Introduction to the Slavic Slave Trade

! Extra Information & Clarifications ! 0:03 Painting by Tadeusz Popiel. 0:14 If you can pick I would prefer you would support me on Patreon as A. there's more reward tears on there and B. more of that money actually makes it to the creator than on YouTube. YouTube takes a much larger cut than Patreon does. If you want to do just a one time donation you can also do that through either YouTube "Thanks" or if you want more of the money to make it to me than through ko-fi. ko-fi.com/mlaserhistory Thank you very much for any support you give. This year I have been struggling with where I want to go with my life and the donations really help me justify spending time on this whole YouTube thing which is what I would love to be doing if possible. 1:12 It could mean anything from chattel slavery to 'servus Dei' meaning servant of god, which most medieval monks would consider themselves as being but they are, of course, not 'slaves'. 2:30 2:40 Paintings by Sergey Ivanov. 3:20 Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 6v. 3:24 Sometimes they would also add 'et' in between the words, i.e. 'sclavus et captivus'. 3:58 Munich, Bayerische Stattsbibliothek, Clm.4453, fol. 23-24. 4:52 The variations can be attributed to the fact that there was no standardized way of writing the name and medieval authors where most likely just trying to phonetically spell out, the best way they could, the name 'Slovene' which they heard from the Slavs. 5:53 Slavs most certainly also lived within the Lombardic and Gepid Pannonian kingdoms which is why I put the word slav in that area. 6:45 I misspoke, I meant Carinthia not Thuringia. 7:14 Here I am using the word 'Islamic Caliphate' as a catch all for the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasside Caliphates just to simplify things. 7:47 The star of David that is shown in the Khazar Khaganate is supposed to symbolize the superficial conversion of the Khaganate to Judaism. In reality the conversion was very superficial and was primarily only political rather than actually internal. With that said, this superficial outward conversation did play a role in altering the Slavic slave trade in eastern Europe as, for example, Jewish merchants from Al-Andalus made contact with merchants in Khazaria and tried opening a new trade route from Khazaria to Al-Andalus. That is why I think it was still worth mentioning the Jewish connections of the later Khazar Khaganate despite the actual history of their conversation being very nuanced and largely unsuccessful. 'The Archaeology of Slavery in Early Medieval Northern Europe', p. 133. 8:36 Although, by the time of the 11th century these two main divides in trade routes stopped existing as the new Hungarian and Polish kingdoms connected the east trade routes with the west. However, before then the pagan Avars and also, initially, pagan Hungarians, largely blocked the connection of the wester and eastern trade routes along the Danube, while disunited Poland didn't have major trade ports that could connected the greater flat lands of Poland. 9:00 I meant to say Muslim explorers and geographers as not all of these people where Arabs, some where Persian and other ethnicities. 9:07 Ibn Rusta actually called the Varangians the Rus' in his writings. This was not uncommon because, first, the word Rus' initially meant just Norseman living in Eastern Europe and only later became to be applied to the Slavic population and, second, these geographers and explorers didn't always identify the people with the correct term they would have used. Therefore, the context in which these words are being used is very important in determining who they're supposed to refer to. In this case it is very obvious that the word Rus' was supposed to refer to the raiding Varangians of Eastern Europe hence, for simplicity sake, I changed the word to that. 10:40 I accidentally mixed up West and East Francia on the map, sorry. 13:25 Now this argument is extremely nuanced, after all the book has 1000 pages, so I obviously couldn't talk about everything, therefore, go read the book if you want to know more. 13:39 Painting by Sergey Ivanov. 14:05 Of course, this linguistic change didn't happen all at ones everywhere in Europe. It was a gradual process that started in the 9th century and, in some areas like southern Italy, wasn't fully complete until the early 14th century. 14:45 Saqaliba meant 'white slave' mostly in Al-Andalus, while in the rest of the Muslim world it meant just Slav. 14:55 Cantigas de Santa María, fol-221V. 15:24 Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 195, fol. 76v. 15:29 Santa María de Terena. Miniature of the Cantiga #275. 15:30 What I am doing here, i.e. the comparison I stated, would be a bit disingenuous to do within an academic work because it doesn't help us understand slavery as a spectrum nor does it somehow alleviate the suffering of some by saying it wasn't as bad as the suffering of others. But because this video is supposed to be an "introduction", and because it is intended for a lay audience, I felt the need to make some comparison in order to set up some point of reference, even if not perfect. 15:30 Plantation based chattel slavery did exist but was very uncommon during the middle ages. Vast majority of slaves ended up being guards/soldiers, maids, house workers, etc. Often even with the possibility of buying ones own freedom or being able to assimilate into the society they lived in. After all some Saqaliba even managed to become rulers or appointed into very high political positions, 15:39 Cantigas de Santa María, fol-244R. 16:09 Slavs also were the most numerous ethnic group in eastern Europe so by sheer numbers they would have ended up being the majority of the slaves. I just didn't state this fact because there is a whole debate about ethnicity in the middle ages and to what extend "Slavic" was an identifiable ethnicity and how it coalesced to a point to be the most dominant ethnicity in Europe and, therefore, stating this would have brought about more historiographical arguments which would have had to be addressed and for which there wasn't enough time in the video. If you want to know more look up Vienna School, Toronto School, and Oxford School of thought on ethnicity in the middle ages. 17:43 "Thirst for knowledge" Anti-Czech propaganda postcard from around 1910. A Czech school boy has to copy answers from a "smarter" German school boy while Masaryk in the background oversees it all happening. This is a reference to the alleged inferiority of the Slavs. The card was part of a series that was published by the Federation of Germans in Lower Austria. 18:08 Which sounds very similar to the argument for British colonialism I mentioned in my previous video. https://youtu.be/1Pn8r5gOatg?t=1304 18:34 “Germans learn Czech!” Anti-Czech propaganda postcard from around 1910 A German schoolboy fails to pronounce a Czech tongue twister. This is a reference to the alleged inferiority of the Slav languages. The card was part of a series that was published by the Federation of Germans in Lower Austria. 19:04 Illustration by Tom Lovell, National Geographic Image Collection There is this idea that most slave trading in medieval Europe was conducted by Jews but this is wholly unsupported by academic research and is mostly just part of fascist propaganda. Jews were just as likely as any other people group to be medieval slave traders no more nor less. Sources for all my videos are in the bibliography of my scripts available for free to download on my Patreon. www.patreon.com/mlaser?filters[tag]=script

