Surviving Great Moravia/Slavic Pannonia?

[glitchpoke]

What would happen if the Magyars never crossed the Carpathians and the Pannonian basin remained primarily Slavic? I'm trying to come up with ideas for how the area would look after a century or two: I would imagine that Great Moravia could expand its influence further east, but would the state still end up collapsing?

Would we eventually end up with a unified Pannonian Slavic state that looks similar to medieval Hungary, or would the area remained fragmented or dominated by outside powers? How would this affect Croatia/Serbia (and even Bulgaria's) development? Would there be potential for a non-Slavic state to emerge (ie early Romanians in Transylvania, Avar remnants, or a later Turkic invasion)?

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

What would happen if the Magyars never crossed the Carpathians and the Pannonian basin remained primarily Slavic? I'm trying to come up with ideas for how the area would look after a century or two: I would imagine that Great Moravia could expand its influence further east, but would the state still end up collapsing?

Would we eventually end up with a unified Pannonian Slavic state that looks similar to medieval Hungary, or would the area remained fragmented or dominated by outside powers? How would this affect Croatia/Serbia (and even Bulgaria's) development? Would there be potential for a non-Slavic state to emerge (ie early Romanians in Transylvania, Avar remnants, or a later Turkic invasion)?

Well, the topic was once of interest for me and my takes are:
a) everyone assumes that lack of Magyars in Pannonian basin (where they go instead because you never specified that OP?) would be utter Moravia-wank leading to inevitable Moravian domination of whole eastern Europe.
While yes, position of Great Moravia would improve (they'd exist for longer), it's not certain if they would dominate whole central-eastern Europe. They were themselves divided and I think Great Moravia might end up as sort of Hungary-on-steroids, encompassing lands of OTL Hungary and Moravia proper, maybe southern Poland while maintaing tenous overlordship over duchies of Bohemia and Poland, at least until Xth century (if they maintained it they might be called Regnum Sclavorum or Regnum Venedorum, as they sometimes were called IOTL by Papal dyplomacy so we can end up with some "Slovenija"/"Veneda" country with Bohemia, Poland and Moravia being three main parts).
They might also get conquered by either Bohemia or Poland, depending on personality of succesors of Mojmir II.
b) Regardless of politics, continued existence of predominantly-Slavic Pannonian plain means that southern and western Slavic languages would be closer to each other, maybe with Serbian and Croatian being lumped into Western Slavic group instead of southern Slavic, assuming Bulgarian grammar diverges from other Slavic languages as much as IOTL (if similarites with north in vocabulary and grammar are more prominent, it might lead to Serbian and Croatian being lumped into one subdivision of Slavic with West Slavs, not Bulgarians).
Polish (assuming Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs are following their OTL path) would have more "southern-influence" which could mean getting rid of nasal vowels and retaining initial stress and vowel length (lost in OTL Polish around XVI-XVIIth century), overall language would sound much harsher - for example, in OTL Polish we have a city named "Bolesławiec" in ITTL Polish it'd be "Bolesławec"
Hope, I was of some help.

 

[glitchpoke]

Well, the topic was once of interest for me and my takes are:
a) everyone assumes that lack of Magyars in Pannonian basin (where they go instead because you never specified that OP?) would be utter Moravia-wank leading to inevitable Moravian domination of whole eastern Europe.
While yes, position of Great Moravia would improve (they'd exist for longer), it's not certain if they would dominate whole central-eastern Europe. They were themselves divided and I think Great Moravia might end up as sort of Hungary-on-steroids, encompassing lands of OTL Hungary and Moravia proper, maybe southern Poland while maintaing tenous overlordship over duchies of Bohemia and Poland, at least until Xth century (if they maintained it they might be called Regnum Sclavorum or Regnum Venedorum, as they sometimes were called IOTL by Papal dyplomacy so we can end up with some "Slovenija"/"Veneda" country with Bohemia, Poland and Moravia being three main parts).
They might also get conquered by either Bohemia or Poland, depending on personality of succesors of Mojmir II.
b) Regardless of politics, continued existence of predominantly-Slavic Pannonian plain means that southern and western Slavic languages would be closer to each other, maybe with Serbian and Croatian being lumped into Western Slavic group instead of southern Slavic, assuming Bulgarian grammar diverges from other Slavic languages as much as IOTL (if similarites with north in vocabulary and grammar are more prominent, it might lead to Serbian and Croatian being lumped into one subdivision of Slavic with West Slavs, not Bulgarians).
Polish (assuming Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs are following their OTL path) would have more "southern-influence" which could mean getting rid of nasal vowels and retaining initial stress and vowel length (lost in OTL Polish around XVI-XVIIth century), overall language would sound much harsher - for example, in OTL Polish we have a city named "Bolesławiec" in ITTL Polish it'd be "Bolesławec"
Hope, I was of some help.

