The Christian faith was an offshoot of Judaism.[150] In the Roman Empire, the Jews did not try to spread their religion. For this reason, the Romans did not see the Jews as a challenge to their pagan religion. The Jews were still persecuted, depending on the emperor, but they were relatively left alone.
The following century was when Rome would come into its own as a multi-continental empire.[151] Under Trajan, Rome extended from Western Europe to the Middle East to North Africa. During Trajan’s reign, the Romans expanded to the eastern border of Eastern Europe, establishing the province of Dacia.[152] The Roman influence over the province remains today. Today, Roman Dacia lies in Romania. The Dacians are the ancestors of the Romanians. The Girl in Kherson The Romans then left behind their language and culture, giving Romania unique characteristics among its neighbors.
Dacia and the Vlachs: The Roman Legacy in Eastern Europe
When the Romans arrived in Eastern Europe, they immediately took command of the people living there.[153] What made Rome so great and long-lasting is that they practiced assimilation, not massacre. They granted the people of Eastern Europe full citizenship and all of the protections that came with that citizenship. The Romans carved out provinces in the Balkans, one of which was known as “Dacia.”
The people who inhabited Dacia are mysterious to modern-day historians, but they were most likely related to the tribes who inhabited two other territories in the Roman Balkans: Thrace and Illyricum. The earliest evidence of a Dacian state comes in the 1st century BCE. It would have been a contemporary of Rome under the dictatorship of Julius Caesar (although the Romans would not have seen it that way.)
For two centuries, the Dacians occupied the area northeast of the Black Sea. In the meantime, Rome emerged from the chaos of the 1st century CE, forming an empire that was a global force in the ancient world. At the turn of the 2nd century CE, under the leadership of the soldier-emperor Trajan, Rome defeated the Dacians, absorbing their state into the Roman Empire as the province “Dacia.” It was only one of many victories Rome would enjoy during this period, which was the time of the greatest expansion of the empire after the reign of Augustus.
As we will see later, the Roman collapse of the 5th century caused widespread panic and disorder across Europe.[154] Former Roman provinces were forgotten, left to the stampede of barbarian invaders from across the steppe. These former Roman citizens were slaughtered or assimilated. Some left the area if they could, retreating to the southern Balkans. They stayed there, as the mountainous landscape offered some protection against the raiding, looting, and general chaos of Eastern Europe in the 5th century and beyond.
After centuries of living in the same area, the tribes that retreated from the post-Roman Balkans formed their own distinct ethnic groups. These groups split geographically by the middle of the medieval period. The ancestors of the Albanians rose in the west of the southern Balkans, and the Vlachs rose in the east.
The Vlachs were pastoral nomads, and they can still be found today from Serbia to Greece. They especially stuck down roots in Bulgaria. Unlike other tribes that formed their own identities and settled in the Balkans, the Vlachs were 100 percent committed to their Roman past, and they considered themselves the descendants of Roman culture.
Roman Trade and the Amber Road
As Roman contacts expanded across Europe into the modern-day limits of Eastern Europe, they brought economic stability to the region.[155] Trade from the Mediterranean to the East moved back and forth across Roman lands, enriching farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. The Romans instituted building projects across the empire, employing masons, builders, and architects. With economic success came progress. The Romans installed aqueducts that provided running water to its citizens, as well as better roads to connect the vast edges of its empire and deploy troops to quell unrest. There was even a mail service!
The trading route of the Amber Road. It stretched from the Baltic all the way south into Italy.
Bearas, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baltis_amber_road.jpg
The Romans had a very important reason for maintaining their connections with Eastern Europe as long as they did.[156] They wanted access to the Amber Road. This trade network, named after its highly desirable amber stones, reached as far south as the Mediterranean Sea. Amber, which is fossilized pine sap, came from the forests of the Baltic region, and it was a luxury item. Thought to have healing properties, amber stone was a favorite among the elite and royalty of ancient civilizations.
