title: Military discharge

text: Employers often request the unedited version, but the legality of this is debatable in certain situations. It can be denied, especially if the "long" version references facts that violate the right to privacy or could be used in a discriminatory fashion (such as non-relevant psychological, medical, or disability issues) explicitly cited as illegal by federal or state hiring laws. For example, the Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination due to unfavorable discharge. A service member may request the edited, unedited, or both versions on separation.


title: Military discharge

text: Since the 1970s, an honorably discharged veteran receives a frameable certificate (DD 256). A similar one is issued to someone granted a general discharge (DD 257). For each certificate, one or more letters after the number indicate the branch of service that issued it. For example, a "256A" is awarded by the Army. Other certificates for long service, or to eligible spouses of veterans, may also be presented.


title: Military discharge

text: The Freedom of Information Act has made (limited) records of military service available to the public, on request. However, information protected by the Privacy Act of 1974 can be released only with the veteran's consent.


title: Military discharge

text: During wartime the American military have often issued special insignia to honorably discharged veterans to wear on their uniforms to distinguish them from local service personnel or deserters.


title: Military discharge

text: The Army issued red Discharge Chevrons during and after World War One (1917–1919) that were worn point-up on the lower right sleeve of the tunic or overcoat. Just before and just after World War Two (September 1939 – December 1946) the Army issued the Honorable Discharge Insignia (or "Ruptured Duck"). It was an eagle in a circle badge sewn in yellow thread on an olive drab diamond that was worn over the right breast pocket on the "Class A" dress tunic.


title: Military discharge

text: The Marine Corps issued an Honorable Discharge Lapel Button from 1916 to the present that was meant to be worn with civilian clothes. During World War II from 1941 to 1945 a contrasting diamond worn on the lower right sleeve with the Dress Blues or Dress Whites (a white diamond on the Dress Blues and a blue diamond on the Dress Whites) by retired Marines. A white diamond was worn on the upper right shoulder (like a Distinctive Unit Insignia) on the Service Green or Service Khaki "Alphas" and the overcoat by discharged Marines.


title: Military discharge

text: In 1945 the Navy and Marine Corps adopted the Army's "Ruptured Duck" insignia to handle the large number of discharged service people at the end of the war.


title: Military discharge

text: Another important aspect is the RE (Reenlistment Eligibility) Code. This specifies under what conditions the member can reenlist in the armed forces. The definition of each RE Code may vary from Service to Service, as currently it is the responsibility of each branch of the Armed Forces to establish reenlistment eligibility criteria. As a general rule, however, an RE Code in the "1" series allows reenlistment into any component of the Armed Forces, and an RE Code in the "3" series usually lets the veteran reenlist with a waiver. RE Codes in the "2" series often place restrictions on reenlistment: this is especially true in the Air Force, which has a policy permanently barring airmen separated from the Air Force with an RE Code 2 from reenlisting in the Air Force (though reenlistment into other components of the Armed Forces may be possible with a waiver). An RE Code in the "4" series typically bars reenlistment into any component of the Armed Forces. (It is possible for a person with an RE Code of 4 to enlist in the Navy or Air Force if the SPD Code and the Narrative Reasoning is waivable.) A veteran issued an RE Code in the "4" series usually requires an Exception to Policy waiver to reenlist.


title: Military discharge

text: The Department of Veterans Affairs uses different criteria from the Departments of the Air Force, Army, and Navy when establishing veteran status. VA benefits, such as the VA's health care and home loan programs, can sometimes be enjoyed if the veteran's conduct was not dishonorable.


title: Early Slavs

text: The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies who lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately the 5th to the 10th centuries AD) in Central and Eastern Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages. The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars believe that it was in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.


title: Early Slavs

text: 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 then, the nomadic Iranian-speaking ethnic groups living on the Eurasian Steppe (the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans etc.) had been absorbed by the region's Slavic-speaking population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded west to the Elbe river and south towards the Alps and the Balkans, absorbing the Celtic, Germanic, Illyrian and Thracian peoples in the process, and also moved east in the direction of the Volga River.


title: Early Slavs

text: Beginning in the 7th century, the Slavs were gradually Christianized (both Byzantine Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism). By the 12th century, they were the core population of a number of medieval Christian states: East Slavs in the Kievan Rus', South Slavs in the Bulgarian Empire, the Principality of Serbia, the Duchy of Croatia and the Banate of Bosnia, and West Slavs in the Principality of Nitra, Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Poland. The oldest known Slavic principality in history was Carantania, established in the 7th century by the Eastern Alpine Slavs, the ancestors of present-day Slovenes. Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps comprised modern-day Slovenia, Eastern Friul and large parts of modern-day Austria.


title: Early Slavs

text: The early Slavs were known to the Roman writers of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD under the name of Veneti. Authors such as Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Ptolemy described the Veneti as inhabiting the lands east of the Vistula river and along the Venedic Bay (Gdańsk Bay). Later, having split into three groups during the migration period, the early Slavs were known to the Byzantine writers as Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni. The 6th century historian Jordanes referred to the Slavs ("Sclaveni") in his 551 work "Getica", noting that "although they derive from one nation, now they are known under three names, the Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni" ("ab una stirpe exorti, tria nomina ediderunt, id est Veneti, Antes, Sclaveni").


title: Early Slavs

text: Procopius wrote that "the Sclaveni and the Ante actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Sporoi in olden times". Possibly the oldest mention of Slavs in historical writing "Slověne" is attested in Ptolemy's "Geography" (2nd century) as "Σταυανοί" (Stavanoi) and "Σουοβηνοί" (Souobenoi/Sovobenoi, Suobeni, Suoweni), likely referring to early Slavic tribes in a close alliance with the nomadic Alanians, who may have migrated east of the Volga River. In the 8th century during the Early Middle Ages, early Slavs living on the borders of the Carolingian Empire were referred to as Wends ("Vender"), with the term being a corruption of the earlier Roman-era name.


title: Early Slavs

text: The earliest, archaeological findings connected to the early Slavs are associated with the Zarubintsy, Przeworsk and Chernyakhov cultures from around the 3rd century BC to the 5th century AD. However, in many areas, archaeologists face difficulties in distinguishing between Slavic and non-Slavic findings, as in the case of Przeworsk and Chernyakhov, since the cultures were also attributed to Germanic peoples and were not exclusively connected with a single ancient ethnic or linguistic group. Later, beginning in the 6th century, Slavic material cultures included the Prague-Korchak, Penkovka, Ipotești–Cândești, and the Sukow-Dziedzice group cultures. With evidence ranging from fortified settlements (gords), ceramic pots, weapons, jewellery and open abodes.


title: Early Slavs

text: The Proto-Slavic homeland is the area of Slavic settlement in Central and Eastern Europe during the first millennium AD, with its precise location debated by archaeologists, ethnographers and historians. Most scholars consider Polesia the homeland of the Slavs.


title: Early Slavs

text: Theories attempting to place Slavic origin in the Near East have been discarded. None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, or past Bohemia in the west. One of the earliest mention of the Slavs' original homeland is in the Bavarian Geographer circa 900, which associates the homeland of the Slavs with the Zeriuani, which some equate to the Cherven lands.


title: Early Slavs

text: Frederik Kortlandt has suggested that the number of candidates for Slavic homeland may rise from a tendency among historians to date "proto-languages farther back in time than is warranted by the linguistic evidence". Although all spoken languages change gradually over time, the absence of written records allows change to be identified by historians only after a population has expanded and separated long enough to develop daughter languages. The existence of an "original home" is sometimes rejected as arbitrary because the earliest origin sources "always speak of origins and beginnings in a manner which presupposes earlier origins and beginnings".


title: Early Slavs

text: According to historical records, the Slavic homeland would have been somewhere in Central Europe. The -Penkova- complex of cultures of the 6th and the 7th centuries AD is generally accepted to reflect the expansion of Slavic-speakers at the time. Core candidates are cultures within the territories of modern Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. According to the Polish historian Gerard Labuda, the ethnogenesis of Slavic people is the Trzciniec culture from about 1700 to 1200 BC. The Milograd culture hypothesis posits that the pre-Proto-Slavs (or Balto-Slavs) originated in the 7th century BC–1st century AD culture of northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus. According to the Chernoles culture theory, the pre-Proto-Slavs originated in the 1025–700 BC culture of northwestern Ukraine and the 3rd century BC–1st century AD Zarubintsy culture. According to the Lusatian culture hypothesis, they were present in northeastern Central Europe in the 1300–500 BC culture and the 2nd century BC–4th century AD Przeworsk culture. The Danube basin hypothesis, postulated by Oleg Trubachyov and supported by Florin Curta and "Nestor's Chronicle", theorises that the Slavs originated in central and southeastern Europe.


title: Early Slavs

text: The latest attempt to identify the origin of Slavic language studied the paternal and maternal genetic lineages, as well as autosomal DNA, of all existing modern Slavic populations. Besides confirming their common origin and medieval expansion, the variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 subclades R-M558, R-M458, and I-CTS10228 correlate with the medieval spread of Slavic language from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine (within the area of the middle Dnieper basin) and Southeastern Poland.


title: Early Slavs

text: Proto-Slavic began to evolve from Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed language from which originated a number of languages spoken in Eurasia. The Slavic languages share a number of features with the Baltic languages (including the use of genitive case for the objects of negative sentences, Proto-Indo-European "kʷ" and other labialized velars), which may indicate a common Proto-Balto-Slavic phase in the development of those two linguistic branches of Indo-European. Frederik Kortlandt places the territory of the common language near the Proto-Indo-European homeland: "The Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic". According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. However, "geographical contiguity, parallel development and interaction" may explain the existence of the characteristics of both language groups.


title: Early Slavs

text: Proto-Slavic developed into a separate language during the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The Proto-Slavic vocabulary, which was inherited by its daughter languages, described its speakers' physical and social environment, feelings and needs. Proto-Slavic had words for family connections, including "svekry" ("husband's mother"), and "zъly" ("sister-in-law"). The inherited Common Slavic vocabulary lacks detailed terminology for physical surface features that are peculiar to mountains or the steppe, the sea, coastal features, littoral flora or fauna or saltwater fish.


