The Making And Evolving Of The Early Slavs (from Fifth Century To Ninth Century)

Slavs is the oldest ethnic group in Europe, which has experienced a roughly two-stage process of differentiation. The first stage is the differentiation of geography. In this stage the Slavs leave their original place, began to migrate and settled down, which has formed three main groups. The second stage is the differentiation of politics and civilization. At this stage, in order to expand their own influence to compete, Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy included the ancient Slavs into their respective political and cultural circles ultimately. From then on, the division of politics and culture started,which have profound impact on contemporary international relations and political structure.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part describes the origin of the Slavs, defines the concept of the Slavs, which analysis the names and nature.Focus on the Western academic research on the early Slavs,outlines the scope of the early Slavs:based on Piatra,the Dnieper, the Vistula and Carpathian Mountains.The second part describes the activities of the Slavs before the 5th century A.D. Based on the development of other nations, it especially describes the activities of the Slavs of the Goths and Huns during the early period.In 6th century A.D., Slavs began to move to the Danube boundary of the Byzantine Empire.The third part discusses the massive expansion of the early Slavs from 6th century to 7th century. The Avars played important role in this era, which pushed Slavs into Byzantine Empire and land of Germans which leave. At this stage, Slavs started to settled down, which formed three Slavs groups.The fourth part briefly describes the differentiation between the politics and civilization of the Slavs. Eastern Slavs converted Orthodox because of closing to Byzantine civilization circle. Due to Frankish control, West Slavs accepted Catholic. Northern Slavs in the junction of two civilization circles, and later be conquered by Ottoman Empire, were affected by three civilization, which presented characteristics of combined civilization.