The emergence of a state among the Eastern Slavs. By the beginning of the 9th century. In the East Slavic lands, tribal unions first appeared, and later, thanks to their unification, strong inter-tribal groupings appeared. All life led the Slavs towards unification. The centers of unification were the Middle Dnieper region, led by Kiev, and the northwestern region, led by the cities of Ladoga and. These were the most developed East Slavic lands in all respects. There the initial one took shape.

State of Rus' on the Dnieper. One of the signs of statehood, as already mentioned, was the emergence of princely power and squads. In the 9th century. they showed all their power in relations with their neighbors. A number of blows were struck against Khazaria, and the glades were freed from paying tribute to it. The attacks of the Russian army on the Crimean possessions of Byzantium date back to the same time. It was from those times that the first news of Byzantine and Eastern authors came about the name of the Eastern Slavs, inhabitants of the Dnieper region "dews", "Rus". Therefore, we will call the Eastern Slavs as the rest of the world called them, as the ancient chronicles called them - Rus', Russians, Rusyns.

The blow to the Crimean possessions of Byzantium is the first mention of the state formation of Rus' known to us. The Russians conquered the entire coast of Crimea to the Kerch Strait, stormed the city of Surozh (present-day Sudak) and plundered it. The legendary news has been preserved that the leader of the Russians, in order to recover from an illness, received baptism from the hands of a local Greek bishop, and the illness immediately receded. This fact is significant. By this time, most European countries had adopted Christianity. The transition from paganism to a new monotheistic faith marked the advent of a new civilization, a new spiritual life, a new culture, and unity of the entire people within the state for these countries. Rus' also took the first, rather timid step on this path, which has not yet shaken the foundations of Slavic paganism.

A few years later, Rus' launched a second attack, this time on the southern shore of the Black Sea. True, the Russian army had not yet decided to attack Constantinople itself. And in 838 - 839. in Constantinople, and then in the Frankish Empire an embassy from the state of Rus' appears.

Finally, on June 18, 860, an event occurred that literally shook the world of that time. Constantinople unexpectedly came under a fierce attack by the Russian army. The Russians approached from the sea in 200 boats. They besieged the city for a week, but it survived. Having taken a huge tribute and concluded an honorable peace with Byzantium, the Russians went home. The names of the Russian princes who led the campaign have been preserved. They were Askold and Dir. From now on Rus was officially recognized as a great empire.

Russian combat boat.

A few years later, Greek priests appeared in the land of the Russians and baptized their leader and his squad. Presumably it was Askold. So from the 60s. 9th century news arrives of the second baptism of the Russians.

The Kyiv armies are also moving north in order to subjugate the entire Slavic part of the route to Kyiv. "from the Varangians to the Greeks" and access to the Baltic Sea. The Slavic South begins an active offensive against the Slavic North.

The first Varangian princes

Varangians. In the same decades, in the area of ​​Lake Ilmen and the Volkhov River, on the shores of Lake Ladoga, another powerful union of Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes was formed, the center of which was the lands of the Ilmen Slovenes. The unification was facilitated by the struggle of the Slovenes, Krivichi, Meri, Chuds with the Varangians, who shortly before had established control over the local population. And just as the glades overthrew the power of the Khazars in the south, so in the north the union of local tribes drove out the Varangians. However, later discord began between the local tribes. They decided to stop the civil strife in the traditional way for that era - to invite a ruler from the outside. The choice fell on the Varangian princes, and they appeared in the Russian north-west with their squads.

Who were they? Varangians? This question has been haunting historians for a long time.

Some considered the Varangians to be Normans, Scandinavians, based on the fact that then there was a period of Norman sea invasions of European countries.

For a long time, the prevailing point of view was that it was the Normans who created the state in the lands of the Slavs. And the Slavs themselves were unable to create a state, which indicated their backwardness. These views were especially popular in the West during periods of confrontation between our Motherland and its Western opponents. Those who adhered to this point of view are called Normanists, and their views are called the Norman theory of the creation of the Russian state. Opponents of this theory were called anti-Normanists. Later, scientists proved that statehood matured among the Slavs long before the appearance of the Varangians.

But even today there are Normanists and anti-Normanists. Only the dispute is about something else - who the Varangians were by nationality. Normanists consider them Scandinavians (Swedes) and believe that the very name “Rus” is of Scandinavian origin. Anti-Normanists prove that the Varangians, who appeared in the Russian northwest in the 9th century, have nothing to do with Scandinavia. They were either Balts or Slavs from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. Essentially, the dispute continues about the fate of Russia, the Slavs, and their historical independence.

And what does Nestor the chronicler, whose information is primarily used by both, say about this? He writes that at the request of various tribes, Varangian princes appeared in the Slavic lands in 862. “Those Varangians were called Rus,” he notes, just as the Swedes, Normans, English, etc. had their ethnic names. Thus, for him “Rus” is, first of all, a national definition.

Varangians, in his opinion, “sit” to the east of the Western peoples, along the southern shore of the Varangian (Baltic) Sea. “But the Slavic language and Russian are one,” the chronicler emphasizes. This means that those princes who were invited by the Ilmen Slovenes and Krivichi were related to them. This explains the painless and rapid introduction of aliens into their environment, the absence of Ancient Rus' names associated with Germanic languages.

Origin of the word "Rus". Why did the names “Rus” and “Russians” appear in the 9th century? simultaneously both in the Slavic northwest and in the south, in the Dnieper region?

From V-VI centuries. The Slavs occupied vast territories in Central and Eastern Europe. Among them there were many tribes with the names Russians and Rusyns. They were also called rutens, ruts, rugs. The descendants of these Russians still live in Germany, Hungary, and Romania. In Slavic language "brown" means "light". This is a typically Slavic word and a typically Slavic name for tribes. The resettlement of some of the Slavs who originally lived on the Danube to the Dnieper region (as Nestor spoke about in his chronicle) brought this name there.

Other Russians lived in lands adjacent to the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. There have long been strong Slavic tribal alliances there, which waged a harsh struggle with the Germanic tribes. At the time of the creation of tribal unions among the Eastern Slavs, the Baltic Slavs already had their own state formations with princes, squads, and a detailed pagan religion, very close to East Slavic paganism. From here there were constant migrations to the east, to the shores of Lake Ilmen. Therefore, the chronicler later wrote: “Novgorodians are from the Varangian family.”

But there is no evidence of the existence of the name "Rus" in Scandinavia, just as there is no data about what was there in the 9th century. there was princely power or some kind of state entity. But the dispute about the origin of the Varangians continues.

Rurik in Novgorod. The chronicle says that in 862 three Varangian brothers arrived in the Slavic and Finno-Ugric lands - Sineus and Truvor. The eldest of them, Rurik, sat down to reign among the Ilmen Slovenes. His first residence was the city of Ladoga. Then he moved to Novgorod, where he “cut down” the fortress. The second brother settled in the lands of the tribe entirely in the city of Beloozero, and the third - in the lands of the Krivichi in the city of Izborsk. Subsequently, after the death of his brothers, Rurik united under his command the entire north and north-west of the East Slavic and Finno-Ugric lands.

Unknown artist - Roerich (Rurik).

Unknown artist - Varangian princes.

Both state centers formed in the East Slavic lands called themselves Rus. In southern Rus', a local Polyan dynasty established itself, and in northern Rus', people from the Slavic lands of the southern Baltic took power. Rivalry between these centers began immediately after their formation.

After Rurik’s death, his young son Igor remained, but either the governor or Rurik’s relative Oleg took control of all affairs in Novgorod. But Igor remained the official Novgorod prince. Power was passed on from father to son by inheritance. This is how the Rurik dynasty began, which ruled in Russian lands for many hundreds of years.

Creation of a unified state of Rus'. It was Oleg who had the share of uniting two ancient Russian state centers. In 882, he gathered a large army and launched a campaign to the south. The striking force of his army was the Varangian squad. Along with him were detachments representing all the northwestern Russian lands: here were the Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, as well as their allies and tributaries - Chud, Merya, and all. Little Igor sailed along with everyone else in the prince’s boat.

Oleg captured the main city of the Krivichi, Smolensk, then took Lyubech. Having sailed to Kyiv, he realized that it would be difficult for him to take the well-fortified and populous city by storm. In addition, the experienced warrior Askold reigned here, who distinguished himself in battles with Byzantium, the Khazars and the new steppe nomads - the Pechenegs. And then Oleg resorted to a trick. Having hidden the soldiers in the boats, he sent news to the Kyiv prince that a merchant caravan had arrived. Unsuspecting Askold came to the meeting and was killed right there on the shore.

Oleg established himself in Kyiv and made this city his capital. One might think that the Kyiv pagans did not stand up for their Christian ruler Askold and helped Oleg’s pagans take possession of the city. Thus, for the first time in Rus', ideological views influenced the change of power.

So, the Novgorod north defeated the Kiev south. Novgorod became the unifier of Russian lands into a single state. But this was only a purely military victory. In economic, commercial, and cultural terms, the Middle Dnieper region was far ahead of other Slavic lands. At the end of the 9th century. it was the historical center of Russian lands, and Oleg, having made Kyiv his capital city, confirmed this position.

Oleg did not complete his military successes here. He continued the unification of the East Slavic lands. The ruler streamlined his relations with northern Russia, imposed tribute on the territories under his control - he “set tribute” to the Novgorod Slovenes, Krivichi, and other tribes. He also concluded an agreement with the Varangians, which was valid for about 150 years. According to it, Rus' obliged to pay the Varangian South Baltic state 300 silver hryvnia (the hryvnia is the largest monetary unit in Rus') annually for peace on the Russian northwestern borders and for regular military assistance to the Varangians of Rus'.

Then Oleg undertook campaigns against the Drevlyans, Northerners, Radimichi and imposed tribute on them with furs. Here he encountered Khazaria, whose tributaries were the Radimichi and the northerners. But military success again accompanied Oleg. Now these East Slavic tribes ceased their dependence on Khazaria and became part of Rus'. The Vyatichi remained tributaries of Khazaria.

Rus' in the 10th century

Rus' at the beginning of the 10th century. Having united the East Slavic lands, freeing many of them from tribute to foreigners, Oleg gave the princely power unprecedented authority and international prestige. Now he assumes the title of Grand Duke, that is, the Prince of all Princes. The remaining rulers of individual tribal principalities become his tributaries, vassals, although they still retain the rights to govern their principalities.

The new state of Rus' was not inferior in size to the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne or the Byzantine Empire. However, many regions of Rus' were sparsely populated and poorly suitable for life. The difference in the level of development of different parts of the state was also too great. In addition, it immediately became a multinational state, including different peoples. All this made it loose and fragile.