title: Early Slavs

text: Proto-Slavic hydronyms have been preserved between the source of the Vistula and the middle basin of the Dnieper. Its northern regions adjoin territory in which river names of Baltic origin (Daugava, Neman and others) abound. On the south and east, it borders the area of Iranian river names (including the Dniester, the Dnieper and the Don). A connection between Proto-Slavic and Iranian languages is also demonstrated by the earliest layer of loanwords in the former; the Proto-Slavic words for god "(*bogъ)", demon "(*divъ)", house "(*xata)", axe "(*toporъ)" and dog "(*sobaka)" are of Scythian origin. The Iranian dialects of the Scythians and the Sarmatians influenced Slavic vocabulary during the millennium of contact between them and early Proto-Slavic.


title: Early Slavs

text: A longer, more intensive connection between Proto-Slavic and the Germanic languages can be assumed from the number of Germanic loanwords, such as "*kupiti" ("to buy"), *xǫdogъ ("beautiful,"), "*šelmъ" ("helmet") and "*xlěvъ" ("barn"). The Common Slavic words for beech, larch and yew were also borrowed from Germanic, which led Polish botanist Józef Rostafiński to place the Slavic homeland in the Pripet Marshes, which lacks those plants. Germanic languages were a mediator between Common Slavic and other languages; the Proto-Slavic word for emperor "(*cĕsar'ь)" was transmitted from Latin through a Germanic language, and the Common Slavic word for church "(*crъky)" came from Greek.


title: Early Slavs

text: Common Slavic dialects before the 4th century AD cannot be detected since all of the daughter languages emerged from later variants. Tonal word stress (a 9th-century AD change) is present in all Slavic languages, and Proto-Slavic reflects the language that was probably spoken at the end of the 1st millennium AD.


title: Early Slavs

text: Jordanes, Procopius and other Late Roman authors provide the probable earliest references to the southern Slavs in the second half of the 6th century AD. Jordanes completed his "Gothic History", an abridgement of Cassiodorus's longer work, in Constantinople in 550 or 551. He also used additional sources: books, maps or oral tradition.


title: Early Slavs

text: Jordanes wrote that the Venethi, Sclavenes and Antes were ethnonyms that referred to the same group. His claim was accepted more than a millennium later by Wawrzyniec Surowiecki, Pavel Jozef Šafárik and other historians, who searched the Slavic "Urheimat" in the lands that the Venethi (a people named in Tacitus's "Germania") lived during the last decades of the 1st century AD. Pliny the Elder wrote that the territory extending from the Vistula to Aeningia (probably Feningia, or Finland), was inhabited by the Sarmati, Wends, Sciri and Hirri.


title: Early Slavs

text: Procopius completed his three works on Emperor Justinian I's reign ("Buildings", "History of the Wars", and "Secret History") during the 550s. Each book contains detailed information on raids by Sclavenes and Antes on the Eastern Roman Empire, and the "History of the Wars" has a comprehensive description of their beliefs, customs and dwellings. Although not an eyewitness, Procopius had contacts among the Sclavene mercenaries who were fighting on the Roman side in Italy.


title: Early Slavs

text: Agreeing with Jordanes's report, Procopius wrote that the Sclavenes and Antes spoke the same languages but traced their common origin not to the Venethi but to a people he called "Sporoi". "Sporoi" ("seeds" in Greek; compare "spores") is equivalent to the Latin "semnones" and "germani" ("germs" or "seedlings"), and the German linguist Jacob Grimm believed that Suebi meant "Slav". Jordanes and Procopius called the Suebi "Suavi". The end of the Bavarian Geographer's list of Slavic tribes contains a note: "Suevi are not born, they are sown ("seminati")". The language spoken by Tacitus's Suevi is unknown. In his description of the emigration (c. 512) of the Heruli to Scandinavia, Procopius places the Slavs in Central Europe.


title: Early Slavs

text: A similar description of the Sclavenes and Antes is found in the "Strategikon of Maurice", a military handbook written between 592 and 602 and attributed to Emperor Maurice. Its author, an experienced officer, participated in the Eastern Roman campaigns against the Sclavenes on the lower Danube at the end of the century. A military staff member was also the source of Theophylact Simocatta's narrative of the same campaigns.


title: Early Slavs

text: Although Martin of Braga was the first western author to refer to a people known as "Sclavus" before 580, Jonas of Bobbio included the earliest lengthy record of the nearby Slavs in his "Life of Saint Columbanus" (written between 639 and 643). Jonas referred to the Slavs as "Veneti" and noted that they were also known as "Sclavi".


title: Early Slavs

text: Western authors, including Fredegar and Boniface, preserved the term "Venethi". The Franks (in the "Life of Saint Martinus", the "Chronicle of Fredegar" and Gregory of Tours), Lombards (Paul the Deacon) and Anglo-Saxons ("Widsith") referred to Slavs in the Elbe-Saale region and Pomerania as "Wenden" or "Winden" (see Wends). The Franks and the Bavarians of Styria and Carinthia called their Slavic neighbours "Windische".


title: Early Slavs

text: The unknown author of the "Chronicle of Fredegar" used the word "Venedi" (and variants) to refer to a group of Slavs who were subjugated by the Avars. In the chronicle, "Venedi" formed a state that emerged from a revolt led by the Frankish merchant Samo against the Avars around 623. A change in terminology, the replacement of Slavic tribal names for the collective "Sclavenes" and "Antes", occurred at the end of the century; the first tribal names were recorded in the second book of the "Miracles of Saint Demetrius", around 690. The unknown "Bavarian Geographer" listed Slavic tribes in the Frankish Empire around 840, and a detailed description of 10th-century tribes in the Balkan Peninsula was compiled under the auspices of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in Constantinople around 950.


title: Early Slavs

text: In the archaeological literature, attempts have been made to assign an early Slavic character to several cultures in a number of time periods and regions. The Prague-Korchak cultural horizon encompasses postulated early Slavic cultures from the Elbe to the Dniester, in contrast with the Dniester-to-Dnieper Prague-Penkovka. "Prague culture" in a narrow sense, refers to western Slavic material grouped around Bohemia, Moravia and western Slovakia, distinct from the Mogilla (southern Poland) and Korchak (central Ukraine and southern Belarus) groups further east. The Prague and Mogilla groups are seen as the archaeological reflection of the 6th-century Western Slavs.


title: Early Slavs

text: The 2nd-to-5th-century Chernyakhov culture encompassed modern Ukraine, Moldova and Wallachia. Chernyakov finds include polished black-pottery vessels, fine metal ornaments and iron tools. Soviet scholars, such as Boris Rybakov, saw it as the archaeological reflection of the proto-Slavs. The Chernyakov zone is now seen as representing the cultural interaction of several peoples, one of which was rooted in Scytho-Sarmatian traditions, which were modified by Germanic elements that were introduced by the Goths. The semi-subterranean dwelling with a corner hearth later became typical of early Slavic sites, with Volodymir Baran calling it a Slavic "ethnic badge". In the Carpathian foothills of Podolia, at the northwestern fringes of the Chernyakov zone, the Slavs gradually became a culturally-unified people; the multiethnic environment of the Chernyakhov zone presented a "need for self-identification in order to manifest their differentiation from other groups".


title: Early Slavs

text: The Przeworsk culture, northwest of the Chernyakov zone, extended from the Dniester to the Tisza valley and north to the Vistula and Oder. It was an amalgam of local cultures, most with roots in earlier traditions modified by influences from the (Celtic) La Tène culture, (Germanic) Jastorf culture beyond the Oder and the Bell-Grave culture of the Polish plain. The Venethi may have played a part; other groups included the Vandals, Burgundians and Sarmatians. East of the Przeworsk zone was the Zarubinets culture, which is sometimes considered part of the Przeworsk complex. Early Slavic hydronyms are found in the area occupied by the Zarubinets culture, and Irena Rusinova proposed that the most prototypical examples of Prague-type pottery later originated there. The Zarubinets culture is identified as proto-Slavic or an ethnically mixed community that became Slavicized.


title: Early Slavs

text: With increasing age, the confidence with which archaeological connections can be made to known historic groups lessens. The Chernoles culture has been seen as a stage in the evolution of the Slavs, and Marija Gimbutas identified it as the proto-Slavic homeland. According to many pre-historians, ethnic labels are inappropriate for European Iron Age peoples.


title: Early Slavs

text: The Globular Amphora culture stretched from the middle Dnieper to the Elbe during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. It has been suggested as the locus of a Germano-Balto-Slavic continuum (the Germanic substrate hypothesis), but the identification of its bearers as Indo-Europeans is uncertain. The area of the culture contains a number of tumuli, which are typical of Indo-Europeans.


title: Early Slavs

text: The 8th-to-3rd-century BC Chernoles culture, sometimes associated with Herodotus' "Scythian farmers", is "sometimes portrayed as either a state in the development of the Slavic languages or at least some form of late Indo-European ancestral to the evolution of the Slavic stock". The Milograd culture (700 BC–100 AD), centred roughly in today's Belarus and north of the Chernoles culture, has also been proposed as ancestral for the Slavs or the Balts. The ethnic composition of the Przeworsk culture (2nd century BC to 4th century AD), associated with the Lugii) of central and southern Poland, northern Slovakia and Ukraine, including the Zarubintsy culture (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD and connected with the Bastarnae tribe) and the Oksywie culture are other candidates.


title: Early Slavs

text: Southern Ukraine is known to have been inhabited by Scythian and Sarmatian tribes before the Goths. Early Slavic stone stelae that are found in the middle Dniester region are markedly different from the Scythian and Sarmatian stelae of the Crimea.


title: Early Slavs

text: The Wielbark culture displaced the eastern Oksywie culture during the 1st century AD. Although the 2nd-to-5th-century Chernyakhov culture triggered the decline of the late Sarmatian culture from the 2nd to the 4th centuries, the western part of the Przeworsk culture remained intact until the 4th century and the Kiev culture flourished from the 2nd to the 5th centuries and is recognised as the predecessor of the 6th- and 7th-century Prague-Korchak and Pen'kovo cultures, the first archaeological cultures that are identified as Slavic. Although Proto-Slavic probably reached its final stage in the Kiev area, the scientific community disagrees on the Kiev culture's predecessors. Some scholars trace them from the Ruthenian Milograd culture, others from the Ukrainian Chernoles and Zarubintsy cultures and still others from the Polish Przeworsk culture.


