Last updated A map of the Billung March showing the location of the Warnabi.
The Warnabi, Warnavi, Warnahi, Wranovi, Wranefzi, Wrani, Varnes, or Warnower were a West Slavic tribe of the Obotrite confederation in the ninth through eleventh centuries. They were one of the minor tribes of the confederation living in the Billung Mark on the eastern frontier of the Holy Roman Empire. They were first mentioned by Adam of Bremen.
Etymologically their name is related to the river, the Warnow (also Warnof, Wrana, or Wranava), along which they settled in the region of Mecklenburg. It may have meant "crow river" or "black river" in their Slavic language, or been derived from the name of the Warni (from earlier warjan), a Germanic people who had previously lived in the same area. The name Warnabi may be a combination of Warni and Abodriti.
In the second half of the ninth century the chief town of the Warnabi was on an island in Lake Sternberg at the site of the castle of Gross Raden. The centre of their culture was near the present towns Sternberg and Malchow. From 1171, 1185, and 1186 there are references to the land of the Warnabi: the Warnowe. In 1189 it is called the Warnonwe and by 1222 this was called the Wornawe.
The Obotrites or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites, were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany. For decades, they were allies of Charlemagne in his wars against the Germanic Saxons and the Slavic Veleti. The Obotrites under Prince Thrasco defeated the Saxons in the Battle of Bornhöved (798). The still heathen Saxons were dispersed by the emperor, and the part of their former land in Holstein north of Elbe was awarded to the Obotrites in 804, as a reward for their victory. This however was soon reverted through an invasion of the Danes. The Obotrite regnal style was abolished in 1167, when Pribislav was restored to power by Duke Henry the Lion, as Prince of Mecklenburg, thereby founding the German House of Mecklenburg.
The East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking the East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the loose medieval Kievan Rus federation state, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn and Ukrainian people.
The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers say that their ethnic roots can be traced to Central Asia. During their westward migration across the Eurasian steppe, the Bulgar tribes absorbed other ethnic groups and cultural influences in a process of ethnogenesis, including Indo-European, Finno-Ugric and Hunnic tribes. Modern genetic research on Central Asian Turkic people and ethnic groups related to the Bulgars points to an affiliation with Western Eurasian populations. The Bulgars spoke a Turkic language, i.e. Bulgar language of Oghuric branch. They preserved the military titles, organization and customs of Eurasian steppes, as well as pagan shamanism and belief in the sky deity Tangra.
The Volga is the longest river in Europe with 3,531 km (2,194 mi) length and a catchment area of 1,360,000 km2 (530,000 sq mi). It is also Europe's largest river in terms of discharge and drainage basin. The river flows through Central Russia and into the Caspian Sea, and is widely regarded as the national river of Russia. Due to its geographical situation the Volga played an important role in the movement of people between east and west as well as south and north. Historically, it was an important meeting place of Eurasian civilizations.
The Severians or Severyans or Siverians were a tribe or tribal confederation of early East Slavs occupying areas to the east of the middle Dnieper River and the Danube River. They are mentioned by the Bavarian Geographer, Emperor Constantine VII (956–959), the Khazar ruler Joseph, and in the Primary Chronicle (1113).
The Masovians or Mazovians are a Lechitic tribe or an ethnic group associated with the region of Mazovia. They were referenced by Nestor the Chronicler in the 11th century.
The Warnow is a river in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. It flows into the Baltic Sea near the town of Rostock, in its borough Warnemünde.
The Polans, also Polianians, were an East Slavic tribe between the 6th and the 9th century, which inhabited both sides of the Dnieper river from Liubech to Rodnia and also down the lower streams of the rivers Ros', Sula, Stuhna, Teteriv, Irpin', Desna and Pripyat. In the Early Middle Ages there were two separate Slavic tribes bearing the name of Polans, the other being the western Polans, a West Slavic tribe.
Polabian Slavs is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic tribes who lived along the Elbe river in what is today Eastern Germany. The approximate territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Saale and the Limes Saxoniae in the west, the Ore Mountains and the Western Sudetes in the south, and Poland in the east. They have also been known as Elbe Slavs or Wends. Their name derives from the Slavic po, meaning "by/next to/along", and the Slavic name for the Elbe.
The Varini, Warni or Warini were one or more Germanic peoples who originally lived in what is now northeastern Germany, near the Baltic sea.
The Veleti or Wilzi(ans) were a group of medieval Lechitic tribes within the territory of modern northeastern Germany, related to Polabian Slavs. In common with other Slavic groups between the Elbe and Oder Rivers, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends. In the late 10th century, they were continued by the Lutici. In Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, the Wilzi are said to refer to themselves as Welatabians.
The Margravate of Meissen was a medieval principality in the area of the modern German state of Saxony. It originally was a frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, created out of the vast Marca Geronis in 965. Under the rule of the Wettin dynasty, the margravate finally merged with the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg into the Saxon Electorate by 1423.
The West Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples who speak the West Slavic languages. They separated from the common Slavic group around the 7th century, and established independent polities in Central Europe by the 8th to 9th centuries. The West Slavic languages diversified into their historically attested forms over the 10th to 14th centuries.
Silesians were a tribe of West Slavs, specifically of the Lechitic/Polish group, inhabiting territories of Lower Silesia, near Ślęża mountain and Ślęza river, on the both banks of the Oder, up to the area of modern city of Wrocław. They were the first permanent inhabitants of the site of Wrocław where they build a fort on Ostrów Tumski in the 9th century or earlier, which at the time was an island on the Oder.
The Billung March or March of the Billungs was a frontier region of the far northeastern Duchy of Saxony in the 10th century. It was named after the family which held it, the House of Billung.
The Rani or Rujani were a West Slavic tribe based on the island of Rugia (Rügen) and the southwestern mainland across the Strelasund in what is today northeastern Germany.
The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies who lived during the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages in Central and Eastern Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages. The first written use of the name "Slavs" dates to the 6th century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By that century, nomadic Iranian ethnic groups living on the Eurasian Steppe had been absorbed by the region's Slavic population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded southwest toward the Balkans and the Alps and northeast towards the Volga River. It's still a matter of controversy where the original habitat of the Slavs was, but scholars believe it was somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Western Pomerania, also called Hither Pomerania, is the western extremity of the historic region of the Duchy, later Province of Pomerania, nowadays divided between the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Poland.
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