He was known not only for his unification policy and the fight against the Khazars. From its very inception, Rus' set itself large-scale tasks: mastering the mouth of the Dnieper, the mouth of the Danube, establishing itself in the Northern Black Sea region and the Balkans, breaking through the Khazar cordons to the east and subordinating the Taman Peninsula and the Kerch Strait to its control. Some of these tasks had been outlined by the Antes, and later by the Polyansky princes, and now matured Rus' was again trying to repeat the impulse of its ancestors.

Part of this policy was the Russian campaign against Byzantium in 907.

At the beginning of summer, a huge Russian army on boats and on horseback moved along the shore towards Constantinople. The Russians “made war” on the outskirts of the city, took huge booty, and then pulled the ships onto land, raised the sails and, under the cover of the boats that protected them from enemy arrows, moved under the very walls of the city. The Greeks were horrified at the sight of the unusual sight and asked for peace.

According to the peace treaty, the Greeks agreed to pay a monetary indemnity to Rus', pay tribute annually, and widely open the Byzantine market to the Russians. Chinese merchants. They even received the right to duty-free trade within the empire, which was unheard of. As a sign of the end of the war and the conclusion of peace, the Russian Grand Duke hung his shield on the gates of the city. This was the custom of many peoples of Eastern Europe.

In 911 Oleg confirmed his agreement with Byzantium. The Russian embassy arrived in Constantinople and concluded the first written agreement in the history of Eastern Europe with the empire. One of the articles discussed the establishment of a military alliance between Byzantium and Russia.

Thus, the state of Rus' immediately declared itself as a major force in the international arena.

The emergence of trading cities with suburbs extending to them disrupted the previous division of the Eastern Slavs into tribes. Trading cities arose where it was more convenient for traders and industrialists: on a large river, close to the Dnieper, in an area where it was convenient for families and friends of various tribes to bring their booty. And this led to the fact that individual families of various tribes lagged behind their own, united with strangers and got used to such a connection.

By the 11th century, the ancient tribal names were almost forgotten - Drevlyans, Polyans, Krivichi, Northerners, and the Slavs began to call themselves by the cities to which they went to trade: Kievans, Smolnyans, Novgorodians, Polochans...
The entire country of the Eastern Slavs thus began to disintegrate not into tribal lands, but into urban areas, or volosts. At the head of each was a large city. Small cities located in the volost of a large one were called suburbs and in everything depended on the “great”, ancient cities, the richest and most powerful. Not all lands of the Slavic tribes formed urban parishes at the same time. Their emergence occurred gradually; while in some parts of the country inhabited by the Slavs large cities appeared and formed volosts around them, gathering people for trade interest and profit, in other parts the Slavs continued to live as before, divided into small communities, near their small towns, “plowing their fields " .
The emergence of cities and the formation of urban volosts in the country of the Slavs marked the beginning of the division of the Slavs into townspeople and villagers (Gili Smerds), as farmers were then called. The main occupation of the former was trade, while the Smerds were engaged in forestry and agriculture, delivering, so to speak, the material, the goods that the townspeople traded with foreigners.
It was, of course, very important for a large trading city that as much goods as possible be delivered to its market. Therefore, city dwellers have long sought to attract the population of their surroundings with affection and weapons, so that they would bring the fruits of their labors only to their city and bring them for sale. Not content with the natural attraction of the surrounding population to the city, as a place of sale of goods obtained in the forest and arable land, the townspeople begin to force the smerds, “torture” them to pay a certain tribute or quitrent to the city, as if in payment for the protection that it gives them the city is in a moment of danger, hiding them behind its walls or fencing them with a sword, and for the benefit that the city provides to the smerds, giving them the opportunity to faithfully sell everything that they get in their forest lands.
In order to best protect the main occupation of the inhabitants - trade and crafts, the entire city was arranged as a fortified trading warehouse, and its inhabitants were the savers and defenders of this camp-warehouse.
At the head of the big city, and consequently of its entire surroundings, there was a veche, i.e. a gathering of all adult townspeople who decided all management matters. At the meeting, the entire city foreman, “city elders,” as you call them in the chronicle, were elected. Trade, dividing people into rich and poor, placed the poor in the service of the wealthier or made them financially dependent on them. Therefore, those who were richer, the richest, enjoyed greater importance in the city and at the veche. They held the entire assembly in their hands, all the city authorities were chosen from among them, they ran the city affairs as they wanted. These were the “city elders”, the elders of the city, the richest and most powerful citizens..
Setting off in a trade caravan to distant countries, the merchants of those times equipped themselves as if for a military campaign, formed an entire military partnership-artel, or squad, and marched under the command of a chosen leader, some experienced warrior-merchant. They willingly joined the trade caravan of Slavic merchants large and small parties of northern merchants-warriors of the Varangians, or Normans, heading to Byzantium. Military assistance and cooperation of the Varangians became especially important for the Slavic cities from the beginning of the 9th century, when the Khazars, having failed to cope with the Ugrians, and then the Pechenegs, had to let them pass through their possessions into the Black Sea steppes. The steppe inhabitants settled along trade routes: along the Dnieper below Kyiv, along the Black Sea coast from the Dnieper mouths to the Danube, and with their attacks they made the path “to the Greeks” unsafe.

The Varangians were residents of the Scandinavian region, present-day Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The harsh region early forced the Varangians to look for means of living on the side. First of all, they turned to the sea and took up fishing and robbery of the Pomeranian inhabitants. On light ships, accustomed from an early age to fighting storms and the hardships of naval life, the Varangians boldly raided the coasts of the Baltic and German seas.
Back in the 6th century they plundered the shores of Gaul. Charlemagne could not cope with the brave pirates; under his weak descendants, the Normans kept all of Europe in fear and siege. Since the beginning of the 9th century, not a year passed without Norman campaigns in Europe. On hundreds of ships, rivers flowing into the German Sea and the Atlantic Ocean - the Elbe, the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne - the Danes, as the Normans were also called in Europe, made their way into the depths of one country or another, devastating everything around them, more than once burning Cologne, Trier, Bordeaux, Paris, penetrated into Burgundy and Auvergne; they knew the way even in Switzerland, plundered Andalusia, captured Sicily, and devastated the shores of Italy and the Peloponnese.
In 911, the Normans captured the northwestern part of France and forced the French king to recognize this region of his state as his possession, a duchy; this part of France is still known as Normandy. In 1066, the Norman Duke William conquered England. Individual squads of Normans took possession of Iceland, and from there they even penetrated to the shores of North America.
Using light sailing and rowing ships, they climbed into the mouths of large rivers and swam upward as long as they could. In different places they landed on land and brutally robbed coastal residents. On shoals, rifts, and rapids, they pulled their ships ashore and dragged them on dry land until they passed the obstacle. From large rivers they invaded smaller ones and, moving from river to river, climbed far into the interior of the country, everywhere bringing with them death, fires, and robbery. At the mouths of large rivers they usually occupied islands and “fortified them. These were their winter quarters, they drove prisoners here, and brought all the stolen goods here. In such fortified places they sometimes settled for many years and plundered the surrounding country, but more often, taking as much as they wanted from the vanquished, they went with fire and sword to another country, pouring blood and destroying everything in their path with fires. There are known cases when some Norman gang, ruling along one river in France, undertook to the Frankish king for a certain fee to drive out or kill their compatriots who were robbing along another river, attacked them, robbed and exterminated, or united with them and together went off to rob further. . The Normans were greatly feared in Western Europe because they moved unusually quickly and fought so bravely that it seemed impossible to resist their rapid onslaught. On their way they spared nothing and no one. In all the churches of Western Europe, one prayer was raised to God at that time: “Deliver us, Lord, from the ferocity of the Normans!”
Most of the people who went to the west were the Norman inhabitants of Denmark and Norway. The Normans of Sweden attacked mainly on the Baltic Sea coast. By the mouths of the Western Dvina and the Gulf of Finland they penetrated into the country of the Eastern Slavs, by the Neva they sailed into Lake Ladoga and from there by Volkhov and Ilmen they reached Novgorod, which they called Golmgard, that is, an island city, perhaps along the island that forms Volkhov at the exit from Ilmen-lake. From Novgorod, using the great waterway, the Normans made their way to Kyiv. They knew Polotsk and Ladoga well, and the names of these cities are found in their legends - sagas. Sagas also mention distant Perm, the Perm region. That the Normans often penetrated into the country of the Slavs in large detachments is also evidenced by tombstones found in the southeastern provinces of Sweden and dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries. On these monuments, in ancient Norman script, runes, there are inscriptions that say that the deceased fell “in a battle in the East,” “in the country of Gardar,” or “in Golmgard.”
Reaching the upper Volga, the Normans went down the river, traded and fought with the Kama Bulgarians and reached the Caspian Sea. Apa6c writers first noted their appearance in the Caspian Sea in 880. In 913, the Normans appeared here with a whole fleet of supposedly 500 ships, with a hundred soldiers on each.
According to the testimony of the Arabs, who called the Normans Russians, they were a highly active people, tireless and insanely brave: they rush against dangers and obstacles to the distant countries of the East and are either peaceful merchants or bloodthirsty warriors, attacking by surprise, with the speed of lightning, they rob, kill and take away captives.

Unlike other warlike tribes, the Russians never moved by land - but always by water in boats. They came to the Volga from the Black or Azov Seas, rising along the Don; near present-day Kalach they dragged their ships to the Volga and sailed along the Caspian Sea. “The Russians carry out raids on the Slavs,” says the Arab writer Ibn Dasta, “they approach their settlements on boats, land, take the Slavs captive and take the captives to the Khazars and Bulgarians and sell them there... they have no arable land, but feed only on that that they bring from the land of the Slavs. When one of them has a son, the father takes a naked sword, places it in front of the newborn and says: “I will not leave you any property as an inheritance, but you will only have what you gain for yourself!”

