Drożko rex Abodritorum albo dlaczego Frankowie próbowali przekształcić polikefaliczną wspólnotę etniczną Obodrytów w gens

The purpose of this article is to explain why the Franks established Thrasco (Drożko) king of the Obodrites in 804. In the considerations, I try to present arguments indicating that the actions of the Franks were attempts at transforming an acephalous community into the so-called “secondary tribe”. This transformation allowed the Franks not only to control the Obodrites but also to coordinate their military activities. We may believe that the designation of Thrasco as king of the Obodrites in 804 was a carefully planned move by the Franks to transform the loosely connected segments of the Obodrite community, polyphalous in nature, into a gens – a community under a king’s authority. The Frankish policy in the northeastern Slavic dominion was intended to establish a central decision-making centre of the Obodrites that would make commitments binding on all its members on behalf of the entire community. What is more, it allowed for a mechanism to mobilise all the Obodrite segments for coordinated military action conducted within the Frankish-Obodrite alliance. On the other hand, granting the lands of the displaced Nordalbingians to the Obodrites resulted from, among other things, an attempt to drive a wedge between the Danish communities hostile to the Franks and the newly conquered Saxon territories. This ‘Obodrite buffer zone’ (let’s give it a working name) was intended to secure the Franks’ hegemony over the lower Elbe.