Great Slav Rising

The Great Slav Rising in 983 was an uprising of the Slavic Lutici and Obotrite people living to the east of the Elbe in modern north-east Germany. They were revolting against their subjugation to the Kingdom of the Eastern Franks (also known as East Francia).

Background

The Slavic peoples between the Elbe and the Baltic had been conquered and nominally converted to Christianity by the campaigns of the Saxon kings Henry the Fowler and Otto the First, who was also Holy Roman Emperor. Otto I had most recently defeated the Obotrites at the Battle of Recknitz in 955. The area of the Elbe and Baltic Slavs was first a part of the Saxon Eastern March, but this was divided into smaller marches in 965. The Archbishopric of Magdeburg in particular carried out active missionary work.

The uprising

While there was internal dissention in the Holy Roman Empire over the succession to the archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg and the emperor Otto II, Slavic forces led by the Lutici revolted and drove out the political and religious representatives of the Empire. The bishops' seats of Brandenburg und Havelberg were occupied and the monastery at Kalbe an der Milde was plundered. The Obotrites joined the Lutici in the bishopric of Oldenburg and assaulted Hamburg. A hastily assembled Saxon army was only able to retain the Slavs behind the Elbe for a short while. Lusatia and the Sorbian Marches, which were under Saxon-Thuringian rule, did not take part in the uprising.

Aftermath

From 985, the princes of the Empire carried out annual campaigns together with the Polish princes Mieszko I and Bolesław I to subjugate the area. However these campaigns were unsuccessful.

Emperor Henry II tried a different approach. He allied himself in 1003 with the Lutici and waged war against his previous ally the Duchy of Poland under Bolesław I. This stabilized the independence of the Lutici and ensured that the area remained ruled by Slavs and unchristianized into the 12th century. The immediate consequences of the uprising were an almost complete stop on further German eastward expansion for the next 200 years. The bishoprics of Brandenburg and Havelberg existed for some time in titular form only. Only in the late 12th century did further German conquests and settlements resume east of the Elbe, and this was in partnership with Slavic princes.

Sources

• Wolfgang Fritze: Der slawische Aufstand von 983 - eine Schicksalswende in der Geschichte Mitteleuropas. In: Eckart Henning, Werner Vogel (ed.): Festschrift der landesgeschichtlichen Vereinigung für die Mark Brandenburg zu ihrem hundertjährigen Bestehen 1884–1984. Berlin 1984, pp. 9–55.
• Herbert Ludat: An Elbe und Oder um das Jahr 1000. Skizzen zur Politik des Ottonenreiches und der slawischen Mächte in Mitteleuropa. Cologne 1971, ISBN 3-412-07271-0.
• Christian Lübke: Slavenaufstand. In: Lexikon des Mittelalters. vol. 7, col. 2003f.
• Lutz Partenheimer: Die Entstehung der Mark Brandenburg. Mit einem lateinisch-deutschen Quellenanhang. Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2007 (with sources material on the Slav Rising pp. 98–103), ISBN 3-412-17106-9.