Varangian boat

The Varangians are as slender as palm trees; they are red; they wear neither jackets nor caftans; men put on a coarse cloth, which is draped over one side, and one hand is released from under it. Each of them always carries a sword, knife and ax with him. Their swords are wide, wavy, with blades of Frankish workmanship; on one side of them, from the tip to the handle, trees and various figures are depicted"…
Arab writers portray the Normans to us with the same features as European chronicles, i.e. like river and sea warriors who live by what they earn with the sword.
The Normans descended along the Dnieper into the Black Sea and attacked Byzantium. “In 865,” the chronicler reports, “the Normans dared to attack Constantinople with 360 ships, but, being able to harm the most invincible city, they bravely fought its outskirts, killed as many people as they could, and then returned home in triumph.” ".
The Bishop of Cremona visited Constantinople in 950 and 968. In his story about the Greek Empire, he also mentions the Normans, who shortly before him made a great attack on Constantinople. “He lives in the north,” he says. the people that the Greeks call Russia, we are the Normans. The king of this people was Inger (Igor), who came to Constantinople with more than a thousand ships."
In the Slavic lands, along the Volkhov and along the Dnieper, the Normans - the Varangians - appeared at first, so to speak, in passing; here at first they stagnated a little, but rather headed along the great waterway to the rich southern countries, mainly in Greece, where they not only traded, but also served for good remuneration.
With their warlike character and pirate inclinations, the Varangians, as they accumulated more and more in the Slavic cities, began, of course, definitely to become masters of the Slavic cities and take possession of the great waterway. Arab Al-Bekri wrote about the half of the 10th century that “the tribes of the north took possession of some of the Slavs and still live among them, even mastered their language, mixing with them.” That’s when the event that our article mentions happened. chronicle before the story of the calling of princes.
“In the summer of 6367 (859) the imah received tribute from the Varangians from overseas on the Chuds and on the Slovenes, on the Meri and on the Vesehs and on the Krivichs,” that is, from the Novgorod Slavs and their closest neighbors, the Slavs and Finns. They have established themselves, therefore, at the northern end of the great waterway. At the same time, the Khazars took tribute from the glades, northerners and Vyatichi, that is, from the inhabitants of the southern end of the waterway.
The Novgorod Slavs could not bear it even two years later, as we read in the chronicle, “having driven the Varangians overseas and not giving them tribute, they began to drink water within themselves.” But then quarrels and discord began in the country over the rule, and “there was no truth in them and in the old age of the generation,” we read in the chronicle, “and there was strife in them and they often fought against each other.” And then everything The northern tribes "decided in themselves: let us kill the prince who would rule over us and judge us rightfully. And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus': for the Varangians are called Russia, as the friends are called Svei (Swedes), and the friends are Urmans ( Norwegians), Anglians (English), Druzi Te (Goths), Tako and Si". Those sent from the Slavs, Chud, Krivichi and Vesi told the Varangians of Rus': “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no outfit in it; “Let you go and rule over us.” But, despite such an invitation, “three brothers from their clans barely left, took all of Rus' with them and came” (862). They were three king brothers, as the princes were called in Varangian, Rurik, Sineus and Truvor.
The prince brothers, having arrived in the country, began to “cut down cities and fight everywhere,” that is, they began to defend the Slavs from their enemies, for which they erected fortified towns everywhere and often went on campaigns. The princes settled along the edges of the country: Rurik - in Ladoga, Sineus in Beloozero, and Truvor in Izborsk. A short time later the brothers died.

Norman Rurik decided to move to Novgorod. There was even a conspiracy among the Novgorodians to drive Rurik and his Varangians back overseas. But Rurik killed the leader of this conspiracy, “brave Vadim,” and killed many Novgorodians. This event dramatically changed the mutual relationship between Rurik and the Novgorodians. Before that, Rurik was only the prince-guardian of Novgorod trade called by the Novgorodians and an arbitrator in various Novgorod misunderstandings, and for this the Novgorodians paid him the agreed tribute. He lived on the border of the Novgorod region, in Ladoga; after the victory over the rebels, Rurik moved to live in Novgorod. Now Novgorod became his military spoil. Rurik reigned “strongly” in Novgorod, like a conquering prince, demanded tribute as much as he wanted, and many Novgorodians fled from him to the south.
And in the south, in Kyiv, the Varangians also established themselves at this time. As you might think, at the same time as Rurik, many of these newcomers from the north poured into the Slavic lands. Perhaps, imitating Rurik, they sought to establish themselves more firmly in Slavic cities. Rogvolod then reigned in Polotsk, and among the tribes living along Pripyat, the principality of a certain Tur, or Torah, was formed.
Our chronicle tells about the occupation of the southern end of the waterway by the Varangians as follows: “Rurik had two husbands, not of his tribe, but of the boyar; and they asked to go to the King-city with their family. They walked along the Dnieper, on the way they saw a town on the mountain and asked: “What is this town?” They explained that the town is called Kiev and pays tribute to the Khazars. Askold and Dir, that was the name of these Rurik boyars, offered the Kievans to free them from the Khazars. They agreed , and Askold and Dir remained in Kiev to reign: “Many Varangians gathered and began to own the Polyana land. Rurik reigned in Novgorod.”
In the second half of the 9th century, principalities arose at both ends of the great waterway. The Varangian princes - Rurik in the north, Askold and Dir in the south - are busy with one thing: building fortresses, protecting the land. Before Askold and Dir arrived in Kyiv, the people of Kiev were offended by the Drevlyans and other tribes. Askold and Dir, having established themselves in Kyiv, began a fight against the Drevlyans and liberated Kyiv from them. When the Greeks offended the Slavic merchants, Askold and Dir raided Greek land. All this, of course, aroused the sympathy of the population and contributed to the establishment of the princes in the cities they occupied.
But both ends of the great waterway were in the hands of different princes. Considerable inconveniences could result from this, and sooner or later a struggle between the northern and southern princes for possession of the great waterway would flare up.
It was very inconvenient for the northern princes and townspeople that the original end of the great waterway, Kyiv, was not in their hands. Kyiv stood almost on the border of the Slavic lands, and to the south of it the kingdom of the steppe began. Overland routes from West to East and to Taurida passed through Kyiv. Not a single large tributary flowing through the populated country flows into the Dnieper south of Kyiv. All large rivers flowing through populated areas flow into it north of Kyiv. A direct road to the sea began from Kyiv. K. Kyiv, therefore, along countless rivers and streams, tributaries of the Dnieper itself and tributaries of its tributaries, the riches of the Slavic lands were rafted. The inhabitants of all the cities lying along the northern tributaries of the Dnieper, sending their goods to Byzantium, had to sail past Kyiv. Consequently, whoever owned Kiev had in his hands the main gate of external Russian trade of that time, and whoever held in his hands the trade of Slavic cities - their main occupation - naturally owned the entire Slavic country. As soon as trade boats from the north were detained from Kyiv, all the cities from Lyubech to Novgorod and Ladoga suffered huge losses. Thus, the center and crossroads of land and river trade routes, which Kyiv was, naturally had to become the political center of the country united by the Varangian princes. This significance of Kyiv, as the center of state life, grew from its significance as the center of national economic life, which was drawn to Kyiv and only from Kyiv had access to the breadth and scope of international deception.
Rurik did not have to make his way to Kyiv. Rurik's relative and successor, Oleg, took possession of Kiev. From Novgorod, along a long-trodden path, along the Volkhov, Ilmen and Lovat, he descended to the upper reaches of the Dnieper and captured here, in the country of the Krivichi, the city of Smolensk. He reached Lyubech along the Dnieper and captured this city. Sailing to Kyiv, he lured Askold and Dir out of the city and killed them, while he himself remained in Kyiv - “the mother of Russian cities,” as he, according to legend, called this city. Having established himself here, Oleg continued the work of Askold and Dir; built new fortress towns around Kyiv to protect the Kyiv region from raids from the steppe, went on campaigns against the Khazars and other neighbors of Kyiv. Having united under his hand the militia of all the Slavic cities he occupied, Oleg went to Constantinople and, according to legend, nailed his shield on the gates of the great city as a sign of victory over the Greeks.
The princes who followed Oleg - Igor, his widow Olga, Igor's son Svyatoslav - successfully continued the unification of Slavic cities and regions. Oleg captured the entire country of the Drevlyans, Northerners and Radimichi; Igor continued to seize Oleg and took the entire middle Dnieper under his hand; Olga finally “tortured” the Drevlyans, Svyatoslav captured the Vyatichi.
By the half of the 10th century, the majority of Slavic tribes and cities gathered around Kyiv and the Kyiv prince.
The land of the Kyiv princes occupied a vast area by this time. From north to south, the land they controlled then stretched from Lake Ladoga to the mouths of the Rosi-Steppe River, a tributary of the Dnieper, and from east to west, from the confluence of the Klyazma into the Oka to the upper reaches of the Western Bug. In this vast region lived all the tribes of the Eastern Slavs and some Finnish ones: the Chud of the Baltic, the entire Belozersk, the Merya of Rostov, and along the middle Oka the Murom. Among these tribes, the princes built fortress towns in order to hold the foreigners in obedience from the walls of these towns with an armed hand and collect faithful tribute from them.

In old and new cities, the princes installed their governors, “posadniks.” Even Rurik, after he “took power,” “distributed cities to his husband - one Polotesk, another Rostov, another Beloozero.” The mayors were supposed to administer justice to people on behalf of the prince , collect tribute in favor of the prince and to feed himself, take care of the land, protect it from attacks by enemies, and keep the local population in obedience to his prince. Every year the prince himself traveled around part of his land, collecting tribute, doing justice and truth to people, “establishing statutes and lessons", assigning new tributes and the order of their collection.
Local residents were obliged to bring the following village. They paid tribute at certain times in a once and for all established area. This was called a wagon. So, “in the summer of 6455 (947) Olga went to Novugorod and established povosts and tributes according to Meta,” we read in the chronicle. When the prince himself went “to tribute”, it was called “polyudye”.
The prince usually went to polyudye in late autumn, when it would be frosty and the impenetrable mud of the paths would become hardened with solid ice. The whole winter was spent traveling from city to city, from churchyard to churchyard. It was a difficult journey full of dangers. In the deep wild forests there were no “straight roads”; one had to make one’s way along hunting paths covered with snowdrifts, with difficulty making out “signs and places” with which hunters indicated the direction of their paths. They had to fight off wild animals, and the forest dwellers did not always greet the prince and his squad with humility and greetings.
Tribute often had to be “tortured”, i.e. take by force, but violence was met with armed resistance, and the prince and his well-armed and fairly numerous squad did not always manage to achieve their goal, especially when the prince allowed some injustice in the collection, wanted to take more than he or his predecessor set.
Rurikov's son, Igor, had to pay severely for his greed for tribute. In 945, when “autumn had arrived,” the usual time of polyudya, Igor, as we read in the chronicle, “began to think about the Drevlyans, although to come up with a large tribute.” By the way, Igorev’s squad pointed out to him that little tribute was being paid, that even the servants of Sveneld, Igorev’s commander, were dressed better than the princes and warriors.
“The youths of Svenelzhi have become armed with weapons and ports, and we are Nazis,” Igor’s warriors complained, “go to the prince with us as tribute, and you will get us too.” Igor listened to his warriors and went to the land of the Drevlyans; collecting tribute from them, he “advancing to the first tribute,” that is, he took more than what was established. The warriors also did not lose theirs and extorted tribute from the Drevlyans. Having collected the tribute, we went home. Dear Igor, having thought about it, he said to his squad: go with the tribute to the house, and I will return and go again. With a small retinue, Igor returned to the Drevlyans, “wanting more property.” The Drevlyans, hearing about Igor’s return, gathered at a meeting and decided: “If a wolf eats a sheep, then he will carry out the entire flock, unless they kill him; so is this one. If we don’t kill him, we will all be destroyed.” And they sent to Igor to say: “Why did you come again and take all the tribute!” Igor did not listen to the Drevlyans. The Drevlyans attacked the prince and “killed Igor and his squad: for there are not enough of them.”
The tribute collected at Polyudye and delivered from the graveyards, brought there by the tributaries, entered the princely treasury. Tribute was collected mainly in kind, various forest products obtained by forest residents. This tribute, collected in very large quantities, made the prince the richest supplier of forest products to the then international market. The prince was therefore the most important and richest participant in trade with Byzantium, with the European West and the Asian East. In exchange for his goods and slaves, whom he captured in fights with his closest neighbors, the prince received precious metals, lush fabrics, wine, weapons, jewelry, silver, fabrics and weapons from the West in Byzantium and in the eastern markets.
In pursuit of booty, the prince sought to subjugate the lands of his closest neighbors and imposed tribute on them. Interested in the quick and safe delivery of his wealth to foreign markets, the prince took care of the protection of the routes, vigilantly ensured that the steppe nomads and their robbers did not “clog” trade routes, shore bridges and transportation, and set up new ones. Thus, the prince’s trading activities were closely intertwined with the military and both together widely and far spread the power and importance of the Varangian-Slavic prince, who owned Kiev and the entire great waterway from the Varangians to the Greeks. It was a harsh, full of deprivation and danger, service of the prince and his own benefits and the benefits of the entire land subject to him. About the prince The chronicler of Svyatoslav says that this prince "easily walked like a pardus of war, doing many things. Walking by himself, not carrying a cart, nor cooking a cauldron, nor cooking meat, but he baked meat for thin horse meat, an animal or beef on coals; not a tent named, but under the treasure there was a blanket and a saddle in their heads; and the rest of his howl was all banging"… Svyatoslav laid down his head in a battle with the Pechenegs at the Dnieper rapids.
Having united the Slavic land under their sword, taking an active part in trade - the main occupation of this country, the Varangian princes, on behalf of the whole land, defend trade interests when they are in danger from foreigners, and, relying on their sword and the combined strength of the tribes subject to them, they are able to use special treaties to ensure the benefits of trade and the interests of their merchants in foreign lands.

The campaigns of the Varangian princes against Byzantium and the treaties they concluded with the Greeks are noteworthy. During the period from the 9th to the 11th centuries, six such large campaigns are known: the campaign of Askold and Dir, the campaign of Oleg, two campaigns of Igor, one of Svyatoslav and one of Vladimir, the son of Yaroslav the Wise. Folk legend, recorded in chronicles, especially remembered Oleg’s campaign and decorated it with legendary tales. “In the summer of 907,” we read in the chronicle, “Oleg went against the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv. He took with him many Varangians, Slavs, Chuds, Krivichi, Meri, Drevlyans, Radimichi, Polans, Severians, Vyatichi, Croats, Dulebs and Tiverts, “all of them,” the chronicler notes, “are called from the Greek Great Skuf.”
Oleg went with them all on horses and ships; the number of ships reached 2,000. When Oleg approached the Tsar City, the Greeks blocked access to the capital from the sea, and they themselves hid behind the walls. Oleg, having landed on the shore, began to fight; many Greeks were killed, many chambers were destroyed, churches were burned, of those captured, some were chopped down, others were tortured, others were shot, others were thrown into the sea, and many other evils were inflicted by the Russians on the Greeks, “what great wars they create.” And Oleg ordered his soldiers to make wheels and put ships on them. A fair wind inflated the sails from the field, and the ships moved towards the city. Seeing this, the Greeks were frightened and sent to tell Oleg: “Don’t destroy the city, we will give you the tribute you want.” Oleg stopped his soldiers, and the Greeks brought him food and wine, but Oleg did not accept the treat, “because it was arranged with poison.”
And the Greeks were afraid and said: “It is not Oleg, but Saint Demetrius was sent against us from God.” And Oleg commanded the Greeks to give tribute to 2,000 ships at 12 hryvnia per person, and there were 40 people in the ship. The Greeks agreed to this and began to ask for peace so that Oleg would not fight the Greek land. Oleg, having retreated a little from the city, “began to create peace with the king of the Greeks with Leon and Alexander, sending him to the city of Karl, Farlof, Velmud, Rulav and Stemid, saying: “imshte mi sya po tribute." The Greeks asked: “What do you want, ladies?”
And Oleg prescribed his peace terms to the Greeks, demanding not only a ransom for the soldiers, but also tribute to the Russian cities: “first to Kiev, also to Chernigov, to Pereyaslavl, to Polotsk, to Rostov, to Lyubech and to other cities, therefore the city of the great princes under Olga exists."
Then the conditions for trade of Slavic-Russian merchants in Byzantium were established. The peace treaty was sealed by a mutual oath. The Greek kings kissed the cross for allegiance to the treaty, and Oleg and his men swore, according to Russian law, their weapons and their god Perun and Volos the cattle god. When the peace was approved, Oleg said: “Sew sails from pavolok (silk) of Rus', and for the Slavs, kropin (fine linen).”
And so they did. Oleg hung his shield on the gates as a sign of victory and walked away from Constantinople. The Rus raised sails from pavoloks, and the Slavs raised them from crops, and the wind tore them apart, and the Slavs said: “Let’s get down to our canvases, cropped sails are not suitable for the Slavs.”... Oleg came to Kiev and brought gold, pavoloks, vegetables, wines and all sorts of ornaments. And They nicknamed Oleg the Prophetic, for the people were filthy (pagans) and ignorant."
In 941, Prince Igor attacked the Asia Minor coast of the Black Sea and plundered the entire country because the Greeks had offended Russian merchants. But the Greeks gathered enough troops and pushed back Igor’s soldiers. Rus' retreated to their boats and headed out to sea. But here Igor’s ships were met by the Greek fleet; the Greeks “started to fire with pipes on the Russian boats.” This was the famous Greek fire. Almost the entire fleet of Igor was lost, and a few soldiers returned home to tell “about the former fire”: “like Molonia, the same thing in heaven, the Greeks have with them and behold, he is letting us go; For this reason, I will not defeat them."
In 944, Igor, wanting to avenge the defeat, “having united the howl of many,” again moved towards Byzantium. The Greeks, having learned about this, offered Igor peace and tribute, which Oleg took. Igor’s squad persuaded the prince to agree, pointing out that it was better to take tribute without a battle, “when no one knows who will prevail, whether we or they, who consult with the sea, we ourselves do not walk on land, but in the depths of the sea; Death to all." The prince listened to the squad, took tribute from the Greeks and concluded a profitable trade agreement with them.
Rus' undertook its last campaign against Byzantium in 1043. Prince Yaroslav sent his son Vladimir and governor Vyshata against the Greeks. The Russian boats reached the Danube safely. But when they moved on, a storm occurred “and the Russian ships were broken and the prince’s ship was broken by the wind and the governor of Yaroslavl, Ivan Tvorimirich, took the prince into the ship”; The storm washed ashore 6,000 Russian soldiers. These warriors were supposed to return home, but none of the commanders wanted to lead them. Then Vyshata said: “I will go with them and get out of the ship to them and say: If I live with them, if I die, then with my squad.” The Greeks, having learned that the Russian fleet was defeated by a storm, sent a strong squadron, which forced Vladimir to retreat. The Greeks took Vyshata and his entire detachment prisoner, brought them to Constantinople, and here they blinded all the captives. Three years later, they released the blind governor with the blinded army home.
Military campaigns of the Varangian princes against Byzantium ended in peace treaties. Four treaties between Russians and Greeks have reached us: two treaties of Oleg, one of Igor and one of Svyatoslav.
According to the Oleg treaties of 907 and 911, the Greeks were obliged to:

• 1) pay tribute to each of the older cities
• 2) to give food to those Russians who come to Tsar-grad, and to Russian merchants a monthly allowance, and a free bath was also provided.

The Greeks demanded from Rus':

• 1) “so that the Russians stop in the Tsaregrad suburb near the monastery of St. Mammoth,
• 2) that Russians should enter the city only through certain gates and accompanied by a Greek official;

According to the Treaty of Igor, the Greeks, who were very afraid of the Russians, achieved some restrictions in their favor. Let Rus' come to Constantinople, say the articles of Igor’s treaty, but if they come without a purchase, they will not receive a month’s rent; May the prince forbid with his word so that the coming Rus' does not do dirty tricks in our villages; no more than fifty people are allowed to enter the city at a time; everyone coming to Greece from Rus' must have a special letter from the Kyiv prince, authentically certifying that the Russians came in “peace”; those who came to trade did not have the right to stay for the winter and had to go home in the fall.
The treaties of the Varangian princes with the Greeks are important and interesting because they are our oldest record of laws and judicial customs; they testify to the primacy position that the princes and their Varangian squad occupied in the society of that time; then the treaties are very important because they preserved the features of trade relations and international relations; further, in them we have the most ancient evidence of the spread of Christianity; finally, contracts retain the features of everyday meaning when described; for example, an oath, or talk about the conditions of the trial of thieves of other people's property.
For the same trade purposes, the first princes went to war against the Khazars and Kama Bulgarians. Trade with these peoples was also significant. In 1006, Vladimir the Saint, having defeated the Kama Bulgarians, concluded an agreement with them, in which he negotiated for the Russians the right of free passage to Bulgarian cities with seals for identification from their mayors and granted Bulgarian merchants to travel to Rus' and sell their goods, but only in the cities , and not in villages.

With their sword, concerns about external security and the structure of the internal world, participation in the main vital activities of the country and the protection of its trade interests, the Varangian princes quite firmly united into one state the individual Slavic volosts and tribes that were drawn to the Dnieper. This new state took its name from the tribal nickname of the Varangian princes - Rus.
In treaties, as in other places in the chronicle telling about the time of the first Varangian princes, “Rus” is almost always contrasted with the name “Slovene”; for the chronicler this is not the same thing.
The very word “Rus” has a mysterious origin. The closest neighbors of the Ilmen and Krivichi Slovenians, the Baltic Finns, called the Normans ruotsi. From them, one might think, the Slavs began to call the Norman finders Rus. When the Varangian kings established themselves in the Slavic cities, the Slavs called the squad of princes Rus; when Since the time of Oleg, the Varangian princes had established themselves in Kiev and from here they held all the land. The Kyiv region, the former land of the glades, began to be called Rus.
Describing the settlement of the Slavs, the chronicler notes: “the Slovenian language (the people) has become so extinct, and thus the letter is called Slovenian.” And then, in the year 898, having already talked about the calling of the princes and about the campaigns against Constantinople, the chronicler, as if wanting to warn any doubts, he says: “But the Slovenian language and the Russian language are one and the same, from the Varangians they were called Russia, and the first is Slovenian.”