Rome maintained its hold on Eastern Europe in more ways than one.[157] It was not just a land that they had conquered; Eastern Europe was a crucial part of the Roman machine. Over twenty men who would become Roman emperors came from the Balkan region. The trade that came through the Balkans was critically important for the empire’s survival. Provinces like Noricum, Dalmatia, and Macedonia stretched down the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Moving east, Moesia, Thrace, and Dacia gave the Romans unbroken control of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, and Black Seas.
The Roman Empire maintained a consistent presence in the Balkans for hundreds of years.[158] However, Rome would not be able to hold on to this crucial trade area.[159] The vast Roman Empire had become hard to control. It was forced to evacuate its Balkan provinces, moving its eastern borders closer to home.
The Celts
The Celts also make an appearance in Eastern Europe. They arrived in the region in 800 BCE.[160] The Celtic tribes were more associated with Western Europe (and their conflicts with the Romans), but many of them settled along the eastern borders of Eastern Europe. Overall, the Celtic tribes spanned from Britain and Spain to Bulgaria and Turkey! They left their footprint on the culture of this area. The names of several rivers, cities, and regions in Eastern Europe were inspired by their ancient Celt names.
Like so many peoples before and after them, the Celts’ homes in Eastern Europe were not permanent. Pushed out by two opposing forces—invading Germanic tribes and the expanding Roman Empire—the Celts left Eastern Europe. Celtic tribes then occupied Western Europe, where their conflicts with the Romans became legendary.
The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
The relative peace and prosperity that characterized Rome from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE gave way to chaos and instability.[161] In 285 CE, the Roman Empire split in half, becoming the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. It would only reunite under one ruler twice until the fall of the Roman Empire. Constantine and Theodosius, who were both 4th-century emperors, maintained control over both halves of the Roman Empire by ruling from the Balkans. The Balkans were centrally located between both empires, allowing the emperor to rule most effectively.
The disintegration of the Roman Empire was a lengthy process, which included a breakdown of law and order.[162] Politically, the Western Roman Empire was decentralized, with a stronger East and a weaker West.[163] Beginning in the 3rd century, the slow trickle of barbarian tribes entering Roman territory turned into waves, and the constant onslaught of peoples pushing against the Roman borders further weakened the empire (this will be talked about in more detail in the next chapter).[164]
The Roman Empire eventually fell near the end of the 5th century.[165] However, the “fall of Rome” is actually a misnomer, as the Eastern Roman Empire continued on for nearly one thousand more years as the Byzantine Empire. The truest definition of the “fall of Rome” is that the Western Roman Empire disintegrated. The fragile stability holding Europe together disappeared.[166] Roman citizens who lived in modern-day Eastern Europe found themselves living in no-man’s-land, with no law and order and little help from the empire that was supposed to protect them.[167] There was no police force to protect Roman citizens from attack and theft.[168] There was no trade and no communication networks. Without food or supplies, people starved or died of disease or violence. As a result, the infrastructure in former Roman lands fell apart, and getting around became increasingly difficult.[169]
The Byzantines would survive the chaos of the 5th century, and they became a major player in the development of Eastern Europe until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.[170] The Byzantine Empire secured the Danube region, defending their territories against the barbarian invasions. After the fall of Rome, the Byzantines returned peace to the region, but Eastern Europe would no longer have Roman masters.[171]
Chapter 3 – The Migration Period (300–800 CE)
Between the period 500 and 800 CE, a series of new peoples would move into the lands that make up Eastern Europe today.[172] Known colloquially as the “barbarian invasions,” the Migration Period brought peoples who would establish the first states of Eastern Europe.[173] This collection of little states all competed for dominance.[174] The Early Middle Ages in Eastern Europe already included the beginnings of the states of the Czech Republic, Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Belarus.[175] These smaller states would make way for the larger empires that would form beginning in the 8th century CE.
