Wikijunior:Ancient Civilizations/Slavs

What Countries Did They Live In?

(West) Slavs lives in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, (South) Slavs lives in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and (East) Slavs lives in Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.

What did their writing look like?

The early Slavs were a non-writing culture. After they converted to Christianity, they adopted different writing systems based on which church they converted into. The Catholic Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats) adopted the Latin alphabet, while the Eastern Orthodox Slavs (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, North Macedonians, Serbs) adopted the Cyrillic alphabet.

What did they believe?

Early Slavic people believed in many gods. For example, Perun, the god of thunder and lightning, Svarogc father of the chief deities, Dazhbog the god of sun and Svarazic the god of fire are some of their gods. The two most important gods were Byelobog (or Byelun) the White God and Chernobog the Black God. Most of the Slavic people converted to Christianity, that was practiced in the Byzantine Empire in eastern Europe. By the 1000s, all Slavic lands had been converted to Christianity.

References

1. Jordan, William Chester, ed. The Middle Ages A Watts Guide for Children. NewYork:Franklin Watts, 1999.