MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

URAL STATE UNIVERSITY IM. A. M. GORKY.

Department of Archeology, Ethnology and Special Historical Disciplines.

HISTORICAL FACULTY

Course work

FORMATION OF THE OLD RUSSIAN ETHNOS

Student, c. I-202

Kolmakov Roman Petrovich

scientific adviser

Minenko Nina Adamovna

Yekaterinburg 2007

Introduction

Chapter 1. Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs

Chapter 2. Eastern Slavs within the Old Russian State

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Russia occupies an important place in world history and culture. Now it is difficult to imagine world development without Peter I, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Zhukov. But the history of the country cannot be considered without the history of the people. And the Russian people, or rather the Old Russian people, certainly played a major role in the formation of the Russian state. The ancient Russian ethnos played an equally important role in the formation of the Belarusian and Ukrainian people.

The purpose of this work is to consider the issue of the emergence of the Old Russian ethnos, to trace the processes of ethnogenesis. For the study of Old Russian unity, the data of linguistics and archeology are the most important. The works of linguists allow us to talk about the Old Russian linguistic unity. Such a statement does not reject dialectal diversity. Unfortunately, the picture of the dialect division of the Old Russian linguistic community cannot be reconstructed from written sources. Thanks to the finds of birch bark letters, only the Old Novgorod dialect is quite definitely characterized. The use of archeological data in the study of the origins and evolution of the Old Russian ethnos, taking into account all the results obtained so far by other sciences, seems to be very promising. Archaeological materials testify to the ethnocultural unity of the Old Russian population, which is manifested in the unity of urban life and life, in the commonality of funeral rituals and everyday culture of the rural population, in the convergence of life and life of the city and the countryside, and most importantly, in the same trends of cultural development. In this paper, the processes of formation of the Old Russian ethnos in the Old Russian state of the 9th - 11th centuries will be considered.

Work on this topic has been going on for a long time. A number of Russian and foreign authors addressed this problem. And I must say that sometimes their conclusions were diametrically opposed. Ancient Russia was primarily an ethnic territory. It was a vast region of the East European Plain, inhabited by the Slavs, who originally spoke a single common Slavic (proto-Slavic) language. In the 10th-11th centuries, the Old Russian territory covered all the lands developed by that time by the Eastern Slavs, including those in which they lived interspersed with the remnants of the local Finnish-speaking, Leto-Lithuanian and Western Baltic populations. There is no doubt that already in the first half of the 11th century, the ethnonym of the East Slavic ethno-linguistic community was "Rus". In the Tale of Bygone Years, Russia is an ethnic community that included the entire Slavic population of the East European Plain. One of the criteria for distinguishing Rus is linguistic: all the tribes of Eastern Europe have one language - Russian. At the same time, Ancient Russia was also a state entity. The territory of the state at the end of the 10th - 11th centuries basically corresponded to the ethno-linguistic one, and the ethnonym Rus for the Eastern Slavs in the 10th - 13th centuries was at the same time a polytonym.

The Old Russian ethnos existed within the framework of the Old Russian state in the 10th-13th centuries.

Of the Russian researchers, who was the first to address this topic can rightfully be called Lomonosov. In the 18th century, when German scientists began to make attempts to write the initial Russian history, and the first conclusions about the Russian people were made, Lomonosov then presented his arguments in which he opposed the conclusions of German scientists. But still, Lomonosov became famous not in the historical field.

Known for the work of Boris Florya. In particular, he entered into a dispute with Academician Sedov about the chronological framework for the formation of the Old Russian ethnos, attributing its appearance to the Middle Ages. Boris Florya, based on written sources, argued that the Old Russian ethnos was finally formed only by the 13th century.

Sedov did not agree with him, who, relying on archeological data, attributed the time of the appearance of the Old Russian ethnos to the 9th - 11th centuries. Sedov, on the basis of archaeological data, gives a broad picture of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, and the formation of the Old Russian ethnos on their basis.

The source base is extremely poorly represented. There are few written sources of Ancient Russia left. Frequent fires, invasions of nomads, internecine warfare and other disasters left little hope for the preservation of these sources. However, there are still notes by foreign authors who talk about Russia.

Arab writers and travelers Ibn Fadlan and Ibn Ruste tell about the period of the initial stage of the formation of the ancient Russian state, and also talk about Russian merchants in the east. Their works are extremely important, as they reveal a picture of Russian life in the 10th century.

Russian sources include the Tale of Bygone Years, which, however, at times conflicts with some data of foreign authors.

Chapter 1. Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs

The ancestors of the Slavs have long lived in Central and Eastern Europe. Archaeologists believe that the Slavic tribes can be traced according to excavations from the middle of the second millennium BC. The ancestors of the Slavs (in the scientific literature they are called Proto-Slavs) are supposedly found among the tribes that inhabited the basin of the Odra, Vistula and Dnieper. Slavic tribes appeared in the Danube basin and in the Balkans only at the beginning of our era.

Soviet historical science recognized that the formation and development of the Slavic tribes took place on the territory of Central and Eastern Europe. By origin, the Eastern Slavs are closely related to the Western and Southern Slavs. All these three groups of kindred peoples had one root.

At the beginning of our era, the Slavic tribes were known under the name of Venets, or Wends. Venedi, or "vento", without a doubt - the ancient self-name of the Slavs. The words of this root (which in ancient times included the nasal sound "e", which later became pronounced as "I") have been preserved for a number of centuries, in some places to the present day. The later name of the large Slavic tribal union "Vyatichi" goes back to this common ancient ethnonym. The medieval German name for the Slavic regions is Wenland, and the modern Finnish name for Russia is Vana. The ethnonym "Wends", it must be assumed, goes back to the ancient European community. From it came the Venets of the Northern Adriatic, as well as the Celtic tribe of the Venets of Brittany, conquered by Caesar during campaigns in Gaul in the 50s of the 1st century. BC e., and Venedi (Veneti) - Slavs. For the first time, Wends (Slavs) are found in the encyclopedic work "Natural History" written by Plin the Elder (23/24-79 AD). In the section on the geographical description of Europe, he reports that Eningia (some region of Europe, the correspondence of which is not on the maps) “is inhabited up to the Visula River by Sarmatians, Wends, Skirs ...” . Skiry - a tribe of Germans, localized somewhere north of the Carpathians. Obviously, their neighbors (as well as the Sarmatians) were the Wends.

Somewhat more specifically, the place of residence of the Wends is noted in the work of the Greek geographer and astronomer Ptolemy "Geographical Guide". The scientist names the Wends among the "big peoples" of Sarmatia and definitely connects the places of their settlements with the Vistula basin. Ptolemy names the Galinds and Sudins as the eastern neighbors of the Wends - these are quite well-known Western Baltic tribes localized in the interfluve of the Vistula and the Neman. On a Roman geographical map of the 3rd century. n. e., known in the historical literature as the "Peutinger Tables", the Wends-Sarmatians are indicated south of the Baltic Sea and north of the Carpathians.

There is reason to believe that by the middle of the 1st millennium AD. refers to the division of the Slavic tribes into two parts - northern and southern. The writers of the 6th century - Jordan, Procopius and Mauritius - mention the southern Slavs - Sclavens and Antes, emphasizing, however, that these are tribes related to each other and to the Wends. So, Jordan writes: “... Starting from the deposit of the Vistula (Vistula) River, a populous tribe of Venets settled down in the boundless spaces. Although their names are now changing according to different clans and localities, they are still mainly called Slavs and Ants. Etymologically, both of these names go back to the ancient common self-name of Venedi, or Vento. The Antes are repeatedly mentioned in the historical works of the 6th-7th centuries. According to Jordanes, the Antes inhabited the regions between the Dniester and the Dnieper. Using the writings of his predecessors, this historian also covers earlier events when the Antes were at enmity with the Goths. At first, the Antes managed to repel the attack of the Gothic army, but after a while the Gothic king Vinitary still defeated the Antes and executed their prince God and 70 elders.

The main direction of Slavic colonization in the first half of the 1st millennium AD. was northwest. The settlement of the Slavs in the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper and Western Dvina, occupied mainly by Finno-Ugric tribes, apparently led to some mixing of the Slavs with the Finno-Ugric peoples, which was also reflected in the nature of cultural monuments.

After the fall of the Scythian state and the weakening of the Sarmatians, Slavic settlements also moved to the south, where a population belonging to various tribes lived on the territory of a vast area from the banks of the Danube to the middle Dnieper.

Slavic settlements of the middle and second half of the 1st millennium AD in the south, in the steppe and forest-steppe zone, they were mainly open villages of farmers with adobe dwellings, semi-dugouts with stone stoves. There were also small fortified "towns", where, along with agricultural implements, the remains of metallurgical production were found (for example, crucibles for melting non-ferrous metals). Burials at that time were carried out, as before, by burning a corpse, but along with barrowless burial grounds, there were also burials of ashes under barrows, and in the 9th - 10th centuries. the rite of burial by cadaverization is spreading more and more.

In the VI - VII centuries. AD Slavic tribes in the north and north-west occupied the entire eastern and central parts of modern Belarus, previously inhabited by Letto-Lithuanian tribes, and new large areas in the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Volga. In the northeast, they also advanced along the Lovat to Lake Ilmen and further up to Ladoga.

In the same period, another wave of Slavic colonization is heading south. After a stubborn struggle with Byzantium, the Slavs managed to occupy the right bank of the Danube and settle in the vast territories of the Balkan Peninsula. Apparently by the second half of the 1st millennium AD. refers to the division of the Slavs into eastern, western and southern, which has survived to this day.

