Sclavonians is quite lost in the haze
of distance, and in the savage wilds where they first appeared. The
few traditions which have been gleaned respecting them are of very
little authority.

From about the close of the fifth century the inhabitants of the whole
region now embraced by European Russia, were called Sclavonians; and
yet it appears that these Sclavonians consisted of many nations, rude
and warlike, with various distinctive names. They soon began to crowd
upon the Roman empire, and became more formidable than the Goths or
the Huns had been. Wading through blood they seized province after
province of the empire, destroying and massacring often in mere
wantonness. The emperor Justinian was frequently compelled to purchase
peace with them and to bribe them to alliance.

And now came another wave of invasion, bloody and overwhelming. The
Avars, from the north of China, swept over Asia, seized all the
provinces on the Black Sea, overran Greece, and took possession of
most of the country between the Volga and the Elbe. The Sclavonians of
the Danube, however, successfully resisted them, and maintained their
independence. Generations came and went as these hordes, wild,
degraded and wretched, swept these northern wilds, in debasement and
cruelty rivaling the wolves which howled in their forests. They have
left no traces behind them, and the few records of their joyless lives
which history has preserved, are merely the gleanings of uncertain
tradition. The thinking mind pauses in sadness to contemplate the
spectacle of these weary ages, when his brother man was the most
ferocious of beasts, and when all the discipline of life tended only
to sink him into deeper abysses of brutality and misery. There is here
a problem in the divine government which no human wisdom can solve.
There is consolation only in the announcement that what we know not
now, we shall know hereafter. All these diverse nations blending have
formed the present Russians.

Along the shores of the Baltic, these people assumed the name of
Scandinavians, and subsequently Normans. Toward the close of the
eighth century, the Normans filled Europe with the renown of their
exploits, and their banners bade defiance even to the armies of
Charlemagne. Early in the ninth century they ravaged France, Italy,
Scotland, England, and passed over to Ireland, where they built cities
which remain to the present day. "There is no manner of doubt," writes
M. Karamsin