Re: Early Croatian names

> --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

> My view, for what it's worth, is that the Avars, after consolidating their
> rule in the Danubian basin, established a string of defensive positions
> against the threatening (at the time) Turks in and north of the
> Carpathians, largely manned by Slavic auxiliaries, probably led by
> non-Slavs of uncertain ethnicity (unless one cares to have a crack at the
> names listed supra. The Avars were a pretty mixed bunch). These various
> complexes were called "Croatias" (I can only speculate as to the why:
> possibly from the name of the Avar concivis in charge, possibly for other
> reasons).

That seems to be in accord with Omelyan Pritsak's theory. He says that the
Slavs were originally a branch of Avar army.

> The only "colour" (steppe geographic designation) I am familiar
> with here is "White" Croatia ["Red" Rus' though located on the territory
> of an older "Croatia" does not imply that these were "Red" Croats], in the
> sense of "western" Croatia.

There are also "Red Croats/Croatia". That term was applied to the
present-day Montenegro/Montenegrians.

> In the Kyivan Primary Chronicle, the Dalmatian
> Croats are still called "White" Croats, those of Galicia just plain
> "Croats". Some Croatias continued
> to exist after the fall of the Avars, but eventually other names replaced
> this nomenclature. Whoever the original leaders of the Dalmatian Croats
> were, by the ninth century their descendants had almost certainly been
> thoroughly Slavonized.

Radoslav Katicic's idea is that Croats was originally the name of some 150
or so people which came to Dalmatia. Later the name spread elsewhere.

Mate