The White Croats (; ; ; ), also known simply as Croats, were a group of Early Slavic tribes that lived between East Slavic and West Slavic tribes in the historical region of Galicia north of the Carpathian Mountains (in modern Western Ukraine and Southeastern-Southern Poland), and possibly in Northeastern Bohemia.
Debates continue over the origin of the Croats and related topics. Their ethnonym is usually considered to be of Iranian origin, and historians regard them one of the oldest Slavic tribes or tribal alliances that formed prior to the 6th century CE. They were an East Slavic tribe, but bordered both East Slavic groups (Dulebes and their related Buzhans and Volhynians, Tivertsi, and Ulichs) in Western Ukraine; and West Slavic tribes (Lendians and Vistulans) in southeastern Poland, controlling an important trade route from East to Central Europe. Archaeologically, the Croats were mostly related to the Korchak and Luka-Raikovetska cultures identified with the Sclaveni (while their connection to the Antes and to the Penkovka culture remains a matter of dispute). Their area is characterized by use of stone defenses, tiled tombs (and kurgan-like tombs), stone ovens, and many large, fortified settlements and cult buildings. They practiced Slavic paganism. Foreign medieval authors documented the Croats in historical sources and legends, and had their own .
In the late-6th and early-7th centuries, some of the Croats migrated from their homeland, White or Great Croatia in the Carpathians, to the Roman province of Dalmatia (in present-day Croatia along the Adriatic Sea), becoming ancestors of the modern South Slavic Croats. The Pannonian Avars plundered the Roman provinces, before being conquered by the White Croats, where they then settled and soon started accepting Christianity during the time of Porga ( ), the first known archon of the Duchy of Croatia. Other Croats who stayed in their Carpathian homeland continued to practise paganism and formed a tribal proto-state with the polis-like gords of Plisnesk, Stilsko, Revno, Halych, Terebovlia (among other) in Western Ukraine, which lasted until the very end of the 10th century. They were pressured and influenced by more centralized polities: Great Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Duchy of Poland, Kievan Rus' and the Principality of Hungary. After their defeat by Kievan Rus', on their territory were organized East Slavic principalities of Peremyshl, Terebovlia, Zvenyhorod, and finally the Principality of Halych.
According to some modern sources, the ethnic name of White Croats was possibly preserved in parts of Western Ukraine and Southern Poland until the 19th and early 20th centuries. Historians see the northern White Croats as having become assimilated into the Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech nationalities, and as having been precursors of the Rusyns.
Etymology
It is generally believed that the Croatian ethnonym – Hrvat, Horvat and Harvat – etymologically is not of Slavic origin, but a borrowing from Iranian languages. According to the most plausible theory by Max Vasmer, it derives from *(fšu-)haurvatā- (cattle guardian), more correctly Proto-Ossetian / Alanian *xurvæt- or *xurvāt-, in the meaning of "one who guards" ("guardian, protector").
It is considered that the ethnonym is first attested in anthroponyms Horoúathos, Horoáthos, and Horóathos on the two Tanais Tablets, found in the Greek colony of Tanais at the shores of Sea of Azov in the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD, at the time when the colony was surrounded by Iranian speaking Sarmatians. However, acceptance of any non-Slavic etymology is problematic because it implies an ethnogenesis relationship with the specific ethnic group. There is no mention of an Iranian tribe named as Horoat in the historical sources, but it was not uncommon for Slavic tribes to get their tribal names from anthroponyms of their forefathers and chiefs of the tribe, like in the case of Czechs, Dulebes, Radimichs, and Vyatichi.
Any mention of the Croats before the 9th century is uncertain, and there were several loose attempts at tracing; Struhates, Auhates, and Krobyzoi by Herodotus, Horites by Orosius in 418 AD, and the Harus (original form Hrws, some read Hrwts; Hros, Hrus) at the Sea of Azov, near the mythical Amazons, mentioned by Zacharias Rhetor in 550 AD. The Hros some relate to the ethnonym of the Rus' people. The distribution of the Croatian ethnonym in the form of toponyms in later centuries is considered to be hardly accidental because it is related with Slavic migrations to Central and South Europe.
The epithet "white" for the Croats and their homeland is usually related to the use of colors for cardinal directions among Eurasian people. That is, it meant "Western Croats", or "Northern Croats", in comparison to Eastern Carpathian lands where they lived before. The epithet "great" (megali) probably was not just an association with size as could signify an "old, ancient" or "former" homeland, for the White Croats and Croats when they were new arrivals in the Roman province of Dalmatia. In semantical comparison, as the color "white" besides the meaning "Western" of something/someone could also mean "younger" (later also associated with "unbaptized"), the association with "great" is contradictory. The ethnonym with the epithet was also questioned lexically and grammatically by linguists like Petar Skok, Stanisław Rospond, Jerzy Nalepa and Heinrich Kunstmann, who argued that the Byzantines did not differentiate Slavic "bělъ-" (white) from "velъ-" (big, great), and because of common Greek betacism, the "Belohrobatoi" should be read as "Velohrobatoi" ("Velohrovatoi"; "Great/Old Croats" not "White Croats"). The possible confusion could have happened if the original Slavic form "velo-" was transcribed to Greek alphabet and then erroneously translated, but such a conclusion is not always accepted.
