Battle of the Raxa

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of the Raxa took place on October 16, 955 in what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It ended with the defeat of the anti-Saxon coalition of Abodriten and Wilzen , Zirzipanen and Tollensanen under their leader Stoignew against the East Franconian King Otto I.

prehistory

While King Otto's forces were bound by the Hungarian invasions , Wichmann II and Ekbert von Ambergau allied themselves with the Slavic prince Nakon and his brother Stoignew, who were hostile to the Saxons . With a Slavic retinue, Wichmann and Ekbert invaded the Saxon area in 955 and attacked the city of the Cocarescemier, whereby according to Widukind von Corvey all of the adult men were killed by the Slavic warriors and women, children and servants as well as their belongings were distributed among themselves as booty were.

After Otto I. had defeated the Magyars in the battle of Lechfeld near Augsburg on August 10, 955 , he demanded retaliation for the Cocarescem massacre. Wichmann and Ekbert were accused of high treason and ostracized as enemies of the country. Thereupon the Slavs started negotiations with Otto I. Slavic negotiators came to see him and offered to make tribute payments as usual. But they insisted that they continue to rule their countries themselves; otherwise they would fight.

Otto replied that he would not grant peace until they were ready to make amends for their wrongdoings. Obviously this consisted of more than the payment of tributes, perhaps submission, and the Slav princes were not ready for that.

The battle

After his offer was rejected, Otto I, at the head of an army made up of his son Liudolf , the margrave Gero and the Bohemian ruler Boleslav I , penetrated the Slavic territory and devastated it until he was stopped by Stoignev's troops on the Raxa has been. Due to the nature of the banks, Otto's army could not cross the river at this point. There was also no turning back, as the Slavs had made the path impassable with a tree barrow and were monitored. Hunger and disease began to spread in the Saxon camp. In this threatening situation Otto sent the margrave Gero zu Stoignew and had a proposal made by him: Otto offered the pagan Slavic prince an alliance of friendship. But Stoignew was only to gain the grace of friendship after a public submission, which was especially visible to the Slavic army. Stoignew should have recognized Otto's supremacy as part of the agreement. Apparently Stoignew rejected this proposal. In view of the original Slavic demand, it is doubtful whether he would have had the opportunity to submit and remain in power. With the help of the allied Ruani - this is either the first mention of the Ranen or the auxiliary troops of the Ukranians subjugated by Gero in 954 - the margrave Gero managed to find a suitable river crossing elsewhere the next day. There he built three bridges during a diversionary maneuver and was able to conquer and defeat the approaching Slavs on the other side of the Raxa from a favorable position .

According to Thietmar von Merseburg, Stoignew, called Stoinneg by him, was captured and then beheaded by Otto. According to Widukind von Corvey, a knight named Hosed beheaded the Stoignew and brought his head to the king, who had paid him honor and distinction. The head was placed on the battlefield the following day and 700 Slavic prisoners were also beheaded there. Furthermore, the adviser Stoignews was blinded and his tongue was cut out. Then he was left between the dying people. The Slavs then submitted to Otto I and paid him tribute .

The Sankt Gallen Annals also report the killing of Stoignew (Ztoignav), but not the manner in which he died. However, they mark the exact day of the battle: it was the day of their namesake, St. Gall , October 16.

Contemporary sources

The course of the battle is described in Widukind by Corvey's Chronicle Rerum gestarum Saxonicarum (III, 53-55). The battle is also briefly mentioned in a continuation of the Prüm Annals in the sections on the year 955 and the St. Gallen Annals.

venue

The sources are largely silent about the exact location of the battle. Only Widukind von Corvey localized the battlefield in the swampy lowlands of a river Raxa , which, however, cannot be clearly assigned to a current water name. In research, the Recknitz Valley (the later Mecklenburg-Pomerania border near Pantlitz near Ribnitz-Damgarten ) has been considered as the venue. A Slavic rampart on the outskirts of the town with a spacious view over the Recknitz and a Slavic hill fort as a border castle from the 8th - 9th centuries also indicate a strategically important location. The Mecklenburg historian and state archivist Wilhelm Gottlieb Beyer (1801–1881), on the other hand, advocated the "angle between the Plauer See and the Lenzer Reke southwest of Malchow ". In the specialist literature today, the Raxa is mostly identified with the Recknitz, sometimes also with the Elde .

swell

literature

  • Lutz Mohr : The battle of the "Raxa" / Recknitz 1050 years (955-2005) . Doberlug-Kirchhain-Greifswald: PC printing Günter Krieg 2005, with. several images, maps, sources and Litverz.
  • Lutz Mohr: Germans versus Slavs. 1050 years ago, there was a huge battle of our Vofahren on the Recknitz (Raxa) . In: Die Boje, Volume 5. Greifswald / Stralsund: Fritzson 2005, pp. 10–11, fig.
  • Lutz Mohr: The bloodbath and criminal court on the Raxa in 955 . In: Bull and Griffin. Sheets on the cultural and regional history in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Vol. 21, Schwerin 2011, pp. 59–68
  • Lutz Partenheimer : The emergence of the Mark Brandenburg. With a Latin-German source attachment. 1st and 2nd edition. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007. (Description of the battle p. 29–31, source text p. 172 f.)
  • Christian Marlow: Ottonian-Slavic contacts in the 10th century , Berlin 2015, p. 59ff.
  • Heike Reimann, Fred Ruchhöft, Cornelia Willich: Rügen in the Middle Ages. An interdisciplinary study on medieval settlement on Rügen (Research on the history and culture of Eastern Central Europe vol. 36), Stuttgart 2011.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Flodoard, Annales p. 403: Post hoc bellum pugnavit rex Otto cum duobus Sarmatarum regibus; et suffragante sibi Burislao rege, quem dudum sibi subdiderat, victoria potitus est.
  2. ↑ Reimann et al. (2011), p. 49.
  3. ^ Richard Wagner : The time of change (= Mecklenburg history in individual representations. Issue 2, ZDB -ID 982989-1 ). Süsserott, Berlin 1899, p. 184 note 19.
  4. ↑ Widukind Rer. died Sax. III: Weblink
  5. ↑ Prumiensis Chron. A. 955: Rex inde revertens in Sclavos hostem dirigit, ubi simili potitus victoria vasta illos caede prosternit; Wigmannus expellitur.
  6. ↑ Ann. Sangall. May. a. 955: Eodem anno Otto rex et filius eius Liutolf in festi vitate sancti Galli pugnaverunt cum Abatarenis, et Vulcis, et Zcirizspanis, et Tolonsenis, et victoriam in eis sumpsit, occiso duce illorum nomine Ztoignavo, et fecit illos tributarios.
  7. ↑ List of castle walls in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
  8. ↑ Reimann et al. (2011), pp. 49, 52-53.