In the middle and second half of the 1st millennium AD. the socio-economic development of the Slavs reached a level at which their political organization outgrew the limits of the tribe. In the struggle against Byzantium, with the invasion of the Avars and other opponents, alliances of tribes were formed, often representing a large military force and usually receiving names according to the main of the tribes that were part of this alliance. Written sources contain information, for example, about an alliance that united the Duleb-Volyn tribes (VI century), about the alliance of the Carpathian tribes of Croats - Czech, Vislan and White (VI-VII centuries), about the Serbo-Lusatian alliance (VII century BC). ). Apparently, the Russ (or Ross) were such a union of tribes. Researchers associate this name itself with the name of the river Ros, where the dews lived, with their main city, Rodnya, and with the cult of the god Rod, which preceded the cult of Perun. Back in the VI century. Jordan mentions "Rosomon", which, according to B. A. Rybakov, may mean "people of the Ros tribe". Until the end of the 9th century, sources mention Ross, or Russ, and from the 10th century the name "Rus", "Russian" already prevails. The territory of the Rus in the VI - VIII centuries. there was, apparently, a forest-steppe region of the middle Dnieper region, which for a long time was called by the people proper Rus even when this name spread to the entire East Slavic state.

Some archaeological sites suggest the existence of other East Slavic tribal unions. Various types of mounds - family burials with corpses - belonged, according to most researchers, to various unions of tribes. The so-called "long mounds" - rampart-shaped burial mounds up to 50 meters long - are common south of Lake Peipus and in the upper reaches of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga, that is, in the territory of the Krivichi. It can be thought that the tribes that left these mounds (both Slavs and Leto-Lithuanian) were part of a once extensive union, which was headed by the Krivichi. High round mounds - “hills”, common along the Volkhov and Msta rivers (Priilmenye up to Sheksna), belong, in all likelihood, to an alliance of tribes led by the Slavs. Large mounds of the 6th-10th centuries, hiding a whole palisade in the embankment, and a rough box with urns containing the ashes of the dead, could belong to the Vyatichi people. These mounds are found in the upper reaches of the Don and in the middle reaches of the Oka. It is possible that the common features found in the later monuments of the Radimichi (who lived along the Sozha River) and the Vyatichi are explained by the existence in antiquity of the Radimich-Vyatichi union of tribes, which could partially include northerners who lived on the banks of the Desna, Seim, Sula and Worksla. After all, it is not for nothing that later the Tale of Bygone Years tells us the legend about the origin of the Vyatichi and Radimichi from two brothers.

In the south, in the interfluve of the Dniester and the Danube, from the second half, VI - early VII century. there are Slavic settlements that belonged to the tribal union of Tivertsy.

To the north and northeast up to Lake Ladoga, in a remote forest region inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes, the Krivichi and Slovenes at that time penetrated up the large rivers and their tributaries.

To the south and southeast, to the Black Sea steppes, the Slavic tribes advanced in an unceasing struggle against the nomads. The process of promotion, which began as early as the 6th-7th centuries, proceeded with varying degrees of success. Slavs to the X century. reached the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov. The basis of the later Tmutarakan principality, in all likelihood, was the Slavic population, which penetrated into these places in a much earlier period.

In the middle of the tenth millennium, the main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture, the development of which, however, was not the same in the south, in the steppe and forest-steppe zones and in the forests of the north. In the south, plow farming has had centuries-old traditions. The finds of the iron parts of the plow (more precisely, the ral) here date back to the 2nd, 3rd and 5th centuries. The developed agricultural economy of the Eastern Slavs of the steppe zone had a considerable influence on their neighbors in the second half of the 10th millennium. This explains, for example, the existence of the Slavic names of many agricultural implements among the Moldavians until now: plow, secure (axe - ax), shovel, tesle (adze) and others.

In the forest belt, only by the end of the 10th millennium, arable farming became the dominant form of economy. The oldest iron opener in these places was found in Staraya Ladoga in layers dating back to the 8th century. Arable agriculture, both plow and ploughshare, already required the use of the draft power of livestock (horses, oxen) and fertilization of the land. Therefore, along with agriculture, cattle breeding played an important role. Fishing and hunting were important secondary occupations. The widespread transition of the East Slavic captives to arable farming as the main occupation was accompanied by serious changes in their social system. Arable farming did not require the joint work of large tribal groups. In the VIII - X centuries. in the steppe in the forest-steppe belts of the south of the European part of Russia, there were settlements of the so-called Roman-Borshchi culture, which researchers consider characteristic of the neighboring community. Among them were small villages fortified by a rampart, consisting of 20-30 houses, ground or several deepened into the ground, and large villages in which only the central part was fortified, and most of the houses (up to 250 in total) were outside it. No more than 70 - 80 people lived in small settlements; in large villages - sometimes over a thousand inhabitants. Each dwelling (16 - 22 sq.m. with a separate stove and closet) had its own outbuildings (barn, cellars, various kinds of sheds) and belonged to one family. In some places (for example, on the settlement of Blagoveshchenskaya Gora), larger buildings were discovered, possibly serving as meetings of members of the neighboring community - bratchin, which, according to B. A. Rybakov, was accompanied by some kind of religious rites.

The settlements of the Roman-Borshchevsky type are very different in character from the settlements located in the north, in Staraya Ladoga, where, in the layers of the 8th century, V.I. with a small porch and a stove-heater, located in the center of the dwelling. Probably, a large family (from 15 to 25 people) lived in each such house; food was prepared in the oven for everyone, and food was taken from collective stocks. Outbuildings were located separately, next to the dwelling. The settlement of Staraya Ladoga also belonged to the neighboring community, in which the remnants of tribal life were still strong, and the dwellings belonged to even larger families. Already in the 9th century, here these houses were replaced by small huts (16 - 25 sq.m.) with a stove-heater in the corner, the same as in the south, the dwellings of one relatively small family.

Natural conditions contributed to the formation of the East Slavic population in the forest and steppe belts already in the 1st millennium AD. e. two types of housing, the differences between which further deepened. In the forest zone, ground log houses with a stove-heater dominated, in the steppe - adobe (often on a wooden frame) somewhat recessed into the ground with an adobe stove and an earthen floor.

In the process of the disintegration of patriarchal relations from quite distant times, the remnants of more ancient social forms described in the Tale of Bygone Years were preserved in some places - marriage by abduction, the remains of a group marriage, which the chronicler mistook for polygamy, traces of the avunculate, who said in the custom of feeding, burning the dead.

Based on the ancient alliances of Slavic tribes, territorial political associations (principalities) were formed. In general, they experienced a "semi-patriarchal-semi-feudal" period of development, during which, with increasing property inequality, local nobility stood out, gradually seizing communal lands and turning into feudal owners. The chronicles also mention representatives of this nobility - Mala among the Drevlyans, Khodota and his son among the Vyatichi. Mala they even call the prince. I considered the legendary Kyi, the founder of Kyiv, to be the same prince.

The territories of the East Slavic principalities are described in the Tale of Bygone Years. Some features of the life of their population (in particular, differences in the details of the funeral rite, local women's wedding dress) were very stable and persisted for several centuries even when the reigns themselves ceased to exist. Thanks to this, archaeologists managed, starting from chronicle data, to significantly clarify the boundaries of these areas. The East Slavic territory at the time of the formation of the Kievan state was a single massif, stretching from the shores of the Black Sea to Lake Ladoga and from the upper reaches of the Western Bug to the middle reaches of the Oka and Klyazma. The southern part of this massif was formed by the territories of the Tivertsy and Ulich, covering the middle and southern reaches of the Prut Dniester and the Southern Bug. To the north-west of them, in the upper reaches of the Dniester and Prut in Transcarpathia, white Croats lived. To the north of them, in the upper reaches of the Western Bug - Volynians, to the east and northeast of the White Croats, on the banks of the Pripyat, Sluch and Irsha - Drevlyans, to the southeast of the Drevlyans, in the middle reaches of the Dnieper, in the Kyiv region - a clearing, on the left on the banks of the Dnieper, along the course of the Desna and the Seim - northerners, to the north of them, along the Sozh - radimichi. The neighbors of the Radimichi from the west were the Dregovichi, who occupied the lands along the Berezina and in the upper reaches of the Neman, from the east, the Vyatichi, who inhabited the upper and middle parts of the Oka basin (including the Moscow River) and the upper reaches of the Don, bordered the northerners and Radimichi. To the north of the Moskva River, a vast territory in the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper and western Dvina, extending in the northwest to the eastern shore of Lake Peipus, was occupied by the Krivichi. Finally, in the north and northeast of the Slavic territory, on Lovat and Volkhov lived Ilmen Slovenes.

Within the East Slavic principalities, smaller divisions can be traced from archaeological materials. So, the Krivichi mounds include three large groups of monuments, differing in details in the funeral rite - Pskov Smolensk and Polotsk (the chronicler also singled out a special group of Polochans among the Krivichi). The Smolensk and Polotsk groups apparently formed later than the Pskov group, which allows us to think about the colonization by the Krivichi, newcomers from the southwest, from Prinemaniya or the Buzh-Vistula interfluve, first Pskov (in the 4th - 6th centuries), and then - Smolensk and Polotsk lands. Among the Vyatichi burial mounds, several local groups are also distinguished.

In the IX - XI centuries. a continuous territory of the ancient Russian state of the Russian land is being formed, the concept of which as a homeland was highly characteristic of the Eastern Slavs of that time. Until that time, the coexisting consciousness of the commonality of the East Slavic tribes rested on tribal ties. Russian land occupied vast expanses from the left tributaries of the Vistula to the foothills of the Caucasus from the Taman and the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. Numerous people who lived on this territory called themselves "Rus", having adopted, as mentioned above, a self-name that was previously only inherent in the population of a relatively small area in the Middle Dnieper. Rus was called this country, and other peoples of that time. The territory of the Old Russian state included not only the East Slavic population, but also parts of neighboring tribes.

The colonization of non-Slavic lands (in the Volga region, Ladoga region, in the North) was initially peaceful. First of all, Slavic peasants and artisans penetrated into these territories. New settlers lived even in unfortified settlements, without fear, apparently, of attacks by the local population. Peasants developed new lands, artisans supplied the district with their products. In the future, Slavic feudal lords came there with their squads. They set up fortresses, imposing tribute on the Slavic and non-Slavic population of the region, seized the best plots of land.

In the course of the economic development of these lands by the Russian population, the complex process of mutual cultural influence of the Slavs and the Finno-Ugric population intensified. Many Chud tribes even lost their language and culture, but in turn influenced the material and spiritual culture of the ancient Russian people.

