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The arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans marked the
process of integration of the inter-Balkan substratum with the Slavs. Lidija
Slaveska suggests that the synthesis of the material, cultural and spiritual
values of natives and conquerors is an inevitable process and lasts for many
centuries. In Balkans, she suggests that the beginnings of their cohabitation is
an additional factor in ascertaining that Slavic tribes did not settle in a
deserted and empty territory. Rather, by coming into contact with an entirely
new culture, with people who spoke differently and whose way of thinking was
different from theirs, the intermingling of two different civilizations and
cultures was inevitable. Direct contact resulted in the interweaving of two
heritages: the old Balkan cultural and mythical heritage with the new Slavic
culture and mythos.
Historical, archaeological and linguistic studies indicate that following the
settlement of the Slavs on Balkan territories their cultural heritage integrated
with the cultural heritage of the natives. In the metropolis of
St.
Erazmo near Ohrid, skeletons have been discovered which can be divided into two groups: the
older skeletons belong to people who had lived in the 7th and
8th century, while
the younger ones to people from the 9th and
10th century. M. Shtefanchich
ascertained that the skeletons differ in demographic and anthropological
representation. Byzantine
documents provide information about the siege of Salonica by the Avaro-Slavs
in 586: "If one would imagine that all Macedonians, Thracians and Achaeans
gathered in Salonica at that time, all of them together would not represent
even a small part of that barbarian multitude which then besieged the
town."
 There it is indicated that the Macedonians and the Slavs took part in the siege
of Salonica as members of two opposed parties. However, there is written
record which states that during the invasion of Crete by Nichephorus Phocas in
961, the Byzantine emperor "gathered ships and selected infantry of
Thracians, Macedonians and Sclavenians". This fact is evidence that, by
living together on the same territory, the cohabitation of the ancient
Macedonians and the immigrant Slavs had become part of a historical process
characterized by the blending of two or more ethnoses on these territories. Few
ancient towns survived the invasion of the Slavs, particularly in Macedonia, and
few of them preserved their old names. However, "traditions about the
vanished ancient settlements were preserved. They were recorded, among other
matters, by the ecclesiastical administration, where new bishoprics appeared as
successors to the former ones." The evidence of archeological finds throughout Macedonia supplement the
noticeable absence of written information about the gradual interweaving of the
spiritual and material heritage of the native Macedonians with that brought by
the conquering Slavic tribes. Blaga Aleksova's research in eastern Macedonia
reveals the traces of both cultures: the Slavs adopted the monuments of the
natives, and hence along the Bregalnica River and in the vicinity of Demir
Kapija the newcomers built their own churches on the foundations of Macedonian
temples, giving at the same time purely Slavic characteristics to the building
material: the engraving of signs with the Slavic alphabets and
characteristically Slavic enigmatic lines and strokes.
The Slavo-Macedonians adopted the ancient cultural heritage to an extent
suitable for them as conquerors of the territory where the Ancient Macedonians
had lived, establishing their right to this heritage through the assimilation of
the of the two peoples. Hence the opinion that in building a historical
consciousness of the Macedonian people there is mutual participation of two
traditions: the Classical traditions of the ancient inhabitants of Macedonia,
and the traditions of the conquering Slavs.
The collective memory can also be of use in drawing certain conclusions about
the role of oral traditions attached to historical figures and historical
events. In a number of cases, many peoples have based their consciousness of
belonging to a strictly defined ethnos upon such an attachment to the past,
drawing a long and continued line from "that of the old times" to
"this at present". Macedonian folk tradition vividly cherished and
preserved the mystified memory of their ancestors in the people's memory. These
memories were closely attached to medieval culture, but at the same time
incorporated new elements and symbols under the influence of contemporary
historiography. Along with the beginnings of modern South Slavic historical
thought "the process of forming the ethno-cultural Macedonian zone was
ongoing".
