<P> The relationship between the Slavs and a tribe called the Veneti east of the River Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain . The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs . </P> <P> According to eastern homeland theory, prior to becoming known to the Roman world, Slavic - speaking tribes were part of the many multi-ethnic confederacies of Eurasia--such as the Sarmatian, Hun and Gothic empires . The Slavs emerged from obscurity when the westward movement of Germans in the 5th and 6th centuries CE (thought to be in conjunction with the movement of peoples from Siberia and Eastern Europe: Huns, and later Avars and Bulgars) started the great migration of the Slavs, who settled the lands abandoned by Germanic tribes fleeing the Huns and their allies: westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe - Saale line; southward into Bohemia, Moravia, much of present - day Austria, the Pannonian plain and the Balkans; and northward along the upper Dnieper river . It has also been suggested that some Slavs may have migrated with the movement of the Vandals to the Iberian Peninsula and even as far as North Africa . </P> <P> Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers . The Byzantine records note that grass would not regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers . After a military movement even the Peloponnese and Asia Minor were reported to have Slavic settlements . This southern movement has traditionally been seen as an invasive expansion . By the end of the 6th century, Slavs had settled the Eastern Alps regions . </P> <P> When their migratory movements ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of state organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and a defense force . In the 7th century, the Frankish merchant Samo, who supported the Slavs fighting their Avar rulers, became the ruler of the first known Slav state in Central Europe, which, however, most probably did not outlive its founder and ruler . This provided the foundation for subsequent Slavic states to arise on the former territory of this realm with Carantania being the oldest of them . Very old also are the Principality of Nitra and the Moravian principality (see under Great Moravia). In this period, there existed West Slavic tribes and states such as the Balaton Principality, but the subsequent expansion of the Magyars into the Carpathian Basin, as well as the Germanization of Austria gradually separated the South Slavs from the West and East Slavs . The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681, and the Slavic language Old Church Slavonic became the main and official of the empire in 864 . Bulgaria was instrumental in the spread of Slavic literacy and Christianity to the rest of the Slavic world . </P>

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