The Barbarian Invasions
The Germanic Tribes
While Rome was in decline, a wave of new peoples settled in the lands of Eastern Europe.[176] Along the Eurasian Steppe and the Great Northern European Plain came the most familiar demographic from the barbarian invasions—the Germanic tribes.[177] These migrations would continue until after the fall of Rome.[178] Along the Great Northern European Plain, waves of Germanic tribes crossed into Roman-held territory in Eastern Europe. They reached the Balkans first, with many using Eastern Europe as a stopping point before infiltrating today’s Western Europe.[179] However, many Germanic tribes stayed and settled the area.
A map showing the paths taken during the Migration Period.
MapMaster, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Invasions_of_the_Roman_Empire.svg
The Germanic tribes were not the only outsiders from the east to make their way into the region. The Carpathian Basin fell to invaders from the steppe.[180] They were primarily equestrians; they had learned how to domesticate the horse thousands of years ago.[181] The peoples of the Eurasian Steppe used horses for food, as well as for travel and defense.
There was a strict system of social organization among the peoples of the steppe.[182] This meant that leaders could arrange an invasion and launch strategic attacks, wiping out a settlement more quickly than other tribes of Europe had seen before. Everyone had a place, and everyone had a role to play. This included women. Archaeological evidence shows that in graves among the steppe peoples, women were buried with weapons and armor designed specifically for them. However, female soldiers tended to stick to land combat, while men learned to fight and shoot arrows while riding.
The Germanic Visigoths
When it came to the Visigothic tribes being pushed out of Eastern Europe, their king, Alaric I, wasn’t going to go quietly.[183] He had learned military tactics from the Romans, and he and his army had come to their defense more than once. The Visigoths had helped put down rebellions, and he and his army were not properly rewarded.
More than anything, he wanted a safe place for him and his people without the threat of the Huns or any other marauders. By the late 4th century, the Huns had reached the farthest areas of Eastern Europe. They invaded the Danube River Basin, alarming officials in Constantinople. The Huns were even worse than the Parthians, as they were skilled cavalry warriors who specialized in sieges. The Huns moved into Eastern Europe, in some cases intermarrying with the peoples they conquered. However, their brutal form of invasion pushed many Germanic tribes out, forcing them deeper into Eastern and Western Europe.
Alaric felt like he could find a home in the Roman West, but he quickly found himself and his tribe unwelcome. To prove that he meant business, Alaric conquered Roman-held Athens in 395. He moved even farther west, arriving in Italy in 401. He approached the new emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Theodosius’s son Honorius, with an offer. Alaric wanted his own position in the Roman army with compensation for himself and his men.
Honorius didn’t take Alaric seriously, and he laughed at the offer. In 410, he would regret those words. Alaric and his Visigoths sacked Rome for the very first time. Despite the reputation the Germanic tribes had for raping and pillaging, the Visigoths really just stole whatever they could find of value. They generally left people, homes, and infrastructure alone.
Along with the Visigoths, the Vandals and the Burgundians also moved away from Eastern Europe into Roman territory in Western Europe. Germanic tribes were invading elsewhere too, but Honorius was bogged down on the Continent, and he refused to send troops to defend Britannia.[184] The West prepared for the worst.
It’s not as if the Eastern Roman Empire wanted to help. They had their own problems, as religion was still fracturing the empire. Arianism was still around since it had never been fully eliminated by the Nicene Creed.
In 431, Theodosius II called another council to straighten matters of doctrine out again.[185] There was another Christian subsect that was shaking things up. Nestorianism questioned that Christ was eternal because he died as a man. The Council of Ephesus eliminated Nestorianism and forcefully denounced any other doctrine than their own that had been outlined in the Nicene Creed. The council also straightened out other details, like when Holy Week would be. Twenty years later, Pope Leo I tried to bring both sides together at the Council of Chalcedon. It didn’t work; Christianity was permanently fractured.
The Huns
Less than fifty years after Constantinople was founded, the Huns reached the Danube River.[186] These warriors on horseback were related to the Scythian tribe, and to the Romans, they spoke a strange language and made strange sounds. They would turn out to be Constantinople’s greatest challenge yet.