In the ninth and especially in the tenth century. The common self-name of the Eastern Slavs manifested itself with much greater force and depth in the spread of the term "Rus" to all East Slavic lands, in the recognition of the ethnic unity of all living in this territory, in the consciousness of a common destiny and in the common struggle for the integrity and independence of Russia.

The replacement of old tribal ties with new, territorial ones took place gradually. So, in the field of military organization, one can trace the presence of independent militias in the ancient principalities until the end of the 10th century. Militias of Slovenes, Krivichi, Drevlyans, Radimichis, Polyans, Northerners, Croats, Dulebs, Tivertsy (and even non-Slavic tribes - Chuds, etc.) participated in the campaigns of the Kyiv princes. From the beginning of the XI century. They began to be forced out in the central regions by the militias of the cities of Novgorod, Kiyans (Kyivians), although the military independence of individual principalities continued to exist in the 10th and 11th centuries.

On the basis of ancient related tribal dialects, the Old Russian language was created, which had local dialect differences. By the end of the ninth - beginning of the tenth century. The addition of the Old Russian written language and the appearance of the first monuments of writing should be attributed.

The further growth of the territories of Russia, the development of the Old Russian language and culture went hand in hand with the strengthening of the Old Russian people and the gradual elimination of the remnants of tribal isolation. An important role here was played by the isolation of the classes of feudal lords and peasants, the strengthening of the state.

Written and archaeological sources relating to the 9th - 10th and early 11th centuries clearly depict the process of class formation, the separation of senior and junior squads.

By IX - XI centuries. include large burial mounds, where mostly warriors are buried, burned at the stake along with weapons, various luxury items, sometimes with slaves (more often with slaves), who were supposed to serve their master in the "other world", as they served in this. Such burial grounds were located near the large feudal centers of Kievan Rus (the largest of them is Gnezdovsky, where there are more than 2 thousand burial mounds, near Smolensk; Mikhailovsky near Yaroslavl). In Kyiv itself, soldiers were buried according to a different rite - they were not burned, but often laid with women and always with horses and weapons in a specially buried log house (domovina) with a floor and a ceiling. A study of weapons and other things found in the burials of combatants convincingly showed that the vast majority of combatants are Slavs. In the Gnezdovsky burial ground, only a small minority of burials belong to the Normans - "Varangians". Along with the burials of combatants in the tenth century. There were magnificent burials of the feudal nobility - princes or boyars. A noble Slav was burned in a boat or a specially built building - a domino - with slaves, a slave, horses and other domestic animals, weapons and a lot of precious utensils that belonged to him during his lifetime. First, a small mound was arranged over the funeral pyre, on which a feast was performed, possibly accompanied by a feast, ritual competitions and war games, and only then a large mound was poured.

The economic and political development of the Eastern Slavs naturally led to the creation among them, on a local basis, of a feudal state headed by Kievan princes. The Varangian conquest, reflected in the legend about the "calling" of the Varangians to the Novgorod land and the capture of Kyiv in the 9th century, had no more, and most likely less influence on the development of the Eastern Slavs than on the population of medieval France or England. The case was limited to a change of dynasty and the penetration of a certain number of Normans into the nobility. But the new dynasty was under the strongest influence of Slavic culture and "Russified" after a few decades. The grandson of the legendary founder of the Varangian dynasty, Rurik, bore a purely Slavic name - Svyatoslav, and in all likelihood, the manner of dressing and holding was no different from any representative of the Slavic nobility.

Thus, it is quite clear that by the time the Old Russian state was formed on the territory of the East Slavic tribes, there were common ethnic characteristics for all that preceded the formation of the Old Russian nationality. This is confirmed by archeological data: a uniform material culture can be traced. Also in this territory a single language has developed, with minor local dialect features.

Chapter 2. Eastern Slavs within the Old Russian State

Existence in the X-XI centuries. Old Russian (East Slavonic) ethno-linguistic community is reliably confirmed by the data of linguistics and archeology. In the 10th century, on the East European Plain, within the limits of Slavic settlement, several cultures reflecting the former dialect-ethnographic division of the Proto-Slavic ethnos were replaced by a uniform Old Russian culture. Its general development was due to the formation of urban life with an actively evolving handicraft activity, the addition of a military retinue and administrative classes. The population of cities, the Russian squad and the state administration were formed from representatives of various Proto-Slavic formations, which led to the leveling of their dialectal and other features. Items of urban life and weapons become monotonous characteristic of all Eastern Slavs.

This process also affected the rural inhabitants of Russia, as evidenced by funerary monuments. To replace the diverse types of burial mounds - the Korchak and Upper Oka types, the rampart-shaped (long) mounds of the Krivichi and the Ilmensky hills - the Old Russian ones are spreading in their structure, rituals and the direction of evolution, the same type throughout the territory of ancient Russia. The burial mounds of the Drevlyans or Dregovichi become identical with the synchronous cemeteries of the Krivichi or Vyatichi. Tribal (ethnographic) differences in these mounds are manifested only in unequal temporal rings, the rest of the finds (bracelets, rings, earrings, crescents, household items, etc.) are of an all-Russian character.

In the ethno-linguistic consolidation of the Slavic population of the Old Russian state, immigrants from the Danube played a huge role. The infiltration of the latter is felt in the archaeological materials of Eastern Europe since the 7th century. At this time, it affected mainly the Dnieper lands.

However, after the defeat of the Great Moravian state, numerous groups of Slavs, leaving the inhabited Danubian lands, settled along the East European Plain. This migration, as shown by numerous finds of Danubian origin, is to one degree or another characteristic of all areas previously mastered by the Slavs. The Danube Slavs became the most active part of the Eastern Slavs. Among them were many highly skilled artisans. There is reason to believe that the rapid spread of pottery among the Slavic population of Eastern Europe was due to the infiltration of the Danube potters into its environment. The Danube craftsmen gave impetus to the development of jewelry, and possibly other crafts of ancient Russia.

Under the influence of the Danube settlers, the previously dominant pagan custom of cremation of the dead in the tenth century. began to be supplanted by burial mounds of pit corpses. In the Kiev Dnieper region in the tenth century. inhumations already dominated the Slavic burial mounds, necropolises, that is, a century before the official adoption of Christianity by Rus. To the north, in the forest zone up to Ilmen, the process of changing rituals took place in the second half of the 10th century.

The materials of linguistics also testify that the Slavs of the East European Plain survived the common ancient Russian era. Linguistic researches of scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to this conclusion. Their results were summed up by the outstanding Slavic philologist, dialectologist and historian of the Russian language N. N. Durnovo in the book "Introduction to the History of the Russian Language", published in 1927 in Brno.

This conclusion follows from a comprehensive analysis of the written monuments of ancient Russia. Although most of them, including chronicles, are written in Church Slavonic, a number of these documents often describe episodes whose language deviates from the norms of Church Slavonic and is Old Russian. There are also monuments written in Old Russian. Such are the “Russian Truth”, compiled in the 11th century. (came down to us in the list of the 10th century), many letters, free from elements of Church Slavonic, “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, the language of which approaches the living speech of the then urban population of South Russia; some Lives of the Saints.

An analysis of written monuments allowed researchers to assert that in the history of the Slavic languages ​​of Eastern Europe there was a period when, throughout the entire space of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, new linguistic phenomena and at the same time some of the former Proto-Slavic processes developed.

A single East Slavic ethno-linguistic space does not exclude dialectal diversity. Its complete picture cannot be restored from written monuments. Judging by the materials of archeology, the dialectal division of the Old Russian community was quite deep and was due to the settlement of the Slavs of very different tribal groups on the East European Plain and their interaction with a heterogeneous and ethnically subtractive population.

The ethnic unity of the Slavic population of the 11th - 17th centuries, settled in the spaces of the Eastern Plain and called Rus, is also quite clearly spoken by historical sources. In The Tale of Bygone Years, Russia is ethnographically, linguistically and politically contrasted with the Poles, Byzantine Greeks, Hungarians, Polovtsy and other ethnic groups of that time. Based on the analysis of written monuments, A. V. Solovyov showed that for two centuries (911-1132) the concept of "Rus" and "Russian land" meant the entire Eastern Slavic people, the entire country inhabited by them.

In the second half of the 12th - the first third of the 13th centuries, when Ancient Russia broke up into a number of feudal principalities that pursued or tried to pursue an independent policy, the unity of the ancient Russian people continued to be realized: the entire Russian land was opposed to isolated estates, often at enmity with each other. The idea of ​​the unity of Russia is imbued with many works of art of that time and epics. The bright ancient Russian culture at that time continued its progressive development throughout the entire territory of the Eastern Slavs.

From the middle of the XIII century. The East Slavic area turned out to be dissected in political, cultural and economic terms. Former integration processes were suspended. Old Russian culture, the level of development of which was largely determined by cities with highly developed crafts, ceased to function. Many cities of Russia were ruined, life in others fell into decay for some time. In the situation that developed in the second half of the 13th - 14th centuries, the further development of common language processes throughout the vast East Slavic space became impossible. Local linguistic features appeared in different regions, the Old Russian ethnic group ceased to exist.

The basis of the linguistic development of various regions of the Eastern Slavs was not the political, economic and cultural differentiation of the area. The formation of individual languages ​​was largely due to the historical situation that took place in Eastern Europe in the middle and second half of the 1st millennium AD. e.

It can be stated quite definitely that the Belarusians and their language were the result of the Balto-Slavic symbiosis that began in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e., when the first groups of Slavs appeared on the ancient Baltic territory, and ended in the X-XII centuries. The bulk of the Balts did not leave their habitats and, as a result of Slavicization, merged into the Slavic ethnos. This Western Russian population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania gradually transformed into the Belarusian ethnic group.

The descendants of the Ants became the basis of the Ukrainian nationality. However, it would not be correct to direct Ukrainians to them. Anty - one of the dialect-cultural groups of the Slavs, formed in late Roman times in the conditions of the Slavic-Iranian symbiosis. During the period of migration of peoples, a significant part of the Ant tribes migrated to the Balkan-Danubian lands, where they participated in the ethnogenesis of the Danube Serbs and Croats, Poelbe Sorbs, Bulgarians, etc. At the same time, a large array of Ants moved to the middle Volga, where he created the Imenkovskaya culture.

