Page 229 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

defeat at Lechfeld in 955, was also converted to Chris- tianity by German missionaries. Saint Stephen, king of Hungary from 997 to 1038, facilitated the acceptance of Christianity by his people. The Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians all accepted Catholic or Western Christian- ity and became closely tied to the Roman Catholic Church and its Latin culture.
Southern Slavs
The southern and eastern Slavic populations largely took a different path because of their proximity to the Byzantine Empire. The southern Slavic peoples were converted to the Eastern Orthodox Christianity of the Byzantine Empire by two Byzantine missionary brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who began their activ- ities in 863. They created a Slavonic (Cyrillic) alpha- bet, translated the Bible into Slavonic, and created Slavonic church services. While the southern Slavic peoples accepted Christianity, a split eventually developed between the Croats, who accepted the Roman church, and the Serbs, who remained loyal to Eastern Christianity.
Although the Bulgars were originally an Asiatic peo- ple who conquered much of the Balkan Peninsula, they were eventually absorbed by the larger native southern Slavic population. Together, by the ninth century, they formed a largely Slavic Bulgarian kingdom. Although the conversion to Christianity of this state was compli- cated by the rivalry between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Bulgarians eventually accepted the latter. By the end of the ninth century, they embraced the Slavonic church services earlier developed by Cyril and Methodius. The acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy by the southern Slavic peoples, the Serbs and Bulgarians, meant that their cultural life was also linked to the Byzantine state.
Eastern Slavs
The eastern Slavic peoples, from whom the modern Russians, White Russians (Belarusians), and Ukrain- ians are descended, had settled in the territory of present-day Ukraine and European Russia. There, be- ginning in the late eighth century, they began to contend with Viking invaders. Swedish Vikings, known to the eastern Slavs as Varangians, moved down the extensive network of rivers into the lands of the eastern Slavs in search of booty and new trade routes. After establishing commercial links with the
Byzantine state, the Varangians built trading settle- ments, became involved in the civil wars among the Slavic peoples, and eventually came to dominate the native peoples, just as their fellow Vikings were doing in parts of western Europe. According to the tradi- tional version of the story, the semilegendary Rurik secured his ruling dynasty in the Slavic settlement of Novgorod (NAHV-guh-rahd) in 862. Rurik (ROO-rik) and his fellow Vikings were called the Rus, from which Russia, the name eventually attached to the state they founded, is derived (see the box on p. 192). Although much about Rurik is unclear, it is certain that his fol- lower Oleg (ca. 873–913) took up residence in Kiev (KEE-eff) and established the Rus state, a union of east Slavic territories known as the principality of Kiev. Oleg’s successors extended their control over the east- ern Slavs and expanded the territory of Kiev until it encompassed the lands between the Baltic and Black Seas and the Danube and Volga Rivers. By marrying Slavic wives, the Viking ruling class was gradually assimilated into the Slavic population, a process con- firmed by their assumption of Slavic names.
The growth of the principality of Kiev attracted religious missionaries, especially from the Byzantine Empire. One Rus ruler, Vladimir (ca. 980–1015), mar- ried the Byzantine emperor’s sister and officially accepted Christianity for himself and his people in 987. By all accounts, Vladimir was a cruel and vicious man who believed an established church would be helpful in the development of an organized state. From the end of the tenth century on, Byzantine Christianity became the model for Russian religious life, just as Byzantine imperial ideals came to influ- ence the outward forms of Russian political life.
Women in the Slavic World
As in western Europe, women in central and eastern Europe were subordinated to men and expected to focus their lives on their families, nurturing their children, providing food and clothing, and helping their husbands and fathers. Female labor thus made up a significant part of the early medieval economy in the Slavic world. In the centuries after 1000, more opportunities for women became available, especially for aristocratic women. Beginning in the eleventh century, for example, noble women in Rus- sia could administer the household and the family’s property.
The Slavic Peoples of Central and Eastern Europe 191
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