Dervan

At the beginning of the 7th century Derwan was an early prince of the north-west Slavic tribe of the Sorbs , although some contest its historicity.

He is the first known ruler of the Northwest Slavs, mentioned only in the Fredegar Chronicle . There it says: "Dervanus dux gente Surborum, quae ex genere Sclavinorum erant". The author reports on "Dervanus" on the events of 631/632 in connection with Samo , who is also the first named Slavic ruler. Again, only Fredegar reports on him. For a long time he and his people should have been subject to the Frankish Empire, but now he and his Samo subordinate themselves ("ad regnum Francorum iam olem aspecserant, se ad regnum Samonem cum suis tradedit"). From the information given by Fredegar it can be concluded that the Sorbs settled between the Saale and Elbe . This is also the first written evidence of the presence of Slavs north of the Ore Mountains .

After the Thuringian Empire was destroyed by the Franks between 529 and 534, with the possible involvement of the Saxons , the Sorbs obtained their residence from the Saxons in a peaceful way by paying them an annual rent. However, when the eastern Saxons left their homeland for Italy around 561 , the Franks took possession of their abandoned territory and thus also became masters of the Sorbian territory. Another source says that the Sorbs were subject to them before. According to this, the land between the Elbe and Saale would have become an area of ​​influence of the Franks as early as 531/534 after the end of the Thuringian Empire .

In 571 the Avars invaded Thuringia and thus subjugated the Sorbs and soon afterwards the other Slavs west of the Oder . The new landlords oppressed the inhabitants there so much that it became unbearable for them and so the Sorbs rebelled against them together with the Bohemians in 628 - the Bohemians under the leadership of Samo and the Sorbs who settled east of the Saale in Fredegar Dervan. Together they fought for independence from the Avars.

But then the Franks again raised their claim to the area. Therefore a war arose in 630 between the Frankish king Dagobert I and Samo, the king of the Bohemian Slavs, in which Samo again fought for the independence of his empire. When the Merovingian king Dagobert suffered a defeat against Samo in the battle of Wogastisburg , the Sorbs under Dervan also gave up their encouragement to the Franks. Because they did not feel up to this alone, they entered into a feudal association with the Bohemians, after which it came to the Franconian-Sorbian war, which was costly.

Derwan's year of death is not known - we only know that in 640 two sons of a deceased sorbian prince fought for his successor.

literature

• Lothar Dralle: Derwan . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 3, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-7608-8903-4 , Sp. 714.
• Joachim Herrmmann: The Slavs in Germany. History and culture of the Slavic tribes west of Oder and Neisse from the 6th to 12th centuries , Akademie-Verlag, Belin 1985, pp. 7, 37, 350 (revised edition, was considered a standard work).

Remarks

1. ↑ digitized version .
2. ↑ Peter Segl: Medieval Research in the History of the GDR , in: Alexander Fischer, Günter Heidemann (Hrsg.): History in the GDR , Vol. II: Pre- and Early History to Latest History , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, p. 99 –148, here: p. 134.