In the Dnieper-Dniester region, the direct descendants of the Ants were the annalistic Croats, Tivertsy and Ulichi. In the 7th - 9th centuries. there is some mixing of the Slavs, who came out of the Ants community, with the Slavs of the Duleb group, and during the period of Old Russian statehood, obviously, under the onslaught of the steppe nomads, the descendants of the Ants infiltrated in a northerly direction.

The originality of the culture of the descendants of the Ants in the Old Russian period is manifested primarily in the funeral rituals - the burial rite of burial was not widespread among them. In this area, the main Ukrainian dialects developed.

More complex was the process of formation of the Russian nationality. In general, the North Great Russians are the descendants of those Slavic tribes who, leaving the Venedian group of the Proto-Slavic community (Hanging), settled in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. in the forest lands of the East European Plain. The history of these settlers was ambiguous. Those Slavs who settled in the Upper Dnieper and Podvinye, i.e., the ancient Baltic area, after the collapse of the Old Russian people, became part of the emerging Belarusians. Separate dialect regions were Novgorod, Pskov lands and North-Eastern Russia. In the X - XII centuries. these were dialects of the Old Russian language, which later, in all likelihood, acquired an independent meaning. All these territories before the Slavic development belonged to various Finnish tribes, whose influence on the Old Russian language was insignificant.

The core of the South Great Russians was the Slavs, who returned from the Middle Volga region (also descendants of acts) and settled in the interfluve of the Dnieper and Don (Volyn, Romny, Borshchev cultures and Oka antiquities synchronous to them).

Cementing in the development of the Russian language were the Middle Great Russian dialects, the beginning of which, presumably, dates back to the 10th - 12th centuries, when there was a territorial mixing of the Krivichi (future North Great Russians) with the Vyatichi (South Great Russian group). Over time, the formation of Middle Great Russian dialects expanded. Moscow occupied the central position in it. In the context of the formation of a single statehood and the creation of the culture of the Moscow State, the Middle Great Russian dialects became a consolidating moment in the gradual formation of a single ethno-linguistic whole. The annexation of Novgorod and Pskov to Moscow expanded the territory of the formation of the Russian ethnos.

Old Russian nationality - a historical fact. It fully complies with the requirements and features that are inherent in this type of historical and ethnic community. At the same time, it was not a unique historical phenomenon, inherent only to the East Slavic peoples. Certain patterns and factors determine the forms of ethnic processes, the emergence of ethno-social societies with their inherent mandatory features. Modern science considers nationality as a special type of ethnic community that occupies a historical niche between a tribe and a nation.

The transition from primitive to statehood was accompanied everywhere

ethnic transformation of previous ethnic groups and the emergence of nationalities formed on the basis of primitive tribes. Nationality, therefore, is not only an ethnic, but also a social historical community of people, characteristic of a new and higher state of society compared to the primitive (tribal) state. All Slavic nationalities correspond to the mode of production and social relations.

The political system of Russia also determined the nature of the ethnic state. Tribes are gone, and nationality has taken their place. Like any other historical category, it has its own characteristics. The most important of them: language, culture, ethnic identity, territory. All this was also inherent in the population of Russia in the 9th - 13th centuries.

Various written sources that have come down to us (chronicles, literary works, individual inscriptions) testify to the common language of the Eastern Slavs. It is an axiom that the languages ​​of the modern East Slavic peoples developed on a common Old Russian basis.

Separate facts that do not fit into this scheme cannot refute the idea of ​​the existence of the Old Russian language as a whole. And in the western lands of Russia, despite the scarcity of linguistic material that has come down to us, the language was the same - Old Russian. An idea of ​​​​it is given by fragments that were included in the all-Russian codes from local Western Russian chronicles. Especially indicative is direct speech, adequate to the living spoken language of this region of Russia.

The language of Western Russia is also represented in the inscriptions on whorls, fragments of dishes, "Borisov" and "Rogvolod" stones, birch bark letters. Of particular interest is a birch-bark letter from Vitebsk, on which the text has been preserved in full.

Russia occupied the vast expanses of Eastern Europe, and it would be naive to believe that the Old Russian language did not have dialects, local features. But they did not go beyond dialects, from which modern East Slavic languages ​​are not free either. Differences in language could also have social roots. The language of the educated princely environment differed from the language of a simple city dweller. The latter was different from the language of the villager. The unity of the language was realized by the population of Russia and was repeatedly emphasized by the chroniclers.

Uniformity is also inherent in the material culture of Russia. It is practically impossible to distinguish most of the objects of material culture made, for example, in Kyiv, from similar objects from Novgorod or Minsk. The ego convincingly proves the existence of a single ancient Russian ethnos.

Ethnic self-consciousness, self-name, people's idea of ​​their homeland, its geographical spaces should be especially attributed to the number of signs of nationality.

It is the formation of ethnic self-consciousness that completes the process of the formation of an ethnic community. The Slavic population of Russia, including its western lands, had a common self-name ("Rus", "Russian people", "Rusichs", "Rusyns") and realized themselves as one people living in the same geographical area. Awareness of a single Motherland persisted even during the period of feudal fragmentation of Russia.

A common ethnic identity was fixed in Russia early and very quickly. Already the first written sources that have come down to us speak convincingly about this (see, for example, the “treaty of Russia with the Greeks” of 944, concluded from “all the people of the Russian land”).

The ethnonyms "Rusyn", "Rusich", not to mention the name "Russian", functioned during the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Commonwealth. The Belarusian printing pioneer Francysk Skaryna (XVI century) in the diploma he received from the University of Padua is called “Rusyn from Polotsk”. The name "Russian" is the common self-name of the Eastern Slavs, an indicator of a single East Slavic ethnic group, an expression of its self-consciousness.

The Russian people's awareness of the unity of their territory (not the state), which they had to protect from foreigners, is especially strongly expressed in the "Word of Igor's Campaign" and "The Word of the Destruction of the Russian Land."

A single language, one culture, a name, a common ethnic identity - this is how we see Russia and its population. This is a single ancient Russian people. Awareness of a common origin, common roots is a characteristic feature of the mentality of the three fraternal East Slavic peoples, which they carried through the centuries, and which we, the heirs of ancient Russia, should never forget.

The undoubted fact of the real existence of the Old Russian nationality does not mean at all that there are no unexplored aspects in this issue.

In Soviet historiography, the idea became widespread that the formation of the Old Russian nationality took place during the period of the existence of the Old Russian state on the basis of East Slavic groupings (“annalistic tribes”), united within one state. As a result of the strengthening of internal ties (economic, political, cultural), tribal characteristics were gradually leveled and common features characteristic of a single nationality were affirmed. The completion of the process of formation of the nationality was attributed to the XI - XII centuries. Such an idea, as it now turns out, was generated by an erroneous idea of ​​the autochthonous nature of the Slavic population throughout the entire space of the ancient Russian state. This made it possible to assume that the Slavs went from the primary tribes to tribal unions, and after the unification of the unions, they evolved within the framework of the Old Russian state.

From the point of view of modern ideas about the mechanism of ethno-formation, such a way of forming the ancient Russian people looks paradoxical, raises questions and even doubts. Indeed, in the conditions of the settlement of the East Slavic ethnos over large areas in those historical times, when there were not yet sufficient economic prerequisites for deep integration, regular intra-ethnic contacts covering the entire vast territory occupied by the Eastern Slavs, it is difficult to imagine the reasons for the leveling of local ethno-cultural features and approval of common features in language, culture and self-consciousness, all that is inherent in the nationality. It is difficult to agree with such an explanation, when the fact of the formation of Kievan Rus is put forward as the main theoretical argument. After all, the political subordination of individual lands to the Kyiv prince could not become the leading factor in new ethno-forming processes and intra-ethnic consolidation. Of course, there were other factors that contributed to the integration processes. But there is one very important theoretical point that does not allow accepting the traditional explanation of the mechanism for the formation of the ancient Russian people.

It is known that a large area of ​​ethnic settlement in the conditions of the dominance of subsistence farming and the weak development of economic ties not only complicates intra-ethnic contacts, but is also one of the reasons for the emergence of local cultural and ethnic characteristics. It was as a result of settlement in large areas that the Proto-Iondo-European community broke up and the Indo-European family of peoples arose. Also, the exit of the Slavs beyond the borders of their ancestral home and their settlement over a large territory led to their division into separate branches. This is the general pattern of the ethnogenesis of peoples. Most scientists have come to the conclusion that new ethnic groups arise and initially live in a small area. Therefore, it is difficult to agree with the statements that the formation of the Old Russian people took place throughout the vast territory of Russia in the 11th - 12th centuries.

Another powerful "destructive factor" leading to the disintegration of ethnic groups is the action of the ethnic substratum. No one doubts the fact that the Eastern Slavs in the territory of their settlement were preceded by various non-Slavic peoples (Baltic, Finougorian, etc.), with whom the Slavs maintained active interethnic relations. This also did not contribute to the consolidation of the East Slavic ethnic group. The Slavs undoubtedly experienced the destructive effect of various substrates. In other words, from the point of view of the territory of ethnogenesis, the traditional explanation of the mechanism for the formation of the Old Russian people looks vulnerable. Other explanations are needed, and they are.

Of course, the history of the Eastern Slavs developed according to a different scenario, and the foundations of the Old Russian nationality matured much earlier and far from all over the territory of the future Russia. The most likely center of East Slavic settlement was a relatively small area, including southern Belarus and northern Ukraine, where approximately in the 6th century. Part of the tribes with a culture of the Prague type migrated. Here, its original version gradually developed, which received the name Korczak. Before the arrival of the Slavs in this region, archaeological sites similar to the Bantser-Kolochivsky ones were widespread, which did not go beyond the Baltic hydronymic area, and therefore can be correlated with the Baltic tribes.

In the archaeological complexes of Korczak, there are objects related to the named monuments or related to them by origin. This is evidence of the mixing of the Slavs with the remnants of the local Baltic population. There is an opinion that the Baltic population here was relatively rare. When in the VIII - IX centuries. on the basis of the Korczak culture, a culture of the type of Luka Raykovetskaya will develop, it will no longer trace elements that could be correlated with the Balts.

