Thank You, Mr. Knysh for your comment [it's really appreciated].
Just two short comments from my part:
1] The powerful state that the Avars founded extended from the Danube to the
Dnieper and the Baltic Sea and included as its subjects other Turanic
peoples, such as the Utigurs and the Kutrigurs, as well as Slavs. In their
raids against the Byzantine empire, the Avars were sometimes accompanied by
"bands" of their subject populations, especially the Slavs, to the point
that we can speak of Avaro-Slav raids. Thus when the Greeks began to suffer
from the raids, the Slavs were under the yoke of the Avars; and, probably,
it was for this reoson that their Greek names (ie Sklavenoi, Sthavenoi,
Sklavoi, Slavoi, Sthlavoi) came to denote, much later, the status of
slavery.
2] The most important greek lexicographer, Hesychios of Miletus/Millet
[known also as Hesychios of Alexandria because in Alexandria he will
write/compile in V-VI[?] century AC his well known "Lexicon", the greatest
of his kind surviving from antiquity] informs us that in middle Italy the
greek homonym "bannas" means "leader".
But here is another question [for which I still do not have a clear answer]:
V or VI century [the Avars are already in Europe at the middle of the VI
Century]?
S o r i n
George Knysh wrote:
*****GK: The claim that Eastern Slavs were conquered
en masse by the Avars and became their slaves is
unsupported by historical sources or "deductive"
archaeology. Initially the Avars established dominance
among the non-Slavic steppe tribal groups (esp. the
Kutrigur Bulgars),and waged destructive wars against
the Salvic Antae, but even here they had to swiftly
run westward, away from Turkic pressure. After they
defeated the Gepids (with Lombard help) and settled in
the area of modern Hungary, they did indeed utilize
various Slavic peoples in "slavish" fashion (roughly
speaking), but their attitude towards those Bulgars
they forced to migrate with them was no better. I
think Fredegar's chronicle has information about the
relations between Avars and Slavs which partly (but
only partly) supports this notion of "slavery" (let's
say they were "slaves" in a fashion similar to that of
the East Slavs under the Tatars in the 13th and 14th
c.: "nevolya" as the Old Ukrainian Chronicles termed
this). The Slavs of the Danube frequently co-operated
with the Avars against Constantinople, but they were
not exactly subjects (except intermittently).As for
the East Slavs after the Avar move to the west, only
those who were controlled by the "Croats" would fit
the model. Sometime in the mid-7th c. the Avars did
conquer some territory in contemporary Volynia
(destroying a number of "grads"). Probably this is the
event which was the source of the famous story about
the Dulebians in the Tale of Bygone Years. I think
your non-Avar sources about "pan" "ban" are more
likely to be correct. But let's hear from the
linguists.******
--- S & L <
mbusines@...> wrote:
> Hi Everybody;
> A greenhorn needs some help.
> I am a journalist and I live in Romania/ie Timisoara
> Town in a region still
> named BANAT [Some Basic Info on Banat are to be
> found at http://www.genealogy.ro/cont/1.htm%5d.
>
> I am working to a comment regarding the meaning of
> ban/Banat [ie ban as
> ruler of an Banat] from our days until the ancient
> history of the region.
> Everything was just OK until I reach the etymology
> problem of these words.
>
> It seams that both ban_Banat has some slavic/avar
> meaning [ie lord, master].
> Already the French savant Charles du Fresne, sieur
> Du Change [1610-1688] in
> his work [ie "Glossarium", tome I. (Niort, 1883)]
> was convinced that the
> technical word "ban" comes from "Baian"
> (Bajan/Boeanos), a khan/kagan of
> Avars, who lived in the VI century. Other scholars
> [mainly historians from
> the region] took his explanations as it is.
> Unfortunately for me I do not
> have the opportunity to check Du Change's original
> explanation [I did not
> find yet his work in a romanian library].
>
> I found some other explanations like: the name
> "banat" has its origin in a
> Persian word meaning "lord", or "master" and is to
> be found also in the old
> Indian dialect [with the meaning of "master",
> "ruler", "responsible",
> "superintendent"] and because this Indian dialect
> was very similar to the
> Thracian/Geto-Dacian [both being indo-european
> languages] one can suppose
> that these -ie the Thracian/Geto-Dacian- used the
> word with the same
> meanings. The argument: it is known that the Dacian
> king Duras was also
> named DiurPANeus. The second part of his name,
> "paneus" means "ruling" and
> "pan" or "ban" means "ruler/master".
>
> At http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/project/chron/chronf.html
> 555-796 Avars
> The following statement is made: "In 560, all the
> territory occupied by
> Eastern Slavs, appeared conquered by Avars, who used
> Slavs as slaves".
>
> I want to know more on this fact and eventually to
> receive [if possible]
> some academic bibliographical source of info on this
> aspect. If I can find
> substantial evidence that the Slavs were actually
> the slaves of Avars, then
> I have also a logical explanation for the etymology
> of the word ban/banat.
>
> Any help is much appreciated,
> [but, please, have patience with a non-specialist]
>
> Thank You,
> Sorin Fortiu