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Germania Slavica

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Germania Slavica

Germania Slavica, a historiographic term used since the 1950s, denotes the medieval contact zone between Germans and Slavs in Central Europe.

Historian Klaus Zernack divides Germania Slavica into:

  • Germania Slavica I between the Elbe and Saale rivers in the west and the Oder in the east, which had formed part of the Frankish and later Holy Roman Empires as marches
  • Germania Slavica II east of Germania Slavica I and west of the Kingdom of Poland, comprising the Silesian, Pomeranian, and Prussian duchies as well as the Neumark.

    • From the late first millennium CE, Slavic tribes (collectively referred to as Wends) settled in Germania Slavica. The area underwent great social transformations associated with the influx of settlers from the West (primarily Germans) during the Ostsiedlung in the High Middle Ages.

    By analogy, the term Bavaria Slavica denotes the medieval German-Slavic contact zone in northeastern Bavaria.

    References

    Germania Slavica Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA