Great Slav Rising

The Great Slav Rising in 983 was an uprising of the Polabian Slavs (Wends), mainly Lutici and Obotrite tribes living east of the Elbe River in modern north-east Germany. They were revolting against Christianization and their subjugation to the German (former East Frankish) realm of the Holy Roman Emperor.

The Slavic peoples between the Elbe and the Baltic coast had been conquered and nominally converted to Christianity by the campaigns of the German king Henry the Fowler and his son Otto I, who in 962 was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Otto had most recently defeated an alliance of Obotrite and Circipani tribes at the 955 Battle on the Raxa. The conquered area east of the German Duchy of Saxony was initially organized within the vast Saxon Eastern March under Margrave Gero, but divided into smaller marches upon his death in 965.

In order to stabilize his rule, Otto promoted the conversion of the Slavic population, establishing the bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg in 948, followed by the Archbishopric of Magdeburg in 968, which in particular carried out active missionary work.

In 981 Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg, the "Apostle of the Slavs", died and his successor Gisilher had to struggle with the resistance by the Magdeburg chapter. He was backed by Emperor Otto II, who, however, was on campaign in Italy, where he suffered a disastrous defeat against the Sicilian Kalbids in the 982 Battle of Stilo and died the next year without having returned to Germany, leaving his minor son Otto III under the tutelage of the Empress consorts Theophanu and Adelaide of Burgundy.

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