Armament of the Varangian warriors

But there was “a time when they were able to distinguish between both languages. The difference between them was still very noticeable in the 10th century. Both in the chronicle and in other monuments of our ancient writing, Slavic names alternate with “Russian” ones and differ like words of a language alien to one another. Konstantin Porphyrogenitus also notes the Slavic and Russian names of the Dnieper rapids in his description of Russian trade. Among the names of the first princes and their warriors there are about 90 names of Scandinavian origin; Rurik, Sineus, Truvor, Askold, Dir, Oleg, Igor, Olga - these are all Scandinavian, i.e. Varangian or Norman names: Hroerekr, Signiutr, Torwardt, Hoskuldr, Dyri, Helgi, Ingvar, Helga.
The princes themselves and their squad that came with them quickly became glorified. The Arab writer Ibrahim calls the “people of the north,” that is, the Normans, Russians, distinguishes them from the Slavs, but notes that these “people of the north,” who took over the Slavic country, “speak Slavic because they mixed with them ". Rurik's grandson, Svyatoslav, a true Varangian in all his actions and habits, bears a pure Slavic name.
The Varangians who came to the country of the Eastern Slavs, one might say, melted into the Slavic sea, merged into one tribe with the Slavs, among whom they settled, and disappeared, leaving insignificant traces of themselves in the language of the Slavs. Thus, from the Varangians the following words have been preserved in the Slavic-Russian language: grid (junior warrior), whip, chest, bench, banner, banner, yabednik (court official), tiun (butler of the serfs), anchor, luda (cloak), knight (Viking), prince (king) and some others.
(jcomments on)

From the beginning of the 9th century, from the end of the reign of Charlemagne, armed gangs of pirates from Scandinavia began to scour the shores of Western Europe. Since these pirates came mainly from Denmark, they became known in the West under the name Danes. Around the same time, overseas newcomers from the Baltic Sea began to appear on the river routes of our plain, who here received the name Varangians.

Varangians

In the 10th and 11th centuries, these Varangians constantly came to Rus' either for trading purposes, or at the call of our princes, who recruited their military squads from them. But the presence of the Varangians in Rus' begins much earlier than the 10th century. The Tale of Bygone Years has known these Varangians from Russian cities for about half of the 9th century. The Kiev legend of the 11th century was even inclined to exaggerate the number of these overseas newcomers. According to this legend, the Varangians, ordinary inhabitants of Russian trading cities, have long filled them in such numbers that they formed a thick layer in their population, covering the natives. So, according to the Tale, the Novgorodians were at first Slavs, and then became Varangians, as if they had become Varangians due to the increased influx of newcomers from overseas. They gathered especially crowdedly in the Kyiv land. According to the chronicle legend, Kyiv was even founded by the Varangians, and there were so many of them in it that Askold and Dir, having established themselves here, could recruit a whole militia from them, with which they dared to attack Constantinople.

Time of appearance of the Varangians

The vague memory of our chronicle seems to push back the appearance of the Varangians in Rus' back to the first half of the 9th century. We come across foreign news, from which we see that indeed the Varangians, or those who were called that in our country in the 11th century, became known to Eastern Europe in the first half of the 9th century, long before the time to which our Initial Chronicle dates the appearance of Rurik in Novgorod . The aforementioned ambassadors from the people of Rus', who did not want to return home from Constantinople by the same route, were sent in 839 with the Byzantine embassy to the German Emperor Louis the Pious and there, upon investigation of the case, according to their identity, they turned out to be Sveonians, Swedes, that is, Varangians, to whom our Tale also includes the Swedes. Following this evidence of the Western chronicles, the dark tradition of our chronicles comes from the Byzantine and Arab East with the news that already in the first half of the 9th century Rus' was well known there from trade affairs with it and from its attacks on the northern and southern shores of the Black Sea.

Academician Vasilievsky's exemplary critical studies on the lives of Saints George of Amastris and Stephen of Sourozh clarified this important fact in our history. In the first of these lives, written before 842, the author tells how Rus', a people that “everyone knows,” having begun the devastation of the southern Black Sea coast from the Propontis, attacked Amastris. In the second life we ​​read that a few years after the death of Saint Stephen, who died at the end of the 8th century, a large Russian army with the strong prince Bravlin, having captured the country from Korsun to Kerch, after a ten-day battle took Surozh (Pike perch in the Crimea).

Other news puts this Rus' of the first half of the 9th century in direct connection with overseas newcomers, whom our chronicle remembers among its Slavs in the second half of the same century. The Rus of the Vertinsky Chronicle, which turned out to be Swedes, embassed in Constantinople on behalf of their king Khakan, most likely the Khozar Khagan, who then ruled the Dnieper Slavs, and did not want to return to their homeland by the nearest road due to dangers from barbarian peoples - an allusion to the nomads of the Dnieper steppes. Arab Khordadbe even considers the “Russian” merchants whom he met in Baghdad to be directly Slavs, coming from the most distant ends of the country of the Slavs.

Finally, Patriarch Photius calls those who attacked Constantinople under him as Russia, and according to our chronicle this attack was carried out by the Kyiv Varangians Askold and Dir. As you can see, at the same time as the Danes’ raids in the West, their relatives, the Varangians, not only crowdedly scattered throughout the large cities of the Greco-Varangian route of Eastern Europe, but had already become so familiar with the Black Sea and its shores that it began to be called Russian and, according to the testimony of the Arabs , no one except Rus' sailed on it at the beginning of the 10th century.

Origin of the Varangians

The Baltic Varangians, like Black Sea Rus', were, in many ways, Scandinavians, and not Slavic inhabitants of the southern Baltic coast or present-day southern Russia, as some scientists think. Our Tale of Bygone Years recognizes the Varangians as the general name for various Germanic peoples who lived in Northern Europe, mainly along the Varangian (Baltic) Sea, such as the Swedes, Norwegians, Goths, and Angles. This name, according to some scientists, is a Slavic-Russian form of the Scandinavian word “vaering” or “varing”, the meaning of which is not sufficiently clear. The Byzantines of the 11th century were known by the name of the Normans, who served as hired bodyguards for the Byzantine emperor.

At the beginning of the 11th century, the Germans who took part in the campaign of the Polish king Boleslav against the Russian prince Yaroslav in 1018, taking a closer look at the population of the Kiev land, then told Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg, who was then finishing his chronicle, that in the Kyiv land there were a countless number of people, consisting mainly of runaway slaves and the “agile Danes”. The Germans could hardly mix their fellow Scandinavians with the Baltic Slavs. In Sweden, many ancient inscriptions are found on gravestones that speak of ancient sea voyages from Sweden to Rus'.

Scandinavian sagas, sometimes dating back to very ancient times, talk about similar campaigns to the country of Gardarik, as they call Rus', that is, to the “kingdom of cities.” This very name, which has so little relevance to rural Rus', shows that the Varangian newcomers stayed mainly in the large trading cities of Rus'. Finally, the names of the first Russian Varangian princes and their warriors are almost all of Scandinavian origin. We find the same names in the Scandinavian sagas: Rurik in the form of “Hrorek”, Truvor - “Thorvardr”, Oleg in the ancient Kiev accent on “o” - “Helgi”, Olga - “Helga”, Igor - “Ingvarr”, Oskold - “Hoskuldr” ", Dir - "Dyri" and the like. As for Rus', Arab and Byzantine writers of the 10th century distinguish it as a special tribe from the Slavs, over whom it dominated, and Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, in the list of the Dnieper rapids, clearly distinguishes their Slavic and Russian names as words belonging to very special languages.

Education of the military-industrial class in the cities

These Scandinavian Varangians became part of the military-industrial class, which began to take shape in the 9th century in the large trading cities of Rus' under the influence of external dangers. The Varangians came to us with different goals and with a different physiognomy, not the one that the dans wore in the West, where the dan was a pirate, a coastal robber. In Rus', a Varangian is predominantly an armed merchant going to Rus' in order to get further to rich Byzantium, there to serve the emperor profitably, to trade with profits, and sometimes to rob a rich Greek, if the opportunity arises. This character of our Varangians is indicated by traces in the language and in ancient tradition.

In the regional Russian lexicon, a Varangian is a peddler, a petty trader, and Varangian means to engage in petty bargaining. It is curious that when a non-trading armed Varangian needed to hide his identity, he pretended to be a merchant coming from Rus' or to Rus': this was the guise that inspired the most confidence, the most familiar, to which everyone took a closer look. It is known how Oleg deceived his fellow countrymen Askold and Dir in order to lure them out of Kyiv. He sent to tell them: “I am a merchant, we are going to Greece from Oleg and Prince Igor: come to us, your fellow countrymen.”

The excellent Scandinavian saga of St. Olaf, full of historical features, tells how this Scandinavian hero, who long and diligently served the Russian king Valdamar, that is, St. Vladimir, returning home with his retinue on ships, was carried by a storm to Pomerania, into the domain of the dowager princess Geira Burislavna and, not wanting to reveal his title, he passed himself off as a Gardian merchant, that is, a Russian. Settling in the large trading cities of Rus', the Varangians met here a class of population that was socially related to them and needed them, the class of armed merchants, and became part of it, entering into a trading partnership with the natives or being hired for good food to protect Russian trade routes and trading people, that is, to escort Russian trade caravans.

Cities and surrounding population

As soon as such a class was formed from native and alien elements in large trading cities and they turned into armed centers, their attitude towards the surrounding population had to change. When the Khozar yoke began to waver, these cities among the tribes that paid tribute to the Khozars became independent. The Tale of Bygone Years does not remember how the glades were freed from the Khozar yoke. She says that Askold and Dir, having approached Kiev along the Dnieper and learned that this town was paying tribute to the Khazars, remained in it and, having recruited many Varangians, began to own the land of the glades. Apparently, this marked the end of Khazar rule in Kyiv.

It is unknown how Kyiv and other cities were governed under the Khazars; but it can be seen that, having taken the protection of the trade movement into their own hands, they soon subjugated their trading districts. This political subordination of trading areas to industrial centers, now armed, apparently began even before the conscription of the princes, that is, before the half of the 9th century. The story of the beginning of the Russian land, telling about the first princes, reveals an interesting fact: behind a large city comes its district, a whole tribe or part of it. Oleg, having set off from Novgorod to the south after the death of Rurik, took Smolensk and installed his governor in it: because of this, without further struggle, the Smolensk Krivichi began to recognize Oleg’s power.

Oleg occupied Kyiv, and the Kyiv glades as a result also recognized his power. Thus, entire districts are dependent on their main cities, and this dependence appears to have been established. besides and before the princes. It's hard to say how it was installed. Perhaps the trading districts voluntarily submitted to the cities as fortified shelters, under the pressure of external danger; it is even more likely that with the help of the armed class accumulated in the trading cities, the latter took possession of their trading districts by force; It could be both in different places.

