I know Golab's book (though I haven't got
it to hand). It represent the view, once prevailing among Polish scholars, that
the Slavs lived in Poland throughout the Roman period or even originated here
(at the very least, they were credited with creating the Lausitz culture). This
would mean that any Germanic peoples known from ancient history merely passed
through Slavic Poland on their migrations or temporarily settled among the
Slavs.
Golab's particular theory -- of an early
expansion from the Dnieper basin (ca. 700 BC, if I remember correctly) is at
variance with several kinds of evidence: linguistic (for one thing, the Slavic
branch is highly homogeneous, which suggests late territorial expansion of the
protolanguage from a relatively small home area); historical (the writers of the
Roman period report nothing that could be interpreted as Slavic presence in the
Vistula and Oder basins; au contraire, the onomastic material connected with the
Przeworsk culture is clearly Germanic); as well as archaeological (there is no
continuity between Roman-time and later cultures, and most of Poland was
dramatically depopulated at the end of the Roman period).
The theory currently in vogue (and one that
fits the linguistic aspect of the question, in my opinion) is that the Slavs
arrived in the wake of the Great Migrations, sometimes in the company of Hunnic,
Sarmatian or Avar allies or overlords, sometimes on their own. In Poland they
filled the vacuum created by the collapse of the Przeworsk culture, associated
with East Germanic speakers (perhaps originally with some Celtic admixture). The
association of Slavic-speakers with concrete archaeological cultures (to the
extent that such correlations are valid, "Slavic" being ultimately a linguistic
notion) is still somewhat uncertain, but I think most archaeologists would opt
for a chain of related cultures between the Don and the Carpathians, genetically
connected with the Kiev culture on the Middle Dnieper and, in a deeper
perspective, the so-called post-Zarubinec horizon in the Pripyat' and Dnieper
basins. Archaeological traces attributable to Slavic settlers in
Poland come from the sixth century, but it's highly probable they were present
in southeastern Poland (east of the upper Vistula) since at least the middle of
the fifth century. Procopius had the Heruls pass through lands occupied by "the
Sclavini" and through depopulated wildernesses on their trek from the Carpathian
basin to Scandinavia in AD 512, which squares well with the scenario
above.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2002 12:55 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: for ignorants
Piotr,
that's a very succint statement of the expansion of the
Slavs from the fifth
century. Would you make a similar one for
the time
earlier?
I have a book "The
Origin of the Slavs, A Linguist's View" by
Zbigniew Golab (with doodads
across the L and under the A)
1991, which I much enjoy browsing through
without being
competent to appraise. I'm sure you're familiar with it,
I've often
wondered what your opinion of it was, and this seems the
opportunity to ask. As I understand him, he has the Proto-Slavs
emerging in the Middle Dniepr basin and expanding through
much of Poland
before the birth of Christ, whereas you imply
they arrived in southeastern
Poland (from the east?) some
centuries later.
Dan
Milton