Therefore, by the 7th c. The assimilation of the Balts was completed here. The Slavs of this region, including part of the local population, could experience the impact of the Baltic substrate, perhaps insignificant, but affecting their cultural and ethnic nature. This circumstance could initiate their separation as a special (eastern) group of Slavs.

Perhaps it was here that the foundations of the East Slavic language were laid.

Only in this territory of Eastern Europe did early Slavic hydronymy survive. There is none north of Pripyat. There, Slavic hydronymy belongs to the East Slavic linguistic type. From this we can conclude that when later the Slavs began to settle in the spaces of Eastern Europe, they can no longer be identified with the all-Slavic ethnos. It was a group of Eastern Slavs that emerged from the early Slavic world with a specific culture and a special (East Slavic) type of speech. In this regard, it is worth recalling the conjecture expressed by A. Shakhmatov about the formation of the East Slavic language in the relatively small territory of Ukrainian Volyn and about the migration of the Eastern Slavs from here in a northerly direction. This region, together with southern Belarus, can be considered the ancestral home of the Eastern Slavs.

During the stay of the Slavs in this territory, they experienced important changes: some tribal features that could have been in the initial period of migration from their ancestral home were leveled; the foundations of the East Slavic system of speech were formed; the type of archaeological culture inherent in them took shape. There is reason to believe that it was at this time that the common self-name "Rus" was assigned to them and the first East Slavic state association with the Kiya dynasty arose. Thus, it was here that the main features of the Old Russian nationality were formed.

In such a new ethnic quality, the Eastern Slavs in the 9th - 10th centuries. began to populate the lands north of Pripyat, which Konstantin Porphyrogenitus calls "Outer Russia". Probably, this migration began after the approval of Oleg in Kyiv. The Slavs settled as one people with an established culture, which predetermined the unity of the ancient Russian people for a long time. Archaeological evidence of this process is the widespread distribution of spherical burial mounds, with single cremations of the 9th-10th centuries. and the emergence of the first cities.

The historical situation contributed to the rapid and successful settlement of the Eastern Slavs, since this region was already controlled by Oleg and his successors.

The Slavs were distinguished by a higher level of economic and social development, which also contributed to the success of settlement.

The relatively late migration of the Eastern Slavs outside their ancestral home, as a fairly monolithic community, casts doubt on the existence of the so-called tribal unions among those who settled north of Pripyat (Krivichi, Dregovichi, Vyatichi, etc.). The Slavs have already managed to go beyond the tribal system and create a stronger ethnic and political organization. However, having settled in large areas, the Old Russian ethnos found itself in a difficult situation. Various groups of the local non-Slavic population continued to remain in this territory. On the lands of modern Belarus and the Smolensk region, the Eastern Balts lived; Finno-Ugric peoples lived in the northeast of Russia; in the south - the remnants of the Iranian-speaking and Turkic peoples.

The Slavs did not exterminate and did not oust the local population. For several centuries, a symbiosis took place here, accompanied by a gradual displacement of the Slavs with various non-Slavic peoples.

The East Slavic ethnos experienced the impact of various forces. Some of them contributed to the establishment of common principles inherent in the nationality, others, on the contrary, to the emergence of local features in them, both in language and in culture.

Despite the complex dynamics of development, the Old Russian ethnos found itself under the influence of integration forces and processes that cemented it and created favorable conditions not only for the preservation, but also for the deepening of common ethnic principles. A powerful factor in the preservation of the ethnos and ethnic self-consciousness was the institution of state power, the single princely dynasty of Rurikovich. Wars and joint campaigns against common enemies, which were characteristic of that time, to a large extent strengthened the overall solidarity and contributed to the rallying of the ethnos.

In the era of ancient Russia, undoubtedly, economic ties between individual Russian lands intensified. A huge role in the formation and preservation of a single ethnic identity belonged to the church. Having adopted Christianity according to the Greek model, the country turned out to be, as it were, an oasis among peoples who professed either a different religion (pagans: nomads in the south, Lithuania and Finougrians in the north and east), or belonged to another Christian denomination. This formed and supported the idea of ​​the identity of the people, its difference from others. The feeling of belonging to a certain faith is such a strong and unifying factor that it often replaces ethnic identity.

The church strongly influenced the political life of the country and shaped public opinion. She consecrated princely power, strengthened the ancient Russian statehood, purposefully supported the idea of ​​the unity of the country and people, condemned civil strife and division. The ideas of a single country, a single people, its common historical destinies, responsibility for its well-being and security greatly contributed to the formation of ancient Russian ethnic identity. The spread of writing and literacy preserved the unity of the language. All these factors contributed to the strengthening of the Old Russian people.

Thus, the foundations of the ancient Russian nationality were laid in the VI - XI centuries. after the settlement of part of the Slavs on the relatively compact territory of southern Belarus and northern Ukraine. Having settled from here in the 9th - 10th centuries. as one people, they were able to maintain their integrity for a long time in the conditions of ancient Russian statehood, develop the economy, culture, and strengthen ethnic self-consciousness.

At the same time, the ancient Russian people fell into the zone of destructive forces: the territorial factor, different ethnic substrates, the deepening of feudal fragmentation, and later political demarcation. The Eastern Slavs found themselves in the same situation as the early Slavs after their settlement outside their ancestral home. The laws of ethnogenesis worked. The evolution of the ancient Russian ethnos tended to accumulate elements leading to differentiation, which was the reason for its gradual division into three peoples - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.

Conclusion

Finishing this work, I consider it possible to draw some conclusions. The Slavs have come a long way of ethnogenesis. Moreover, certain signs by which one can accurately state the appearance of the Slavs belong to a rather early period (we can definitely talk about the second quarter of the 1st millennium). The Slavs occupied vast areas of Eastern Europe, contacted many peoples and left a memory of themselves among these peoples. True, some ancient authors did not call the Slavs by their own name for a long time, confusing them with other peoples. But, nevertheless, one cannot deny the great importance of the Slavs on the fate of Eastern Europe. The Slavic element still remains the main one in most Eastern European states.

The division of the Slavs into three branches did not lead to the immediate destruction of their ethno-cultural characteristics, but, of course, led to the identification of their striking features. Although the millennial development of closely related peoples has led them to such discord that it is now impossible to unravel this tangle of contradictions and mutual claims.

The Eastern Slavs created their own state later than others, but this does not mean that they are somehow backward or underdeveloped. The Eastern Slavs went their way to the state, a difficult path of interaction with nature and the local population, struggle with nomads and proved their right to exist. Having broken up, the ancient Russian ethnos gave life to three, completely independent, but extremely close to each other, peoples: Russian Ukrainian and Belarusian. Today, some not entirely competent and rather highly politicized historians, both in Ukraine and in Belarus, are trying to deny the Old Russian unity and are trying to deduce their peoples from some kind of mythical roots. At the same time, they even manage to deny belonging to the Slavic world. For example, in Ukraine they came up with a completely unthinkable version that the Ukrainian people de descended from some kind of "ukrov". Of course, such an approach to history cannot bring about any positive aspects in the perception of reality. And it is not surprising that such "versions" spread precisely in the light of anti-Russian sentiments, primarily among political leaders in Ukraine. The construction of such "historical" concepts cannot be durable and can only be explained by the current political course of these countries.

It is difficult to deny the existence of the Old Russian ethnos. The presence of the main ethnic features among the Eastern Slavs (single language, common cultural space) suggests that at the time of the formation of the ancient Russian state there was a single ethnic group, albeit with its own local characteristics. The feeling of unity was preserved during the feudal fragmentation, however, with the Tatar-Mongol invasion, new processes of ethnic formation were caused, which after several decades led to the division of the Eastern Slavs into three peoples.

List of used sources and literature

Sources

1. Geographical guidance. Ptolemy.

2. Natural history. Pliny the Elder.

3. Notes on the Gallic War. Caesar

4. On the management of the empire. Konstantin Porphyrogenitus. M., 1991.

5. On the origin and deeds of the Getae (Getika). Jordan. M., 1960.

6. The Tale of Bygone Years. M., 1950. T. 1.

Literature

1. The introduction of Christianity in Russia. M., 1987.

2. Vernadsky G.V. Ancient Russia. Tver - M. 1996.

3. Old Russian unity: paradoxes of perception. Sedov V.V. // RIIZH Motherland. 2002.11\12

4. Zabelin I.E. The history of Russian life since ancient times. Part 1. - M., 1908.

5. Zagorulsky E. About the time and conditions of the formation of the ancient Russian nationality.

6. Ilovaisky D.I. Beginning of Russia. Moscow, Smolensk. 1996.

7. How Russia was baptized. M., 1989.

8. Kostomarov N.I. Russian republic. M., Smolensk. 1994.

9. Peoples of the European part of the USSR. T. 1 / Ed. V.A. Aleksandrova M.: Nauka, 1964.

10. Petrukhin V.Ya. The beginning of the ethno-cultural history of Russia in the 9th - 11th centuries. Smolensk - M., 1995.

11. Petrukhin V.Ya. Slavs. M 1997.

12. Prozorov L.R. Once again about the beginning of Russia.//State and society. 1999. No. 3, No. 4.

13. Rybakov B.A. Kievan Rus and Russian principalities of the 12th–13th centuries. M., 1993.

14. Rybakov B.A. Prerequisites for the formation of the ancient Russian state. Essays on the history of the USSR III-IX centuries, M., 1958.

There. C.8

Petrukhin V.Ya. The beginning of the ethno-cultural history of Russia in the 9th - 11th centuries. Smolensk - M., 1995.

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How was the ancient Russian people formed? The development of feudal relations takes place in the process of transforming tribal unions into principalities, that is, separate state associations. The history of the ancient Russian state and the formation of the ancient Russian nationality begin with this process - processes are interconnected.

What preceded the foundation of Kievan Rus? What factors contributed to the formation of the Old Russian people?

Founding of the state

In the ninth century, Slavic society reached the point where it was necessary to create a legal framework that would regulate conflicts. Civil strife arose as a result of inequality. The state is the legal field capable of resolving many conflict situations. Without it, such a historical phenomenon as the ancient Russian nationality could not exist. In addition, the unification of the tribes was necessary, because the state is always stronger than unrelated principalities.

