The troubled years after Justinian's death also witnessed
the beginning of the Slavic settlements in southeastern Europe. The Slavs
belonged to the Indo-European race, but had not progressed in civilization as
far as the Germans. Their cradle land seems to have been in western Russia,
whence they slowly spread to the Baltic, the Elbe, and the Danube. We have already
mentioned the campaigns which Charlemagne and Henry the Fowler waged against
them. The emperors at Constantinople were less successful in resisting
that branch of the Slavs which tried to occupy the Balkan peninsula. After
crossing the Danube, the Slavs pressed on farther and farther, until they
reached the southern extremity of ancient Greece. They avoided the cities, but
formed peasant communities in the open country, where they readily mingled with
the inhabitants. Their descendants have remained in the Balkan peninsula to
this day. The inhabitants of modern Serbia [14] are Slavs, and even in the
Greeks there is a considerable strain of Slavic blood.
[14] A more accurate designation than Servia. Originally,
all Slavic peoples called themselves Serbs.
BULGARIANS
The Bulgarians, a people akin to the Huns and Avars, made
their appearance south of the lower Danube in the seventh century. For more
than three hundred years these barbarians, brutal, fierce, and cruel, were a
menace to the empire. At one time they threatened Constantinople and even
killed a Roman emperor, whose skull was converted into a drinking cup to grace
their feasts. The Bulgarians settled in the region which now bears their name
and gradually adopted the speech and customs of the Slavs. Modern Bulgaria is
essentially a Slavic state.