title: Early Slavs

text: According to the mainstream and culture-historical viewpoint which emphasizes the primordial model of ethnogenesis, the Slavic homeland in the forests enabled them to preserve their ethnic identity, language except for phonetic and some lexical constituents, and their patrilineal, agricultural customs. However, it was a "complex process that involved Scythian, Zarubintsy, and Cherniakhovo influences on at least two groups of Indo-European population living in the middle Dnieper; southeast Poland; and the area in-between, along the Pripiat' and the Bug". After a millennium, when the Hunnic Empire collapsed and the Avars arrived shortly afterwards, an eastern-Slavic culture re-emerged and spread rapidly in south and central-eastern Europe bringing their customs and language.


title: Early Slavs

text: Russian archaeologist Valentin Sedov, using the Herderian concept of nationhood, proposed that the Venethi were the proto-Slavic bearers of the Przeworsk culture. Their expansion began during the second century AD, and they occupied a large area of eastern Europe between the Vistula and the middle Dnieper. The Venethi slowly expanded south and east by the fourth century, assimilating the neighbouring Zarubinec culture (which Sedov considered partly Baltic) and continuing southeast to become part of the Chernyakhov culture. The Antes separated themselves from the Venethi by 300 (followed by the Sclaveni by 500) in the areas of the Prague-Penkovka and Prague-Korchak cultures, respectively.


title: Early Slavs

text: Paul Barford suggested that Slavic groups might have existed in a wide area of central-eastern Europe (in the Chernyakov and Zarubintsy-Przeworsk cultural zones) before the documented Slavic migrations from the sixth to the ninth centuries. Serving as auxiliaries in the Sarmatian, Goth and Hun armies, small numbers of Slavic speakers might have reached the Balkans before the sixth century.


title: Early Slavs

text: According to Marija Gimbutas, "[n]either Bulgars nor Avars colonized the Balkan Peninsula; after storming Thrace, Illyria and Greece they went back to their territory north of the Danube. It was the Slavs who did the colonizing ... entire families or even whole tribes infiltrated lands. As an agricultural people, they constantly sought an outlet for the population surplus. Suppressed for over a millennium by foreign rule of Scythians, Sarmatians and Goths, they had been restricted to a small territory; now the barriers were down and they poured out".


title: Early Slavs

text: In addition to their demographic growth, the depopulation of central-eastern Europe due, in part, to Germanic emigration, the lack of Roman imperial defenses on the frontiers which were decimated after centuries of conflicts and especially the Plague of Justinian, and the Late Antique Little Ice Age (536-660 CE) encouraged Slavic expansion and settlement to the west and the south of the Carpathian Mountains. The migrationist model remains the most acceptable and logical explanation of the spread of Slavs and Slavic culture (including language).


title: Early Slavs

text: According to the processual viewpoint which emphasizes the culture-social model of ethnogenesis, there is "no need to explain culture change exclusively in terms of migration and population replacement". It argues that the Slavic expansion was primarily "a linguistic spread".


title: Early Slavs

text: One of the theories used to explain language replacement is that a dominant Slavic elite diaspora managed to spread, conquer and slavicize various communities. A more extreme hypothesis is argued by Florin Curta who considers that the Slavs as an "ethno-political category" were invented by an external source - the Byzantines - through political instrumentation and interaction on the Roman frontiers where a barbarian elite culture flourished.


title: Early Slavs

text: Horace Lunt attributes the spread of Slavic to the "success and mobility of the Slavic 'special border guards' of the Avar khanate", who used it as a "lingua franca" in the Avar Khaganate. According to Lunt, only as a "lingua franca" could Slavic supplant other languages and dialects whilst remaining relatively uniform. Although it could explain the formation of regional Slavic groups in the Balkans, the Eastern Alps and the Morava-Danube basin, Lunt's theory does not account for the spread of Slavic to the Baltic region and the territory of the Eastern Slavs, which are areas with no historical links to the Pannonian Avars.


title: Early Slavs

text: A concept related to elite dominance is the notion of system collapse, in which a power vacuum created by the fall of the Hun and Roman Empires allowed a minority group to impose their customs and language. However, Michel Kazanski concludes that although both "the movement of the populations of the Slavic cultural model and the diffusion of this model amid non-Slavic populations [occurred] (...) a pure diffusion of the Slavic model would hardly be possible, in any case in which a long period of time when the populations of different cultural traditions lived close to one another is assumed. Moreover, archaeologists researching Slavic antiquities do not accept the ideas produced by the "diffusionists," because most of the champions of the diffusion model know the specific archaeological materials poorly, so their works leave room for a number of arbitrary interpretations".


title: Early Slavs

text: In the Chronica Slavorum, Helmold writes on the Wends "These men have blue eyes, ruddy faces, and long hair." Ibrahim Ibn Ya'qub mentioned the Slavs were bearded. Procopius wrote that the Slavs "are all tall and especially strong, their skin is not very white, and their hair is neither blond nor black, but all have reddish hair." Jordanes wrote "...all of them are tall and very strong... their skin and hair are neither very dark nor light, but are ruddy of face". Ibrahim Ibn Ya'qub wrote: "They wear ample robes, although the ends of their sleeves are narrow." Procopious wrote that the men also wear a kind of breeches pulled up to the waist.


title: Early Slavs

text: Theophylact Simocatta, wrote about the Slavs that "The Emperor was with great curiosity listening to stories about this tribe, he has welcomed these newcomers from the land of barbarians, and after being amazed by their height and mighty stature, he sent these men to Heraclea." Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, described the slavs as "...a numerous nation, fair-haired and of ruddy complexion.", and Al-Baladuri, made reference to the Slavs, writing "If the Prince so willed, outside of his doors would be black Sudanians or ruddy Slavs.


title: Early Slavs

text: Early Slavic society was a typical decentralised tribal society of Iron Age Europe and was organised into local chiefdoms. A slow consolidation occurred between the 7th and the 9th, when the previously uniform Slavic cultural area evolved into discrete zones. Slavic groups were influenced by neighbouring cultures like Byzantium, the Khazars, the Vikings and the Carolingians and influenced their neighbours in return.


title: Early Slavs

text: Differences in status gradually developed in the chiefdoms, which led to the development of centralized socio-political organisations. The first centralized organisations may have been temporary pantribal warrior associations, the greatest evidence being in the Danubian area, where barbarian groups organised around military chiefs to raid Byzantine territory and to defend themselves against the Pannonian Avars. Social stratification gradually developed in the form of fortified, hereditary chiefdoms, which were first seen in the West Slavs areas. The chief was supported by a retinue of warriors, who owed their position to him. As chiefdoms became powerful and expanded, centres of subsidiary power ruled by lesser chiefs were created, and the line between powerful chiefdoms and centralised medieval states is blurred. By the mid-9th century, the Slavic elite had become sophisticated; it wore luxurious clothing, rode horses, hunted with falcons and travelled with retinues of soldiers. These chiefs were often at war with one another.


title: Early Slavs

text: There is no indication of Slavic chiefs in any of the Slavic raids before AD 560, when Pseudo-Caesarius's writings mentioned their chiefs but described the Slavs as living by their own law and without the rule of anyone.


title: Early Slavs

text: The 6th-century historian Procopius, who was in contact with Slavic mercenaries, reported, "For these nations, the Sclaveni and the Antes, are not governed by one man, but from ancient times have lived in democracy, and consequently everything which involves their welfare, whether for good or for ill, is referred to the people".


title: Early Slavs

text: The 6th-century Strategikon of Maurice is considered an eyewitness of the Slavs and recommended the Roman generals to use any possible means to prevent the Sclaveni from uniting "under one ruler" and added that "the Sclaveni and Antes were both independent, absolutely refused to be enslaved or governed, least of all in their own land".


title: Early Slavs

text: Settlements were not uniformly distributed but were in clusters separated by areas of lower settlement density. The clusters resulted from the expansion of single settlements, and the "settlement cells" were linked by familial or clan relationships. Settlement cells were the basis of the simplest form of territorial organization, known as a "župa" in South Slavic and "opole" in Polish. According to the "Primary Chronicle", "The men of the Polanie lived each with his own clan in his own place". Several "župas", encompassing individual clan territories, formed the known tribes: "The complex processes initiated by the Slav expansion and subsequent demographic and ethnic consolidation culminated in the formation of tribal groups, which later coalesced to create state which form the framework of the ethnic make-up of modern eastern Europe".


title: Early Slavs

text: The root of many tribal names denotes the territory in which they inhabited, such as the Milczanie (who lived in areas with "měl" – loess), Moravians (along the Morava), Diokletians (near the former Roman city of Doclea) and Severiani (northerners). Other names have more general meanings, such as the Polanes ("pola"; field) and Drevlyans ("drevo"; tree). Others appear to have a non-Slavic (possibly Iranian) root, such as the Antes and Croats. Some geographically distant tribes appear to share names. The Dregoviti appear north of the Pripyat River and in the Vardar valley, the Croats in Galicia and northern Dalmatia and the Obodrites near Lübeck and their further south in Pannonia. The root "Slav" was retained in the modern names of the Slovenes, Slovaks and Slavonians. There is little evidence of migratory links between tribes sharing the same name. The common names may reflect names given the tribes by historians or a common tongue as a distinction between Slavs ("slovo"; word, letter) and others, "Nemci" (mutes) being a Slavic name for "Germans".


title: Early Slavs

text: Early Slavic settlements were no bigger than . Settlements were often temporary, perhaps reflected their itinerant form of agriculture, and were often along rivers. They were characterised by sunken buildings, known as "Grubenhäuser" in German or "poluzemlianki" in Russian. Built over a rectangular pit, they varied from in area and could accommodate a typical nuclear family. Each house had a stone or clay oven in a corner (a defining feature of Eastern European dwellings), and a settlement had a population of fifty to seventy. Settlements had a central, open area in which communal activities and ceremonies were conducted, and they were divided into production and settlement zones.