Man the Slavic people literally never got a break.

as a slav myself: it needs to be noted that the chances of your ancestors being slave traders are higher than the chances of them being eunuchs

If I remember my medieval etymology right "Slava" (glory) and "slovo" (word) has the same root, as slava has its roots in "someone who is spoken of" (someone who is famous, someone who has glory). So slavs basically means "people who speak our language".

When you're such high-quality *unpaid labourers* that the whole *profession* gets named after you.

In Polish word slave is translated as "niewolnik". "Nie-" part means no, and "-wolnik" from "wola" refers to free will. Niewolnik means quite literally, without free will. It's self explianatory we don't have connection between word for Slavs (Słowianie) and slaves (niewolnik).

One curiosity: The popular Italian salutation "Ciao" actually means "slave" in ancient Venetian dialect. When two people met, they used to say "sciao vostro", meaning "I'm your slave", as a courtesy display.

When I first read about early Czech history in academic sources, it really surprised me how much slave trade was referenced. Contact with Arabic world seemed preposterous at first glance, and through today's lenses, Czechs selling other Slavs from Poland and beyond seemed a silly idea. I thought about it for a bit and slowly started realising how much political and economical sense it made, and how much today's concept of nationality and old 19th-century-style outlook on 'fellow Slavic nations' were colouring my perception right there. I remember the moment quite clearly as the first instance of bias on my own part I recognised, it was a little eye opening. After all, for a 10th century Czech, what did it matter to him whether he was fighting against a Pole or a German or a Magyar? No matter how much we want to think about it like that, people in the 10th century weren't our grandfather's grandfathers - they were almost entirely foreign to us, their values entirely different, no matter how much we try to identify with them. Some people today don't want to think of their ancestors as this distant though, and easily fall back on "my people just don't do that". Slavery seems to be a concept that modern people know just as a Roman thing, or more likely, as the American plantation system. Enslaving within Europe seems inconceivable while you only think within those boundaries. P.S.: My thoughts kinda meandered there. Great video!

