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The Baltic Veneti (alternatively also called the Vistula Veneti) were an ancient Indo-European people living in contemporary Poland, along the rivers of Vistula and the Odra.
Ethnic character of the Veneti The Veneti are believed to have been originally a centum Indo-European people dwelling in the area of contemporary Poland. Their heritage is attributed to Pre-Slavic hydronyms found in the Vistula and Odra river basins. To a certain extent, these hydronyms fall within the scope of Old European hydronyms established by Hans Krahe (see Old European hydronymy). It is not clear whether they were related to the Adriatic Veneti, a people whose language is attested in inscriptions dating from 6th to 1st centuries BC and is known to have been particularly closely related to the Italic languages (see Venetic language). Hydronyms attributed to the Baltic Veneti show resemblances to those attested in the area of the Adriatic Veneti (in Northeastern Italy) as well as those attested in the Western Balkans that are attributed to Illyrians (for examples, linguistic comparisons and further reference see Gołąb 1992: 263-268), all of which may point to a possible connection between these ancient Indo-European peoples. However, some scholars may prefer to view the Baltic Veneti as a distinct group. Scholarly consensus suggests that the Pre-Slavic population of the Vistula and Odra river basins had a North-West Indo-European character with close affinities to the Italo-Celtic branch, but was definitely not Germanic (Gołąb 1992: 88). Origin of the ethnonym Veneti According to J. Pokorny, the ethnonym Venetī (singular Historical sources on the Veneti As an ethnicon, Veneti begin to appear in written records in 1 century AD. They are first mentioned as Sarmatian Venedi (Latin Sarmatae Venedi) by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder in Natural History (Liber IV: 96-97) and subsequently, under the name Venedi, by Tacitus in Germania (46). When comparing the Venedi to Germani and Sarmatae, however, Tacitus associates them with the former, stating that their habits are different from those of the Sarmatae. In 2nd century AD, Ptolemy in his work De Geographia (III 5. 21.) mentions a people called Ouenedai along the southern shores of the Baltic, which he calls the Venedic Bay. The historical document Tabula Peutingeriana, originating from the 4th century AD, separately mentions the Venedi and the Venadi Sarmatae (see Gołąb 1992: 287-291, 295-296). The first historical source in which the ethnonym Veneti is explicitly applied to Slavs is De origine actibusque Getarum (30-35) by the Gothic author Jordanes from 551 AD. Jordanes writes of a populous people of Venethi who are called Sclaveni and Anti. Relation between Veneti and Slavs The Veneti were geographically and temporaly contiguous to the Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic peoples and were eventually assimilated by both groups, perhaps even more decisively by the Proto-Slavic peoples who later settled in the territory which erstwhile belonged to the Veneti. The Germanic peoples subsequently transferred the ethnonym Veneti to their new easterly neighbours, the Slavs. This tradition is reflected in many medieval historical sources (beginning with Jordanes in 6th century AD) where Slavs are named as Veneti and also survived in German language where Slavs living in closest proximity to Germany were originally called Wenden or Winden (see Wends). It should be emphasised, though, that Slavic peoples never used the ethnonym Veneti for themselves but were called thus only by the neighbouring Germanic peoples. Such transfers of ethnonyms from one group to another are not unusual and have occurred frequently in history. An analogous example is the name Böhmer, formerly applied by Germans to the Czechs, which originally was the name of a Celtic tribe Boii who dwelt in Bohemia before the Czechs (Schenker 1996: 3-4). Aside from the already mentioned non-Slavic character of the Vistula and Odra river basin hydronymy, there are a number of further linguistic arguments attesting to the fact that Veneti were originally a different people from the Slavs. Considering the fact that in ancient sources the Veneti are located along the Baltic sea, linguist Alexander M. Schenker underlines that the vocabulary of the Slavic languages shows no evidence that the early Slavs were exposed to the sea. Proto-Slavic had no maritime terminology and even lacked a word for amber which was the most important item of export from the shores of the Baltic to the Mediterranean. In view of this, the very fact that Ptolemy refers to the Baltic as the Venedic Bay appears to rule out a possible identification of the Veneti of his times with the Slavs (Schenker 1996: 3-5). Schenker's conclusion is supported by the fact that to the east of the Ouenedai, Ptolemy mentions two further tribes called Stauanoi and Souobenoi, both of which have been interpreted as possibly the oldest historcial attestations of Slavs (Gołąb 1992: 291). Linguists agree in the opinion that Slavic languages evolved in close proximity with the Baltic languages, or, for that matter, originally formed a linguistic union with the Baltic languages, having later separated from the latter. The earliest origins of Slavs seem to lie in the area between the Middle Dniepr and the Bug rivers, where the most archaic Slavic hydronyms have been established (Gołąb 1992: 300). The mentioned area roughly corresponds with the Zarubintsy archeological culture which has been interpreted as the most likely locus of the ethnogenesis of Slavs. According to Polish archaeologist Michał Parczewski, Slavs began to settle in southeastern Poland at no earlier than late 5th century AD, the Prague culture being their recognizable expression (Parczewski 1993). In linguistic terms, there is evidence that during the course of its evolution, Proto-Slavic adopted some lexical elements from a foreign, centum-type Indo-European language. As these lexical elements have correspondences in North-West Indo-European dialects, it has been proposed that the contacts of Proto-Slavs with the Veneti may have been the source for these borrowings (Gołąb 1992: 175; for detailed examples see p. 79-86). Uncertain theories surrounding the Veneti The Germanic tradition of designating the Slavs with the name of Veneti led some medieval chronists and historians to equate the ancient Veneti with Slavs or view Veneti as the ancestors of all Slavic peoples. In addition, phonetic similarity and geographic proximity of the ethnicons Veneti and Vandali inspired a similar false belief that the Germanic people of Vandals were ancestors of Slavs, too (see Steinacher 2004; see also Connection between Poles and Vandals). Such ideas were eventually rejected by modern history but provided the basis for various nationalist ideologies. Some Slovene individuals, for example, have proposed a theory according to which the Veneti were Proto-Slavs and bearers of the Lusatian culture along the Amber Path who conquered and settled the region between the Baltic sea and Adriatic Sea. This theory has been rejected by several Slovenian and other scholars as untenable (see Skrbiš 2002). See also | ||||||||
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