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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 Oder and the Vistula.

Contents

Ethnic character of the Veneti

Origin of the ethnonym ''Veneti''

Historical sources on the Veneti

Archaeology

Relation between Veneti and Slavs

Identifications of ''Veneti'' as Slavs

See also

References

Further bibliography

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 Oder 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 Vistula ''Veneti'' seem to 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 prefer to consider the Vistula ''Veneti'' as a distinct group. Steinacher (2002: 32) presents the view that modern research establishes no relation of the Vistula Veneti to the Adriatic Veneti, the Veneti of Gaul, the North Balkan/Paphlagonian ''Enetoi'' (mentioned by Herodotus and Appian) or between any of these peoples.
Scholarly consensus suggests that the Pre-Slavic population of the Vistula and Oder 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 ''
★ Venetos'') is derived from Proto Indo-European root ''
★ '' 'to strive; to wish for, to love'. There seem to have been two possible accentuation patterns: Old High German ''Winida'' 'Wende' points to Pre-Germanic ''
★ Venétos'', while Lat.-Germ. ''Venedi'' (as attested in Tacitus) and Old English ''Winedas'' 'Wends' call for Pre-Germanic ''
★ Venetós''. Etymologically related words include Latin ''venus, -eris'' 'love, passion, grace'; Sanskrit ''vanas-'' 'lust, zest', ''vani-'' 'wish, desire'; Old Irish ''fine'' (< Proto-Celtic ''
★ venjā'') 'kinship, kinfolk, alliance, tribe, family'; Old Norse ''vinr'', Old Saxon, Old High German ''wini'', Old Frisian, Old English ''wine'' 'Friend' (Pokorny 1959: 1146 - 1147; Steinacher 2002: 33).

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).
In 551 AD Gothic author Jordanes in his book ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (30-35) applied the name ''Venethi'' as a collective appellation for Slavs.

Archaeology

Polish archaeologist Jerzy Okulicz has interpreted ''Veneti'' as the possible bearers of the Pomeranian culture, an Iron Age archaeological culture in Poland. Elements of the Pomeranian culture, in particular its bell-shaped burials group, have been ascertained in the successive Przeworsk culture, as well as in the Milograd culture to the east where eventually the Zarubintsy culture arose. If correctly interpreted, these archaeological data suggest that from 3rd century BC onwards ''Veneti'' entered into an intense cultural contact with Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic peoples and eventually assimilated with the two groups (Okulicz 1986; Pleterski 1995).

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 Proto-Slavs 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 survived in German language where Slavs living in closest proximity to Germany were originally called ''Wenden'' or ''Winden'' (see ''Wends''), while the people of the Austrian federal lands Styria and Carinthia referred to their Slavic neighbours as ''Windische''. 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 Serbs (before they moved south) and later the Czechs. Similarly, the name of the Celtic ''Volcae'' (Proto-Germanic ''
★ Walhoz'') was adopted as the collective name for the Celtic peoples and later for the Romance peoples (Schenker 1996: 3-4; Steinacher 2002: 28-29).
Aside from the already mentioned non-Slavic character of the Vistula and Oder 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 that ancient sources locate the ''Veneti'' 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 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).

Identifications of ''Veneti'' as Slavs

The Germanic tradition of designating the Slavs with the name of ''Wenden/Winden'' and Jordanes' appellation of Slavs by the name ''Venethi'' in 551 led some medieval chronists and historians to identify the ancient ''Veneti'' mentioned by Pliny, Tacitus and Ptolemy as Slavs. In addition, phonetic similarity and geographic proximity of the ethnicons ''Veneti'' and ''Vandali'' inspired a similar erroneous belief that the Germanic people of Vandals were Slavs as well (Steinacher 2004; see also Origins of Vandals). Such conceptions persisted into 16th century and resurfaced in 19th century where they provided the basis for interpretations of the history and origins of Slavs (Steinacher 2002: 31-35). Modern history has rejected such interpretations and clearly distinguishes two matters: one is the existence of several different ancient peoples by the name of ''Veneti'', and the other one is the fact that Germanic peoples adopted that ethnonym for their easterly neighbours, the Slavs.
In 1980s some Slovene individuals 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 (Skrbiš 2002).

See also

★ Veneti (disambiguation)

★ Vandals

★ Vends

★ Wends

References

★ Gołąb, Zbigniew (1992). ''The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's view''. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-89357-231-4.

★ Krahe, Hans (1957): ''Vorgeschichtliche Sprachbeziehungen von den baltischen Ostseeländern bis zu den Gebieten um den Nordteil der Adria''. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1957.

★ Krahe, Hans (1954): ''Sprache und Vorzeit: Europäische Vorgeschichte nach dem Zeugnis der Sprache''. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1954.

★ Okulicz, Jerzy (1986). ''Einige Aspekte der Ethnogenese der Balten und Slawen im Lichte archäologischer und sprachwissenschaftlicher Forschungen''. Quaestiones medii aevi, Vol. 3, p. 7-34.

★ Pokorny, Julius (1959). ''Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch''. Bern, München : Francke, 1959.

★ Parczewski, Michał (1993). ''Die Anfänge der frühslawischen Kultur in Polen''. Wien: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, 1993. Veröffentlichungen der österreichischen Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte; Bd. 17.

★ Pleterski, Andrej (1995). ''Model etnogeneze Slovanov na osnovi nekaterih novejših raziskav'' / ''A model of an Ethnogenesis of Slavs based on Some Recent Research''. Zgodovinski časopis = Historical Review 49, No. 4, 1995, p. 537-556. ISSN 0350-5774. English summary:

★ 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. [1]

★ Steinacher, Roland (2002). Studien zur vandalischen Geschichte. Die Gleichsetzung der Ethnonyme Wenden, Slawen und Vandalen vom Mittelalter bis ins 18. Jahrhundert(doctoral thesis). Wien, 2002.

★ 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.

Further bibliography

★ William Bell (1850) in Notes Alfred's Orosius wrote about similarity of names ''Cwenas, Cwen, Gwent, Cwent, Gwyndyd, Gwenedd, Gynneth, Gwynne, Gwent, Went, Ven, Veneta, Veneti, Vindelicia, Venedicus, Vends, Windisch, Wendish, Wendic, Wends, Ouen, Owen, Ouenetoi, Ouenedai, Quenland.