title: Early Slavs

text: "They have no baths but they use log cabins in which gaps are stuffed with something that appears on their trees and looks like seaweed – they call it mech (original mh = moss)… In one corner they put up a stone stove and above it they open up a hole to let the smoke from the stove escape. When the stove is good and hot, they close up the opening and close the door of the hut. Inside are vessels with water and they pour out of them water onto the hot stove and steam comes from it. Each of them has in his hand a tuft of grass with which they make air circulate and draw it to themselves. Then their pores open up and the unneeded substances from their bodies come out…"


title: Early Slavs

text: Fortified strongholds (grods) appeared in significant numbers during the 9th century, especially the Western Slavic territories, and were often found in the centre of a group of settlements. The South Slavs did not form enclosed strongholds but lived in open, rural settlements that were adopted from the social models of the indigenous populations they encountered.


title: Early Slavs

text: The Slavs preferred to live in hard to reach places to avoid attack, as recorded in Maurice's Strategikon:


title: Early Slavs

text: "They live among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes, and have made the exits from their settlements branch outing many directions because of the dangers they might face."


title: Early Slavs

text: The Slavs practiced hunting, farming, herding and beekeeping. They often settled in valley bottoms with rich soil, along rivers to provide water for livestock. The early Slavs also had knowledge of crop rotation and developed a new sort of plow known as the moldboard plow, this plough was very efficient in breaking up the clay full soil of northern Europe, and it helped drastically increase the Slavic population. Other tools, common throughout the rest of Europe were also used, such as iron hoes, sickles, wooden spades and others. Some were made from wood. Selective breeding was also done.


title: Early Slavs

text: When crops were ripe they were cut with sickles and threshing was then done with a wooden flail. The grain was then milled by stone querns, which were very valuable and difficult to come by. Cereal crops, wheat, millet and barley were common as they could thrive in even poor soil. Vegetables were grown in gardens, onions, carrots, radishes, turnip, parsnip, cucumber, pumpkins, cabbage, pea and beans were all grown. Herbs were mostly garlic and parsnip, hops were also grown for making beer. Fruit trees were cultivated in orchards, including cherry, apple, pear, plums and peaches. Walnuts were also loved.


title: Early Slavs

text: Animal were tended, not only for meat, leather or milk but also to fertilize the soil. Several breeds of cattle were bred and kept in large herds, as draught animals and for meat, female cattle provided milk. Pigs were prized for their meat. Goats and sheep were more rare but still bred. Horses were very rarely eaten, mostly used as draught or riding animals. Fowl were also kept, especially ducks and geese.


title: Early Slavs

text: Animals in the forest were hunted, prey included boar, deer, hare, elk and occasionally bear. Beavers and marten were trapped for their fur.


title: Early Slavs

text: "They sow during two seasons of the year, in summer and in spring, and harvest two crops. Their principal crop is millet... They refrain from eating chicken, asserting that it exacerbates erysipelas, but they eat beef and goose, both of which agree with them...Their drinks and wine are made out of honey."


title: Early Slavs

text: "They have a sort of wooden box, provided with holes, in which bees live and make their honey; in their language they are called the ulishaj. They collect around ten jars of honey from each box. They herd pigs as if they were sheep...They drink mead"


title: Early Slavs

text: The ancient Slavs knew human anatomy well, which is evident from the existence of numerous old names for body parts. Due to the lack of sources, we do not know for sure what they suffered from, but it is assumed that they were plague, malaria and dysentery. The medicines they used were mostly of animal and plant origin. Less commonly, minerals, sulfur and salt were used for medicinal purposes. The Slavs cleansed themselves in log cabin saunas and bathed in rivers. The early medieval Muslim traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub wrote: "The cold even when it is intense, is healthful to them, but the heat destroys them. They are unable to travel to the country of the Lombards because of the heat."


title: Early Slavs

text: Wood, leather, metal and ceramic work were all skillfully practiced by the Early Slavs. Pottery was made by craftsmen, or women, possibly in domestic workshops. Clay was mixed with course material, such as sand, crushed rock, to improve the qualities. Clay was worked by hand and roughly smoothed after completion, clay vessels also made with assistance of pottery wheels. After they were dried they were baked at a low temperature in bone-fire kilns. Pottery was produced not only by craftsmen, but also ordinary people as it did not require extensive practice, other crafts however were produced by professional craftsmen.


title: Early Slavs

text: Metalworking was very important, as it was required to make tools and weapons. Iron was needed by every tribe, and it was produced by smiths using local ore, which was primarily bog ore. Once the ore had been turned into usable iron and slag removed, it was made into bars. Smiths made many types of products such as knives, tools, decorative items as well as weapons, which were not always made by separate weapon smiths. Broken tools were reforged, as iron was a valuable resource.


title: Early Slavs

text: Houses, as well as their inside fittings and everyday items were made from wood. Carved bowls, vessels and beautifully made dippers were common in most homes. Leather and textiles, made of both linen and wool were made into carpets, blankets, overcoats and other clothing. Spindlewhorls were used to make thread in the home. Glass beads were crafted, and were often used as trade goods.


title: Early Slavs

text: Most of the knowledge we have on Early Slavic clothing comes from iconographic sources and cemeteries. Although clothing differed according to region, season of year and social status, a general picture can be reconstructed.


title: Early Slavs

text: Men wore long sleeved tunics made of linen or wool, extending to about the knee, under these breeches were worn. wool cloaks were sometimes worn over the tunic, fastened at the right shoulder leaving the right arm free. Cloaks were occasionally also made of leather, and lined with fir or other material. Hats and mittens were worn for the winter, some trimmed with fur. Leather boots and shoes were also worn by both men and women, as well as a belt carrying a knife and whetstone for sharpening.


title: Early Slavs

text: Some women wore long patterned dresses, made from linen, sometimes with an apron tied over the dress. Dresses or tunic were sometimes made from one piece. Unmarried women wore their hair braided or loose, but covered it after they were wedded. Ornaments and jewelry such as beads and earrings and twisted wire bracelets were also worn, especially by wealthier women.


title: Early Slavs

text: "They have different kinds of lutes, pan pipes and flutes a cubit long. Their lutes have eight strings. They drink mead. They play their instruments during the incineration of their dead and claim that their rejoicing attests the mercy of the Lord to the dead."


title: Early Slavs

text: "They have different kinds of wind and string instruments. They have a wind instrument more than two cubits long, and an eight-stringed instrument whose sounding board is flat, not convex."


title: Early Slavs

text: The Slavs burned their dead. Although the Slavic funeral pyre was seen as a means of freeing the soul from the body rapidly, visibly and publicly, archaeological evidence suggests that the South Slavs quickly adopted the burial practices of their post-Roman Balkan neighbours.


title: Early Slavs

text: "They burn their dead...The day after the funeral of a man, after he has been burned, they collect the ashes and put them in an urn, which is buried on a hill. After a year, they place twenty hives, more or less, on the hill. The family gathers and eats and drinks there and then everyone goes home."


title: Early Slavs

text: Capturing wives and exogamy were traditions among the tribes and continued until the early medieval era. However, on some occasions in Bohemia and Ukraine, it was women who chose the spouse. Fornication had a sentence in Pagan Slavs that was described as capital punishment by travelers, Ibn-Fadlan: "Men and women go to the river and bathe together naked... but they do not fornicate and if anyone would be guilty of it, no matter who is he and she... he and she would be pinked by pole-axe... then they hang out each part both of them on a tree", Gardizi: "If someone makes fornication, he or she would be killed, without accepting any apologies".


title: Early Slavs

text: "Their women are more sensitive than any others in the world. When , for example, their husband dies, many look upon it as their own death and freely smother themselves, not wanting to continue their lives as widows."


title: Early Slavs

text: Rus law was based on Early Slavic customary law, which was partially recorded in the Rus-Byzantine treaties. However the Early Slavs did not have written laws, but relied on customs that dictated what was acceptable and not. The East Slavs did not have written law until the rule of Yaroslav the Wise. One such customary law was the law of hospitality, which was very important to the tribal Slavs. If a tribe mistreated any guest, they would be attacked by a neighbouring tribe for their dishonour.


title: Early Slavs

text: Ibn Rusta wrote of Slavic law in c 903-918: "The ruler levies fixed taxes every year. Every man must supply one of his daughter's gowns. If he has a son, his clothing must be offered. If he has no children, he gives one of his wife's robes. In this country thieves are strangled or exiled to Jira [Yura by the Urals?], the region most remote from this principality."


title: Early Slavs

text: Our understanding of Early Slavic warfare is based on both the writings of ancient authors and archeological discoveries.


title: Early Slavs

text: Early barbarian warrior bands, typically numbering 200 or less, were intended for fast penetration into enemy territory and an equally-quick withdrawal. The Slavs favoured ambush and guerrilla tactics, preferring to fight in dense woodland or marsh. However, victories in the open, sieges and hand-to-hand fighting were also achieved. They often attacked their enemy's flank, and were cunning in devising stratagems. The Slavs also used siege engines, such as siege towers and ladders as described by Procopius and St. Demetrius.


title: Early Slavs

text: Ibn Rusta wrote: "They have very few horses...Their weapons are javelins, shields and lances...They obey a chief whom they call the Župan and carry out his orders...Their supreme lord, however, is called 'chief of chiefs'...this king has many effective and finely woven coats of mail...The Župan is his lieutenant."


title: Early Slavs

text: Weapons were usually spears, javelins and bows and arrows. Swords and body armour were rare and reserved for chiefs and their inner circle of warriors. Shields were round in shape with a central boss grip in the middle. Axes and slings were also in use.


title: Early Slavs

text: Although the Slavs fought mostly on foot, they were also proficient cavalry fighters as historical sources mentioned. Procopius wrote that Slav and "Hun" horsemen were Byzantine mercenaries, serving as horsearchers. In their dealings with the Sarmatians and Huns, the Slavs may have become skilled horsemen, an explanation for their expansion.


title: Early Slavs

text: Menander Protector mentions a Slavic chief Dobret (circa 577–579) who slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I for asking the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars; Dobret declined and is reported as saying: "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs – so it shall always be for us as long as there are wars and weapons".


title: Early Slavs

text: The existence of writing among the Early Slavs is a disputed topic. The Slavs passed down their stories and legends orally like most other tribal peoples in Europe. But in addition to this, a runic script was used.


