefore, that same Serbian prince died who had claimed the emperor's protection, his son ruled in succession, and thereafter his grandson, and in like manner the succeeding princes from his family"... |
| -De Administrando Imperio De Administrando Imperio De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is... chapter 31, Constantine VII Constantine VII Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959... |
Unknown Archont
The Unknown Archont is a conventional name given by historians to the Serbian leader who led the White Serbs from their homeland to settle in the Balkans after 610, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius ....
, led a part of his tribe against Byzantine lands during Emperor Heraclius rule (610-641). While Heraclius had fought the Persians, the Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
became a great threat in the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, capturing cities: Singidunum
Singidunum
Singidunum is the name for the ancient city in Serbia which became Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It was recorded that a Celtic tribe Scordisci settled the area in the 3rd century BC following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 75 BC and later garrisoned...
(Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
), Viminacium
Viminacium
Viminacium was a major city and military camp of the Roman province of Moesia , and the capital of Moesia Superior. The archeological site occupies a total of 450 hectares. Viminacium is located 12 km from Kostolac, was devastated by Huns in the 5th century, but rebuilt by Justinian...
(Kostolac
Kostolac
Kostolac is a small Serbian town on the Danube river in the Braničevo District. The remains of the Roman capital of the province of Moesia Superior Viminacium are located near Stari Kostolac some 2 km to the east of Kostolac. Kostolac is situated in the municipality of Požarevac...
), Naissus (Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
), Sardica (Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
), and destroying Salona
Salona
Salona was an ancient Illyrian Delmati city in the first millennium BC. The Greeks had set up an emporion there. After the conquest by the Romans, Salona became the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia...
in 614. At this time the Serbs had come into connection with the Emperor. The White Serbs were first given the area of Servia (Σέρβια, transliteration: Serbia) in the province of Thessalonica by the Roman emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Heraclius
Heraclius
Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...
as a gift following their victory against the Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...
of Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
. They soon contact the Byzantine stratēgos of Singidunum
Singidunum
Singidunum is the name for the ancient city in Serbia which became Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It was recorded that a Celtic tribe Scordisci settled the area in the 3rd century BC following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 75 BC and later garrisoned...
(modern Belgrade) and settle down in the Serbian lands, today's Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
and Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, administrated into župa
Župa
A Župa is a Slavic term, used historically among the Southern and Western branches of the Slavs, originally denoting various territorial and other sub-units, usually a small administrative division, especially a gathering of several villages...
s; Pagania, Rascia
Rascia
Rascia was a medieval region that served as the principal province of the Serbian realm. It was an administrative division under the direct rule of the monarch and sometimes as an appanage. The term has been used to refer to various Serbian states throughout the Middle Ages...
, Travunia
Travunia
Travunia was a medieval region, administrative unit and principality, which was part of Medieval Serbia , and in its last years, the Bosnian Kingdom . The county became hereditary in a number of noble houses, often kin to the ruling dynasty. The region came under Ottoman rule in 1482...
, Doclea
Duklja
Doclea or Duklja was a medieval state with hereditary lands roughly encompassing the territories of present-day southeastern Montenegro, from Kotor on the west to the river Bojana on the east and to the sources of Zeta and Morača rivers on the north....
, Bosnia and Zachlumia
Zachlumia
Zachlumia or Zahumlje was a medieval principality located in modern-day regions of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia...
, all incorporated in the 14th-century Serbian Empire
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...
.
The descendants of the White Serbs (proto-Serbs) are thus the Serbs and the Sorbs
Sorbs
Sorbs are a Western Slavic people of Central Europe living predominantly in Lusatia, a region on the territory of Germany and Poland. In Germany they live in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony. They speak the Sorbian languages - closely related to Polish and Czech - officially recognized and...
of Lusatia
Lusatia
Lusatia is a historical region in Central Europe. It stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the east to the Elbe valley in the west, today located within the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg as well as in the Lower Silesian and Lubusz voivodeships of western Poland...
(Sorbian language: Serbja).
