Leshy Stories

We continue a string of posts about various Slavic tribes, which are mentioned in our animated fantasy comic book series about the customs and beliefs of the ancient Slavic people.
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As it turns out, not all Polish scientists share the traditional view about the existence of the Polanian tribe (Polanie) and its contribution to the history of Poland. In general, the localization of the tribes mentioned in chronicles and confirmation of their settlement area by archaeological data is a special scientific topic. And in this case, scientists, looking into various contradictions in manuscripts and archaeological research, come to different conclusions. From denying the very fact of the existence of the Polanian tribe, to explaining it as a “term” for certain way of life of the noted community, which was different from the communities living in the neighborhood in the corresponding historical period. Some scholars question the term “tribe” itself and offer alternative designations like “ethnic group”, “territorial community”, “settlement group”, “chiefdom”, etc.
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The earliest mention of the term ‘Polans’ (Poland) is considered to occur in the “Life of St Adalbert” scripts, written at the turn of the X-XI centuries, in which Mieszko I (reigned in 960-992 AD) and Bolesław I the Brave (reigned in 992-1025 AD) are called the dukes of the “Polans” (Poland).
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To be continued…

POLANIE (Polanians) – myth or fact?
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I was planning to make a post about this tribe for a very long time, and on a top, the collection of the material was going slowly. Below it will become clear why this was not easy…
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We continue a string of posts about various Slavic tribes, which are mentioned in our animated fantasy comic book series about the customs and beliefs of the ancient Slavic people.
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It is traditionally believed that the Polanians (Polanie) were a West Slavic Lechitic tribe, which formed the foundation of the later Polish nation and gave them their name. Their main center was the modern Gniezno city (the earliest settlements there are dated back to the 8th century). Later, the Polanians managed to overpower neighboring lands and unite many Slavic tribes under their rule.
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I wanted to learn more about the material culture and history of this tribe and began the search for sources of information. It turned out, that not much attention was paid to this topic in the Russian scientific circles: for example, sometimes this tribe is simply mentioned, although some of the neighboring tribes are covered in much more detail. Therefore, I decided to turn to the help of the Polish scientists, who have studied this issue much more thoroughly. And this is when I started to make some unexpected discoveries.
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To be continued…