The Huns were something that the Romans had never seen before, despite their struggles in the East. They could shoot arrows on horseback, and they were one with their horses. The Huns rode hundreds of miles a month; some said one thousand! More importantly and unfortunately for the Romans, the Huns knew how to siege a city and starve the population into submission. The sounds of galloping horses terrified all who heard it since the Huns took every town they could find.
The Huns weren’t alone. Other nomadic tribes from the East followed them across the steppe, looking for places to settle. Like the Huns, they exacted tribute from those cities that wanted to be left alone.
While the historical memory of the Huns is one of terror and conquest, biological evidence says otherwise. The Huns didn’t just tear through Europe and leave. They stayed and settled alongside the Gothic tribes they encountered, leading to many marriages and offspring. While they were indeed terrifying, they didn’t come and leave as swiftly as legend says they did. The Hun “invasion” wasn’t an invasion at all.
Eventually, their nomadic nature caught up to them. The Huns started to claim territory, and the Germanic tribes that had settled in Eastern Europe fled to the west. There was only one problem: the Romans held Western Europe. The Romans were inundated with unwelcomed visitors, as the Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Visigoths all migrated west, intruding on Roman territory. Between the Huns and the Germanic tribes fleeing west, many governors, especially in the frontier lands, chose to hole up inside their cities.
In 434, Attila became the king of the Huns.[187] He was terrifying in looks and in action. He attacked Constantinople in 443 and 447. But as terrifying as he was in person, Attila was no different than any other nomadic tribesman. For instance, he could be bribed into going away. Constantinople and other Eastern European cities found that they could pay Attila and the Huns, and they would leave their cities untouched. So, the Eastern Roman emperor paid him to go away. Western Roman Emperor Marcian (r. 467–472) refused to play ball anymore, and he stopped all tribute to the Huns.
In 451, the Romans had had enough of Attila’s economic terrorism. They joined forces with the Visigoths against the might of the Huns. General Flavius Aetius and the king of the Visigoths, Theodoric I, met the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. Aetius’s and Theodoric’s armies of Roman and Germanic soldiers destroyed the Huns, forcing them to retreat.
They pulled back and moved into Italy. Pope Leo persuaded Attila to go back east, and the king of the Huns settled his warriors in modern-day Hungary. Two years later, Attila the Hun, the scourge of Europe, was dead. Although legend states that he was assassinated by his new Gothic wife, it is much more likely that he died of internal bleeding.
After the defeat of the Huns, they were replaced in the Carpathian Basin by other Germanic invaders.[188] The Ostrogoths occupied the northern Balkans and the Carpathian Basin, where they remained until they were defeated by the Byzantines in 562.
The Huns and the other barbarian invasions proved that Roman lands were susceptible to invasion and defeat. [189] As the people fled the invading barbarians, people sought shelter in cities and fortified settlements that dotted the Eurasian landmass. These cities became units unto themselves, setting a precedent for the first kingdoms that would soon dominate Europe.
The fall of the Roman Empire is generally timed in 476. The previous year, a Roman general named Orestes led a coup, placing his son on the throne as Romulus Augustulus. The teen didn’t last long on the throne. In 476, a Roman-Germanic general, Odoacer, deposed Romulus, taking control of Italy. The Western Roman Empire was no more.
A map showing the advance of the Huns into Eastern and Western Europe. They moved in from the Eurasian Steppe to the Danube River Basin, traveling northeast along the Rhine River. They split into two advances, traveling west into modern-day France.
Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Attila_in_Gaul_451CE.svg
The Turkic Peoples: The Avars, Bulgars, and Khazars
Eastern Europe was also a target for invading Central Asian nomads.[190] After the Ostrogoths were defeated, a new tribe moved in. They were the Avars, and they added yet another layer of ethnic diversity to Eastern Europe. This collection of Turkic tribes were horse riders, so the flat terrain of the Carpathian Basin was perfect for them.[191] There was only one problem—that area wasn’t exactly empty.