very interesting, thanks for the response! I wonder how the development of a Moravian/Pannonian state would impact Croatia in particular given that it was more or less absorbed by Hungary for a while during the medieval period. do you think that something similar would end up happening?

I'm also curious about what would happen with the Franks and later HRE next door, would there be attempts to establish marches/subjugate parts of Pannonia? I also wonder if there would be attempts at settlement by Germans similar to OTL.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

very interesting, thanks for the response! I wonder how the development of a Moravian/Pannonian state would impact Croatia in particular given that it was more or less absorbed by Hungary for a while during the medieval period. do you think that something similar would end up happening?

I'm also curious about what would happen with the Franks and later HRE next door, would there be attempts to establish marches/subjugate parts of Pannonia? I also wonder if there would be attempts at settlement by Germans similar to OTL.

Well, that depends on whether Croatia OG dynasty (house of Trpimir) would still die out or not, if not, Croatia would remain separate nation, even if with language very akin to Moravian/Pannonian, if yes, probably Croatians would be considered "weird speaking Moravians/Pannonians" with only few people bringing Croatian separate identity as an issue.

Well, I'd argue that domination of Great Moravia on Pannonian Plain was already a sign of failure of Frankish/HRE marches/subjugating project as they tried it since Charles the Great and the best they achieved in Pannonia was settling Pribina (who was an Moravian exile!) as vassal of Louis the German, because direct rule by German nobles was, for some reason - unprofitable. And Pribina's state anyways fell to Moravians so Moravians are fairly safe from German side (not excluding border skirmishes which happened IOTL also).

 

[Gloss]

The lack of a Hungarian kingdom could also lead to a German west Pannonia to be honest.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

The lack of a Hungarian kingdom could also lead to a German west Pannonia to be honest.

I don't think so, the thing is - Franks actually had these lands prior to Great Moravia's rise and they did jackshit with them. The markgrave system in Pannonia was so ineffectual that Louis the German decided to give the lands around the Sala river to Pribina, exiled Slav from Moravia, he settled the land with mostly Slavic population (although some Germans were there as well, but they were also in Bohemia, is Bohemia German right now)? Pribina and his son Kocel were half-independent anyways and than Germans lost that land to Svatopluk I, than they tried to recreate direct rule with Arnulf of Carinthia and than the Germans picked that guy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braslav,_Duke_of_Lower_Pannonia to rule the western Pannonia for them.
And they couldn't even assimilate Austrian Slavs for a long time in both Medieval and Early Modern times there existed sizable Slavic population within Austria, heck even in XIXth century Klagenfurt was important Slovene cultural centre, and you expect them to assimilate Pannonian where it'd be like 10x harder?
And also Blatnograd (capital of the German-backed duchy in West Pannonia) had school teaching in Slavic (started by Cyril and Methodius where they visited it in 867) while it had no school teaching in German.

