North Slavs
North Slavic countries South Slavic countries
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 265+ million | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
Majority: Central and Eastern Europe, North Asia Minority: Western Europe and Northern America |
|
| Languages | |
| North Slavic (West Slavic and East Slavic) tongues: Belarusian, Czech, Kashubian, Polish, Russian, Rusyn, Silesian, Slovak, Sorbian, Ukrainian |
|
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Lutheranism, Irreligious Minorities | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Slavs (namely South Slavs) |
Majority: Central and Eastern Europe, North Asia
The North Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples who speak the North Slavonic languages. They separated from the common Slavic group in the 7th century CE, and established independent polities in Central and Eastern Europe by the 8th and 9th centuries.
North Slavonic nations today include the Belarusians, Czechs, Kashubians, Poles, Silesians, Rusyns, Russians, Slovaks, Sorbs, and Ukrainians. They inhabit a contiguous area in Central and Eastern Europe stretching from the north of the Baltic Sea to the Sudetes and the Carpathian Mountains in the south (historically also across the Eastern Alps into the Apennine peninsula and the Balkan peninsula); from the west in the Czech Republic to the east in the Russian Federation. There are also major North Slavic population hubs in North Asia and significant minority groups in Western Europe and Northern America.
Although the use of the East and West Slavonic categories is arguably the most commonly accepted model, some theorists claim that these two groups share enough of the same or similar linguistic and cultural characteristics to be classed together as one North Slavic branch. The crux of this argument is that there is a northern ethos and a southern ethos of the Slavs (a North Slavic and a South Slavic dialect continuum, a Northeastern European and a Southeastern European cuisine, etc.). This split was caused by migrations of Slavonic tribes and reinforced by the Hungarian invasions of Europe at the end of the first millennium CE, causing the Slavic societies to gradually grow into two separate cultures.
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Wikipedia