The Ukrani left us not a single sentence. Everything we read about them comes from outsiders: Saxon chroniclers who derived their name from a river, and charters that list them as tribute payers. Added to this are ramparts, graves, silver and wooden posts in the waters of the Uckermark. This article separates what written sources and excavations yield from what later ages and modern interpretation have added.
The Ukrani, also called Ukrians (Latin Ukri, Ucrani, Vkrani), were a West Slavic tribe in the northeast of present-day Brandenburg and in adjoining parts of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Their land is now called the Uckermark. Look closely at the name and you notice that it contains a river name. The Ucker (Uecker) rises in the Uckermark and flows north through the chain of lakes around Prenzlau until it reaches the Stettin Lagoon. By the common explanation the Ukrani are "those settled on the Ucker": a river name plus the Slavic ending -jane, which denotes inhabitants.
No Slavic self-designation survives, and there is no Slavic written source. All the name forms come from Latin texts by Saxon and Frankish scribes who wrote down what they heard. For the 10th to 12th centuries the literature lists, among others, Wocronin or Wucronin (the continuator of Regino and the Quedlinburg Annals for the year 934), Vuucri and Ucrani in charters of Otto I, Uchri in Widukind of Corvey, Ucrani in Ebo's life of Bishop Otto of Bamberg and Ucrania in Herbord. That one group runs under such different spellings is typical of names that scribes were hearing for the first time. We took these forms from overview literature and did not check them against the manuscripts.
The thought behind it matters: the name is a landscape and river name that outsiders used. Whether the people called themselves that, we do not know. This holds for many names of the Elbe Slavs, and it is one reason why tribes, sub-tribes and confederations are so hard to tell apart. For the wider context see our articles on the Lutici, the Wilzi and the Pomeranians.
The Uckermark is a young-moraine landscape with lakes, kettle holes and fertile soils. The heart of the Ukrani settlement area lies around the Oberuckersee and Unteruckersee near Prenzlau, close to the source of the Ucker. Archaeologically the area was settled by Slavs early: the finds suggest that Slavs moved into the Ucker region from the 7th century. How and when these settlers became a political unit that an outsider could call "Ukrani" cannot be dated; it remains a conjecture.
The overview accounts of the Uckermark describe the settlers' economy as arable farming, livestock and beekeeping. Many settlements lay on strategically important trade routes, and some were protected by ramparts. Early and middle Slavic sites of the 7th and 8th centuries are distinguished from late Slavic ones of the 9th and 10th. Drense and Groß Fredenwalde show settlement from the 7th into the 10th century; the stronghold of Groß Fredenwalde is regarded as one of the southernmost known Slavic strongholds in the German Baltic region. Fergitz is attested only for the late Slavic period. These are statements from overview articles; we have not read the excavation reports.
Maps of such things must be read with caution when it comes to where the Ukrani stop. The border between them and their neighbours, in the west the groups in the Lutici area, in the south the Hevelli on the Havel, in the north the Pomeranians at the mouth of the Oder, cannot be read from the sources. It is a reconstruction from find distributions and later territorial borders.
The best-researched site is the Drense stronghold near Grünow in the Uckermark. Volker Schmidt excavated there from 1980 to 1984; his monograph of 1989 is titled Drense, eine Hauptburg der Ukrane (Drense, a principal stronghold of the Ukrani). The site is a Slavic lowland fortress, horseshoe-shaped, about 160 by 135 metres with an interior of roughly 2.3 hectares. According to the overview accounts the sequence runs as follows: in the 6th and 7th centuries an unfortified Slavic village stood on the spot. Around 700 construction of the fortress began, and in the 9th century a fortified outer bailey was added. In the 9th and 10th centuries there were several attacks, and the main castle was rebuilt more than once. Around the year 1000 two settlements arose outside the fort, later a cemetery on the slope. In the 11th and 12th centuries the ramparts were repeatedly widened and raised. In the outer bailey potters, traders and craftsmen worked, among them makers of bronze jewellery; according to the overviews trade links reached Kievan Rus, Poland, Moravia and the Baltic region. The overviews give no dendrochronological date.
