Alans

The Alans or Alani were an Iranian nomadic group among the Sarmatian people, warlike nomadic pastoralists of mixed backgrounds, who spoke an Iranian language and shared, in a broad sense, a common culture.

Alans and Slavs

Alan tribes living north of the Black Sea may have moved northwest into what is now Poland, merging with Slavic peoples there to become the precursors of historic Slav nations (notably Serbs and Croats). Third-century inscriptions from Tanais, a town on the Don River in modern Ukraine, mention a nearby Alan tribe called the Choroatos or Chorouatos. The historian Ptolemy identifies the 'Serboi' as a Sarmatian tribe who lived north of the Caucasus, and other sources identify the Serboi as an Alan tribe in the Volga-Don steppe in the third century.

Related Topics:
Black Sea - Poland - Slavic peoples - Serbs - Croats - Tanais - Don River - Ukraine - Ptolemy - Sarmatia - Caucasus - Volga

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Accounts of these names reappear in the fifth century, with the Serboi, or Serbs, established east of the river Elbe in what is now western Poland, and the Croats in what is now Polish Galicia. The Alan tribes likely moved northeast and settled among the Slavs, dominating and mobilizing the Slavic tribes they encountered and later assimilating into the Slav population. In 620 the Croats and Serbs were invited into the Balkans by Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius to drive away the Turkic Avars, and settled there among earlier Slavic migrants to become ancestors of the modern Serbs and Croats. Some Serbs remained on the Elbe, and their descendants are the modern Sorbs. Tenth-century Byzantine and Arab accounts describe a people called the Belochrobati (White Croats) living on the upper Vistula, an area later called Chrobatia.

Related Topics:
Serboi - Elbe - Croats - Polish Galicia - Slavic tribes - 620 - Balkans - Eastern Roman Emperor - Heraclius - Avars - Sorbs - Byzantine - Arab - Belochrobati - White Croats - Vistula - Chrobatia

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