title: Early Slavs

text: The 9th-century Bulgarian writer Chernorizets Hrabar, in his work "An Account of Letters", briefly mentions that, before becoming Christian, Slavs used a system of strokes and incisions or tallies and sketches: "Before, the Slavs did not have their own books, but counted and divined by means of strokes and incisions, being pagan. Having become Christian, they had to make do with the use of Roman and Greek letters without order [unsystematically], but how can one write [Slavic] well with Greek letters... and thus it was for many years."


title: Early Slavs

text: The Slavs and Balts had many symbols representing concepts, beliefs and Gods. They had many types of swastikas and similar symbols, such as the Kolovrat.(meaning spinning wheel) The kolovrat symbolized the sun, and the ever going cycle of life, death and birth. It was often carved on markers near the graves of fallen Slavs to represent eternal life.


title: Early Slavs

text: Gromovitit Znaci, were symbols associated with Perun, the Slavic thunder and sky god. Early Slavic homes often had the symbols carved into a beam to protect them from lightning. The circular shape of the Gromoviti symbolize ball lightning. Such symbols were also found on Slavic pottery from the 4th century. Another symbol associated with Perun is the Perunika, which resmebles a six pettled rose. Today it is the name for a flower in some Slavic languages.


title: Early Slavs

text: Ancient symbols such as these are still sometimes shown on clothing and the like, especially Russia. Many samples are described on the instance of a women's folk costume at the Meshchera Lowlands. Modern Rodonovers have developed some new symbols, that were not used by the Early Slavs, but many were.


title: Early Slavs

text: Little is known about Slavic religion before the Christianization of Bulgaria and of Kievan Rus. After Christianization, Slavic authorities destroyed many records of the old religion. Some evidence remains in apocryphal and devotional texts, the etymology of Slavic religious terms and the "Primary Chronicle".


title: Early Slavs

text: Early Slavic religion was relatively uniform: animistic, anthropomorphic and inspired by nature. The Slavs developed cults around natural objects, such as springs, trees or stones, out of respect for the spirit (or demon) within. Slavic pre-Christian religion was originally polytheistic, with no organised pantheon. Although the earliest Slavs seemed to have a weak concept of God, the concept evolved into a form of monotheism in which a "supreme god [ruled] in heaven over the others". There is no evidence of a belief in fate or predestination.


title: Early Slavs

text: Slavic paganism was syncretistic and combined and shared with other religions. Linguistic evidence indicates that part of Slavic paganism developed when the Balts and Slavs shared a common language since pre-Christian Slavic beliefs contained elements also found in Baltic religions. After the Slavic and the Baltic languages diverged, the early Slavs interacted with Iranian peoples and incorporated elements of Iranian spirituality. Early Iranian and Slavic supreme gods were considered givers of wealth, unlike the supreme thunder gods of other European religions. Both Slavs and Iranians had demons, with names from similar linguistic roots (Iranian "Daêva" and Slavic "Divŭ") and a concept of dualism: good and evil.


title: Early Slavs

text: Pre-Christian Slavic spirits and demons could be entities in their own right or spirits of the dead and were associated with home or nature. Forest spirits, entities in their own right, were venerated as the counterparts of home spirits, which were usually related to ancestors. Demons and spirits were good or evil, which suggests that the Slavs had a dualistic cosmology and are known to have revered them with sacrifices and gifts. Spirits included Leshy the spirit of the forest, Domovoy spirit of the home, Rusalka the female spirit of waters, Rarog the Slavic variant of phoenix, and other creature such as vilas, vampires and Baba Yaga or Roga.


title: Early Slavs

text: Although evidence of pre-Christian Slavic worship is scarce (suggesting that it was aniconic), religious sites and idols are most plentiful in Ukraine and Poland. Slavic temples and indoor places of worship are rare since outdoor places of worship are more common, especially in Kievan Rus'. The outdoor cultic sites were often on hills and included ringed ditches. Indoor shrines existed: "Early Russian sources... refer to pagan shrines or altars known as "kapishcha"" and were small, enclosed structures with an altar inside. One was found in Kiev, surrounded by the bones of sacrificed animals. Pagan temples were documented as destroyed during Christianization.


title: Early Slavs

text: Records of pre-Christian Slavic priests, like the pagan temples, appeared later. Although no early evidence of Slavic pre-Christian priests has been found, the prevalence of sorcerers and magicians after Christianization suggests that the pre-Christian Slavs had religious leaders. Slavic pagan priests were believed to commune with the gods, to predict the future and to prepare for religious rituals. The pagan priests, or magicians (known as "volkhvy" by the Rus' people), resisted Christianity after Christianization. The "Primary Chronicle" describes a campaign against Christianity in 1071 during a famine. The "volkhvy" were well-received nearly 100 years after Christianization, which suggested that pagan priests had an esteemed position in 1071 and in pre-Christian times.


title: Early Slavs

text: Christianization began in the 7th century and was not completed until the second half of the 12 century. Later, as the Empire of Constantinople ("Byzantium") reclaimed some of the areas of the Balkans occupied by Slavs ("Byzantine Reconquista"), slight parts population of Slavs were Hellenised, including conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, for example under the reign of Nicephorus I (802-811). However, the most significant missionary work was in the mid-ninth century. The Christianization of Bulgaria was made official in 864, during the reign of Knyaz Boris I during shifting political alliances both with the Byzantine Empire and the kingdom of the East Franks and the communication with the Pope.


title: Early Slavs

text: Because of the Bulgarian Empire's strategic position, the Greek East and the Latin West wanted their people to adhere to their liturgies and to ally with them politically. After overtures from each side, Boris aligned with Constantinople and secured an autocephalous Bulgarian national church in 870, the first for the Slavs. In 918/919, the Bulgarian Patriarchate became the fifth autocephalous Eastern Orthodox patriarchate, after the patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. That status was officially recognised by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 927. The Bulgarian Empire developed into the cultural and literary centre of Slavic Europe. The development of the Cyrillic script at the Preslav Literary School, which was declared official in Bulgaria in 893, was also declared the official liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, also called Old Bulgarian.


title: Early Slavs

text: Although there is some evidence of early Christianization of the East Slavs, Kievan Rus' either remained largely pagan or relapsed into paganism before the baptism of Vladimir the Great in the 980s. The Christianization of Poland began with the Catholic baptism of King Mieszko I in 966. Slavic paganism persisted into the 12th century in Pomerania, which began to be Christianized after the creation of the Duchy of Pomerania as part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1121. The process was mostly completed by the Wendish Crusade in 1147. The final stronghold of Slavic paganism was the Rani, with a temple to their god Svetovid on Cape Arkona, which was taken in a campaign by Valdemar I of Denmark in 1168.


title: Early Slavs

text: After Christianisation, the Slavs established a number of kingdoms, or feudal principalities, which persisted throughout the High Middle Ages. The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681 as an alliance between the ruling Bulgars and the numerous Slavs in Lower Moesia. Not long after the Slavic incursion, Scythia Minor was once again invaded, this time by the Bulgars, under Khan Asparukh. Their horde was a remnant of Old Great Bulgaria, an extinct tribal confederacy that was north of the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine. Asparukh attacked Byzantine territories in Eastern Moesia and conquered its Slavic tribes in 680. A peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire was signed in 681 and marked the foundation of the First Bulgarian Empire. The minority Bulgars formed a close-knit ruling caste.


title: Early Slavs

text: The South Slavs established also the Duchy of Croatia in the early 7-8th century (Kingdom of Croatia since 925) and short-lived Duchy of Lower Pannonia. Roughly in the same time Principality of Serbia (later Grand Principality and Kingdom of Serbia), while Banate of Bosnia emerged from the 10th century by merging localities called župas, which were remnants of Early Christianity ecclesiastical divisions. Duklja, Zachlumia, Pagania, Travunia and Kanalites similarly started emerging in the south. The West Slavs were distributed in Samo's Empire, which was the first Slavic state to form in the west, followed by the Great Moravia and, after its decline, the Kingdom of Poland, the Obotritic confederation (now eastern Germany) the Principality of Nitra (modern Slovakia) a vassal of the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Duchy of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic).


title: Early Slavs

text: After the 1054 death of Yaroslav the Wise and the breakup of Kievan Rus', the East Slavs fragmented into a number of principalities from which Muscovy would emerge after 1300 as the most powerful one. The western principalities of the former Kievan Rus' were absorbed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.


title: Early Slavs

text: The debate between proponents of autochthonism and allochthonism began in 1745, when Johann Christoph de Jordan published "De Originibus Slavicis". The 19th-century Slovak philologist and poet Pavel Jozef Šafárik, whose theory was founded on Jordanes' "Getica", has influenced generations of scholars. Jordanes equated the Sclavenes, the Antes and the Venethi (or Venedi) based on earlier sources such as Pliny the Elder, Tacitus and Ptolemy. Šafárik's legacy was his vision of a Slavic history and the use of linguistics for its study.


title: Early Slavs

text: The Polish scholar Tadeusz Wojciechowski (1839–1919) was the first to use place names to study Slavic history and was followed by A. L. Pogodin and the botanist J. Rostafinski. The first scholar to introduce archaeological data into the discourse on the early Slavs, Lubor Niederle (1865–1944), endorsed Rostafinski's theory in his multi-volume "Antiquities of the Slavs". Vykentyi V. Khvoika (1850–1914), a Ukrainian archaeologist of Czech origin, linked the Slavs with the Neolithic Cucuteni culture. A. A. Spicyn (1858–1931) attributed finds of silver and bronze in central and southern Ukraine to the Antes. Czech archaeologist Ivan Borkovsky (1897–1976) postulated the existence of a Slavic "Prague type" of pottery. Boris Rybakov has linked Spicyn's "Antian antiquities" with Chernyakhov culture remains excavated by Khvoika and theorised that the former should be attributed to the Slavs. The debate became politically charged during the 19th century, particularly in connection with the partitions of Poland and the German "Drang nach Osten", and the question of whether Germanic or Slavic peoples were indigenous east of the Oder was used to pursue both German and Polish claims to the region.