About when the state arose that united historians argue to this day. At the beginning of the 9th century, the Ilmen Slovenes and the Finno-Ugric tribes started such a feud that the local leaders decided on a desperate step: to invite experienced rulers, preferably from Scandinavia.

Varangian rulers

According to the chronicle, the wise leaders sent a message to Rurik and his brothers, which said that their land was rich, fruitful, but there was no peace on it, only strife and civil strife. The authors of the letter invited the Scandinavians to reign and restore order. There was nothing shameful in this proposal for local rulers. Notable foreigners were often invited for this purpose.

The foundation of Kievan Rus contributed to the unification of almost all the East Slavic tribes mentioned in the annals. Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians are the descendants of the inhabitants of feudal principalities, united in a state that has become one of the most powerful in the Middle Ages.

Legend

This city was the capital of the Slavic tribe of the Polans. They were once led, according to legend, by Kiy. Helped him manage Shchek and Khoriv. Kyiv stood at the crossroads, in a very convenient location. Here they exchanged and bought grain, weapons, livestock, jewelry, fabrics. Over time, Kiy, Khoriv and Shchek disappeared somewhere. The Slavs paid tribute to the Khazars. The Varangians passing by occupied the "homeless" city. The origin of Kyiv is shrouded in secrets. But the creation of the city is one of the prerequisites for the formation of the Old Russian people.

However, the version that Shchek was the founder of Kyiv is subject to great doubts. Rather, it is a myth, part of the folk epic.

Why exactly Kyiv?

This city arose in the center of the territory inhabited by the Eastern Slavs. The location of Kyiv, as already mentioned, is very convenient. Wide steppes, fertile lands and dense forests. The cities had all the conditions for cattle breeding, agriculture, hunting, and most importantly - for the defense of an enemy invasion.

What historical sources speak about the birth of Kievan Rus? About the emergence of the East Slavic state, and therefore - the ancient Russian people, reports the "Tale of Bygone Years". After Rurik, who came to power at the invitation of local leaders, Oleg began to rule Novgorod. Igor could not manage due to his young age.

Oleg managed to concentrate power over Kyiv and Novgorod.

Historical concepts

Old Russian nationality - an ethnic community, which united with the formation of the early feudal state. A few words should be said about what is hidden under this historical term.

Nationality is a historical phenomenon characteristic of the early feudal period. This is a community of people who are not members of the tribe. But they are not yet residents of a state with strong economic ties. How is a people different from a nation? Modern historians today have not come to a consensus. There are still discussions regarding this issue. But we can say with confidence that nationality is what unites people who have a common territory, culture, customs and traditions.

periodization

The topic of the article is the Old Russian nationality. Therefore, it is worth giving a periodization of the development of Kievan Rus:

1. Emergence.
2. Rise.
3. feudal division.

The first period refers to the ninth to tenth centuries. And it was then that the East Slavic tribes began to transform into a single community. Of course, the differences between them disappeared gradually. As a result of active communication and rapprochement, the Old Russian language was formed from many dialects. An original material and spiritual culture was created.

Rapprochement of tribes

East Slavic tribes lived in the territory, which was subject to a single authority. Except for the constant civil strife that took place at the last stage of the development of Kievan Rus. But they led to the emergence of common traditions and customs.

Old Russian nationality is a definition that implies not only a common economic life, language, culture and territory. This concept means a community consisting of the main, but irreconcilable classes - feudal lords and peasants.

The formation of the ancient Russian nationality was a long process. Features in the culture and language of the people inhabiting different areas of the state have been preserved. Differences have not been erased, despite the rapprochement. Later, this served as the basis for the formation of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian nationalities.

The concept of "Old Russian nationality" does not lose its relevance, because this community is the single root of the fraternal peoples. The inhabitants of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus carried through the centuries an understanding of the proximity of culture and language. The historical significance of the ancient Russian nationality is great, regardless of the current political and economic situation. In order to verify this, it is worth considering the components of this community, namely: language, customs, culture.

History of the Old Russian language

Representatives of the East Slavic tribes understood each other even before the founding of Kievan Rus.

The Old Russian language is the speech of the inhabitants who inhabited the territory of this feudal state from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries. A huge role in the development of culture is played by the emergence of writing. If, speaking of the time of the birth of the Old Russian language, historians call the seventh century, then the appearance of the first literary monuments can be attributed to the tenth century. With the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet, the development of writing begins. So-called chronicles appear, which are also important historical documents.

The Old Russian ethnos began its development in the seventh century, but by the fourteenth, due to severe feudal fragmentation, changes in the speech of the inhabitants inhabiting the west, south, east of Kievan Rus began to be observed. It was then that dialects appeared, later formed into separate languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian.

culture

Reflection of the life experience of the people - oral creativity. In the festive rituals of the inhabitants of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and today there are many similarities. How did oral poetry appear?

Street musicians, itinerant actors and singers roamed the streets of the ancient Russian state. All of them had a common name - buffoons. The motives of folk art formed the basis of many literary and musical works created much later.

The epic epic received special development. Folk singers idealized the unity of Kievan Rus. The characters of epics (for example, the hero Mikula Selyanovich) are depicted in epic works as rich, strong and independent. Despite the fact that this hero was a peasant.

Folk art influenced the legends and tales that have developed in the church and secular environment. And this influence is noticeable in the culture of later periods. Another source for the creation of literary works for the authors of Kievan Rus was military stories.

Economy development

With the formation of the Old Russian people, representatives of the East Slavic tribes began to improve tools. The economy, however, remained natural. In the main industry - agriculture - widely used rales, spades, hoes, scythes, wheeled plows.

Craftsmen achieved significant success with the formation of the Old Russian state. Blacksmiths learned to harden, grind, polish. Representatives of this ancient craft made about one hundred and fifty types of iron products. The swords of ancient Russian blacksmiths were especially famous. Pottery and woodworking were also actively developed. Products of ancient Russian masters were known far beyond the borders of the state.

The formation of the nationality contributed to the development of crafts and agriculture, which subsequently led to an increase in the development of trade relations. Kievan Rus developed economic relations with foreign countries. The trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" passed through the ancient Russian state.

Feudal relations

The formation of the Old Russian nationality took place during the period of the establishment of feudalism. What was this system of social relations? The feudal lords, about whose cruelty Soviet historians spoke so much, indeed, concentrated power and wealth in their hands. They used the labor of urban artisans and dependent peasants. Feudalism contributed to the formation of complex vassal relations, known from the history of the Middle Ages. The great Kyiv prince personified the state power.

class strife

Smerd peasants cultivated the estates of the feudal lords. Artisans paid tribute. The hardest life was for serfs and servants. As in other medieval states, feudal exploitation in Kievan Rus eventually aggravated to such an extent that uprisings began. The first took place in 994. The story of the death of Igor, who, together with his squad, once decided to collect tribute for the second time, is known to everyone. Popular anger is a terrible phenomenon in history, entailing inciting strife, excesses, and sometimes even war.

Fight with aliens

The Norman Scandinavian tribes continued their predatory attacks even when the East Slavic tribes already represented an ethnic community. In addition, Kievan Rus waged an uninterrupted struggle against the hordes. The inhabitants of the ancient Russian state bravely repelled enemy invasions. And they themselves did not wait for the next attack from the enemy, but, without thinking twice, set off. Old Russian troops often equipped campaigns in enemy states. Their glorious deeds are reflected in chronicles, epics.

Paganism

Territorial unity was significantly strengthened during the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavovich. Kievan Rus achieved significant development, waged a fairly successful struggle against the aggressive actions of the Lithuanian and Polish princes.

Paganism had a negative impact on the formation of ethnic unity. There was a need for a new religion, which, of course, was to be Christianity. Askold began to distribute it on the territory of Russia. But then Kyiv was captured by the Novgorod prince and destroyed not so long ago built Christian churches.

Introduction of a new faith

Vladimir took over the mission of introducing a new religion. However, there were many fans of paganism in Russia. They have been fighting for many years. Even before the adoption of Christianity, attempts were made to renew the pagan religion. Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, for example, in 980 approved the existence of a group of gods headed by Perun. What was needed was an idea common to the entire state. And its center was bound to be in Kyiv.

Paganism, nevertheless, has become obsolete. And therefore, Vladimir, after lengthy deliberation, chose Orthodoxy. In his choice, he was guided, first of all, by practical interests.

Tough choice

According to one version, the prince listened to the opinion of several priests before making a choice. Everyone, as you know, has his own truth. The Muslim world attracted Vladimir, but he was frightened by circumcision. In addition, the Russian table cannot be without pork and wine. The faith of the Jews in the prince did not at all inspire confidence. Greek was colorful, spectacular. And political interests finally predetermined the choice of Vladimir.

Religion, traditions, culture - all this unites the population of the countries where the tribes once lived, united in the ancient Russian ethnic union. And even after centuries, the connection between such peoples as Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian is inextricable.

According to the views shared by the majority of researchers in the history of Ancient Russia, this is an East Slavic ethnic community (ethnos), formed in X- XIII centuries as a result of the merger of 12 East Slavic tribal unions - Slovenes (Ilmen), Krivichi (including Polochan), Vyatichi, Radimichi, Dregovichi, Northerners, Polyans, Drevlyans, Volynians, Tivertsy, Ulichs and White Croats - and was a common ancestor of those formed in XIV - XVI centuries three modern East Slavic ethnic groups - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The above theses turned into a coherent concept in the 1940s. thanks to the works of the Leningrad historian V.V. Mavrodina.

It is believed that the formation of a single ancient Russian people was facilitated by:

The linguistic unity of the then Eastern Slavs (the formation on the basis of the Kyiv Koine of a single, all-Russian spoken language and a single literary language, called Old Russian in science);

The unity of the material culture of the Eastern Slavs;

Unity of traditions, customs, spiritual culture;

Achieved at the end of IX - X centuries. political unity of the Eastern Slavs (unification of all East Slavic tribal unions within the boundaries of the Old Russian state);

Appearance at the end of the tenth century. the Eastern Slavs have a single religion - Christianity in its Eastern version (Orthodoxy);

The presence of trade links between different areas.