In 2017 Felix Biermann examined the central-place functions of Drense in an article. That Drense was one of the principal strongholds of the Ukrani is the interpretation of the excavator and of specialist literature. One may consider it well founded, but it remains an interpretation: what name attached to the place stands in no source.
At Prenzlau there is another site. West of the Ucker, at what was later called the Röwenburg, a late Slavic fortified settlement stood in the 10th to 12th centuries; in the 11th and 12th centuries a settlement formed near today's Sabinenkirche. The overviews also speak of a stronghold with an outer settlement on an island in the Oberuckersee. New research starts here. A conference announced for November 2026 at the Dominican monastery in Prenzlau on the "Uchri / Ucrani / Ukranen" (an announcement by the organisers, not the results themselves) lists as evidence fortified ramparts, settlements, cemeteries, silver hoards and bridge posts preserved in the lake. Programme items include underwater research on bridges in the Oberuckersee and the question whether the Ukrani were a "warrior tribal society." That shows where research stands at present: there is material, and the analysis is under way.
One reconstruction can be visited: the open-air museum Ukranenland near Torgelow lies on a meadow on the bank of the Uecker. It shows a Slavic village with block, post and wattle-wall houses of the 9th and 10th centuries at full size, built between 1995 and 1997, plus two ship replicas. The museum invokes archaeological findings but, as far as we checked, names no single site as its model. Like any reconstruction it is an illustration, not evidence. Torgelow also lies in the Western Pomeranian part of the Uecker region and not in the Uckermark proper.
The first written mention stands under the year 934. According to the overviews the Quedlinburg Annals say, in sense, that King Henry was with an army among the Wucronin. The continuator of Regino reports, by the same literature, that Henry defeated them and made them tributary. These are terse notes. They do not say where the army stood, how many fighters took part or how long the tribute flowed. They show only that the Saxons knew the name in the early 930s and associated it with force.
King Henry went with an army to the Wucronin; he defeated them and made them tributary.Quedlinburg Annals and continuator of Regino for 934; paraphrase in own words after overview literature, wording not checked against the manuscript text
A few years later a charter follows. The foundation charter of the bishopric of Brandenburg (MGH DO I, 105) names the Ukrani among the territories; it is dated 948 but is regarded as doubtful and possibly made only in 965. The date is therefore not secure. In another charter of Otto I, the donation to the Magdeburg monastery of St Maurice of 965 (DO I, 295), the Ukrani appear as tribute payers: a silver levy was to go to the monastery. Whether these payments were ever made is unknown.
In between lies a campaign by Margrave Gero. Widukind of Corvey reports in the third book of his Saxon history (chapter 42 by the literature's numbering) a raid against the Uchri from which Gero returned with rich booty. German-language overview literature dates it to around 955; English-language accounts give 954 and add Conrad of Lorraine as an ally. We show this discrepancy openly because we could not consult the Widukind text itself. That the booty was rich is read in scholarship as a sign of the land's economic strength. That is an inference, not a finding.
Another point is a scholars' dispute. At the battle on the Raxa in 955, according to Widukind, Ruani fought at Gero's side. Older research took this for miswritten Ukrani; newer views see in it the Rani of Rügen. More on this is on our page on the Rani. For the Ukrani it holds: the equation is not secure and should not appear as fact.
Before 983 the Ukrani had, according to overview literature, probably already slipped out of Saxon overlordship. In 983 the Obodrites and Lutici rose against the Empire; the Saxon sources speak of a great Slavic uprising that largely ended Saxon rule east of the Elbe. The Ukrani, in the view of research, joined this uprising and afterwards belonged to the Lutici confederation, whose cult centre was Rethra. That is interpretation resting on later source conditions: a source that expressly describes the Ukrani joining the Lutici in 983 is not known to us. On the confederation itself see the articles on the Lutici, the Redarii and the Tollensi; on the neighbours in the west, the Obodrites.
The announcement of the Prenzlau conference describes the time after 983 like this: the Ukrani regained their freedom and their traditional religion and held out against their already Christian neighbours until the middle of the 12th century. That is the organisers' account and summarises the state of research, but it replaces no source. Of a sanctuary of the Ukrani of their own or a Ukrani god we know nothing secure; what archaeologists interpret as cult finds in the region has to be examined case by case.