title: Early Slavs

text: Some modern scholars debate the meaning and the usage of the term "Slav" depending on the context in which it is used. The word can refer to a culture (or cultures) living north of the River Danube, east of the River Elbe, and west of the River Vistula during the 530s CE. "Slav" is also an identifier for the ethnic group shared by the cultures and denotes any language with linguistic ties to the modern Slavic language family, which may have no connection to either a common culture or a shared ethnicity.


title: Early Slavs

text: Despite the concepts of "Slav", such scholars argue that it is unclear whether any of the descriptions add to an accurate representation of the group's history. Historians such as George Vernadsky, Florin Curta and Michael Karpovich have questioned how, why and to what degree, the Slavs were a cohesive society between the 6th and the 9th centuries. The Austrian historian Walter Pohl wrote, "Apparently ethnicity operated on at least two levels: the 'common Slavic' identity, and the identity of single Slavic groups, tribes, or peoples of different sizes that gradually developed, very often taking their name from the territory they lived in. These regional ethnogeneses inspired by Slavic tradition incorporated considerable remnants of Roman and Germanic population ready enough to give up ethnic identities that had lost their cohesion".


title: Inger Stevens

text: Inger Stevens (born Ingrid Stensland; October 18, 1934 – April 30, 1970) was a Swedish-American film, stage and Golden Globe-winning television actress.


title: Inger Stevens

text: Inger Stevens was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the eldest child of Per Gustaf and Lisbet Stensland. When she was six years old, her mother abandoned the family, taking her youngest son Peter with her. Soon after, Stevens' father moved to the United States, leaving Stevens and her brother Ola in the custody of the family maid and then later with an aunt in Lidingö, near Stockholm. In 1944, Stevens and her brother moved to the United States and lived with their father and his new wife in New York City where he was completing his PhD in Education at Columbia University. At age 13, Stevens moved with her family to Manhattan, Kansas, where her father taught at Kansas State University. Stevens attended Manhattan High School.


title: Inger Stevens

text: At 15, Stevens fled to Kansas City, where she worked in burlesque shows. At 18, she returned to New York City, where she worked as a chorus girl and in the Garment District while taking classes at the Actors Studio.


title: Inger Stevens

text: Stevens appeared on television series, in commercials and in plays until she received her big break in the film "Man on Fire", starring Bing Crosby.


title: Inger Stevens

text: Roles in major films followed, including a starring role opposite Harry Belafonte in 1959's "The World, the Flesh and the Devil", but she achieved her greatest success in the television series "The Farmer's Daughter" (1963–1966) with William Windom. Previously, Stevens had appeared in episodes of "Bonanza", "Route 66", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "The Eleventh Hour", "Sam Benedict", "The Aquanauts" and "The Twilight Zone".


title: Inger Stevens

text: Following the cancellation of "The Farmer's Daughter" in 1966, Stevens appeared in several films: "A Guide for the Married Man" (1967), "Hang 'Em High", "5 Card Stud" and "Madigan". At the time of her death, Stevens was attempting to revive her television career with the detective drama series "The Most Deadly Game".


title: Inger Stevens

text: In January 1966, she was appointed to the advisory board of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute by California governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown. She also was named chairman of the California Council for Retarded Children. Her aunt was Karin Stensland Junker, author of "The Child in the Glass Ball".


title: Inger Stevens

text: After Stevens's death, Ike Jones, the first black person to graduate from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, revealed that he had secretly married Stevens in 1961 in Mexico. Some doubted Jones's claim because of the lack of a marriage license, the maintenance of separate homes and the filing of tax documents as single people. However, when Stevens's estate was being settled, her brother Carl O. Stensland confirmed in court that Stevens had hidden her marriage to Jones "out of fear for her career." Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner A. Edward Nichols ruled in Jones's favor and named him administrator of her estate. A photo exists of the two attending a banquet together in 1968.


title: Inger Stevens

text: On the morning of April 30, 1970, Stevens's roommate and companion Lola McNally found Stevens on the kitchen floor of their Hollywood Hills home. According to McNally, Stevens opened her eyes, lifted her head and tried to speak but was unable to utter any sound. McNally told police that she had spoken to Stevens the previous night and had seen no signs of trouble. Stevens died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. On arrival, medics removed a small bandage from her chin that revealed a small amount of fresh blood oozing from a cut that appeared to have been a few hours old. Los Angeles County coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi attributed Stevens's death to "acute barbiturate poisoning" and the death was eventually ruled a suicide.


title: Born to Die

text: Born to Die is the second studio album and major-label debut by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey. It was released on January 27, 2012, through Interscope Records and Polydor Records. The album was reissued on November 9, 2012, as an expanded version subtitled "".


title: Born to Die

text: Before the album's release, Del Rey had attracted attention with her 2011 singles "Video Games" and "Born to Die", which contrasted contemporary electronic/dance music with their cinematic sound accompanied by dramatic string instruments. A predominantly baroque pop and trip hop album, "Born to Die" features the same cinematic composition. The lyrics are about love, sex, and drugs, and features prominent references to 1950s and 1960s Americana. The album was the world's fifth best-selling album of 2012, and had sold over 7 million copies by 2014. In 2021, it became the second album by a woman and the first debut album by a woman to spend more than 400 weeks on the US "Billboard" 200, where it peaked at number two, and topped charts in Australia and various European countries including France, Germany, and the UK.


title: Born to Die

text: "Born to Die" was supported by four further singles: "Blue Jeans", "Summertime Sadness", "National Anthem", and "Dark Paradise". "Summertime Sadness" peaked at number six on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Del Rey's highest charting single in the US at the time. The album polarized contemporary critics; praises were towards the album's distinctive sound, and criticism targeted its repetitiveness and melodramatic tendencies. Del Rey's image during promotion of "Born to Die" was controversial; tabloid media accused her of an inauthentic persona that was the result of forced marketing to gain an audience in the indie music scene. Although initially receiving ambivalent reception, the album has been retrospectively ranked in best-of lists by several publications including "The Guardian" and "NME", and helped Del Rey acquire cult status among music fans.


title: Born to Die

text: In 2007, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Grant signed a recording contract with the independent record label 5 Point Records, and began planning her debut studio album. But after hiring new management services, taking an interest in adopting the stage name Lana Del Ray, and a perceived lack of motivation during production, she found herself in conflict with the record label and her producer David Kahne. The final product, "Lana Del Ray", was digitally released in January 2010, and her stage name was respelled Lana Del Rey shortly after its launch. Grant was successfully bought out of her recording contract at her manager's request; consequently, "Lana Del Ray" was pulled out of circulation before physical versions were produced.


title: Born to Die

text: After settling on her current stage name, Del Rey signed a recording contract with Stranger Records in June 2011, and released the track "Video Games". Initially, she had released the song because it was her "favorite" and had no intentions of releasing it as a single, although the video went viral on YouTube after its premiere. During an appearance on the French television series "Taratata" in November 2011, Del Rey announced that her second studio album would be titled "Born to Die".


title: Born to Die

text: In an interview with "British GQ", Del Rey revealed she was sent to boarding school at age 14 to get sober from alcoholism and said much of "Born to Die" is written about her experiences with alcohol while living in New York:I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so fucking cool. A great deal of what I wrote on "Born to Die" is about these wilderness years. A lot of the time when I write about the person that I love, I feel like I'm writing about New York. And when I write about the thing that I've lost I feel like I'm writing about alcohol because that was the first love of my life. Sure, there have been people, but it's really alcohol.The photograph used on the cover for "Born to Die" was shot by Nicole Nodland, while Del Rey and David Bowden oversaw the overall direction for its packaging. On behalf of "Complex", Dale Eisinger ranked the cover eighth on the magazine's list of "The 50 Best Pop Album Covers of the Past Five Years", commending its usage of the typeface Steelfish and speaking favorably of the "ominous" feeling it evoked, which he credited to "the shadows or whatever the shapes in the background are [and] how properly Lana can affect her detached and still-flawless persona to a simple gaze". The album's track listing was announced on January 9, 2012, while the record was released on January 31 in the United States; it became Del Rey's major-label debut after she secured a distribution arrangement with Interscope Records.


title: Born to Die

text: "Born to Die"s music style has been described as alternative pop, "sultry, overstated orchestral pop," baroque pop, indie pop, sadcore and trip hop. Of the style of her vocals on the album, Del Rey said: "people weren't taking me very seriously, so I lowered my voice, believing that it would help me stand out. Now I sing quite low... well, for a female anyway".


title: Born to Die

text: The singer's first singles, "Video Games" and "Born to Die" were described variously as "quasi-cabaret balladry", "woozy and sometimes soporific soundtrack soul", and "pop". Del Rey described "Video Games" as "Hollywood sadcore". Tim Lee of musicOMH noted the songs are extremely similar, commenting that "her (alleged) agents clearly having stumbled upon a formula with which they can (allegedly) print money and (allegedly) further consign Lana's secretive, (allegedly) real debut LP to the annals of history. You didn't hear it from us, right?". Del Rey was described as a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra", although she cites Britney Spears, Elvis Presley and Antony and the Johnsons as her musical influences. When asked about her musical style, Del Rey said:


title: Born to Die

text: I would have loved to be part of the indie community. But I wasn't. I was looking for a community, I don't even know any people who are musicians. I never met that indie popular indie, whoever the fuck that is. Who IS indie? First of all, I can't really get my head around what indie music is. Because if you've heard of it, it's sort of pop music, right? Because it's, like, popular? Or is it just that it's not on the radio? It's not like I was in an indie community and then I blew up. It's like, I was living on the street and I'm not – like, for real, you know what I'm saying?


title: Born to Die

text: The lyrics of "Off to the Races" have been called "a freak show of inappropriate co-dependency", with a chorus that recalls Sheryl Crow's "down and out drunken loner persona" in her 1994 single "Leaving Las Vegas". Pryia Elan of "NME" noted that the track "almost falls under the weight of this persona. There's none of 'Video Games<nowiki>"</nowiki>s measured, piano-led reflection. Instead the psychosexual rumblings of the lyrics and the dual voices she uses offset the comparatively simple musical shades on display."