 

[Gloss]

I don't think so, the thing is - Franks actually had these lands prior to Great Moravia's rise and they did jackshit with them. The markgrave system in Pannonia was so ineffectual that Louis the German decided to give the lands around the Sala river to Pribina, exiled Slav from Moravia, he settled the land with mostly Slavic population (although some Germans were there as well, but they were also in Bohemia, is Bohemia German right now)? Pribina and his son Kocel were half-independent anyways and than Germans lost that land to Svatopluk I, than they tried to recreate direct rule with Arnulf of Carinthia and than the Germans picked that guy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braslav,_Duke_of_Lower_Pannonia to rule the western Pannonia for them.
And they couldn't even assimilate Austrian Slavs for a long time in both Medieval and Early Modern times there existed sizable Slavic population within Austria, heck even in XIXth century Klagenfurt was important Slovene cultural centre, and you expect them to assimilate Pannonian where it'd be like 10x harder?
And also Blatnograd (capital of the German-backed duchy in West Pannonia) had school teaching in Slavic (started by Cyril and Methodius where they visited it in 867) while it had no school teaching in German.

Most of Carinthia became German by the end of the high middle ages and so was Klagenfurt by the 19th century. Whatever happened prior is frankly meaningless, you could use the Polabian rebellion as an argument as to why the Germans would never conquer or assimilate the Polabians and yet here we are.

If Hungarians managed to assimilate the locals so thoroughly without having big numbers of settlers so can Germans. Also why use Slovenia as an example and not say East Germany, the Sudetes, Silesia, Pommerania, Prussia? Pannonia was hardly a particularly densely populated or entrenched region, there is a reason why Slavs survived outside of it and not inside it.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Most of Carinthia became German by the end of the high middle ages and so was Klagenfurt by the 19th century. Whatever happened prior is frankly meaningless, you could use the Polabian rebellion as an argument as to why the Germans would never conquer or assimilate the Polabians and yet here we are.

If Hungarians managed to assimilate the locals so thoroughly without having big numbers of settlers so can Germans. Also why use Slovenia as an example and not say East Germany, the Sudetes, Silesia, Pommerania, Prussia? Pannonia was hardly a particularly densely populated or entrenched region, there is a reason why Slavs survived outside of it and not inside it.

Idk if "by the end high middle ages" is correct assesment, "by the end of late middle ages"is probably a more correct one. The difference is, the things which I talk about happened in situation of German military victory, not German military loss (as in Polabia). If Germans, out of their good will, gave Slavic dukes overlordship over that region, why do you think they'd be any more effective later?
Especially as we know what happened to Germany itself later and the fact that march was at least temporarily lost to Moravians and probably Hungarian invasions enabled Germans to reconquer it.
Well, Pannonia was a centre of Hungarian state, while it won't be centre of German state (and still it took centuries to completely assimilate Slavs in Pannonia). And I didn't say assimilation among Germans would be impossible, just that it'd be not particularly likely.
And a fair deal of Slavs left Pannonia when Hungarians invaded, don't forget about it.
If you want to analyze these examples that's fair:
a) East Germany - you should treat Lusatia and non-Lusatia separately, as in Lusatia, Slavs survived for very long, and in relict form (Sorbians) they're still around now and what screwed them the most was frankly 30-years war and XIXth century, had Bohemia retained it's independence and Lusatia (it was part of Bohemia for a long time), you'd have funny speaking Czechs, not Germanized region
As far as non-Lusatia is involved, Germans had to replace a great deal of local population to even be able to rule the place, Polabian Slavs were just that unruly, and still - in Middle Ages speaking "Wendish" was prohibited in the cities, so the speakers obviously were there. And the connection between Polabian identity and paganism was also meaningful, as it faded away along with Christianization. 30-years war also made it's impact there. Still Slavs survived in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendland up until XVIIIth century.
b) in Pommerania adoption of German culture by the upper classes was more or less voluntary and still, Slavic speakers existed there by all of XVIIth, XVIIIth, XIXth centuries and only state germanization programme (in XIXth century) made them go extinct.
Things like nationalism and stuff are entirely unpredictable with POD in IXth century, don't you think?
c) Silesia - in Silesia most of germanization was an effect of state germanization programme connected with so called "Prussian model" of ending serfdom which caused huge migration of dispossesed peasants to cities, when they tended to lose their previous language.
But even in early XIXth century, about a half of Lower Silesia was speaking "Wasserpolak" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserpolak, and Upper Silesia was not assimilated at all.
d) Sudetes - the region was even more sparsely populated than Pannonia prior to German settlement, the map with Czech proto-urban centres attached to Dusan's Trestik's "Rise of Great Moravia" shows zero of them in Sudete region.
e) Prussia - idk why you even brought that example up, native population of Prussia (Old Prussians) was Baltic, not Slavic - Slavs arrived there as migrants, invited by Teutonic Order (so called "Masurians") and they basically retained their language up to XXth century, but considered themselves Germans due to being Lutheran and being ruled by Prussian dynasts.