Education of urban areas

Be that as it may, in the unclear news of our Tale, the first local political form formed in Rus' around the middle of the 9th century is indicated - an urban region, that is, a trading district governed by a fortified city, which at the same time served as an industrial center for this district. These regions were called by the names of cities. When the Principality of Kiev was formed, which absorbed the tribes of the Eastern Slavs, these ancient city regions - Kiev, Chernigov, Smolensk and others, previously independent, became part of it as its administrative districts, serving as ready-made units of the regional division established in Rus' under the first Kyiv princes by the half of the 11th century.

The Ancient Tale of the Beginning of Rus' divides the Eastern Slavs into several tribes and quite accurately indicates their placement. Maybe the regions of the Kyiv principality of the 10th - 11th centuries were politically united tribes of Polans, northerners and others, and not industrial districts of the ancient trading cities of Rus'? Analysis of the ethnographic composition of ancient urban areas gives a negative answer to this question. If these regions were of tribal origin, formed from tribal ties, without the participation of economic interests, each tribe would form a special region or, in other words, each region would be composed of one tribe. But this was not the case: there was not a single region that consisted of only one and, moreover, entire tribe.

Most regions were made up of different tribes or parts thereof; in other regions, broken parts of other tribes joined one integral tribe. Thus, the Novgorod region consisted of the Ilmen Slavs with a branch of the Krivichi, the center of which was the town of Izborsk. The Chernigov region included the northern half of the northerners with part of the Radimichi and the whole Vyatichi tribe, and the Pereyaslav region included the southern half of the northerners. The Kiev region consisted of all the glades, almost all the Drevlyans and the southern part of the Dregovichi with the city of Turov on Pripyat. The northern part of the Dregovichi with the city of Minsk was torn off by the western branch of the Krivichi and became part of the Polotsk region. The Smolensk region was made up of the eastern part of the Krivichi with the adjacent part of the Radimichi. Thus, the Ancient tribal division did not coincide with the city or regional division that was formed by the half of the 11th century. This means that the boundaries of urban areas were not delineated by the placement of tribes.

From the tribal composition of these regions it is not difficult to see what force pulled them together. If two large cities arose among a tribe, it was torn into two regions (Krivichi, northerners). If there was not even one such city among the tribe, it did not form a special region, but was part of the region of the alien city. We note at the same time that the emergence of a significant trading city among the tribe depended on the geographic location of the latter: such cities, which became the centers of the regions, arose among the population living along the main river trade lines of the Dnieper, Volkhov and Western Dvina. On the contrary, the tribes distant from these lines did not have their own significant trading cities and therefore did not form special regions, but became part of the regions of foreign trading cities. Thus, there are no large trading cities visible among the Drevlyans, Dregovichs, Radimichi and Vyatichi; There were no special areas of these tribes. This means that the force that pulled together all these regions was precisely the trading cities that arose along the main river routes of Russian trade and that did not exist among the tribes remote from them.

If we imagine the Eastern Slavs as they settled down in the second half of the 9th century, and compare this structure with their ancient tribal division, we will find eight Slavic tribes throughout the entire space from Ladoga to Kyiv. Four of them (Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi and Drevlyans) gradually, partly already under the first Kiev princes, and partly even before them, became part of the foreign tribal regions, and four other tribes (Ilmen Slavs, Krivichi, Northerners and Polyans) formed six independent city ​​regions, none of which, except Pereyaslavl, had an integral, single-tribal composition. Each of them absorbed, in addition to one dominant tribe or the dominant part of one tribe, also subordinate parts of other tribes that did not have their own large cities. These were the regions of Novgorod, Polotsk, Smolensk, Chernigov, Pereyaslav and Kiev.

So, large armed cities, which became rulers of the regions, arose precisely among those tribes that took the most active part in foreign trade. These cities subjugated the surrounding populations of their kind, for whom they had previously served as trading centers, and formed from them political unions, regions into which they drew, partly even before the appearance of the princes of Kiev, and partly under them, the neighboring settlements of foreign, cityless tribes.

Varangian principalities

The formation of this first political form in Rus' was accompanied in other places by the emergence of another, secondary and also local form, the Varangian principality. In those industrial centers where armed newcomers from overseas poured in with particular force, they easily abandoned their role as trading comrades or hired guards of trade routes and turned into rulers. At the head of these overseas newcomers, who made up military-industrial companies, were leaders who, with such a coup, received the status of military commanders of the cities they protected. Such leaders in the Scandinavian sagas are called konings or Vikings. Both of these terms passed into our language, receiving the Slavic-Russian forms of prince and knight. Other Slavs also have these words, who borrowed them from the Germanic tribes of Central Europe. They passed into our language from the Scandinavians and northern Germans who were closer to us in ancient times. The transformation of the Varangians from allies into rulers under favorable circumstances was accomplished quite simply.

There is a well-known story in the Primary Chronicle about how Vladimir, having defeated his Kyiv brother Yaropolk in 980, established himself in Kyiv with the help of the Varangians called from overseas. His overseas comrades, feeling their strength in the city they occupied, said to their hireling: “Prince, the city is ours, we took it; So we want to take a payback - an indemnity - from the townspeople - two hryvnias per person.” Vladimir only got away with these annoying mercenaries by cunning, escorting them to Constantinople. Thus, other armed cities with their regions, under certain circumstances, fell into the hands of overseas aliens and turned into the possessions of the Varangian horsemen. We meet several such Varangian principalities in Rus' in the 9th and 10th centuries. This is how they appeared in the second half of the 9th century in the north of the principality of Rurik in Novgorod, Sineusovo on White Lake, Truvorocho in Izborsk, Askoldovo in Kyiv.

In the 10th century, two other principalities of the same origin became known, Rogvolodovo in Polotsk and Turovo in Turov on Pripyat. Our ancient chronicle does not remember the time of the emergence of the last two principalities; their very existence is noted in it only in passing, by the way. From this we can conclude that such principalities appeared in other places in Rus', but disappeared without a trace. A similar phenomenon occurred at that time among the Slavs of the southern Baltic coast, where the Varangians from Scandinavia also penetrated. To an outside observer, such Varangian principalities seemed to be a matter of real conquest, although the founders of their Varangians usually appeared without a conquest goal, looking for booty, and not places for settlement.

The dispute between Normanists and anti-Normanists has been going on for more than two hundred years, constantly going beyond the scope of a purely scientific discussion. Many people find the very thought of it unbearable. that the Scandinavians played a certain role in the formation of Russian statehood.

Vasnetsov. "Calling of the Varangians"

In the history of the Russian Middle Ages, the Varangian, or Norman, question occupies a special place. It is inextricably linked with the question “How was the Old Russian state founded?”, which worries those who are interested in the past of their Fatherland. Outside academic circles, this problem is often reduced to a long-standing, or rather centuries-long, ongoing debate that broke out in the 18th century between Normanists (Gottlieb Bayer and Gerhard Miller) and anti-Normanists (Mikhail Lomonosov). German scientists attributed the honor of creating the Old Russian state to the Scandinavians (Normans), with which Lomonosov strongly disagreed. In pre-revolutionary historiography, the Normanists had an advantage; in Soviet times, anti-Normanism dominated, while Normanism flourished in foreign historical science. This, or something like this, is how the essence of the matter is seen by both students coming to the university from school, and those who are interested in Russian history non-professionally. However, the real picture is not so simple. It is inappropriate to talk about a single discussion between Normanists and anti-Normanists. There were two discussions, and the issues discussed in them were noticeably different.

HOW WE SEARCHED FOR THE HOMELAND OF THE VARYAGS

The first began in 1749 with the polemic between Lomonosov and Miller. Gerhard Miller (a scientist who did a lot for the development of Russian historical science, he was the first to study the history of Siberia, and also published “Russian History” by Vasily Tatishchev, which was not published during the author’s lifetime) presented his dissertation “On the origin of the name and people of Russia.” Before him, in 1735, an article concerning the problem of the formation of the Old Russian state was published in St. Petersburg in Latin by another historian of German origin who worked in Russia, Gottlieb Bayer; another of his works was published there posthumously, in 1741. From the point of view of a modern scientist, these works are methodologically imperfect, since in those days source studies, a discipline designed to verify the reliability of historical information, had not yet been developed. Sources were approached with unwavering trust, and the degree of this trust was directly dependent on the degree of antiquity of the source.

Both Bayer and Miller, who relied largely on his work, quite pedantically, in the spirit of German science, studied the evidence known at that time. Having discovered in the ancient Russian chronicle - the Tale of Bygone Years - that the founder of the dynasty of Russian princes Rurik and his entourage were Varangians, invited in 862 to reign “from across the sea” (undoubtedly the Baltic) by the Slavs and Finnish-speaking tribes of the north of Eastern Europe, they stood up faced with the problem: with which people, known from Western European sources, should these Varangians be identified? The solution lay on the surface: the Varangians are Scandinavians, or Normans (that is, “northern people,” as they were called in early medieval Europe).

The name ruRikr on a fragment of runestone U413 used to build Norrsunda Church, Uppland, Sweden.

What caused this identification? The fact is that just in the 9th century the Scandinavians developed the so-called “Viking movement”. We are talking about the migration process that engulfed the northern peoples (the ancestors of the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) from the end of the 8th century. Their squads regularly raided continental Europe. Often, following military attacks, the Vikings settled in one territory or another (as either conquerors or vassals of local rulers). The British Isles and the Frankish state (the territory of future France and Germany) suffered most from the Vikings. In England, the Normans conquered the northeastern part of the country for a long time. On the continent, they managed to settle at the mouth of the Seine, where the Duchy of Normandy was created as part of the kingdom of France. The Normans also came to power in southern Italy. In parallel with their expansion to the continent, the Scandinavians also explored the northern territories: they settled Iceland, southern Greenland, and around the year 1000 Norman sailors reached the coast of North America. The Viking Age ended in the middle of the 11th century, when the formation of the Scandinavian states was completed.

Thus, the Varangians were interpreted by Bayer and Miller as the same Norman Vikings, but operating in eastern Europe. This was also supported by the Scandinavian, in the opinion of these authors, sounding of the names of the first Russian princes - the founder of the dynasty Rurik, his successor Oleg (Helga), Rurik's son Igor (Ingvar) and Igor's wife Princess Olga (Helga). Since in the historiography of that time the emergence of a ruling dynasty was identified with the emergence of a state, Bayer and Miller quite logically came to the conclusion that the Old Russian state was founded by the Normans. Another circumstance spoke in favor of this: the Tale of Bygone Years directly states that the Varangians who came with Rurik were called Rus. It was, according to the chronicler, the same ethnonym as Svei (Swedes), Urmans (Normans, in this case Norwegians), Goths (inhabitants of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea) and Agnyans (English).

Chorikov "Rurik. Sineus and Truvor. 862."