Ante Popovski, commenting on the arrival of the Slavs in the Balkans and their
contacts with the culture of the Ancient Macedonians, writes: "Thus, the
Ancient Macedonians, through the entire 3rd century A.D. and until their
assimilation into another ethnos, did not part either with their own name, or
the name of their famous Macedonian homeland. Soon after that, the Slavic
colonization of Macedonia began. It means that an act of grandiose historical
meeting of two ethnoses was accomplished: the Macedonian Classical ethnos, which
by intermingling with the Slavic ethnos was disappearing from history as an
independent and autogenetic ethnos; and the Slavic ethnos which inherited both
its lands and fame and which, by unavoidable and undeniable natural law,
inherited the blood and the desires of the ancient Macedonians in many respects.
Therefore, that meeting remains one of the most important events in the long
history of the Balkans. The Slavs who settled there and the Ancient Macedonians
who surrendered their land to them through storms and blood accomplished an epic
fusion, which continues to be referred to as Macedonian throughout
history." Quickly, for about 40 years, southern by
the valley of Bistrica (Halijakmon) river and western of Salonica (Solun),
settled the Dragovites (Dragoviti). Their neighbors north of them were the
Velegezites (Velegeziti), while between
Ohrid,
Bitola
and
Veles,
settled the Berziti (Brsjaci). Near Salonica, the Sagudates (Sagudati) settled
and eastern from Salonica and on the Chalkidik peninsula, proclaimed fatherland,
the Rinhines (Rinhini). By the valleys of Struma and Strumeshnica, settled the
Strumjani tribe and eastern from Mesta, the Smoljans (Smoljani). A part of the
Dragovites, settled even in the Polog valley. In the second half of the 7th
century, more precisely in the year 675 AD, by the forming of the Second Great
Union of the Tribes lead by comes of the Rinhines, Prebond, the Macedonian
Slavs, had the best condition and way to form their own medieval state. This was
a period when, on the territory of Macedonia, already existed many Sclavinaes
(mentioned also as Sclavinii), which represented an organized native-tribal
units. All of them were, a seat of the Macedonian Slavic tribes in which
Byzantine had no authority. The Sclavinaes were ruled independent by the
Macedonian Slavic Comes. One of those comes was Prebond. After the forming of
the union, Byzantine afraid of it, intervened quickly and ruined it. By the
"Miracles of St. Demetrus (Dimitrija) of Salonica, second volume it's
mentioned when the Byzantines tried to capture Prebond, and when they succeeded,
he had spoken:
"If
I come back to my position, I'll take no more care about the peace. And
really he'll wont leave any place, land or sea, untouched by a war, that
he will lead and also he will kill all the Byzantiums"
He shared the destiny of his preliminary, the comes Hacon
(read Hatson), who in 616, united in the First Great Union, the Macedonian Slavs
(the Dragovites, Sagidates, Velegezites, Rinhines, Berzites...).
Concerning the use of the term Macedonia in the early 9th century, the letter
sent by Byzantine Emperor Michail 2nd (reigned 820-829) to Louis le Debonnaire on
April 10th, 824 is intriguing. Michail wrote of the 821-824 rebellion of Thomas
the Slav: "Thomas... by taking our ships and boats, had the possibility to
come into (some) parts of Thrace and Macedonia. In such a quick action, he
besieged our town (Constantinople) and surrounded it with the fleet in the month
of December, Indiction 15 (December, 821)." Furthermore, in his letter to
the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Michail writes that among the rebels,
Thomas had people from the "areas in Asia, Europe, Thrace, Macedonia,
Thessaly and from the surrounding sclavenes". Apparently, Michail 2nd
in
referring to Macedonia in the first case meant the theme Macedonia, and in the
second case as a geographical and historical entity. By the expression "the
surrounding sclavenes", he meant the Slavs, Macedonian Slavs foremost.
Comenyat, author of On the Takeover of Salonica (by the Arabs in 904) gives
a number of details about the Macedonian Slavs, mentioning also the Dragovites,
Sagudats, Strymians and others who as compact Slavic populations lived near
Salonica (Solun). Comenyat writes: "Our homeland, my friend, is
Salonica and, first of all, I am going to introduce that town to you... the great and
first town of the Macedonians..."