All this led to the formation of a single, all-Russian ethnic identity among the Eastern Slavs. The formation of such self-consciousness is indicated by:

Gradual replacement of tribal ethnonyms by the common ethnonym "Rus" (for example, for the Polans, the fact of this replacement was recorded in the annals under 1043, for the Ilmen Slovenes - under 1061);

The presence in the XII - early XIII centuries. unified (Russian) ethnic identity among princes, boyars, clergy and townspeople. So, the Chernigov abbot Daniel, who arrived in Palestine in 1106, positions himself as a representative not of Chernigov, but of "the entire Russian land." At the princely congress of 1167, the princes - heads of sovereign states formed after the collapse of the Old Russian state, proclaim their goal to protect "the entire Russian land." The Novgorod chronicler, when describing the events of 1234, proceeds from the fact that Novgorod is part of the "Russian land".

A sharp reduction after the Mongol invasion of Russia of ties between the northwestern and northeastern lands of Ancient Russia, on the one hand, and the southern and southwestern, on the other, and also began in the second half of the 13th century. the inclusion first of the western, and then the southwestern and southern lands of Ancient Russia into the state of Lithuania - all this led to the disintegration of the Old Russian people and the beginning of the formation of three modern East Slavic ethnic groups on the basis of the Old Russian people.

Literature

1. Lebedinsky M.Yu. On the question of the history of the ancient Russian people. M., 1997.
2. Mavrodin V.V. The formation of the Old Russian state and the formation of the Old Russian people. M., 1971.
3. Sedov V.V. Ancient Russian people. Historical and archaeological research. M., 1999.
4. Tolochko P.P. Old Russian nationality: imaginary or real? SPb., 2005.

The question of what the East Slavic tribes of the Tale of Bygone Years were like has been raised more than once in historical literature. In pre-revolutionary Russian historiography, the idea was widespread that the Slavic population in Eastern Europe appeared literally on the eve of the formation of the Kyiv state as a result of migration from the ancestral homeland in relatively small groups. Such resettlement over a vast territory disrupted their former tribal ties. In new places of residence between scattered Slavic groups, new territorial ties were formed, which, due to the constant mobility of the Slavs, were not strong and could be lost again. Consequently, the annalistic tribes of the Eastern Slavs were exclusively territorial associations. “From the local names of the XI century. the chronicle made “tribes” of the Eastern Slavs,” wrote S. M. Seredonin, one of the consistent supporters of this point of view (Seredonin S. M., 1916, p. 152). A similar opinion was developed in their studies by V. O. Klyuchevsky, M. K. Lyubavsky and others (Klyuchevsky V. O., 1956, p. 110-150; Lyubavsky M. K., 1909).

Another group of researchers, including the majority of linguists and archaeologists, considered the annalistic tribes of the Eastern Slavs as ethnic groups (Sobolevsky A.I., 1884; Shakhmatov A.A., 1899, p. 324-384; 1916; Spitsyn A.A. ., 1899c, pp. 301-340). Certain places in the Tale of Bygone Years definitely speak in favor of this opinion. So, the chronicler reports about the tribes that “I live each with my kind and in my place, owning each with my kind” (PVL, I, p. 12), and further: “For the name of my customs, and the law of my fathers and traditions, one’s own temper” (PVL, I, p. 14). The same impression is formed when reading other places in the annals. So, for example, it is reported that the first settlers in Novgorod were Slovenes, in Polotsk - Krivichi, in Rostov - Merya, in Beloozero - all, in Murom - Muroma (PVL, I, p. 18). Here it is obvious that the Krivichi and Slovenes are equated with such indisputably ethnic formations as the whole, Merya, Muroma. Proceeding from this, many representatives of linguistics (A. A. Shakhmatov, A. I. Sobolevsky, E. F. Karsky, D. N. Ushakov, N. N. Durnovo) tried to find a correspondence between the modern and early medieval dialect division of Eastern Slavs, believing that the origins of the current division date back to the tribal era.

There is also a third point of view about the essence of the East Slavic tribes. The founder of Russian historical geography, N. P. Barsov, saw political and geographical formations in chronicle tribes (N. P. Barsov, 1885). This opinion was analyzed by B. A. Rybakov (Rybakov B. A., 1947, p. 97; 1952, p. 40-62). B. A. Rybakov believes that the Polans, Drevlyans, Radimichi, etc., named in the annals, were alliances that united several separate tribes. During the crisis of the tribal society, “tribal communities united around the graveyards into “worlds” (maybe ropes”); the totality of several “worlds” was a tribe, and tribes were increasingly united in temporary or permanent unions ... The cultural community within stable tribal unions was sometimes felt for quite a long time after such a union entered the Russian state and can be traced from the burial mounds of the XII-XIII centuries. and according to even later data of dialectology ”(B. A. Rybakov, 1964, p. 23). On the initiative of B. A. Rybakov, an attempt was made to identify the primary tribes from the archaeological data, which formed large tribal unions, called the chronicle (Solovyeva G. F., 1956, pp. 138-170).

The materials considered above do not allow to solve the question raised unambiguously, joining one of the three points of view. However, undoubtedly, B. A. Rybakov is right that the tribes of the Tale of Bygone Years before the formation of the territory of the Old Russian state were also political entities, that is, tribal unions.

It seems obvious that the Volynians, Drevlyans, Dregovichi and Polans in the process of their formation were, first of all, territorial new formations (Map 38). As a result of the collapse of the Proto-Slavic Duleb tribal union, in the course of settlement, territorial isolation of individual groups of Dulebs occurs. Over time, each local group develops its own way of life, some ethnographic features begin to form, which is reflected in the details of the funeral rituals. This is how the Volhynians, Drevlyans, Polans and Dregovichi appear, named according to geographical features. The formation of these tribal groups, no doubt, contributed to the political unification of each of them. The chronicle reports: “And still the brothers [Kiya, Shcheka and Khoriv] keep their reign more often in the fields, and in the trees their own, and the Dregovichi theirs ...” (PVL, I, p. 13). It is obvious that the Slavic population of each of the territorial groups, close in economic system and living in similar conditions, gradually united for a number of joint affairs - arranged a common veche, general meetings of governors, created a common tribal squad. Tribal unions of the Drevlyans, Polyans, Dregovichi and, obviously, Volhynians were formed, preparing the future feudal states.

It is possible that the formation of the northerners was to some extent due to the interaction of the remnants of the local population with the Slavs who settled in its area. The name of the tribe, obviously, remained from the natives. It is difficult to say whether the northerners have created their own tribal organization. In any case, the chronicles do not say anything about such.

Similar conditions existed during the formation of the Krivichi. The Slavic population, which settled initially in the basins of the river. Velikaya and oz. Pskov, was not distinguished by any specific features. The formation of the Krivichi and their ethnographic features began in the conditions of stationary life already in the annalistic area. The custom to build long mounds originated already in the Pskov region, some of the details of the Krivichi funeral rite were inherited by the Krivichi from the local population, bracelet-like knotted rings are distributed exclusively in the area of ​​the Dnieper-Dvina Balts, etc.

Apparently, the formation of the Krivichi as a separate ethnographic unit of the Slavs began in the third quarter of the 1st millennium AD. e. in the Pskov region. In addition to the Slavs, they also included the local Finnish population. The subsequent resettlement of the Krivichi in the Vitebsk-Polotsk Dvina and the Smolensk Dnieper region, on the territory of the Dnieper-Dvina Balts, led to their division into the Pskov Krivichi and the Smolensk-Polotsk Krivichi. As a result, on the eve of the formation of the ancient Russian state, the Krivichi did not form a single tribal union. The chronicle reports on separate reigns among the Polochans and the Smolensk Krivichi. The Pskov Krivichi apparently had their own tribal organization. Judging by the message of the annals about the calling of the princes, it is likely that the Novgorod Slovenes, the Pskov Krivichi and the whole united into a single political union. Its centers were Slovenian Novgorod, Krivichi Izborsk and Vesskoe Beloozero.

It is likely that the formation of Vyatichi is largely due to the substrate. The group of Slavs led by Vyatka, who came to the upper Oka, did not stand out for their own ethnographic features. They were formed on the spot and partly as a result of the influence of the local population. The range of the early Vyatichi basically coincides with the territory of the Moshchin culture. The Slavicized descendants of the carriers of this culture, together with the newcomer Slavs, constituted a separate ethnographic group of the Vyatichi.

The Radimichi region does not correspond to any substrate territory. Apparently, the descendants of that group of Slavs who settled on the Sozh were called Radimichi. It is quite clear that these Slavs included the local population as a result of miscegenation and assimilation. The Radimichs, like the Vyatichi, had their own tribal organization. Thus, both of them were at the same time ethnographic communities and tribal unions.

The formation of the ethnographic features of the Slovenes of Novgorod began only after the settlement of their ancestors in the Ilmen region. This is evidenced not only by archaeological materials, but also by the absence of their own ethnonym for this group of Slavs. Here, in Priilmenye, the Slovenes created a political organization - a tribal union.

The meager materials about Croats, Tivertsy and Ulichi make it impossible to reveal the essence of these tribes. East Slavic Croats, apparently, were part of a large Proto-Slavic tribe. By the beginning of the ancient Russian state, all these tribes were, obviously, tribal unions.

In 1132, Kievan Rus broke up into a dozen and a half principalities. This was prepared by historical conditions - the growth and strengthening of urban centers, the development of crafts and trading activities, the strengthening of the political power of the townspeople and the local boyars. There was a need to create a strong local government, which would take into account all aspects of the internal life of individual regions of ancient Russia. Boyars of the XII century. local authorities were needed, which could quickly fulfill the norms of feudal relations.

