The Sprevane or Sprevani (; Slavonic: ''Sprevjane'') were a Slavic tribe who lived around the river Spree, where

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

is now, in the

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

area of eastern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. They were first recorded in 948 and again in 965 as living in the territory of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

under

Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I (23 November 912 – 7 May 973), known as Otto the Great ( ) or Otto of Saxony ( ), was East Francia, East Frankish (Kingdom of Germany, German) king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the eldest son o ...

. Archaeological finds point to them coming to the area in the 8th century, and by 825 they started to build a settlement in today's Köpenick, a district of Berlin. Their name is from ''Sprevja'' (the local Slavonic form of the river name Spree, meaning "to the right side") plus the Slavonic ethnic suffix ''-an'' (= the one living in that area) and "-e" meaning plural. The Germanized form, ''Sprewanen'', may have been influenced by the German verb ''wohnen'' (in

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

, ''wonen''), meaning "to dwell", but is also correct German plural of singular Sprevan.

References

Polabian Slavs 10th-century German people West Slavic tribes Lechites {{Germany-hist-stub

See also

References