title: Born to Die

text: Del Rey's vocals on "Off to the Races", "National Anthem", and "Diet Mountain Dew" were described as "chatty" and "almost rapping". Her vocals on "Million Dollar Man" were likened to those of "a highly medicated Fiona Apple". Compared to soundtracks for James Bond films, "Born to Die" contains trip hop beats and a cinematic sound reminiscent of the 1950s. Thematically, "Born to Die" refers to sex and drugs, with Del Rey playing a Lolita-esque persona. Bill Lamb, a reviewer at About.com, wrote that "National Anthem" seems "lost in a messy blend of money, sex, and corporate greed, but it is the rousing yet graceful arrangement that solidifies the song's point of view as a clever critique of a society that is just as messy as these words". "National Anthem", Lamb says, fits into the lyrical structure of "Born to Die" in that the theme is that of a "bitter, albeit narcotized, criticism of all of the wealth and emotional artifice Lana Del Rey is accused of embracing". "NME" observed that Del Rey sings like a "perfect mannequin" on "National Anthem", criticizing the track for baldly revisiting the beat-driven chorus of "Born to Die".


title: Born to Die

text: "Video Games" was featured for the first time on The CW's "Ringer" on September 28, 2011, during a pivotal scene, propelling Del Rey into the mainstream. Del Rey also promoted the album with performances in a number of live appearances, including for MTV Push, and at the Bowery Ballroom, where, according to Eliot Glazer of "New York", "the polarizing indie hipstress brought her 'gangsta Nancy Sinatra' swag". Matthew Perpetua of "Rolling Stone" commented that, despite Del Rey's nervousness and anxiety while performing live, she "sang with considerable confidence, though her transitions from husky, come-hither sexuality to bratty, girlish petulance could be rather jarring". Del Rey also performed "Video Games" on Dutch television program "De Wereld Draait Door", on British music television show "Later... with Jools Holland", and on a show at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, California.


title: Born to Die

text: She gave several interviews to newspapers and online magazines such as The Quietus, "The Observer", and "Pitchfork", while creating her own music videos for several tracks such as "Blue Jeans" and "Off to the Races". On January 14, 2012, Del Rey appeared on "Saturday Night Live" to perform "Blue Jeans" and "Video Games". Her performance soon came under scrutiny, and was criticized by NBC anchor Brian Williams, who called it "the worst in "SNL" history". Hosts Andy Samberg and Daniel Radcliffe came to her defense, with the latter stating that the criticism towards her was less about the performance and more about "her past and her family". "Ringer" played another Del Rey song, "Blue Jeans", on February 14, 2012, during the last scene of episode 13.


title: Born to Die

text: "Video Games" was released as Del Rey's debut single on October 10, 2011. The song received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised Del Rey's vocals and considered it one of the best songs of 2011. "Video Games" attained worldwide success, reaching number one in Germany and top-ten positions in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Netherlands, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. An accompanying music video, directed and edited by Del Rey, contained video clips of skateboarders, cartoons, shots from old afties, and paparazzi footage of Paz de la Huerta falling down while intoxicated. The music video helped increase Del Rey's online popularity. The second single and title track, "Born to Die", was released as a digital download on December 30, 2011. The music video for it leaked on December 14, and was based on a concept Del Rey created, directed by Yoann Lemoine. "Rolling Stone" gave the video a generally favorable review.


title: Born to Die

text: Del Rey announced "Blue Jeans" as the third single from the album. It was officially released on April 6, 2012. An accompanying music video directed by Lemoine premiered around the web on March 19, 2012. "Summertime Sadness" was released as the fourth single on June 22. The official music video was released on July 20. "National Anthem" was announced as the fifth single and released on July 6. Its music video was released on June 27. "Dark Paradise" was released as the final single on March 1, 2013, only in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland.


title: Born to Die

text: "Radio" charted at number 67 in France. "Without You" debuted at number 121 in the UK. "Off to the Races" was released as a promotional single in The Netherlands on January 6, 2012. A music video, directed by Del Rey, was released on December 22, 2011. "Carmen" was released as a promotional single in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on January 26, 2012. On February 27, 2012, Del Rey revealed on Facebook that the video for "Carmen" was shot and would be finished being edited that day. It was released on April 21, 2012.


title: Born to Die

text: At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 62 based on 37 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Born to Die

text: Jaime Gill of BBC Music commented that the album "isn't perfect", criticizing the production of songs such as "Dark Paradise", but concluded that "Born to Die" is the most distinctive debut album since Glasvegas's eponymous disc released in 2008. "Slant Magazine" writer Sal Cinquemani commented that several tracks had their production changed for the album, making tracks such as "National Anthem" and "This Is What Makes Us Girls" less "radio-friendly". Cinquemani wrote, "ironically, the album's sole weakness is the strength of its immaculate production, which can be a bit overwhelming over the course of 12 tracks." Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" said that "Born to Die" is "beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough", with most melodies "constructed magnificently", but that Del Rey "doesn't have the lyrical equipment to develop a persona throughout the album." Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" gave a negative review, criticizing the repetitive production.


title: Born to Die

text: Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" declared that the lyrics, with their "pop-trash perversity", were the strength of the album, but that Del Rey had a voice that was "pinched and prim" and "wasn't ready to make an album yet". He concluded, "Given her chic image, it's a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved "Born to Die" is." AllMusic critic John Bush wrote: "There is a chasm that separates 'Video Games' from the other material and performances on the album, which aims for exactly the same target—sultry, sexy, wasted—but with none of the same lyrical grace, emotional power, or sympathetic productions... an intriguing start, but Del Rey is going to have to hit the books if she wants to stay as successful as her career promised early on". Channing Freeman of Sputnikmusic disliked the album, saying, "The worst thing about "Born to Die" is that even its great songs contain problems". "The Observer"s Kitty Empire said that, unlike pop singers Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and their "hedonic outpourings", "Lana Del Rey's partying is fuelled by a knowing sadness, and sung in that laconic, hypnotic voice, which ultimately saves this thoroughly dissolute, feminist nightmare of a record for the romantics among us".


title: Born to Die

text: "The A.V. Club"s Evan Rytlewski panned the album, writing, "Shallow and overwrought, with periodic echoes of Kesha's Valley Girl aloofness, the album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music". Randall Roberts of "Los Angeles Times" also noted that Del Rey's vocals have "so much potential and yet [are] unrefined", and said that despite having standout tracks like "Summertime Sadness" and "Dark Paradise", listening to the album "has become tiring and woozy, like if you'd taken a half-dozen Ambiens when you'd put the record on—and now you're getting very, very sleepy". "Pitchfork"s Lindsay Zoladz commented: "The album's point of view—if you could call it that—feels awkward and out of date... [it] never allows tension or complexity into the mix, and its take on female sexuality ends up feeling thoroughly tame. For all of its coos about love and devotion, it's the album equivalent of a faked orgasm—a collection of torch songs with no fire". Alex Denney of "NME" gave a positive review, saying: "Although it's not quite the perfect pop record 'Video Games' might have led us to wish for, "Born To Die" still marks the arrival of a fresh—and refreshingly self-aware—sensibility in pop."


title: Born to Die

text: "Born to Die" has received retrospective reviews through the years, with many critics and journalists giving it a second chance and publishing think-pieces about the industry's perspective on Del Rey. Meaghan Garvey, writing for "Pitchfork", said that "it’s a drag to rehash the "Born to Die" discourse now [...] a conversation so tediously narrow," praising the album as "thrillingly rich." In 2021, "Pitchfork" included it in their "Rescored" list, with Anna Gaca claiming that ""Born to Die" turned out to be a sign of things to come, like genre-agnostic pop ballads with hip-hop beats, and the arch, depressive languor that’s more mainstream than ever." Craig Jenkins from "Vulture" agreed, stating that "in retrospect, it was a dumb conversation." He added that "Born to Die" "came from nowhere with a fully formed [...] aesthetic that was perhaps too much too soon," arguing that "it felt time-displaced and familiar all at once, like discovering a [...] cassette tape from that part of the 90s where trip hop invaded pop." Dan Solomon, writing for "CultureMap", asked to fellow music critics to "keep [the controversy] in the past," arguing that it is "simplistic to dismiss "Born to Die"." He described the album as "easy to listen to," and "great-sounding," while praising "Off to the Races" as "a self-assured performance from a singer in control of her voice, a mix of acting and singing." He also called "Dark Paradise" and "Summertime Sadness" standouts. In a similar opinion, "Grantland"'s Alex Pappademas questioned if "there [was] any way to separate the Internet hatred of Lana Del Rey from her sort of surprisingly good album."


title: Born to Die

text: Chris Lacy from "Albumism" stated that "it's crystal-clear [Del Rey] is the mastermind behind "Born to Die"," describing the album as a "realistic portrait of addiction, sexual obsession, abnormality and fear." He also praised the album's music videos, calling them "epic short films that were thought-provoking" and that they "would've made Michael Jackson proud." However, he noted that the album "loses steam midway," calling closing track "This Is What Makes Us Girls" a "saving grace." Jesse Cataldo from "Slant" named "Born to Die" Del Rey's second best album, describing it as a "startlingly composed premiere effort." Miranda Mikkola from "Gay Times" called "Born to Die" "one of the greatest major-label debut albums of the century," stating that "it's still a gorgeous album that we love to revisit every now and then," while marking "Off to the Races", "National Anthem" and "Dark Paradise" as standouts. On a similar note, Angelina Fay from "No Majesty" agreed that the album is "still great to rediscover" and praised it as "timeless in every sense of the word." Rhian Daly, writing for "NME", argued that Del Rey "was too special to live in the shadows of other artists [...] she just had to find her path to that point." Rob Harvilla from "The Ringer" had a rather mixed retrospective review, writing that "Born to Die" was "potty but occasionally excellent" and rating it as "her worst album." However, he called "Video Games" "an alarmingly great song", described "Radio" as "gorgeous" and praised Del Rey as "the perfect artist of our times." "Billboard" included the title track in their Songs That Defined the Decade list and called it "one of the most standout musical moments on the album."


title: Born to Die

text: In the United Kingdom, "Born to Die" sold 50,000 copies on its first day of release. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and sold 116,745 copies. By accumulating digital sales of 50,007, the album became the fifth album ever to sell upwards of 50,000 downloads in a single week. Additionally, it was the fastest selling album of 2012, becoming the first album to reach 100,000 copies sold in that year. "Born to Die" remained atop the chart in its second week, selling an additional 60,000 copies. As of November 2013, the album had sold over 836,000 copies in the UK.


