Bozh

Who is Bozh?

Bozh was the first Slavic ruler known in history; he was the king of the Antes, an early Slavic people that lived in parts of present day Ukraine and Russia. In the preceding years, the Ostrogoths under Ermanaric had conquered a large number of tribes in Central Europe, including the Antes. Some years after the Ostrogothic defeat by the invading Huns, a king named Vinitharius, Ermanaric's great-nephew, marched against the Antes of Bozh and defeated them. Vinitharius condemned Bozh and his sons, and seventy of his nobles, to crucifixion in order to terrorize the Antes. These conflicts constitute the only pre-6th century contacts between Germanics and Slavs documented in written sources.