It appears as if the main goal of the penetration of the Slavic tribes to the
south was Salonica. "And they (the Slavs) stated that they came to
besiege and conquer Salonica and the surrounding towns. When the emperor
heard this, he grew upset and wrote to German immediately to postpone his
journey to Italy and to help Salonica and the other towns", writes
Procopius Kesariski, in mentioning Macedonia in his History of the Wars.
The struggle for this strategic and rich town continued unabated from the first
Slavic invasions of the Balkans. The first recorded attack took place on October
26th, 584, as Salonica celebrated the feast day of St. Demetrius (Dimitrija). The
three-volume collection The Miracles of St. Demetrius of Salonica is
considered the most significant work of early Byzantine literature; the first
volume, containing an account of the Slavs' attack on Salonica on St.
Demetrius' day, was written by John, Archbishop of Salonica. Regarding the
attack he writes:
"In the field by the holy temple, a man saw a not very
numerous barbarian army (as we counted them together up to five thousands), but
very strong, as it consisted of selected experienced fighters... and until late
in the night they fought, and the people of the victor (the protectors of
Salonica) exposed themselves to great risk while they attacked and
retreated, because as said, they had the selected flowers of the entire Slavic
people for their opponents. Finally, when help arrived, the Barbarians were
expelled and they retreated."
 On July
25th, 877, the invaders made a decisive
attack: they assaulted the town ramparts for three days, but did not succeed in
storming them. The invaders were the Slavs who lived in the vicinity of Salonica, as stated by Byzantine sources; by the middle of the
9th century
"all the Salonica people spoke pure Slavic and soon the city got it's
Slavic name Solun", according to the same
sources.
By settling in Macedonia, the Slavs made profound changes in the social-economic
relations in the life of Byzantium. They ruined towns, replaced money with
barter as the means of payment, made fundamental changes in agriculture,
established independent tribal units and destroyed the last remnants of the
Roman system of slaveholding, creating conditions for instituting entirely new,
feudal social relations. From the native population the newcomers inherited
Christianity, which penetrated deep in Macedonia as early as in the 4th century.
The Christianizing of the Slavs was neither rapid nor easy, and it was recorded
that they:
"They
did not know anything about Christ's name; they served the
Scythian insanity, believed in the Sun, the Moon, as well as other stars, while
some of them even made sacrifices to dogs... They closed their eyes and ears not
to see and hear when conquered Christians... in conversations with them
mentioned Christ's teaching..."
Christianity destroyed and accelerated the disintegration of the clan social
system. Princes more often took over elements of state authority and the number
of the armed people in their Sclavinae constantly increased under feudalism. The
8th century in Macedonia was a century when the formation of the Macedonian
people accelerated, the name of Macedonia and Macedonians became increasingly
dominant and when Macedonia could be spoken of as a precisely defined territory
and individual people.
Branko Panov states that from the 6th to
11th century the Macedonian Sclavinae
remained outside the Byzantine Empire, most of them being independent
principalities with their own princes. From the 8th
century onwards, a number of
sources confirm that the Macedonian Sclavinii were in fact already assuming the
shape of states with well-trained and relatively well-equipped armies,
particularly in heavy infantry. The Sclavinii were capable of resisting
Byzantine attacks, and their governors were able, with the help of the army, to
subordinate the people who inhabited these clan and tribal communities. All
these Sclavinae made up a common linguistic territory, where the Slavonic
language was common; clear evidence that on the territory of the Ancient
Macedonian state there existed all the elements required for the Macedonian
Slavs to be considered a nation. The consciousness of ethnic and state
individuality was so strong that, even when Macedonia fell under Bulgarian and
Byzantine authority, it was preserved by the Macedonians and was manifested in
various ways: they maintained self-government and continued to elect their own
princes, continued to use Slavonic speech and practiced their own customs. |
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