The Serbs in Lusatia (Sorbs)
The name DervanDervan
Dervan or Derwan was an early prince of the Sorbs and Serbs .He is mentioned by Fredegar in his Latin chronicle as dux gente Surbiorum que ex genere Sclavinorum: "ruler of the people of the Serbs from the nation of the Slavs". He is the first ruler of the tribe mentioned by name...
(DERVANUS) is mentioned by Fredegar in his Latin chronicle as "dux gente Surbiorum que ex genere Sclavinorum: "ruler of the people of the Serbs (Sorb autonym: Serby, Serb autonym: Srbi) from the nation of the Slavs". He is the first ruler of the tribe mentioned by name. Fredegar says that he had been subordinate to the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
for a long time. After the defeat of the Frankish king Dagobert I
Dagobert I
Dagobert I was the king of Austrasia , king of all the Franks , and king of Neustria and Burgundy . He was the last Merovingian dynast to wield any real royal power...
by the Slavic king Samo
Samo
Samo was a Frankish merchant from the "Senonian country" , probably modern Soignies, Belgium or Sens, France. He was the first ruler of the Slavs whose name is known, and established one of the earliest Slav states, a supra-tribal union usually called Samo's empire, realm, kingdom, or tribal...
near Wogastisburg
Battle of Wogastisburg
According to the contemporary Chronicle of Fredegar, the battle of Wogastisburg was a battle between Slavs under King Samo and Franks under King Dagobert I in 631. The Frankish armies were advancing the area of Slavic tribal union in three streams - Alamanni, Lombards, and Austrasian Franks...
in 631 or 632, Dervan declared independence from the Franks and "placed himself and his people under the rule of Samo". Dervan joined Samo in his subsequent wars against the Franks. Further reports of Fredegar imply that Dervan and his people lived to the east of the Saxon Saale
Saale
The Saale, also known as the Saxon Saale and Thuringian Saale , is a river in Germany and a left-bank tributary of the Elbe. It is not to be confused with the smaller Franconian Saale, a right-bank tributary of the Main, or the Saale in Lower Saxony, a tributary of the Leine.-Course:The Saale...
. The reference to Dervan in 631/632 is also the first written confirmation of the presence of Slavs north of the Ore Mountains. He was fighting against Thuringia
Thuringii
The Thuringii or Toringi were a Germanic tribe which appeared late during the Völkerwanderung in the Harz Mountains of central Germania around 280, in a region which still bears their name to this day — Thuringia. They evidently filled a void left when the previous inhabitants — the...
631-634 and Derwan was finally defeated by duke Randulf, governor of Thuringia (636). The next mention of Sorb statehood is of Miliduch
Miliduch
Miliduch was a knyaz of the Lusatian Serbs . Formerly allied to Charlemagne, the Sorbs ended their vassalage to the Franks and rebelled, invading Austrasia...
and his duke Nussito, who liberated the Sorbs from Frankish rule, but were subsequently killed during Frankish campaigns in 806 by Charles the Younger.
People
- An Unnamed King
- Unknown ArchontUnknown ArchontThe Unknown Archont is a conventional name given by historians to the Serbian leader who led the White Serbs from their homeland to settle in the Balkans after 610, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius ....
, fl. 610-641 (son of the King) - DervanDervanDervan or Derwan was an early prince of the Sorbs and Serbs .He is mentioned by Fredegar in his Latin chronicle as dux gente Surbiorum que ex genere Sclavinorum: "ruler of the people of the Serbs from the nation of the Slavs". He is the first ruler of the tribe mentioned by name...
, fl. 631-636 (Unknown genealogy)
See also
- List of Medieval Slavic tribes
- South SlavsSouth SlavsThe South Slavs are the southern branch of the Slavic peoples and speak South Slavic languages. Geographically, the South Slavs are native to the Balkan peninsula, the southern Pannonian Plain and the eastern Alps...
- White CroatiaWhite CroatiaWhite Croatia is a vaguely defined area, said to lie somewhere in Central Europe, near Bavaria, beyond Hungary on south of Poland and west of Ukraine, and adjacent to the Frankish Empire from which the part of White Croats crossed the Carpathians and migrated in the 7th century into Dalmatia...
, neighbouring Slavic tribe