The Slavs who crossed the Danube into the Balkans – and created kingdoms and churches of their own there.
While the West and East Slavs spread across Central Europe and the East European Plain, a third group crossed the Danube and, from the late 6th century, settled the Balkans – partly under pressure from the Avars, partly in the wake of the collapsing East Roman border defences.
The great South Slavic peoples of the western Balkans. Both founded kingdoms and churches of their own in the Middle Ages and became – Serbs Orthodox, Croats Catholic – part of different cultural spheres.
The northwesternmost South Slavs, early within the sphere of the Frankish Empire and the Eastern Alps. Early-medieval Carantania is regarded as one of their origins.
The First Bulgarian Empire (founded 681) began as the rule of the Turkic-speaking Bulgars over a numerous Slavic population. Over time the Bulgars were Slavicised – people and language became Slavic. A prime example that "becoming Slavic" was often linguistic-cultural, not genetic.
Here too the visible Indo-European inheritance is above all the thunder-god type (Perun) – the bracket that links Slavic, Baltic, Germanic and further beliefs.
The most impressive monument is the Madara Rider in north-eastern Bulgaria: a monumental rock relief showing a horseman above a slain lion, dated to the early 8th century and today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was created in the First Bulgarian Empire, a melting pot of Proto-Bulgarian, Slavic and Byzantine traditions.