The dispute between Normanists and anti-Normanists was not an abstract academic discussion; it also had political implications. The debate took place within the walls of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg, that is, on the land conquered by Peter I from the Swedes (descendants of the early medieval Normans) during the Northern War (1700-1721). The events of those years were in the memory of most of the participants in the discussion. Moreover, just six years before Miller’s clash with Lomonosov, another Russian-Swedish war (1741-1743), started by Sweden in order to regain the lost Baltic lands, ended.

Fragment of Ilya Glazunov’s painting “Grandchildren of Gostomysl: Rurik, Sineus and Truvor.” The author of the canvas is an anti-Normanist, as evidenced not only by the name of the canvas, but also by the Slavic fibula (clasp) on Rurik’s cloak
On the right is a true Varangian fibula from a mound near the village of Gnezdovo in the Smolensk region (10th century)

And this is the situation in which historians find themselves - foreigners by origin - who claim that Russian statehood was created by the ancestors of these same Swedes! This could not but cause protest. Lomonosov, an encyclopedist who had not previously been specifically involved in history (he would write his historical works later), criticized Miller’s work as “reprehensible to Russia.” At the same time, he had no doubt that the arrival of Rurik in Eastern Europe meant the formation of a state. But regarding the origin of the first Russian prince and his people, Lomonosov had a different opinion than Bayer and Miller: he argued that the Varangians were not Normans, but Western Slavs, inhabitants of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. The first round of the discussion ended in a peculiar way: after a debate at the Academy of Sciences, Miller’s work was recognized as erroneous, and its circulation was destroyed. But the debate continued and spilled over into the 19th century.

STATE ANTI-NORMANISM

Those who identified the Varangians with the Normans tried to support their opinion with new arguments, and their opponents multiplied versions about the non-Scandinavian origin of the Varangians: the latter were most often identified with the Western Slavs, but there were Finnish, Hungarian, Khazar and other versions. The main thing remained unchanged: the disputants had no doubt: it was the Varangians who came to Eastern Europe in 862 who founded the state in Rus'.
However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the discussion had practically died down due to the accumulation of scientific knowledge, especially in the field of archeology and linguistics. Archaeological excavations have shown that heavily armed warriors of Scandinavian origin were present on the territory of Rus' at the end of the 9th - 10th centuries. This coincided with the data from written sources, according to which the Varangians were the foreign warriors-combatants of the Russian princes.

Linguistic research has confirmed the Scandinavian origin of the names of Russian princes of the first half of the 10th century and many people in their circle mentioned in the chronicle and treaties between Oleg and Igor with Byzantium. From which, naturally, the conclusion followed that the bearers of these names were of Scandinavian origin, and not of some other origin. After all, if we assume that the Varangians were Slavs from the southern coast of the Baltic, then how to explain the fact that the names of the representatives of the top of the South Baltic Slavs (Obodrits and Lyutichs), mentioned in Western European sources, sound Slavic (Dragovit, Vyshan, Drazhko, Gostomysl, Mstivoy etc.), and the names of the Varangians active in Eastern Europe are in Scandinavian? Unless they made the fantastic assumption that the South Baltic Slavs in their homeland bore Slavic names, and when they came to their Eastern European brothers, for some reason they decided to “hide behind” Scandinavian pseudonyms.

It would seem that the discussion is over: Normanism has won. Indeed, in the 20th century there were few authors who argued that the Varangians were not Normans. Moreover, for the most part these were representatives of the Russian emigration. In Soviet historiography, those who did not consider the Varangians to be Normans were literally counted in a few. So where did the stable idea of ​​the dominance of anti-Normanism in the historical science of the Soviet period come from?

The fact is that the so-called anti-Normanism of Soviet historiography is a fundamentally different phenomenon than pre-revolutionary anti-Normanism. The main question of the discussion was posed differently: it was not the ethnic origin of the Varangians that was discussed, but their contribution to the creation of the Old Russian state. The thesis that it was decisive has been revised. The formation of a state began to be viewed as a long process, which required the maturation of prerequisites in society. This approach was already outlined in the pre-revolutionary decades (for example, by V.O. Klyuchevsky) and was finally consolidated with the establishment of Marxist methodology in Russian historical science. The state “appears where and when the division of society into classes appears” - this thesis of Lenin is very difficult to combine with the idea of ​​​​the introduction of statehood by an alien prince. Accordingly, the appearance of Rurik began to be interpreted only as an episode in the long history of the formation of statehood among the Eastern Slavs, an episode that led to the emergence of the princely dynasty ruling in Rus'. Soviet historians were anti-Normanists precisely in this sense: while recognizing that the Varangians were Normans, they did not recognize their decisive role in the formation of the Old Russian state, which was their difference from both the Normanists and the anti-Normanists of the century before last.

Rurik at the Monument "Millennium of Russia"

The idea that the role of the Varangians in the formation of the state in Rus' was insignificant was fully established by the end of the 1930s. And here, too, there was some ideology. Normanism began to be viewed as a bourgeois theory put forward with the aim of proving the fundamental inability of the Slavs to create their own statehood. Here, a certain role was also played by the fact that the legend of Rurik’s calling was adopted by Nazi propaganda: the statements of Hitler and Himmler about the inability of the Slavic race to independent political life, about the decisive influence on it of the Germans, whose northern branch are the Scandinavians, became famous. After the victory over Nazi Germany, this factor disappeared, but the outbreak of the Cold War gave rise to a new ideologeme: Normanism began to be seen as a distortion and belittlement of the past of the country, which was the first to take the path of forming a new, communist social formation.

THE CIRCLE IS CLOSED

It would seem that at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century the Varangian question should have finally gotten rid of its ideological trail. But instead, something else is observed - the activation of extreme points of view. On the one hand, both here and abroad, works appear in which the formation of the Old Russian state is understood exclusively as the activity of the Normans in Eastern Europe, and the participation of the Slavs in this process is practically ignored. Such an approach, in essence, is ignoring the scientific results achieved by modern Slavic studies, from which it follows that on the Slavic lands in the 6th-8th centuries, stable territorial-political (and not tribal, as was previously believed) formations took shape, on the basis of which the processes took place formation of states.

On the other hand, the point of view is being revived that the Varangians were not Scandinavians. And this despite the fact that during the 20th century, significant material (primarily archaeological) was accumulated, leaving no doubt to the contrary. On the territory of Rus', numerous burials of the late 9th - 10th centuries were found in which people from Scandinavia were buried (this is evidenced by the similarity of the funeral rites and objects with what excavations in the Scandinavian countries themselves provide). They were found in the north of Rus' (Novgorod-Ladoga region), and on the Middle Dnieper (Smolensk region), and in the Middle Dnieper region (Kyiv and Chernigov region), that is, where the main centers of the emerging state were located. In terms of their social status, these were mainly noble warriors-combatants. In order to deny the Scandinavian origin of the chronicled Varangians (and the chronicles call the Varangians precisely warriors of foreign origin), it is necessary, therefore, to admit the incredible: about the warriors who came from Scandinavia, of whom archaeological evidence remains in Eastern Europe, written sources were silent, and vice versa, those foreign the warriors, who are mentioned in the chronicles under the name of the Varangians, for some reason did not leave material traces.

In part, this return to the old anti-Normanism is a reaction to the activation of those who represent the Normans as the only state-forming force in Eastern Europe. In fact, supporters of both extreme points of view, instead of solving the real problem - what is the role of non-Slavic elements in the genesis of ancient Russian statehood - proclaim positions that have long been refuted by science. At the same time, both of them, despite the polarity of their positions, agree on one thing - statehood was brought to the Eastern Slavs from the outside.
What do historical sources say about the role of the Varangians in the emergence of the state of Rus'?

VARYAZH CONTRIBUTION

The oldest Russian chronicles - the so-called Initial Code, written at the end of the 11th century (its text was brought to us by the Novgorod First Chronicle), and the Tale of Bygone Years, published at the beginning of the 12th century - indicate that approximately 1200 years ago in the most developed East Slavic communities (among the Slovenes in Novgorod and among the Polyans in Kiev), princes of Varangian origin came to power: Rurik in Novgorod, Askold and Dir in Kyiv. Rurik was called to reign by the Slovenians, Krivichi and the Finnish-speaking community (according to the Initial Code - Merey, according to the Tale of Bygone Years - Chud), after these peoples expelled the Varangians, who took tribute from them. Then (according to the Tale of Bygone Years - in 882), Rurik's successor Oleg (according to the Initial Code - Rurik's son Igor, under whom Oleg was a governor) captured Kiev and united the northern and southern political entities under a single authority, making Kyiv his capital.

Chronicle stories are more than two centuries distant from the events described, and much of what they report is clearly based on legends and oral traditions. Therefore, a natural question arises: how reliable is the information conveyed by the chronicles? To answer it, it is necessary to involve both foreign sources and archaeological data.

Archaeologically, the presence of people from Scandinavia in the north of Eastern Europe since the 9th century is clearly visible, and in the 10th century - in the south, in the Middle Dnieper region. In turn, the earliest written information about a political entity called Rus' turns out to be in a certain way connected with the Scandinavians. Thus, the ambassadors of the ruler of the “people of Ros”, who, according to the so-called Vertinsky annals, arrived at the court of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious in 839, were “Sveons” (Swedes). In a letter of 871 from the Frankish Emperor Louis II to the Byzantine Emperor Vasily, the ruler of Rus' is called “Kagan of the Normans,” which indicates his Scandinavian origin. Thus, there is no sufficient reason to doubt the chronicle news, according to which around the middle of the 9th century, Norman rulers came to power in the two most developed East Slavic communities - the Polans in Kyiv and the Slovenes in Novgorod.

From Western sources of the mid-9th century - Frankish annals - we know about the Danish king (prince) Rurik - the namesake of Rurik from Russian chronicles. The version of the identity of Rorik and Rurik, shared by many researchers (although there are those who completely reject it), remains the most probable. It allows us to satisfactorily explain why the Slovenes, Krivichi and Chud (or Merya), having expelled the Varangians, turn in search of a prince not to anyone, but to the Varangians. The fact is that tribute was undoubtedly collected from the peoples of the north of Eastern Europe by their closest neighbors - the Swedish Vikings, so it was natural to call the leader of the “other” Vikings - the Danish - to reign. Inviting a prince from the outside, that is, a person who did not participate in local conflicts between the Slovenes, Krivichi and their Finnish-speaking neighbors, was a quite common action (this practice was common in the Middle Ages). It says a lot about the level of local society: since it expelled the Swedish Vikings and came to an agreement on inviting a new ruler, it clearly stood at a fairly high level of political development. Among the Slovenes, apparently, there were people from the Slavobodrits, who lived on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea next to the Danes, and they could have initiated Rurik’s invitation.
Thus, the significant role of the Normans during the formation of Rus' is beyond doubt: the ancient Russian princely dynasty, like a significant part of the nobility, was of Scandinavian origin. But is there any reason to talk about the Norman influence on the pace and nature of the formation of Russian statehood? Here, first of all, one should compare the processes of state formation in Rus' and among the Western Slavs (who did not experience Norman influence) and see if there were any specific features in the formation of the Old Russian state that may be associated with the influence of the Varangians.