 

[Khor]

So I throw in my few cents on this.

First of is Croatia:

- Tomislav would have much more forces against the Bulgarians if he wouldn't need to protect his flank against Hungary. It means a larger defeat for Bulgaria.
- Croatia would probably follow the route of Hungary and Poland and enlarge its territory along with becoming a stable and powerful regional kingdom.

Bulgaria:

- They would take a large chunk of southern Hungary and maintain it for a long time, although loosing the western part against Tomislav.
- They tried multiple times to sway Hungarian tribal leaders under their banners and take their southern lands, so without a serious military, they would easily take it.

Byzantine Empire:

- After eating up the Bulgars as in OTL, they would get their southern Hungarian lands, but would not move further. It would already be stretching their capabilities in maintaining those lands. They warred multiple times with Hungary on those lands, and wanted them, so once again, they can take it if they want, after eating up the Bulgarians.

Magyars:

- They become a regional power in the otl territory of south Ukraine. They would war against tribes like the Pechenegs, which they would probably assimilate. (The Hungarians were more numerous and more centralized. In otl the Pechenegs were only succesfull partially after the Magyars have settled in the Carpathian basin and switched military tactics to medievil ones.)
- As a regional power, they would war with the neighbouring powers. Switching religion would probably similarly happen although this time they would probably became orthodox.
- A strange situation would happen in the 13th century if they would not take the cross. They would war with the Cumans, but if they are unified, they would actually have a strong enough army, to defeat the Mongolians. If they would take the cross, they would probably be destroyed by the advancing Mongolians.

Mongols:

- If they arrive in the Carpathian basin with full force, or mostly full, than that would be a problem for everyone. There would be no battle of the passes by Daniel Tomori which have seriously wounded them. There would be no Battle of Muhi which they almost lost.
- They would take and burn the South Pannonian Byzantine lands and Burn up the Kingdom of Croatia.
- If for some reason they have Cumanian and Magyar auxiliaries, they would even take larger parts. (Not to mention, that if most of the European armies would not meet horse nomadic tactics without the Magyar invasions, than they would be unprepared and would suffer serious defeats.)

 

[Jürgen]

Most of Carinthia became German by the end of the high middle ages and so was Klagenfurt by the 19th century. Whatever happened prior is frankly meaningless, you could use the Polabian rebellion as an argument as to why the Germans would never conquer or assimilate the Polabians and yet here we are.

If Hungarians managed to assimilate the locals so thoroughly without having big numbers of settlers so can Germans. Also why use Slovenia as an example and not say East Germany, the Sudetes, Silesia, Pommerania, Prussia? Pannonia was hardly a particularly densely populated or entrenched region, there is a reason why Slavs survived outside of it and not inside it.

Yes a important factor which make Pannonia different from Slovenia is that Pannonia is flat steppe land with easy access along the Danube from Austria. Slovenia are hill and mountain country with a mountain range cutting it off from Austria. We can see in the regions where Germans expanded into mountains, it was slow work over centuries and they pretty much never made it down into the lowland on the other side.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

- They would take a large chunk of southern Hungary and maintain it for a long time, although loosing the western part against Tomislav.
- They tried multiple times to sway Hungarian tribal leaders under their banners and take their southern lands, so without a serious military, they would easily take it.

Well that's assuming Great Moravia still falls, which I'm not certain of.

Byzantine Empire:

- After eating up the Bulgars as in OTL, they would get their southern Hungarian lands, but would not move further. It would already be stretching their capabilities in maintaining those lands. They warred multiple times with Hungary on those lands, and wanted them, so once again, they can take it if they want, after eating up the Bulgarians.

