Venedes

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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.

Contents

1 Ethnic character of the Veneti
2 Historical sources on the Veneti
3 Relation between Veneti and Slavs
4 Uncertain theories surrounding the Veneti
5 See also
6 Reference

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.

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.

The consensus seems to be that the Pre-Slavic population of the Vistula and Odra river basins had a North-West Indo-European character with close connections to the Italo-Celtic branch, but was definitely not Germanic (Gołąb 1992: 88).

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 The historical document Tabula Peutingeriana, originating from the 4th century AD, separately mentions the Venedi and the Venadi Sarmatae (see Gołąb 1992: 287-291, 295-296).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 explicitly refers to Slavs is De origine actibusque Getarum (30-35) by the Gothic author Jordanes from 551 AD. Jordanes writes 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, which explains why in many medieval historical sources (e.g. the above quoted Jordanes) Slavs are named as Veneti. The tradition 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).

There are a number of convincing linguistic arguments against the identification of the original Veneti with Slavs. Considering the fact that in ancient sources the Veneti are located along the Baltic, 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).

Linguistic facts show that the origins of Slavs lie in the area between the Middle Dniepr and the Bug rivers, where the most archaic Slavic hydronyms can be found (Gołąb 1992: 300).

Uncertain theories surrounding the Veneti

The Germanic tradition of designating the Slavs with the name of Veneti led some medieval chronists and historians in equating the ancient Veneti with Slavs. In addition, phonetic similarity and geographic proximity of the ethnicons Veneti and Vandali inspired the belief that the ancient Vandals were also Slavs (see Steinacher 2004; see also Connection between Poles and Vandals). Such beliefs were eventually rejected by history as a modern science 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).

Reference

Gołąb, Zbigniew (1992). The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's view. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-89357-231-4.
Schenker, Alexander M. (1996). The dawn of Slavic: an Introduction to Slavic Philology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-300-05846-2.
Skrbiš, Zlatko (2002). The Emotional Historiography of Venetologists: Slovene Diaspora, Memory and Nationalism. Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology 39, 2002, p. 41-56. [link]
Steinacher, Roland (2004). Wenden, Slawen, Vandalen. Eine frühmittelalterliche pseudologische Gleichsetzung und ihr Nachleben bis ins 18. Jahrhundert. In: W. Pohl (Hrsg.): Auf der Suche nach den Ursprüngen. Von der Bedeutung des frühen Mittelalters (Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 8), Wien 2004, p. 329-353.

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