The Radimichs were a tribe

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

 of West Slavs

West Slavs

The West Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking West Slavic languages. They include Poles , Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Sorbs and the historical Polabians. The northern or Lechitic group includes, along with Polish, the extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages...

  of the last few centuries of the 1st millennium

1st millennium

File:1st millennium montage.png|From left, clockwise: Depiction of Jesus, the central figure in Christianity; The Colosseum, a landmark of the once Roman Empire; Gunpowder is invented during the latter part of the millennium, in China; Chess, a new board game, takes on popularity across the globe;...

, which inhabited upper east parts of the Dnieper down the Sozh River and its tributaries. The name probably derives from the name of the forefather of the tribe - Radim.

The lands of the Radimichs were conveniently connected with the central regions of the Kievan Rus by waterways. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Radimichs had a few known cities: Homiy (today's Homel) and Chechersk on the Sozh, Vshchizh

Vshchizh

Vshchizh was an old Russian town on the Desna River between the 11th and 13th centuries. Vshchizh was first mentioned in a chronicle of 1142. In the mid-12th century, it was an appanage town of Prince Svyatoslav Vladimirovich...

 on the Desna River

Desna River

Desna is a river in Russia and Ukraine, left tributary of the Dnieper. The word means "right hand" in the Old East Slavic language. Its length is , and its drainage basin covers ....

, Vorob'yin, Ropeisk, Starodub

Starodub

Starodub is a town and the administrative center of Starodubsky District of Bryansk Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Babinets River , southwest of Bryansk. Population: 16,000 .-History:...

 and others. Seven-beam temporal jewelry made of bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 or silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 represent a specific ethnic trait of the Radimichs of the 9th - 11th century.

There is little information on the Radimichs. According to Nestor the Chronicler

Nestor the Chronicler

Saint Nestor the Chronicler was the reputed author of the Primary Chronicle, , Life of the Venerable Theodosius of the Kiev Caves, Life of the Holy Passion Bearers, Boris and Gleb, and of the so-called Reading.Nestor was a monk of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev from 1073...

 tribe of Radimichs were 'Lachy' (Lechitic), similar to Lendians

Lendians

The Lendians were a Lechitic eastern Wends tribe recorded to have inhabited the ill-defined area in East Lesser Poland and Cherven Towns between the 7th and 11th centuries....

 and used to live in areas east from Vistula river. Due to some foreign invasion they moved to the East. (Original Russian text "радимичи же и вятичи — от рода ляхов. Были ведь два брата у ляхов —
Радим, а другой — Вятко; и пришли и сели: Радим на Соже, и от него прозвались радимичи, а
Вятко сел с родом своим по Оке, от него получили свое название вятичи.")
Historians know that in the middle of the 9th century they were paying tribute to the Khazars

Khazars

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

. In 885, the Radimichs were conquered by Prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

 Oleg of Novgorod

Oleg of Novgorod

Oleg of Novgorod was a Varangian prince who ruled all or part of the Rus' people during the early 10th century....

 and became part of Kievan Rus. In 907, the Radimichs are mentioned as a part of Oleg's army in his military campaign

Rus'-Byzantine War (907)

The Rus'–Byzantine War of 907 is associated in the Primary Chronicle with the name of Oleg of Novgorod. The chronicle implies that it was the most successful military operation of the Kievan Rus' against the Byzantine Empire. Paradoxically, Greek sources do not mention it at all.- Primary Chronicle...

 against Byzantine empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

. In 984, the Radimichs tried to break away from the Kievan Rus, but were defeated on the Pischan River by Vladimir the Great's commander

Commander

Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...

 Volchiy Khvost ("Wolf's Tail"). Since then, there had been no mentioning of the tribe in the chronicle

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

s. They continued living on their land, gradually assimilating with neighboring tribes and peoples and forming the Belarusian nationality

Belarusians

Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

. Subsequently, the lands of the Radimichs became a part of the Chernihiv

Chernihiv

Chernihiv or Chernigov is a historic city in northern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Chernihiv Oblast , as well as of the surrounding Chernihivskyi Raion within the oblast...

 and Smolensk

Smolensk

Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...

principalities.

The Radimichs were last mentioned in a chronicle in 1169.