title: Born to Die

text: In France, the album debuted at number one on the French Albums Chart with sales of 48,791, whose 16,968 digital copies. The album remained at the top position the following week with 23,888 copies sold. As of June 2014, it has sold over 500,000 copies in France. In New Zealand, the album debuted and peaked at number two on the charts, spending forty weeks in the chart. After the conjunction of "", the album charted at number six. "Born to Die" is the fifty-seventh best charting album of all time in New Zealand.


title: Born to Die

text: In the United States, the album attained first-week sales of 77,000 copies, subsequently debuting at number two on the "Billboard" 200, behind Adele's "21", and shipped over 500,000 units in the country by January 2013, getting Gold certification. On the week ending August 31, 2013, though the album was in its eighty-first week on the chart, it re-entered the top twenty at number 20, selling 13,000 copies. As of June 2014, "Born to Die" has sold 1,100,000 copies in the United States, and has been certified platinum by the RIAA. In Italy, the album debuted at number five. The following week, it fell to number nine. In the first two weeks, the album sold 6,271 copies. As of June 2012, the album has sold 24,372 copies in Italy. After the re-release in November 2012, the album rose from 27 to 14. The album has since been certified Gold. Following an iTunes discount, the album re-entered the iTunes Top 10 and jumped from 57 to 31 on the Italian Charts on the week-ending April 28, 2013. On the week-ending June 2, 2013, the album spent its seventieth week on the chart and fell ten spots to number 46.


title: Born to Die

text: According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), "Born to Die" was the fifth global best-selling album of 2012 with sales of 3.4 million copies. By June 2014, the album had sold seven million copies worldwide.


title: Born to Die

text: With the release of "Born to Die", Del Rey became the main focus of attention of the press for her image as well as her music. Since her debut with "Video Games", Del Rey had been causing many to begin to accuse her of trying to erase her past with a different type of songs and style. Considering the album's composition and her appearance, many tabloids began to question her authenticity and claim that her success was due only to her beauty. Also, speculation arose that Del Rey was just a character created by Lizzy Grant and pop music industry, with her label trying to get a place and audience within indie music.


title: Born to Die

text: "Business Insider"s Kevin Lincoln commented that Lana was manufactured by her label and used "Video Games" as a form of advertising. In defense of the singer, Jaime Gill from "BBC Music" wrote: "If you want an explanation for the unlikely rise of Lana Del Rey, it isn't that hard to find. Ignore accusations of cynical marketing and inauthenticity, or speculation about surgery and daddy's money – that's not important. And don't get distracted by YouTube statistics or the hyperbole, this isn't about new media. It's about something older and more mysterious than that; the extraordinary, resilient power of pop music". Sasha Frere Jones of "The New Yorker" came out in defense of the artist as well, writing: "The weirder strain of criticism concerns authenticity [...] Detractors cite a variety of presumed conspiracies, some involving the influence of her father, Rob Grant [...] The rumor of manipulative managers guiding her; the reality of professional songwriters working for her [...] and how Grant's top lip got so big so fast [...] Surely no equivalent male star would be subject of the same level of examination." Sharing a similar view, Ann Lee wrote in "Metro": "I know it's fun to slate [Lana] but she's got a great voice – that's a fact". Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" also proved to be in favor of Del Rey, declaring: "I was initially puzzled by the accusations of inauthenticity that were hurled with such vehemence and frequency at Lana Del Rey in the wake of her meteoric rise to "it girl" status last year [...] And I guess we're supposed to lament the fact that, unlike Amy Winehouse, she doesn't appear to have a predilection for dope or booze to back up her supposed bad-girl bona fides. But since when exactly has 'authenticity' ever been a criterion in pop music?".


title: Born to Die

text: "Born to Die"s sound, themes and aesthetic left a major impact in popular music. In 2019, "The Washington Post" named Del Rey one of the "five people who helped shape the culture of the past decade." Max Migowsky from "Indie" described her as "the figurehead of an entire generation," while Zachary Small from "Hyperallergic" called "Born to Die" "ahead of its time." Al Horner from Red Bull agreed, marking "Born to Die" as "[a] blueprint for a new sonic world" and describing its sound as the feminine equivalent of grunge music. He argued that Del Rey's success "convinced record labels to take a chance on [...] emotionally vulnerable pop" and stated that "there's never been more space for melancholy in popular music." Sorrell Forbes from "uDiscover Music" named "Born to Die" "the most powerful moment in her career," while arguing that Del Rey brought "the sound [the public was] looking for." Del Rey herself stated in an interview with "Pitchfork" in 2019 that "there's been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that." Omar N. Goulding from "Culturizando" called "Born to Die" "the most influential album of the decade," arguing that "people were getting tired of happy music and wanted to listen to something different" and that Del Rey "set the [sad girl] trend into pop culture." Richard S. He, writing for "Billboard", said that "Born to Die" is "one of the main catalysts for pop's mid-2010s shift from brash EDM to a moodier, hip-hop-inflected palette." "Billboard" later included the album's title track as one of the 100 songs that defined the 2010s, adding that it influenced "a sonic shift that completely changed the pop landscape." Critics and journalists alike agree that "Born to Die" influenced the works of Lorde, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, among others. Swift herself named Del Rey the "most influential artist in pop."


title: Born to Die

text: "Born to Die" was listed among publications' best-of lists of the 2010s decade, including "NME" (#10) and "The Independent" (#3). "The Guardian" included the album at number 70 on its 2019 list of The 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: Mass is a 2021 American drama film written and directed by Fran Kranz in his directorial debut. It stars Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Martha Plimpton as grieving parents who meet to discuss a tragedy involving their sons. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021, and was released on October 8, 2021, by Bleecker Street. At the BAFTA Awards, Dowd received a nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: Jay and Gail Perry are parents grieving the death of their son Evan, a victim of a high school shooting. Richard and Linda are the parents of the teenage perpetrator Hayden, who killed himself after his shootings. Six years after the tragedy, both couples agree to meet and talk in a private room at an Episcopal Church. The couples had met previously, in which Jay and Gail made hurtful comments toward Richard and Linda when they were all going through the public legal procedures that resulted from the incident. Jay had since publicly advocated for gun control and against gun ownership, causing a brief debate between him and Richard.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: After talking about their sons when they were innocent children, the two couples partake in various lengthy discussions over how the tragedy had come to be and how the tragedy impacted their lives. Jay and Gail ask for information from Richard and Linda about Hayden's upbringing that they do not already know from public information about the incident. Richard and Linda tell that they knew that he became more depressed due to their family moving houses, lack of friends, and bullying at school. The couples briefly debate whether video games had influenced Hayden's violent thoughts. While acknowledging that Hayden's schools and therapists did not respond appropriately to their findings, Richard and Linda express their guilt and regret over how their failure to see and react to any signs that their son could have become violent. Jay and Gail admit that they wanted to see Richard and Linda in as much pain as they and the other victims' parents were. Richard and Linda admit that being the parents of a murderer meant that they did not know how to navigate being public figures, since they also could not speculate about why Hayden did what he did. Richard and Linda reveal that Hayden had made friends in high school, who were also victims of bullying, and that one of his friends had access to guns. Jay and Linda become furious, causing Richard to warn against jumping to conclusions about Hayden, only for Jay to speculate that Hayden was a psychopath who was incapable of being dealt with.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: Jay eventually has a short angry outburst, leading to him breaking down as he describes how Evan was killed by Hayden. Both couples reflect on the other victims and their families, and when they visited the crime scene in the aftermath. Linda reveals that she found a notebook in her son's room after learning of the shooting, detailing his plans for the shooting and his suicide in the school library. She and Richard explain that while they understood that the grieving parents would not mourn the loss of Hayden, they still wanted and held a funeral to memorialize and mourn their once-innocent son who they loved before his horrible actions. Linda expresses that she wants to remember the good memories about Hayden before his actions, rather than ignoring and condemning Hayden completely. When Linda asks Gail to tell a story about Evan, Gail recounts a positive memory of Evan when he was 12 and expresses how much she and Jay miss him. Having come to an understanding of all the pain they felt, Gail forgives Richard, Linda, and Hayden, wanting to move on from all the deep pain and grief.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: The couples hold hands in silence to end their meeting, all having reached a state of empathy for each other. Richard leaves first for a business meeting. Linda follows, only to come back to speak to Gail and Jay once more. Linda recounts the moment she and Richard were the most terrified of Hayden when he angrily threatened to beat her up. She confesses that she wishes she was beaten up by him so she could truly see what he became, leading Gail to comfort her before they finally part ways. Jay becomes emotional when he overhears a choir practice in another room of the church. Gail comforts him before they finally depart.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: In November 2019, it was announced that Fran Kranz would write and direct "Mass" in his feature directorial debut, with Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Martha Plimpton attached to star. Breeda Wool joined the cast in December 2019. The film was shot over a roughly two week period in late 2019 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Hailey, Idaho.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: "Mass" had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021 in the "Premieres" section. In May 2021, Bleecker Street acquired distribution rights to the film. By the end of its run, the film will have screened at film festivals in Busan, Charlottesville, London, San Sebastian, Sudbury, Woodstock and Zurich. It is scheduled to be released on October 8, 2021. In September 2021, Sky Cinema acquired the UK and Ireland distribution rights. In the United States, the film was screened in four theaters; two in New York and two in Los Angeles.


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: The site's critics consensus reads, ""Mass" requires a lot of its audience, but rewards that emotional labor with a raw look at grief that establishes writer-director Fran Kranz as a filmmaker of tremendous promise."


title: Mass (2021 film)

text: Kranz's direction and storytelling techniques received praise. The "Chicago Reader" compared the film to the works of playwright Tennessee Williams, calling it "riveting and unforgettable." Richard Whittaker from "The Austin Chronicle" had a similar response and said in his review that the story was "perfectly told." Writing for "Little White Lies", Hannah Strong summarized the film as a "study of human pain and anger in painstaking detail, supported by a script which is hauntingly realistic without dipping into mawkish or exploitative territory." Owen Gleiberman, from "Variety", said the film "announces Fran Kranz as a bold new filmmaker who has earned the right to excavate a subject as sensitive as this one."