The ancestors of the Slavs stand out from the Indo-European group by about the first half of the first millennium BC. In the same period, one can judge the onset of the resettlement of these tribes and their settlement of permanent territories. The origin and settlement of the Slavs is a debatable issue among most historians. He studied for many years, and on the basis of a variety of sources. According to some versions, the Slavs are autochthonous, that is, the local population. Another part of historians is of the opinion that they are an alien people.
The main historical work from which one can trace the origin and settlement of the Eastern Slavs is The Tale of Bygone Years, written by the monk Nestor. In its style, this is a chronicle which, in chronology, described events occurring in those days. At the very beginning of the story, the monk also determines the area of settlement - the tribes of the Eastern Slavs, in his opinion, originally lived in the Danube river basin. Due to the fact that the so-called “Volokhs” attacked the Slavic tribes , they were forced to change their place of residence, and advanced east, to the Dnieper River. Archaeological sources, however, confirm the presence of the Slavs in the Oder River basin, which casts doubt on the theory of Nestor, although at the moment it is the most acceptable.
The resettlement of the Eastern Slavs in the Dnieper River basin leads to their settledness in this territory. However, Nestor's “Tale of Bygone Years” is not the only source from which to find out these data. Thus, the Byzantine chronicles also indicate that by the time of the great migration of peoples, the Slavs occupied the territory of the center and the east of Europe, and even then the Byzantines distinguished three branches of the Slavs - Slavs, Antes and Wends. In total, more than one hundred and fifty different tribes that lived in the indicated territory are ranked among these branches. Unfortunately, today most of the names of these tribal unions have been lost, and only mentions of glades, Drevlyans, Volhynians, Tiverts, Northerners, Vyatichs, Dulebs, Radimichs, Bujans, Krivichs, streets and other tribes have survived to our days.
The Romans and Arabs also wrote about the resettlement of the Slavs. Mention of these tribes is found in the writings of Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy. Gothic leaders, namely Germanarich, defeated by Slavic fighters, wrote about the Slavs as brave warriors. Despite the single victories, the Slavs were a civilian population, not adapted to war. This is evidenced by sources describing the execution of seventy Slavic representatives Vinitar, nephew of Germanaric.
The settlement of the eastern Slavs on the Danube was confirmed by such outstanding Russian historians as Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, Soloviev. However, for Klyuchevsky the version of the ousting of the Slavs is less acceptable - the historian speaks of their slow resettlement towards the Dnieper, which excludes the compulsion of this process. For example, Boris Rybakov prefers to combine these two theories and not distinguish the Danube and Dnieper basin. Today, the synthesis of these two points of view is the most acceptable, although recent studies have been conducted towards the northern regions. Perhaps after some time these theories will also be changed.
It is worth saying that the resettlement of the Eastern Slavs was not limited to the Danube and the Dnieper basin. By the ninth century AD, the first cities began to appear in them, which were increasingly moving away from the primary place of settlement. One of the first outposts was the following: Kiev, Chernihiv, Smolensk, Novgorod, Murom. And if Kiev became a consolidating center near the Dnieper, then Novgorod becomes closer to the north.