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Glade
If we move along the East European Plain from north to south, then 15 East Slavic tribes will appear in front of us in succession:
1. Ilmen Slovenes, the center of which was Novgorod the Great, which stood on the banks of the Volkhov River flowing from Lake Ilmen and on whose lands there were many other cities, which is why the neighboring Scandinavians called the Slovenian possessions "gardarika", that is, "land of cities."
These were: Ladoga and Beloozero, Staraya Russa and Pskov. The Ilmen Slovenes got their name from the name of Lake Ilmen, located in their possession and also called the Slovenian Sea. For residents far from the real seas, the lake, 45 miles long and about 35 miles wide, seemed huge, and therefore it bore its second name - the sea.
2. Krivichi, who lived in the interfluve of the Dnieper, Volga and Western Dvina, around Smolensk and Izborsk, Yaroslavl and Rostov the Great, Suzdal and Murom.
Their name came from the name of the founder of the tribe, Prince Kriv, who apparently received the nickname Krivoy, from a natural disadvantage. Subsequently, the people called Krivich a person insincere, deceitful, capable of cheating, from whom you will not expect the truth, but you will face falsehood. (Moscow subsequently arose on the lands of the Krivichi, but you will read about this further.)
3. Polochans settled on the Polotian River, at its confluence with the Western Dvina. At the confluence of these two rivers, the main city of the tribe stood - Polotsk, or Polotsk, the name of which is also produced by the hydronym: "river on the border with Latvian tribes" - armor, summer.
Promotional video:
Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi and Northerners lived to the south and southeast of the Polotsk people.
4. The Dregovichi lived on the banks of the Priyat River, having got their name from the words “dregva” and “dryagovina”, meaning “swamp”. The cities of Turov and Pinsk were located here.
5. The Radimichi, who lived in the interfluve of the Dnieper and Sozh, were named after their first prince Radim, or Radimir.
6. The Vyatichi were the most eastern ancient Russian tribe, having received their name, like the Radimichs, on behalf of their progenitor, Prince Vyatko, which was the abbreviated name Vyacheslav. Old Ryazan was located in the land of the Vyatichi.
7. The northerners occupied the river Desna, the Seim and the Suda, and in ancient times were the most northern East Slavic tribe. When the Slavs settled down to Novgorod the Great and Beloozero, they retained their previous name, although its original meaning was lost. In their lands there were cities: Novgorod Seversky, Listven and Chernigov.
8. The glades that inhabited the lands around Kiev, Vyshgorod, Rodny, Pereyaslavl, were called so from the word "field". The cultivation of fields became their main occupation, which led to the development of agriculture, cattle breeding and animal husbandry. Glades went down in history as a tribe, to a greater extent than others, contributing to the development of ancient Russian statehood.
The neighbors of the glades in the south were Rus, Tivertsy and Uchiha, in the north - the Drevlyans and in the west - Croats, Volynians and Buzhanians.
9. Russia is the name of one, far from the largest East Slavic tribe, which because of its name has become the most famous both in the history of mankind and in historical science, because in the disputes around its origin, scientists and publicists broke many copies and shed rivers of ink … Many outstanding scientists - lexicographers, etymologists and historians - derive this name from the name of the Normans, which was almost universally accepted in the 9th-10th centuries. The Normans, known to the Eastern Slavs as the Varangians, conquered Kiev and the surrounding lands around 882. During their conquests, which took place for 300 years - from the 8th to the 11th century - and swept all of Europe - from England to Sicily and from Lisbon to Kiev - they sometimes left their name behind the conquered lands. So, for example, the territory conquered by the Normans in the north of the Frankish kingdom,received the name Normandy.
Opponents of this point of view believe that the name of the tribe came from the hydronym - the Ros river, from where the whole country later became known as Russia. And in the XI-XII centuries, Russia began to be called the lands of Russia, glades, northerners and Radimichi, some territories inhabited by streets and Vyatichi. Supporters of this point of view see Russia no longer as a tribal or ethnic union, but as a political state formation.
10. The Tivertsy occupied territories along the banks of the Dniester, from its middle reaches to the mouth of the Danube and the shores of the Black Sea. The most probable seems to be the origin, their names from the Tivre River, as the ancient Greeks called the Dniester. Their center was the city of Cherven on the western bank of the Dniester. The Tivertsy bordered on the nomadic tribes of the Pechenegs and Polovtsians and, under their blows, retreated to the north, mixing with the Croats and Volynians.
11. The streets were the southern neighbors of the Tivertsy, occupy lands in the Lower Dnieper, on the shores of the Bug and the Black Sea coast. Their main city was Peresechen. Together with the Tivertsy, they retreated to the north, where they mixed with the Croats and Volynians.
12. The Drevlyans lived along the course of the Teterev, Uzh, Ubot and Sviga rivers, in Polesie and on the right bank of the Dnieper. Their main city was Iskorosten on the Uzh River, and in addition, there were other cities - Ovruch, Gorodsk, several others, whose names we do not know, but their traces remained in the form of fortifications. The Drevlyans were the most hostile East Slavic tribe in relation to the glades and their allies, who formed the ancient Russian state with the center in Kiev. They were the decisive enemies of the first Kiev princes, even killed one of them - Igor Svyatoslavovich, for which the Drevlyan prince Mal, in turn, was killed by Igor's widow, Princess Olga.
The Drevlyans lived in dense forests, getting their name from the word "tree" - a tree.
13. Croats who lived around the city of Przemysl on the river. San, called themselves White Croats, in contrast to the tribe of the same name who lived in the Balkans. The name of the tribe is derived from the ancient Iranian word "shepherd, guardian of cattle", which may indicate its main occupation - cattle breeding.
14. The Volynians were a tribal union formed on the territory where the Duleb tribe previously lived. The Volynians settled on both banks of the Western Bug and in the upper reaches of the Pripyat. Their main city was Cherven, and after Volhynia was conquered by the Kiev princes, a new city was erected on the Luga river in 988 - Volodymyr-Volynsky, which gave the name to the Vladimir-Volyn principality that formed around it.
15. The tribal association, which arose in the habitat of the Dulebs, included, in addition to the Volynians and Buzhanians, who were located on the banks of the Southern Bug. There is an opinion that the Volhynians and Buzhanians were one tribe, and their independent names originated only as a result of their different habitats. According to written foreign sources, the Buzhanians occupied 230 "cities" - most likely, these were fortified settlements, and the Volynians - 70. Be that as it may, these figures indicate that Volyn and Pobuzhie were populated quite densely.
As for the lands and peoples bordering on the eastern Slavs, this picture looked like this: in the north lived the Finno-Ugric tribes: Cheremis, Chud Zavolochskaya, all, Korela, Chud; in the northwest lived the Balto-Slavic tribes: Kors, Zemigola, Zhmud, Yatvyags and Prussians; in the west - Poles and Hungarians; in the southwest - the Volokhs (ancestors of the Romanians and Moldovans); in the east - Burtases, related to them Mordovians and Bulgarians Volga-Kama. Outside these lands lay "terra incognita" - an unknown land, which the Eastern Slavs learned about only after their knowledge of the world was very much expanded with the appearance in Russia of a new religion - Christianity, and at the same time writing, which was the third sign of civilization …
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