Although the early medieval Croatian tribes in the scholarship are often called as White Croats, there's a scholarly dispute whether it is a correct term as some scholars differentiate the tribes according to separate regions and that the term implies only the medieval Croats who lived in Central Europe.
Origin
Some scholars etymologically, and archaeologically due to burial mounds, drew parallels between Carpathian Croats and Slavs with the Carpi, who previously lived in the territory of Carpathian Mountains, but such theory was never taken seriously. Another more common theorization is related to the first Iranian tribes who lived on the shores of the Sea of Azov, Scythians, who arrived there c. 7th century BCE. Around the 6th century BCE, the Sarmatians began their migration westwards, gradually subordinating the Scythians by the 2nd-century BCE. During this period there was substantial cultural and linguistic contact between the Early Slavs and Iranians, and in this environment were formed the Antes. Antes were Slavic people who lived in that area and to the West between Dniester and Dnieper from the 4th until the 7th century. Some think that the Croats were part of the Antes tribal polity who migrated to Galicia in the 3rd–4th century, under pressure by invading Huns and Goths. Others related them to the early Sclaveni or saw them as a mixture of both Antes and Sclaveni. Some argue that they lived in the Carpathians until the Antes were attacked by the Pannonian Avars in 560, and the polity was finally destroyed in 602 by the same Avars. The early Croats' migration to Dalmatia, with Pannonian Avars in the 6th century or during the reign of Heraclius (610–641), some see as a possible continuation of the previous conflict and contacts between the Antes and Avars.
In a similar fashion, regardless of Iranian or Slavic etymology of their name, Henryk Łowmiański argued that the tribe was formed by the end of the 3rd and not later than the 5th century in Lesser Poland, during the peak of the Huns and their leader Attila, but such localization is historiographically and archaeologically unproven and could only have been in Prykarpattia (Western Ukraine). They probably formed around late 4th and first half of the 5th century. It is considered that they probably were one of oldest and largest Slavic tribal formations until 6th century.
Some argue that the large Proto-Slavic tribe or tribal alliance, separated somewhere between 7th and 10th century. The activity of the Avars is argued to have resulted with assumed breaking of the tribal group into Carpathian (Prykarpattia and Zakarpattia in Western Ukraine), Western or White (the Upper Vistula river in Lesser Poland, Silesia, Prešov Region in Eastern Slovakia, and Northeastern Czech Republic), and Southern (in the Balkans). It is considered that the Croatian tribes from Prykarpattia and Zakarpattia in Ukraine were related to the Croatian tribes from Poland-Bohemia. However, the same ethnic name does not necessarily mean all the tribes had the same ancestry, as well the dating and supposed existence, separation and location of different tribal groups is a matter of much debate due to lack of evidence, historical sources and their interpretation.
There is a dispute among Slavic scholars as to whether the Croats were of Irani-Alanic, East Slavic, or West Slavic origin. Whether the early Croats were Slavs who had taken a name of Iranian origin, or whether they were ruled by a Sarmatian elite and were Slavicized Sarmatians, cannot be resolved, but is considered that they arrived as Slavic people when entered the Balkans. The possibility of Irani-Sarmatian elements among, or influences upon, early Croatian ethnogenesis cannot be entirely excluded, but most probably was negligible by the Early Middle Ages. The dispute on affiliation with West and East Slavs is also disputed on linguistic grounds because the Croats are linguistically closer to East Slavs.
History
Middle Ages
Nestor the Chronicler in his Primary Chronicle (12th century), which information and convoluted viewpoint were often compiled and influenced by use of various sources of different origin, mentions the White Croats, calling them Horvate Belii or Hrovate Belii, the name depending upon which manuscript of his is referred to:
Most what is known about the early history of White Croats comes from the work by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, De Administrando Imperio (10th century). In the 30th chapter, "The Story of the Province of Dalmatia" Constantine wrote:
In the previous 13th chapter which described the Hungarian neighbors Franks to the West, Pechenegs to the North, and Moravians to the South, it is also mentioned that "on the other side of the mountains, the Croats are neighboring the Turks", however as are mentioned Pechenegs to the North while in the 10th century the Croats are mentioned as the Southern neighbors of the Hungarians, the account is of uncertain meaning, but most probably referring to Croats living "on the other side" of Carpathian Mountains. It is considered that the described 7th century homeland and migration's starting point is anachronistic based on partly available information about contemporary 10th century White Croats, and the 6-7th century existence and location of White Croats and Croatia to the West of the Eastern Carpathians or Carpathian Mountains was never proved. It is considered that Constantine VII was referring to the 10th century Duchy of Bohemia which controlled parts of Southern Poland and Western Ukraine. From the 30th chapter can be observed that the Croats lived "beyond Bavaria" in the sense East of it, in Bohemia and Lesser Poland, because the original source of information was of Western Roman origin. White Croatia in the 7th century could not border Francia, and Frankish sources do not mention and know anything about the Croats implying they must have lived much further to the East.