Idk if they would, that guy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolesław_I_the_Brave has the easier access to them so he could be present there already when Byzantines would finish off main Bulgaria considering that his attacks against organized Hungarian kingdom IOTL reached the Danube.

Yes a important factor which make Pannonia different from Slovenia is that Pannonia is flat steppe land with easy access along the Danube from Austria. Slovenia are hill and mountain country with a mountain range cutting it off from Austria. We can see in the regions where Germans expanded into mountains, it was slow work over centuries and they pretty much never made it down into the lowland on the other side

Not to play devil's advocate here, but in the rest of the lands that Germans colonized, it was actually not true. Mountainous Sudetenland and northwest of Lower Silesia were the best germanized regions, while flat Bohemia and rest of Lower Silesia were germanizing at much slower rate.
And Germans wouldn't have enough settlers to cover both Pannonia and Austria, IOTL they had to use Slavic dukes to administrate the land somehow (Pribina, Kocel, Ratimir and Braslav) so at least in short-term direct German administration would be untenable.

 

[Gloss]

Idk if "by the end high middle ages" is correct assesment, "by the end of late middle ages"is probably a more correct one. The difference is, the things which I talk about happened in situation of German military victory, not German military loss (as in Polabia). If Germans, out of their good will, gave Slavic dukes overlordship over that region, why do you think they'd be any more effective later?

Especially as we know what happened to Germany itself later and the fact that march was at least temporarily lost to Moravians and probably Hungarian invasions enabled Germans to reconquer it.

I'm not saying the Germans WILL definitely conquer the region, just that it's a possibility and within that possibility the region can end up German. Talking about what will definitely happen is pointless.

Well, Pannonia was a centre of Hungarian state, while it won't be centre of German state (and still it took centuries to completely assimilate Slavs in Pannonia). And I didn't say assimilation among Germans would be impossible, just that it'd be not particularly likely.

East Germany wasn't a center of the German state and yet it became German.

And a fair deal of Slavs left Pannonia when Hungarians invaded, don't forget about it.

>90% of Hungarian ancestry is still local AFAIK.

a) East Germany - you should treat Lusatia and non-Lusatia separately, as in Lusatia, Slavs survived for very long, and in relict form (Sorbians) they're still around now and what screwed them the most was frankly 30-years war and XIXth century, had Bohemia retained it's independence and Lusatia (it was part of Bohemia for a long time), you'd have funny speaking Czechs, not Germanized region

As far as non-Lusatia is involved, Germans had to replace a great deal of local population to even be able to rule the place, Polabian Slavs were just that unruly, and still - in Middle Ages speaking "Wendish" was prohibited in the cities, so the speakers obviously were there. And the connection between Polabian identity and paganism was also meaningful, as it faded away along with Christianization. 30-years war also made it's impact there. Still Slavs survived in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendland up until XVIIIth century.

Lusatians survived in very marginal land, same goes for the Elbian Wends, actually densely populated and good agricultural land became German speaking within 2-4 centuries, you can easily see this by looking at 19th century populaiton density maps, most of the Polabian and Sorbian minorities survived within less densely populated rural land.

b) in Pommerania adoption of German culture by the upper classes was more or less voluntary and still, Slavic speakers existed there by all of XVIIth, XVIIIth, XIXth centuries and only state germanization programme (in XIXth century) made them go extinct.

A small minority surviving on the Eastern borders doesn't change the fact that most people were assimilated within centuries.

c) Silesia - in Silesia most of germanization was an effect of state germanization programme connected with so called "Prussian model" of ending serfdom which caused huge migration of dispossesed peasants to cities, when they tended to lose their previous language.

Lower Silesia was half German by at least the early-mid 17th century and by 1800 it was certainly majority German.

But even in early XIXth century, about a half of Lower Silesia was speaking "Wasserpolak" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserpolak, and Upper Silesia was not assimilated at all.

Most of Lower Silesia was German speaking by 1600-1650 according to maps made by Polish scholars studying the region, by the early 19th century it was certainly far less than "half" that was Polish speaking.

