斯拉夫人(Slavs)

欧洲各民族和语言集团中人数最多的一支。主要分布在欧洲东部和东南部，也有一部分跨越亚洲北部远达太平洋地区。习惯上分为东斯拉夫人（俄罗斯人、乌克兰人、白俄罗斯人），西斯拉夫人（波兰人、捷克人、斯洛伐克人、文德人或索布人），和南斯拉夫人（塞尔维亚人、克罗埃西亚人、斯洛维尼亚人、马其顿人）。历史上，西斯拉夫人属於欧洲，其社会沿着西欧国家的轨迹发展。东和南斯拉夫人曾遭受蒙古人和土耳其人的入侵，发展成为更独裁、更集中的国家。宗教上随斯拉夫语和拉丁语的使用划分（主要是东正教和天主教）。中世纪斯拉夫国家留下了丰富的文化遗产，并在波西米亚、波兰、克罗埃西亚、波士尼亚、塞尔维亚、保加利亚继续发展，但是18世纪末，这些国家都被其强大的邻国同化（鄂图曼帝国、奥地利、匈牙利、普鲁士、俄国）。东斯拉夫历史则以不成功的驱逐亚洲侵略者为特点，直至16世纪後来的俄国向亚洲北部和中部扩张，成为最强大的斯拉夫国家。泛斯拉夫主义对第一次世界大战後新斯拉夫国家的形成有一定影响，尽管20世纪末，曾试图把不同的斯拉夫民族组成单一国家的捷克斯洛伐克和南斯拉夫都处於分裂状态，捷克斯洛伐克和平解体，南斯拉夫则通过暴力方式分成若干国家。

English version：

Slavs

Most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. They live chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but also extend across northern Asia to the Pacific. Slavs are customarily subdivided into eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs) and southern Slavs (Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Slovenes, and Macedonians). Historically, western Slavs were integrated into Western Europe; their societies developed along the lines of other Western European nations. eastern and southern Slavs suffered Mongol and Turkish invasions and evolved more autocratic, state-centered forms of government. Religion (mainly Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism) divides Slavs, as does the use of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. In the Middle Ages Slavic polities that left a rich cultural heritage developed in Bohemia, Poland, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, but by the end of the 18th century, all these states had been absorbed by powerful neighbors (the Ottoman empire, Austria, Hungary, Prussia, Russia). eastern Slavic history was marked by often unsuccessful attempts to repel Asian invaders until the 16th century, when Muscovy, later Russia, embarked on a course of expansion across northern and central Asia that eventually made it the most powerful Slavic state. Pan-Slavism in the 19th century had some influence on the formation of the new Slavic states after World War I, though by the end of the 20th century, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia—the two attempts to integrate different Slavic peoples into single polities—had both disintegrated, one peacefully and the other violently.