The Distribution of the Slavs

§2. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SLAVS.

The Slavs in the tenth century were organized in clans or tribes [племена]; of these the Полояне settled on the middle of the Dnĕpr, the Древляне in the forests watered by the Southern affluents of the Prípet’; to the West of these last-named on the river Bug the Сѣверяне or Дулѣбы opposite to the Поляне on the Eastern bank of the Dněpr the Сѣверяне on the Desna and the Sulá; on the Sož (a tributary of the Dnĕpr) the Радимичи and to the East of the Радимичи on the upper Oka the Вятичи. The Кривичи settled in the plain where the Dněpr, the Western Dviná and the Volga meet; and South-West of these last, in the marshy wooded country on the Western Dviná and Prípet; the Дреговичи, to the North of the Дреговичи on the Western Dviná a branch of the Кривичи viz. the Полочане; and lastly on the river Volkov by Lake Ilmen the Словѣне of Nóvgorod.

The Полине formed the basis of the subsequent principality of Kíev: the Древляне of that of Pereyáslavl’: the Дулѣбы formed the principality of Volhynia: the name of the Сѣверяне was perpetuated its the city Nóvgorod Sĕversky; the Вятичи formed the independent state of Vyátka, whilst the Полочане under the house of Polotsk were also to establish themselves as separate entity. The Slavs at Nóvgorod realized the great mercantile state, whose history was to be so different from that of the rest of Russia, a free Hanseatic community only suppressed by the Moscovite rulers in 1478.

Footnotes

vii:† a river on which Kíev lies.