After the Byzantines conquered the Ostrogoths, another Germanic tribe—the Lombards—settled in the Carpathian Basin. The Avars defeated and pushed out the Lombards, gaining access to the basin. By 578, the Avars had built an empire that included lands in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Moldova, and Romania.
Although they had an empire of wide-stretching lands, the Avars were raiders by nature. They attacked the western Franks and the southern Bulgars, taking their land and resources. Eventually, these two forces joined together. A coalition between the Franks and the Bulgars conquered and defeated the Avars.
For a time, the Avar Empire set up a barrier between the steppe and Europe. Its presence limited the steady flow of invaders while forcing the Germanic tribes to settle in Western Europe. The defeat of the Avar Empire opened up Eastern Europe for settlement by other peoples.
Also among the first imports were another Turkic people from Central and West Asia: the Bulgars.[192] Like the Germanic tribes, the Bulgars actually appeared before the fall of Rome.[193] They occupied the Ural Mountains, moving south into the area of modern-day southwestern Russia between the Caspian and the Black Seas in the 2nd century.
The Bulgars splintered off into groups as they migrated west into Eastern Europe. One such group gained control of the northern coast of the Black Sea by the 7th century. Onogur (Great Bulgaria) spread from the Danube River to the Sea of Azov in today’s Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria.
This Bulgar state didn’t last. It befell the fate of so many of the early states of Eastern Europe: it was conquered by another people. The Khazars overtook the Bulgars in 670 CE. The survivors of Great Bulgaria spread out, separating into distinct groups. One, the Volga Bulgars, relocated to where the Volga River branches off into the Kama River in western Russia. Forming their own successful state, the Volga Bulgars occupied this area until the Mongols arrived in 1241.
Another group of the Bulgars moved to present-day Moldova. They found themselves in conflict with the Byzantines. In the late 7th century, after years of war between the two states, the Byzantines gave up. They left the Bulgars to build their own state to the south, along the Danube River region that separates modern-day Bulgaria and Romania.
When the Bulgars arrived, they realized they weren’t alone.[194] The Slavs had moved in, making their home in the territory promised to the Bulgars.[195] After just concluding a war with the Byzantines, the Bulgars decided on a peaceful route. They allowed the Slavs to stay, and the two groups cooperated with each other in the new government. By the late 8th century, the Bulgars and the Slavs had intermingled into one ethnic group. The Bulgarians were now Slavs, and the Slavs were now Bulgarians. The Bulgarians were well known for their militarism, especially their horseback riding skills. In fact, the Bulgars were just as terrifying on horseback as the Huns were. The Bulgars’ former enemies, the Byzantines, called on them to protect Constantinople from attack by Arab forces in 718.
When the Khazars made their way into Eastern Europe, they possessed highly-developed notions of statecraft, allowing them to build a lasting empire for centuries.[196] Since the beginning of the 6th century CE, the Khazars were part of an expansive territory known as the Göktürk Empire. It reached from northern China to the edge of the Balkans along the eastern border of the Black Sea.
The Göktürk state was too expansive to last long. A century and a half later, it disintegrated; the Göktürks abandoned their western lands and concentrated their power in Asia. The western Göktürk Empire was picked off between the two major powers that flanked it: the Bulgarian Empire and the Khazars.
By the last decades of the 7th century, the Bulgars were also booted out, leaving the Khazars to spread into Eastern Europe. The Khazar Khanate occupied western Asia, the northern Caucasus, and the easternmost reaches of Eastern Europe. It included access to the Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea. At its westernmost point, the Khazars reached present-day Moldova.
The Khazars were fiercely protective of their lands, and they maintained their position between Eastern Europe and the Arab empires to the southeast for hundreds of years. The empire formed a barrier between the Christian Byzantine Empire, the Slavic reaches in Eastern Europe, and the Arab Muslim Umayyads (and later the Abbasids).
