Review article
Slavs in the Early Medieval Period and Florin Curta's View
Domagoj Maslač
orcid.org/0009-0008-9030-1259
; Department of History, Department of Russian Studies, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
This paper deals with interpretations of the early Slavs throughout the prism of their ethnicity, language and archeological cultures associated to them. This paper puts primary focus on the Florina Curte approach. The author emphatically critizes earlier theories and interpretations, and he presents his own interpretations of historical materials associated to Slavs, which were used in earlier theories. Parallel to this, approaches of other contemporary historians, such as Barford and Pleterski, are also examined, as well as their interpretations of the materials, which Curta uses for his own theories.
Other than the scientific approach, this paper also discusses the question of slavic identity, i. e. ethnicity. The question which is being discussed is whether it is possible to talk about a wider consciousness and about one identity. The subject of Slavic language is covered, and how did the today’s span of slavic languages occured. Another question of discussion is the interpretation of archeological cultures which are considered to be Slavic, and whether we can associate them to just one community. The last question which is being discussed is the question of the truthfulness of Byzantine sources of the early history of Slavs as one of the earliest primary resources used for the research of the history of early Slavs.
Keywords
early Slavs; Florin Curta; archaeological cultures; Slavic ethnicity; Slavic language; koine; lingua franca
Hrčak ID:
292260
URI
Publication date:
22.11.2022.
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