That, of course, is the Slavic swamp mermaid.

Population The population composition at the foundation of Hungary (895) depends on the size of the arriving Hungarian population and the size of the Slavic (and remains of Avar Slavic) population at the time.

The word means right hand in the Old East Slavic language.

The name Nikita is given to both boys and girls in Slavic countries.

This was because Church Slavonic was used directly in liturgy instead.

After the adoption of Christianity in 864 Bulgaria became the cultural center of Slavic Europe.

The region that is now Belarus was first settled by Baltic tribes in the 3rd century.

Language The official language is Serbian, a member of the South Slavic group of languages, which is native to 88 of the population.

In Slavic mythology, the word zmey (Bulgarian and Russian змей, ) and its cognates zmiy (, ) and zmaj (, Croatian, Slovene zmaj), are used to describe a dragon.

According to the peace treaty of Trianon the southern part of the county (1163 km²) reverted to Slavic rule (present day Croatia).

Decapitation was the preferred method in German and western Slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body.

It began as a hamlet on Wawel Hill and was already being reported as a busy trading centre of Slavonic Europe in 965.

It would also have a dampening impact on the long term prospects for reform in Belarus by creating an eastern bloc of Slavic nations suspicious of the West.

We are evidently facing the mystery of Russian thought that has proved so unfathomable to others, so unyielding to every analytical scalpel, and about which our Slavophiles and Eurasians wrote at length.

With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek scripts.

That would strengthen Russia s position in Ukraine, where the Kremlin constantly encourages a return to Slavic roots and warns against flirting with a West that doesn t want it.

The Young Latvian () movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German dominated social order.

In August 1945, a French intellectual, Alexandre Kojève, submitted to General Charles de Gaulle a sketch for a new foreign policy, based on a Latin third way between Anglo American capitalism and Soviet Slavic Marxism.

It gradually reached its cultural and territorial apogee in the 9th century and early 10th century under Boris I and Simeon the Great, when it developed into the cultural and literary centre of Slavic Europe, as well as one of the largest states in Europe.

At the time, the Danube basin of Austria (Upper and Lower Austria) was the easternmost extent of Bavaria, and in fact of all the Germans, as at the time the territory of the former East Germany was populated by Slavic Sorbs and Polabians.

Another major issue of concern was the language of liturgy since the conversion of the Slavs by Cyril and Methodius in the previous century, the Slavic church was accustomed to use Slavonic rather than Latin for its church services.

Moreover, Italian folk music reflects Italy's geographic position at the south of Europe and in the center of the Mediterranean Sea Arabic, African, Celtic, Persian, and Slavic influences are readily apparent in the musical styles of the Italian regions.

Writers such as Friedrich List and Paul Anton Lagarde argued for German hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe, where German domination in some areas had begun as early as the 9th century AD with the Ostsiedlung, Germanic expansion into Slavic and Baltic lands.

The EU s failure to encourage Ukraine s European aspirations risks creating disillusion with the West. That would strengthen Russia s position in Ukraine, where the Kremlin constantly encourages a return to Slavic roots and warns against flirting with a West that doesn t want it.