Concept that the word Slav is the origin of the word slave is accepted in Slavic countries, but often than not, westerners reverse it, and say, that Slav is hailed from slave, this is where Slavic people have problem.

As an East European Slav, I need to thank you for this video. Convincing people in the West that our perspective is important often feels like bashing my head into a concrete wall. This is the sort of foundation I need, just so they'd stop talking over my head and listen. I'm especially grateful that you stressed the anti-Slavic prejudice in Marxism. My experiences with communism are often invalidated by the western speakers, because Marx supposedly said that "communism couldn't work out in my part of the world". There is a strong 'it didn't count' mindset in the western left when it comes to Slavic experience, and an equally strong conviction that our feelings and opinions on the matter don't count, either. I really wish these people would say what Marx and Engels actually had to say about my people. It really shows how 'objective' these claims were. There's one thing I really yearned for at the end of the video, though: A nod to the modern human trafficking and slavery. The idea that Slavs are attractive-yet-exploitable targets for slavery is alive and well - and with the influx of Ukrainian war refugees, Slavic human trafficking is sadly on the rise.

Another part of this denial could be simple fact of education. I am from a slavic country and I can assure you that at least in my school years there was not even a word on slavic slave trade (which is a bit weird to be honest, because we like to self-martyr normally)... We have a strong focus on history post conversion to Christianity. About the period before that, we mostly discussed religious beliefs, some conflicts between tribes and with Western Europe, but nothing about captured people.

I think "slovo" was definitely the word that defined common name of the Slavic ethnic groups. Because if you say Sloveni(or other forms of the same word) it simply means "those who speak". Otherwise, a common word the most of Slavs use for Germans, Nemac(Njemac, Niemec etc), meaning "the mute ones" would not make logical sense.

As Czech, I do remember being taught at primary school abou adopting christianity en masse around 8th century. But I don't recall them even mentioning slave trade at all. Which is not that surprising, coming from both ends.

The fact that so many slavs were enslaved is more of a reflection on the cruelty of their neighbors than on any perceived inferiority of the people. During tumultuous times, anyone can be a victim.

I as a slav (Ukrainian) always wondered why in English slaves and Slavs were so similiar words but never found a good video of such quality as yours. Big thank you

I just want to point out how great it is that you drew out all those maps so we can just passively watch how things changed over time. That was a lot of extra work for you, and it makes things so much easier for us viewers! Maybe this seems like an odd thing for me to be so excited about but the main trouble I have when reading history is keeping track of maps. Thanks for another excellent video! I'm not sure why I wasn't already subscribed, but I am now.

Western Europe and EU treat us like third level citizens a lot. When I was traveling and end up in Austria or Germany, until they saw my passport they were nice to me, because I do speak German and English fluently. After they saw where I am from people turn a 180 and start to be really NASTY.

There is also "Slovo" (word), so Slavs are those who speak, as opposed to Nemci (Germans), those who bumble or are quiet

In Russian, the word for slave is "rab", from what I read it's inherited from Old East Slavic and possibly Proto-Slavic before that. The Russian word for "work" is "rabota", which is a cognate with the word slave and can be interpreted as "slave's activity". In Ukrainian they use "robyty" (робити) and in Polish robić, both have the same root as Russian "rabota" (работа) and come from the word for slave, though from what I understand the meaning of it in Polish and Ukrainian is closer to "to do" rather than specifically for working

Incredibly well done video. I always wondered why the first Polish Kingdom (I'm Polish) was so empty compared to Germany or anyone in the west and why the west was so much richer right from the start of medieval history. This explains both. But it's extremely upsetting.