Lech [lex] (died 805), sometimes written as Lecho or Becho, is one of the earliest named rulers in early Slavic Bohemia. It is sometimes disputed that the word is a title (equivalent to Voivoda) rather than a name. The first reference to him is in the 805 entry of Annales Regni Francorum when Charles, son of Charlemagne, was sent to Bohemia to pacify the Slavs and according to the chronicle "laid waste to the country and killed their leader named Lecho".[1] It is doubtful that Lecho ruled the whole territory now known as Bohemia. It probably consisted of more or less independent tribes, perhaps with some vassalage relationships with the emerging Great Moravia. The creation of early medieval Bohemian state probably occurred no sooner than at the end of the 9th century under Borivoj, Spytihnev or perhaps even later dukes of the Premyslid dynasty.
The name Lech is also attributed in some early Slavic foundation myths to the legendary founder of Poland.
Lech, Cech, and Rus is a legend of three brothers Lech, Cech (or Czech), and Rus who founded three Slavic nations: Lechia (Poland), Czechia (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia; thus modern Czech Republic), and Ruthenia (Rus', modern Russia, Belarus and Ukraine). There are multiple versions of the legend, including several regional variants that mention only one or two of the brothers.
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Variants of the legend
Lech, Czech, Rus and the White Eagle, as painted by Walery Eljasz-Radzikowski (18411905)
In the Polish version of the legend, three brothers went hunting together but each of them followed a different prey and eventually they all traveled in different directions. Rus went to the east, Cech headed to the west to settle on the Ríp Mountain rising up from the Bohemian hilly countryside, while Lech traveled north. There, while hunting, he followed his arrow and suddenly found himself face-to-face with a fierce, white eagle guarding its nest from intruders. Seeing the eagle against the red of the setting sun, Lech took this as a good omen and decided to settle there. He named his settlement Gniezno (Polish gniazdo - 'nest') in commemoration and adopted the White Eagle as his coat-of-arms. The white eagle remains a symbol of Poland to this day, and the colors of the eagle and the setting sun are depicted in Poland's flag.
Other variations of Lech's name (pronounced ['l?x]) include: Lechus,[1] Lachus, Lestus and Leszek. Czech, or Praotec Cech (pronounced ['pra.ot?ts 't??x]; Forefather Cech) also comes under the Latin name Bohemus, for the name is based on a pre-Slavic Celtic designation (Celtic tribe Boii, Latin form Boiohaemum that was used for Czech lands).[2]
A variant of this legend, involving only two brothers, is also known in the Czech Republic. As described by Alois Jirásek in Staré povesti ceské, two brothers came to Central Europe from the east: Cech and Lech. As in the Polish version, Cech is identified as the founder of the Czech nation (Cei pl.) and Lech as the founder of the Polish nation. Cech had to climb up the mountain Ríp, look to the landscape and settled with a tribe in the area, whereas Lech continued to the lowlands of the north.
A similar legend (with partly changed names) was also registered in folk tales at two separated locations in Croatia: in the Kajkavian dialect of Krapina in Zagorje (northern Croatia) and in the Chakavian dialect of Poljica on the Adriatic Sea (central Dalmatia). The Croatian variant was described and analysed in detail by S. Sakac in 1940.[3]
Legend versus reality
Area of Balto-Slavic dialectic continuum (purple) with proposed Bronze Age material cultures in white. Red dots indicate archaic Slavic hydronyms
The earliest Polish mention of Lech, Cech and Rus is found in the Chronicle of Greater Poland[4] written in 1295 in Gniezno or Poznan. In Bohemian chronicles, Cech appears on his own or with Lech only; he is first mentioned as Bohemus in Cosmas' chronicle (1125).
The legend suggests the common ancestry of the Poles, the Czechs and the Ruthenians (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) and illustrates the fact that as early as the 13th century, at least three different Slavic peoples were aware of being ethnically and linguistically interrelated, and, indeed, derived from a common root stock.
Duke Czech
The legends also agree with the location of the homeland of the Slavic peoples in eastern Europe. This area overlapped the region presumed by mainstream scholarship to be the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the general region of the Pontic-Caspian steppe.[5] In the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis, "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic".[6]
The legend also attempts to explain the etymology of these people's ethnonyms: Lechia (another name for Poland), the Czech lands (including Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia), and Rus (Ruthenia).
A prominent Renaissance Polish man of letters, Jan Kochanowski, in his essay on the origin of the Slavs, makes no mention of the third "brother", Rus. Moreover, he dismisses the legend entirely, stating that "no historian who has taken up the subject of the Slavic nation [...] mentions any of those two Slavic leaders, Lech and Czech". He goes on to assume that "Czechy" and "Lachy" are quite probably the original names for the two nations, although he does not dismiss the possibility that there might have been a great leader by the name Lech whose name replaced the original and later forgotten name for the Polish nation.[7]
Oaks of Rogalin
Lech, Czech and Rus oaks in Rogalin, Poland
Lech, Czech and Rus are three ancient large oaks in the garden adjacent to the 18th century palace in Rogalin, Greater Poland. Each of them is several hundred years old.[8] They vary between 23 and 30 feet in circumference. They've been declared natural landmarks and placed under protection.
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