The Khazars knew how to run a multicultural state, and their influence is seen among the medieval states of Eastern Europe. Over time, the tensions between the Khazars and the Arabs cooled, and the Abbasids became valued trading partners with the Khazars. This allowed Arab merchants to reach deep into Europe by way of Eastern Europe. The Khazars were also not religious fanatics, and they embraced Judaism in the 8th century CE. Based on findings among Khazar graves, this conversion seems to only have reached the elite. Many historians believe that the Khazars took their role as the peacekeepers of the region very seriously, and they refused to side with either Christian Europe or the Islamic Abbasids. Allowing the spread of Judaism was a way to keep both the Christians and the Muslims in check on either side of their lands.
The First Slavic States
From the 5th century to the 7th century, Eastern Europe became the point of destination for another group of peoples: the Slavs.[197] These tribes entered Eastern Europe together, eventually forming the most extensive ethnolinguistic family in Europe.[198] Eventually, the Slavs separated, settling in different regions of Eastern Europe. This created the different Slav language families (West Slav, East Slav, and South Slav) mentioned in Chapter 1.
In the 6th century CE, the Slavs conquered the area between Aquileia, Italy, to Constantinople.[199] The Slavic occupation of the Balkans connected the Italian Peninsula to the desirable Asian trade routes. The Slavs who settled in the southern Balkans to the east of the Black Sea were assimilated into Greek culture. However, to the north, the Slavs outnumber any other population, and their language and culture dominate Eastern Europe.
While it is not exactly known from where the Slavs come, research places the earliest Slavs in the expanse of land from the Czech Republic to western Russia.[200] What was left of the Avars moved east into Byzantine lands. When the Slavs arrived, the Byzantines hired the Avars to attack the Slavs and push them out. Instead of fighting each other, the Avars and the Slavs made an alliance with each other. Then, they started attacking Byzantine outposts!
The partnership between the Avars and the Slavs allowed the Slavs to move farther into Eastern Europe.[201] These Slavic invasions would last until the end of the 7th century. The tribes moved into lands flanked by the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Baltic Sea to the north, settling far west into modern-day Germany. It is interesting that most of these travelers were Slavic, but many could have been from other tribes and backgrounds that joined and were assimilated into Slavic culture.
There is too much unknown about the early Slavic states to make a definitive statement about them.[202] Some 6th-century sources record a small Slavic state run by the Antes, a small group of Slavs shrouded in mystery. Considered the first example of organization within the Slavic tribes, the Antes set up this small state in the Dniester and Dnieper River valleys. This state didn’t last long, for the Antes don’t appear in the historical record after the early 7th century.
In the early 600s, the Avars still dominated the Carpathian Basin, and they dominated the local Slavic tribes there. Eventually, the Slavic tribes decided that self-rule was a better idea, and they rebelled against the Avars. The Slavs freed themselves from Avar rule in 623, electing their own leader. Interestingly enough, he wasn’t Slavic at all! The new ruler of the Slavs was Samo, a Frankish merchant. The Franks were of Germanic descent, living in what is today France and Germany. The Frankish Empire was centered in what the ancient sources refer to as “Roman Gaul,” which was made famous during Julius Caesar’s attempts to crush the tribes living there.
Samo’s new state was located in the present-day borders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but he wouldn’t hold on to it. Samo successfully defended the state against an attack by the Franks in 631, reaching the height of his power. However, Samo’s death in the 660s brought an end to his empire.
When Samo’s state fell, many Slavs relocated east of the Alps. They formed another early Slavic state, Carinthia, centered in Slovenia and stretching into Austria and Italy. Not much is known about this state either, except that the people who live in Slovenia believe they are descended from these Slavs. After Carinthia was conquered by the Franks, it disintegrated.
A common element of the earliest Slavic states is that they were under constant threat. However, new arrivals were on the move across the steppe, and they would find themselves in control of a whole region of Slavs.