The 12th century brought the turn. Here the accounts diverge, and that should not be smoothed over. By one line Pomeranian dukes conquered the Ukerland around 1170 and thereby ended the identity and independence of the Ukrani. The Uckermark overviews give a somewhat different sequence: in 1147 Albert the Bear advanced as far as Stettin in the Wendish Crusade; after 1148 the Ukerland passed to the Pomeranian dukes, who committed themselves to Christianising the Ukrani. The excavation interpretation of Drense places a devastating attack around 1150, connected with Albert the Bear's campaigns against the Slavs; the main rampart was levelled and replaced by a simpler wooden construction. The years 1147, 1148, 1150 and 1170 thus stand side by side, and whoever names one of them as "the date" simplifies.
The church becomes tangible. For 1168 churches are attested in the provincia Vcra; mission monasteries on Usedom, Stolpe on the Peene and Grobe, were active there. In 1177 or 1178 the monastery of Gramzow was founded. Prenzlau, on the Unteruckersee, is first mentioned in a charter in 1187, when a priest Stephen appears as a witness. A year later, in 1188, the place is called castrum cum foro et taberna, stronghold with market and tavern; it had a church and one of three Pomeranian mints, beside Stettin and Demmin. In 1234 Duke Barnim I granted Prenzlau town rights.
The Drense stronghold is named in charters of 1240, 1243 and 1248 as under German rule; soon after it was abandoned. Before 1230 Pomeranian dukes had extended their influence to the Barnim and to Teltow, until they renounced it in a treaty around 1230. Around 1230 the Brandenburg margraves bought the southern Uckerland up to the Welse from Duke Barnim I. The decisive step came in 1250 with the Treaty of Landin (now part of Schwedt on the Oder): rule over the whole Uckerland passed from the Pomeranian dukes to the Margraves John I and Otto III of Brandenburg. The overviews call this the "birth hour of the Uckermark" but stress that it was only a change of rule. Dispute over the land among Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Brandenburg ended only with the Peace of Wittstock in 1442; after that the Uckermark remained with Brandenburg.
The tribal name disappeared early from the sources. After the end of the 12th century it appears only in place names. Whether the Ukrani were displaced, merged into the new order or simply no longer called themselves that remains open. That many places in the Uckermark still bear Slavic names is generally known and speaks against a complete replacement of the population; that is an inference from the name evidence which we have not demonstrated for individual places.
Two names recall the Ukrani today. One is the name of the land. In medieval Latin the land appears as terra Ukera and provincia Vcra and in the vernacular as Ukerlant. The word "Mark" denotes a borderland; the form "Uckermark" appears only in the late Middle Ages, when the land had already lost its role as a military frontier. The overviews give 1465 or 1486 for the first spelling "vker Marckh"; the two years contradict each other, and we have not checked the records. The other name is that of Prenzlau, which overview literature explains as Slavic, roughly "settlement of a man named Premyslaw." That is an interpretation, not evidence of a founder figure.
One claim deserves caution: in blogs and travel guides one reads that the Ukrani "ruled the Baltic" or "controlled trade as far as Scandinavia." For this there is no source in what we have checked. Attested are trade contacts to the east and north, as derived from finds at Drense. A sea power the Ukrani were not, to our knowledge, even if the museum at Torgelow shows two ship replicas.
The case of the Ukrani is a good example of the source situation for the Elbe Slavs. From the 10th century there are two or three short written notes by opponents, from the 12th century charters by conquerors. Between them lie finds. The finds speak of strongholds, crafts, trade and a cemetery on the slope at Drense, but not of what the people called themselves, which gods they worshipped and how they were governed. Everything else is interpretation that must be marked as such. That also holds for the notion of a "warrior society" discussed at the Prenzlau conference: it is a research approach, not a result.
What can be demonstrated is nonetheless a good deal: a name that first appears in 934, a stronghold at Drense with ramparts from around 700 into the 12th century, tribute demands by the Empire in the 10th century, an uprising in 983, a long standoff with Christian neighbours and a Pomeranian rule that passed to Brandenburg in 1250. The history of the Uckermark as a landscape begins in this period. The name underlying it, however, comes from those who lived there before it and never wrote about it themselves.
The Liutizi · The Wilzi · The Pomeranians · The Hevelli · The Redarii.
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