Wall painting in the Chamber of Facets, 16th century (restored in the 19th century). In Muscovy it was believed that Rurik was a descendant of the Roman Emperor Augustus, and Russia, accordingly, was the direct political heir of the Roman Empire

The West Slavic state of Great Moravia arose in the first half of the 9th century (at the beginning of the 10th century it would perish as a result of the Hungarian invasion). Other West Slavic states that retained their independence - the Czech Republic and Poland - arose simultaneously with Russia, during the 9th-10th centuries. Consequently, there is no basis to assert that the Normans ensured the acceleration, in comparison with their Slavic neighbors, of the process of state formation in Rus'. The characteristic features of this process were also similar. And in Rus', and in Moravia, and in the Czech Republic, and in Poland, one of the pre-state communities became the core of the state territory (in Rus' - the Polyana, in Moravia - the Moravians, in the Czech Republic - the Czechs, in Poland - the Gniezno Polyana), and the neighboring ones gradually fell into depending on it (in Scandinavia, practically every pre-state community grew its own state entity).

In all these countries, the main state-forming force was the princely squad, while in Scandinavia, in addition to the squads of the kings, a significant role was played by the clan nobility - the chiefs. Everywhere (except Moravia) there is a replacement of old fortified settlements (towns) with new ones that served as a support for state power. Thus, there are no traces of the influence of the Normans on the nature of state formation. The reason here is that the Scandinavians were at the same level of political and social development as the Slavs (they also formed states in the 9th-10th centuries), and were relatively easily included in the processes taking place in the East Slavic lands. In principle, statehood can be introduced from the outside, but under one condition: foreigners must be at a significantly higher level of development than the local population. Meanwhile, in Sweden, where supporters of the extreme point of view who deny its Slavic roots derive the origins of ancient Russian statehood, the state was formed only at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century (and according to another version - even in the 12th century), that is, later than in Rus' .

Nevertheless, in the way the Old Russian state was formed, there is one feature that can be associated to a certain extent with the activities of the Varangians, but which has nothing to do with the specifics of the formation of the Scandinavian states. We are talking about the unification of all Eastern Slavs in one state. This is usually taken for granted. Meanwhile, this circumstance is unique: neither the Western nor the Southern Slavs united in one state - both of them formed several state entities (Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Carantania, Great Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland). And in Rus' all the East Slavic tribes were united around a single center. The formation of such a unified state was probably largely due to the presence of a powerful power core - the squad of the first Russian Viking princes.

It provided the Kyiv princes with a noticeable military superiority over other East Slavic princes. Without this factor, most likely, the Eastern Slavs would have developed several state formations by the 10th century: at least two (among the Polyans with their capital in Kiev and among the Slovenes and their neighbors with their capital in Novgorod), and maybe more.

It should also be borne in mind that Rurik’s squad consisted (if his identification with the Danish Rurik is correct) of people who were well acquainted with the most developed Western European state at that time - the Frankish one. The fact is that Rorik for many years (almost four decades, from the late 830s to the 870s) was a fief of the Frankish emperors and kings, descendants of Charlemagne, and owned Friesland (the territory of modern Holland). He and his entourage (a significant part of whom were natives not of Denmark, but of the Frankish Empire), unlike most other Normans of that era, had to have the skills of public administration. Perhaps this played a role in the development of the vast territory of Eastern Europe by Rurik’s successors. But this kind of influence on the formation of ancient Russian statehood should rather be considered not Scandinavian, but Frankish, only just transferred by the Scandinavians.

The Scandinavian elite quickly assimilated into the Slavic environment. Already the representative of the third generation of princes - Svyatoslav (son of Igor) - had a Slavic name, but the names of the ruling dynasties were of a sacred nature, and the newcomer dynasties usually resisted assimilation for a long time. For example, among representatives of the Turkic dynasty that ruled the Bulgarian kingdom from the end of the 7th century, Slavic names appeared only in the middle of the 9th century. In the middle of the 10th century, the Emperor of Byzantium, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, describing in his treatise “On the Administration of the Empire” a tour of the subject territories by the warriors of the Kyiv prince in order to collect tribute, calls this event the Slavic word tyAlZoCha - “polyudye”. The common Scandinavian language of that time had its own term for this kind of detour - “weizla”. However, Konstantin uses the Slavic term. In the same story there is also (in the Greek translation) the Slavic verb “to feed”: the warriors leaving Kiev, during the winter, “feed,” according to the author, in the territories of the subordinate Slavic communities (“Slavini”). Obviously, by the middle of the 10th century, the elite layer of Rus' was already using mainly the Slavic language.

Thus, in the 8th-9th centuries, the processes of state formation were actively underway among the Eastern Slavs, and statehood would have developed without the participation of the Normans. Nevertheless, the “Varangian contribution” to this process cannot be underestimated. It was thanks to the Varangians (and not just any Vikings, but Rurik and his heirs with their squads) that the East Slavic lands were united together.

"Around the World" October 2011

The Varangians are an ancient Scandinavian tribe. In Russian chronicles, the beginning of statehood in Rus' is associated with the Varangians.

The word "Rus" appeared among the Eastern Slavs with the arrival here of the Varangians from Scandinavia, who belonged to the Rus tribe. According to legend, the first princes came from this tribe: Rurik, Truvor and Sineus, who laid the foundation for the Russian state. At first, the word “Rus” was used to refer to representatives of the upper stratum of Russian society, mainly the princely squad, consisting of the same Varangians, as well as Varangian merchants, who by that time had dispersed to many cities and villages of the Eastern Slavs. Later, the word Rus or Russian land acquired official character as the geographical name of the territory where Slavic tribes lived mixed with the alien Varangians. For the first time in this meaning it appears in the agreement, which was signed by Prince Igor in 945. Danilevsky I.N. Ancient Rus' through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants (IX-XII centuries). / I.N. Danilevsky. Ed. 2nd. - M.: Aspect Press, 2001. - Lecture 4. P.225-227

In 862, the Novgorod Slavs and Krivichi, tired of internal strife and unrest, decided to find a new prince in foreign lands. They went overseas to their neighbors, the Varangians, and told them: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us.” Gumilev L.N. Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe. - M.: Iris-press, 2005. - P.156.

And three brothers volunteered with their clans and squad. The eldest of the brothers, Rurik, sat down to reign in Novgorod, the other - Sineus - in Beloozero, and the third - Truvor - in Izborsk (near Pskov).

After the death of Sineus and Truvor in 864, Rurik remained the sovereign ruler of the Novgorod land and founded a dynasty of princes, who then ruled all of Russia.

This is, of course, a legend. It is clear to historians that chroniclers’ stories about the most ancient facts of the past must be approached with caution: here truth may be accompanied by fiction. Therefore, in order to establish the truth, other sources should be involved.

Some historians continue to connect the formation of the ancient Russian state with the calling of the Varangians and propose to consider this in the general context of European history. There are reasons for this: the period from the end of the 8th to the 11th centuries was the time of the Vikings in Europe, the Scandinavian campaigns in Western Europe, when they captured the entire continent, even the southern tip (in the 11th century the Scandinavians formed the Norman Kingdom in Sicily). Although Western Europe had more developed forms of social and political life than the Scandinavians, the military democracy of the Vikings became an organizing element, a catalyst for the emergence of European statehood. The Vikings stimulated the process of state formation in Western Europe.

In the East Slavic lands, the process of state formation was similar to the European one, although it had its own characteristics. The ancient Russian lands were under pressure from Khazaria. There was a threat of loss of independence not only by Southern Russia (it paid tribute), but also by Northern Russia. Therefore, the calling of the Varangian squads to protect borders is natural. At the same time, the long-established point of view is affirmed that the Varangians are Normans.

In this case, the name Rus' is derived from the Finnish Ruotsi (Sweden, Swedes), which in turn comes from the Swedish - oarsmen, rowing. Note that Sweden has long recognized Rurik as “one of its own”; a monument to him was erected not far from Stockholm.

This position has many opponents. The question is raised: are the Varangians really Scandinavians, or, more specifically, Normans and Swedes? Researchers have long noticed that the concept of “Rus” is found in documents, including in the “Tale of Bygone Years,” regardless of the episode with the calling of the Varangians. The word "Rus" was common in Europe. Rugi, Rus - this name is often found in the Baltic states (Rügen Island), and in Southern Germany (Reisland existed on the border of Saxony and Thuringia until 1924), and in the territories along the Danube. Whether the Rus were a Slavic tribe or not, there is no reason to say definitely; obviously, the Rus lived next to the Drevlyans, Polyans and other East Slavic tribes, and were of European origin. In the Middle Ages, any mercenary squads were called Varangians, regardless of where they came from. One of these squads were the Rus, invited by the Slavs. Some researchers are inclined to believe that the Varangians are a tribe from the shores of the Southern Baltic. The closeness of the Baltic people and the Slavs, who lived nearby and had much in common, is especially emphasized. L.N. Gumilyov believes that the Rus are more likely a tribe of southern Germans. Gumilev L.N. Ancient Rus' and the Great Steppe. - M.: Iris-press, 2005. - P.254 However, there are practically no exact reasons to assert that the Varangians are Balts or Celts (Germans).

In the last two or three years, allegations have emerged that the Rus were a tribe of Western Slavs who had lived in the Novgorod region since ancient times, and it was the squad of Western Slavs who were invited by the Novgorodians.

This dispute is unlikely to be resolved. The range of sources is narrow; we are talking about hypotheses.

Of course, the very fact of attracting the Varangian princes and their squads to the service of the Slavic princes is beyond doubt. The invited leaders of the Rurik mercenary army later, obviously, acquired the functions of arbiters, possibly civil power.

Another point of view of the anti-Normanists - the denial of the role of the Scandinavians in political processes - contradicts the known facts. The mixing of clans and tribes, overcoming former isolation, the establishment of regular relations with near and distant neighbors, the ethnic unification of North Russian and South Russian tribes - all these are characteristic features of the advancement of Slavic society towards the state. Developing similarly to Western Europe, Rus' simultaneously approached the threshold of the formation of a large early medieval state. And the Vikings, as in Western Europe, stimulated this process.

The debate revolves around who the legendary Rurik was and where the word Rus originally came from. There is no reason to expand the scope of the dispute and transfer it to the process of the emergence of the Old Russian state. The formation of statehood is a long process that develops only at a certain stage of development and is associated with the construction of an appropriate social structure. As already noted, this process unfolded over three centuries and a single episode could not determine either its course or outcome.