The Umayyads and the Abbasids
In the 7th century CE, the Arab influence in Eastern Europe bore fruit.[203] The Prophet Muhammad united the clans that occupied the area, creating a powerful army to support his rule of the Arabian Peninsula. For the next thirty years, Muhammad and his successors, the Four Caliphs, spread out, carving out a Muslim Arab Empire that controlled lands from the peninsula as far north as the southern Caucasus Mountains on the eastern Black Sea.
In the 650s, Islam split in half due to the competing Shiite and Sunni sects. In 661, the Umayyad dynasty inherited Muhammad’s Muslim Arab Empire. Until the fall of the Umayyads in 750, they continued to conquer lands for Islam. At the height of their power, the Umayyads spread east and west, controlling lands from Western Europe to North Africa to the Middle East. Eastern Europe was in the purview of the Umayyads, and they attacked the area surrounding the Black Sea with the intent to conquer more than once.
To the very south of Eastern Europe was the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, which was a favorite haunt of Arab pirates. They would sack cities along the coast, stealing goods and people to sell into slavery.[204]
The inheritors of the former Persian Empire—the Muslim Arabs of the 7th century to the Seljuk Turks of the 10th century—knew the importance of the borders of Eastern Europe.[205] They constantly fought the Byzantines for control of the territory.
In 750, the Abbasid dynasty defeated the Umayyad Empire, forming their own critically important Arab empire.[206] Ruling from the Middle East, the Abbasids formed centers of learning, preserving ancient Western texts. They were traders, connecting the riches of Asia with Western Europe. During the Crusades, Western Europeans were exposed to the riches of the East, and they wanted more. Abbasid traders traveled north from the Mediterranean through the Black Sea to the major rivers of modern-day Russia to satisfy the European demand for spices and silk. The Abbasids were the last of the great Muslim Arab empires, controlling their lands until the Mongols conquered them in the 13th century.
The Northern States along the Baltic Sea
Although they are the most widespread tribe, the Slavs were not the only imports to Eastern Europe.[207] East of the Baltic Sea, the Finnic tribes and the Baltic tribes staked their claim in Eastern Europe. About 3000 BCE, the Finns spread from the Ural Mountains into Siberia, Russia, Estonia, and, of course, Finland. They mostly remained out of sight, preferring the heavily forested areas to the north over the wide-open spaces of the Eurasian Steppe.[208]
The Finns weathered the Roman occupation of Eastern Europe. However, by 800 CE, the Slavic tribes were settling throughout the region, so the Finns moved even farther north. Despite their attempts to remain in the shadows, the Finns were well-adapted to running their own states, and they helped found Kievan Rus.
Around the same time the Finnic tribes were spreading out, so were another people: the Baltic tribes. Like the Finns, they preferred to keep to themselves. Hundreds of years passed, with the Baltic tribes occupying the wooded areas to the east of the Baltic Sea. However, they faced the double threat of the Germanic invasions and the Slavic invasions during the Roman period.
The Baltic tribes retreated south, keeping to the river valleys in modern-day Poland, Latvia, and Belarus. They used these river valleys to become skilled merchants and commanded a well-organized system east of the sea. The Vikings saw the potential of the region, and they frequently harassed the Baltic tribes and tried to push them out of the trading business.
Beginning in the late 12th century, after nearly one hundred years of outside attacks on the Baltic region, the Crusades had gone sour. Christian missionary knights abandoned the Holy Land for a time. They saw the pagan tribes of the Finns and the Baltics as fair game; after all, the Crusades were a mission to convert everyone, not just the Islamic empires. In 1193, after permission was granted by Pope Celestine III, Crusaders went on a “slash-and-burn” campaign. They attacked settlements and trade routes. Even though the Crusaders destroyed everything in their path, the tribes still held on to their traditions and beliefs much longer than the Crusaders thought they would.[209] When the Baltic tribes faced decimation, they united to officially challenge the Crusaders’ warpath through their territory. They would eventually form the community that is now the ancestors of the Lithuanians.