Dulebes

The Dulebes, Dulebs, Dudlebi or Dulibyh (Дуліби) were one of the tribal unions of Early Slavs between the 6th and the 10th centuries. According to medieval sources they lived in Western Volhynia, as well as southern parts of the Duchy of Bohemia and the Middle Danube between Lake Balaton and the Mur River (a tributary of the Drava) in the Principality of Hungary, probably implying migrations from a single region. The etymological origin of their ethnonym is uncertain. Jan Długosz argued it derives from the name of their supposed progenitor, Duleba. Others, such as Oleg Trubachyov, considered that the ethnonym existed before the Early Middle Ages because it is usually derived from West Germanic languages; *dudlebi from *daud-laiba- in the meaning of "inheritance of the deceased", which would fit "with the early historical process of development of the lands by the Slavs abandoned at one time by the Germanic tribes". Initially, the Proto-Slavic tribe possibly was part of Przeworsk culture near Old Western Germanic area, but later belonged to the Prague-Korchak culture. Henryk Łowmiański considered the Dulebes, Mazovians, White Croats and Veleti among the oldest Slavic tribes. The Primary Chronicle describes them as a tribe that formerly lived along the Bug river, "where the Volhynians now are found", in Volhynia what is today Western Ukraine. According to the chronicle, the Dulebi suffered greatly from the invasion of the Pannonian Avars in the late 6th or early 7th century: "They made war upon the Slavs, and harassed the Dulebians, who were themselves Slavs. They even did violence to the Dulebian women. When an Avar made a journey, he did not cause either a horse or a steer to be harnessed, but gave command instead that three or four or five women should be yoked to his cart and be made to draw him. Even thus they harassed the Dulebians. The Avars were large of stature and proud of spirit, and God destroyed them.