The Forgotten History Of Slavic Slavery
Although the history of slavery spans nearly every culture, nationality and religion, from ancient times to the present day, most uninformed people consider slavery to be an African phenomenon. But it was the Slavic nations of Europe that provided the vast majority of slaves through history. The Slavs are an ethnic group living in Central, Eastern, Southeast Europe, who speak the Slavic languages, and share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds.
From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe; while it was also known that the East Slavs colonized Siberia. And now, over half of Europe’s territory is inhabited by Slavic-speaking communities. Slavery was a legally recognized system in which people were legally considered the property or chattel of another. A slave had few rights and could be bought or sold and made to work for the owner without any choice or pay.
Modern nations and ethnic groups called by the ethnonym, Slavs, are considerably diverse both genetically and culturally, and relations between them (even within the individual ethnic groups themselves) are varied, ranging from a sense of connection to mutual feelings of hostility. Present-day Slavic people are classified chiefly as Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians, Slovenes, and Montenegrins.
Painting of a Roman slave market
Painting of Roman soldiers with captured slaves
Since antiquity, conquered people were forced into slavery and were taken to the victor’s nation. And these people were given new lives of servitude, as servants or sex slaves. Both Greece and Rome were notorious for capturing people and making slaves out of them. In the height of the Roman Empire, one in every three people was thought to have been a slave. Men were used as labourers, while women and girls were used for enjoyment purposes. Brothels and mistresses became commonplace.
Painting of Slavic sex slaves in ancient Greece
Records of slavery in Ancient Greece go as far back as Mycenaean Greece. The origins of those slaves were Slavic, and it appears that slavery became an important part of the Greek economy and society after the establishment of cities. Slavery was common practice and an integral component of ancient Greece, as it was in other societies of the time. It is estimated that in Athens, the majority of citizens owned at least one slave. Most ancient writers considered slavery not only natural but necessary.
Painting of a Spartan (Greek) whipping his Slavic slaves
The Romans inherited the institution of slavery from the Greeks and the Phoenicians. And as the Roman Republic expanded outward, it enslaved entire populations, thus ensuring an ample supply of labourers to work in Rome’s farms and households. But although many ethnic groups were enslaved, the Slavs would become the largest supplier of Rome’s slaves. In fact, it is their predilection for being taken as slaves that gave the people of that part of Europe the name of Slavs (slaves).