Spoiler

d) Sudetes - the region was even more sparsely populated than Pannonia prior to German settlement, the map with Czech proto-urban centres attached to Dusan's Trestik's "Rise of Great Moravia" shows zero of them in Sudete region.

The Sudetes were slowly colonized as they were shielded by mountains and thick forests, Pannonia would simply be a continuation of the colonization of Austria which happened fairly early.
There is a reason why there was virtually no Slavic population surving between Croatians and Slovaks, the idea that somehow the German linguistic border can't move a inch east seems arbitrary to me when there is really nothing on the ground stopping it.
In fact Burgenland became German without being part of Austria to begin with and from what I know this was the case in the middle ages as well.

e) Prussia - idk why you even brought that example up, native population of Prussia (Old Prussians) was Baltic, not Slavic - Slavs arrived there as migrants, invited by Teutonic Order (so called "Masurians") and they basically retained their language up to XXth century, but considered themselves Germans due to being Lutheran and being ruled by Prussian dynasts.

Slavs are not inherently less assimilable compared to Balts when factoring out geography, so the example should be just another valid case of colonization ending with assimilation.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

I'm not saying the Germans WILL definitely conquer the region, just that it's a possibility and within that possibility the region can end up German. Talking about what will definitely happen is pointless

Sorry than, I misunderstood your post.

East Germany wasn't a center of the German state and yet it became German.

Well, I'd argue it ultimately was Prussia which united Germany had it's centre near Berlin, didn't it? And besides, the conquest of Elbean Slavs was very brutal (even for the standard of a day) and 30-years war and destruction brought by it screwed them even further (+ effects of reformation who changed the liturgical language from Latin to German)

>90% of Hungarian ancestry is still local AFAIK.

I didn't say "all Slavs left Pannonia" - I said fair deal of them left. I am aware that many Hungarians have local ancestry.

Lusatians survived in very marginal land, same goes for the Elbian Wends, actually densely populated and good agricultural land became German speaking within 2-4 centuries, you can easily see this by looking at 19th century populaiton density maps, most of the Polabian and Sorbian minorities survived within less densely populated rural land.

Well, I think "surviving in very marginal land" is better than "not surviving at all", isn't it?

Most of Lower Silesia was German speaking by 1600-1650 according to maps made by Polish scholars studying the region, by the early 19th century it was certainly far less than "half" that was Polish speaking.

Well what is marked blue isn't "the most of Lower Silesia", and even if that's was "less than half" it doesn't change the fact that assimilation of Lower Silesia was finished only in XIXth century.

The Sudetes were slowly colonized as they were shielded by mountains and thick forests, Pannonia would simply be a continuation of the colonization of Austria which happened fairly early.
There is a reason why there was virtually no Slavic population surving between Croatians and Slovaks, the idea that somehow the German linguistic border can't move a inch east seems arbitrary to me when there is really nothing on the ground stopping it.
In fact Burgenland became German without being part of Austria to begin with and from what I know this was the case in the middle ages as well.

Well as far as Burgenland is involved, yeah (at least according to Wiki) it became German in middle ages, but not in the way you think - that land was conquered by Germans after Hungarian lost at Lech, than settled by them, and than reconquered by Hungarians in XIth century.
Idk if there is nothing on the ground stopping it, the attacks of Hungarians were probably the factor, why Germans were even able to regain control of Pannonia from Great Moravia and even then, the attempts to impose direct German rule with Arnulf of Carinthia ended up in failure and he had to transfer the control to another Slavic sidekick, duke Braslav.
I don't say they absolutely COULDN'T germanize the land, but IMHO rise of Bohemian-esque state (Slavic but heavily influenced by Germans) is more likely.
And I don't think survival of Slavs between Croatian and Slovaks is impossible in every possible timeline.

Slavs are not inherently less assimilable compared to Balts when factoring out geography, so the example should be just another valid case of colonization ending with assimilation.

Yeah, but these are different population + Reformation played a role also in assimilation of Old Prussians (and it's entirely unpredictable starting from that POD).