Territorial fragmentation of the ancient Russian state in the XII century. largely corresponds to the areas of chronicle tribes. B. A. Rybakov notes that “the capitals of many major principalities were at one time the centers of tribal unions: Kyiv near the Polyany, Smolensk near the Krivichi, Polotsk near the Polochan, Novgorod the Great among the Slovenes, Novgorod Seversky among the Severyans (Rybakov B. A., 1964 , pp. 148, 149). As evidenced by archaeological materials, chronicle tribes in the XI-XII centuries. were still stable ethnographic units. Their tribal and tribal nobility in the process of the emergence of feudal relations turned into boyars. Obviously, the geographical boundaries of the individual principalities that were formed in the 12th century were determined by life itself and the former tribal structure of the Eastern Slavs. In some cases, tribal areas have proven to be quite stable. So, the territory of the Smolensk Krivichi during the XII-XIII centuries. was the core of the Smolensk land, the boundaries of which largely coincide with the boundaries of the indigenous region of the settlement of this group of Krivichi (Sedov V.V., 1975c, pp. 256, 257, fig. 2).

The Slavic tribes, which occupied the vast territories of Eastern Europe, are undergoing a process of consolidation in the 8th-9th centuries. form the Old Russian (or East Slavic) nationality. The modern East Slavic languages, that is, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, have retained in their phonetics, grammatical structure and vocabulary a number of common features, indicating that after the collapse of the common Slavic language they constituted one language - the language of the Old Russian people. Such monuments as the Tale of Bygone Years, the ancient code of laws Russian Pravda, the poetic work The Word about Igor's Campaign, numerous letters, etc. were written in the Old Russian (East Slavonic) language. The beginning of the formation of the Old Russian language, as noted above, is determined by linguists of the VIII-IX centuries. Over the next centuries, a number of processes take place in the Old Russian language, which are characteristic only for the East Slavic territory (Filin F.P., 1962, pp. 226-290).

The problem of the formation of the Old Russian language and nationality was considered in the works of A. A. Shakhmatov (Shakhmatov A. A., 1899, p. 324-384; 1916; 1919a). According to the ideas of this researcher, all-Russian unity presupposes the presence of a limited territory on which an ethnographic and linguistic community of Eastern Slavs could develop. A. A. Shakhmatov assumed that the Antes were part of the Proto-Slavs, fleeing from the Avars, in the 6th century. settled in Volhynia and Kiev region. This area became "the cradle of the Russian tribe, the Russian ancestral home." From here, the Eastern Slavs and rocked the settlement of other Eastern European lands. The settlement of the Eastern Slavs over a vast territory led to their fragmentation into three branches - northern, eastern and southern. In the first decades of our century, the studies of A. A. Shakhmatov were widely recognized, and at present they are of purely historiographical interest.

Later, many Soviet linguists studied the history of the Old Russian language. The last generalizing work on this topic is the book of F.P. Filin "Education of the language of the Eastern Slavs", in which the main attention is paid to the analysis of individual linguistic phenomena (Filin F.P., 1962). The researcher comes to the conclusion that the formation of the East Slavic language took place in the VIII-IX centuries. throughout the vast territory of Eastern Europe. The historical conditions for the formation of a separate Slavic nation remained unexplained in this book, since they are to a greater extent connected not with the history of linguistic phenomena, but with the history of native speakers.

Soviet historians, in particular, B. A. Rybakov (V. A. Rybakov, 1952, pp. 40-62; 1953a, pp. 23-104), M. N. Tikhomirov (Tikhomirov M. N., 1947, p. 60-80; 1954, p. 3-18) and A. N. Nasonov (Nasonov A. N., 1951a; 19516, p. 69, 70). Based on historical materials, B. A. Rybakov showed, first of all, that the consciousness of the unity of the Russian land was preserved both in the era of the Kievan state and in the period of feudal fragmentation. The concept of "Russian land" covered all the Eastern Slavic regions from Ladoga in the north to the Black Sea in the south and from the Bug in the west to the Volga-Oka interfluve inclusive in the east. This "Russian land" was the territory of the East Slavic people. At the same time, B. A. Rybakov notes that there was still a narrow meaning of the term "Rus", corresponding to the Middle Dnieper (Kyiv, Chernigov and Seversk lands). This narrow meaning of "Rus" has been preserved from the epoch of the 6th - 7th centuries, when in the Middle Dnieper there was a tribal union under the leadership of one of the Slavic tribes - the Rus. The population of the Russian tribal union in the IX-X centuries. served as the core for the formation of the Old Russian people, which included the Slavic tribes of Eastern Europe and part of the Slavic Finnish tribes.

A new original hypothesis about the prerequisites for the formation of the Old Russian nationality was presented by P. N. Tretyakov (Tretyakov P. N., 1970). According to this researcher, geographically eastern groups of Slavs have long occupied the forest-steppe regions between the upper Dniester and the middle Dnieper. At the turn and at the beginning of our era, they settled to the north, in areas belonging to the Eastern Baltic tribes. The miscegenation of the Slavs with the Eastern Balts led to the formation of the Eastern Slavs. “During the subsequent resettlement of the Eastern Slavs, which culminated in the creation of an ethnogeographic picture known from the Tale of Bygone Years, from the Upper Dnieper in the northern, northeastern and southern directions, in particular in the rivers of the middle Dnieper, it was by no means “pure” Slavs that moved, but a population that had assimilated Eastern Baltic groups in its composition” (Tretyakov P.N., 1970, p. 153).

The constructions of P. N. Tretyakov about the formation of the Old Russian people under the influence of the Baltic substrate on the Eastern Slavic grouping are not justified either in archaeological or linguistic materials. East Slavic does not show any common Baltic substratum elements. What united all the Eastern Slavs linguistically and at the same time separated them from other Slavic groups cannot be the product of Baltic influence.

How do the materials discussed in this book allow us to resolve the issue of the prerequisites for the formation of the East Slavic people?

The widespread settlement of the Slavs in Eastern Europe falls mainly on the VI-VIII centuries. It was still the Proto-Slavic period, and the settled Slavs were united linguistically. Migration did not come from one region, but from different dialect areas of the Proto-Slavic area. Consequently, any assumptions about the "Russian ancestral home" or about the beginnings of the East Slavic people within the Proto-Slavic world are not justified in any way. The Old Russian nationality was formed over vast expanses and was based on the Slavic population, united not on ethno-dialect, but on territorial soil.

The linguistic expression of at least two sources of Slavic settlement in Eastern Europe is the opposition g ~ K (h). Of all the East Slavic dialect differences, this feature is the most ancient, and it differentiates the Slavs of Eastern Europe into two zones - northern and southern (Khaburgaev G.A., 1979, pp. 104-108; 1980, pp. 70-115).

Settlement of Slavic tribes in the VI-VII centuries. over the vast expanses of Central and Eastern Europe led to disunity in the evolution of various linguistic trends. This evolution began to be not universal, but local. As a result, "in the VIII-IX centuries. and later reflexes of combinations like *tort, *tbrt, *tj, *dj and *kt', denasalization of o and g and a number of other changes in the phonetic system, some grammatical innovations, shifts in the field of vocabulary formed a special zone in the east of the Slavic world with more or less overlapping boundaries. This zone made up the language of the Eastern Slavs, or Old Russian ”(Filin F.P., 1972, p. 29).

The leading role in the formation of this nation, apparently, belongs to the ancient Russian state. After all, it is not for nothing that the beginning of the formation of the ancient Russian nationality coincides in time with the process of the formation of the Russian state. The territory of the ancient Russian state also coincides with the area of ​​the East Slavic people.

The emergence of an early feudal state with a center in Kyiv actively contributed to the consolidation of the Slavic tribes that made up the ancient Russian people. The Russian land, or Rus, began to be called the territory of the ancient Russian state. In this sense, the term Russia is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years as early as the 10th century. There was a need for a common self-name of the entire East Slavic population. Previously, this population called themselves Slavs. Now Russia became the self-name of the Eastern Slavs. When listing the peoples, the Tale of Bygone Years notes: “In Afetov, parts of Rus, people and all languages ​​are gray: Merya, Muroma, all, Mordva” (PVL, I, p. 10). Under 852, the same source reports: "... Rus came to Tsargorod" (PVL, I, p. 17). Here, Russia means all the Eastern Slavs - the population of the ancient Russian state.

Russia - the ancient Russian nationality is gaining fame in other countries of Europe and Asia. Byzantine authors write about Russia and mention Western European sources. In the IX-XII centuries. the term "Rus" in both Slavic and other sources is used in a double sense - in the ethnic sense and in the sense of the state. This can only be explained by the fact that the ancient Russian nationality developed in close connection with the emerging state territory. The term "Rus" was originally used only for the Kyiv glades, but in the process of creating the Old Russian statehood, it quickly spread to the entire territory of ancient Russia.

The Old Russian state united all the Eastern Slavs into a single organism, connected them with a common political life, and, of course, contributed to strengthening the concept of the unity of Russia. State power, organizing campaigns of the population from various lands or resettlement, the expansion of princely and patrimonial administration, the development of new spaces, the expansion of tribute collection and judicial power contributed to closer ties and relations between the population of various Russian lands.

The formation of ancient Russian statehood and nationality was accompanied by a rapid development of culture and economy. The construction of ancient Russian cities, the rise of handicraft production, the development of trade relations favored the consolidation of the Slavs of Eastern Europe into a single nationality.

As a result, a single material and spiritual culture is being formed, which is manifested in almost everything - from women's jewelry to architecture.

In the formation of the Old Russian language and nationalities, an essential role belonged to the spread of Christianity and writing. Very soon, the concepts of "Russian" and "Christian" began to be identified. The Church played a multifaceted role in the history of Russia. It was an organization that contributed to the strengthening of Russian statehood and played a positive role in the formation and development of the culture of the Eastern Slavs, in the development of education and in the creation of the most important literary values ​​and works of art.

“The relative unity of the Old Russian language ... was supported by various kinds of extralinguistic circumstances: the lack of territorial disunity among the East Slavic tribes, and later the lack of stable borders between feudal possessions; the development of the supra-tribal language of oral folk poetry, closely related to the language of religious cults, common throughout the East Slavic territory; the emergence of the beginnings of public speech, which sounded during the conclusion of intertribal agreements and legal proceedings according to the laws of customary law (which were partially reflected in Russian Pravda), etc. ” (Filin F.P., 1970, p. 3).

Materials of linguistics do not contradict the proposed conclusions. Linguistics testifies, as G. A. Khaburgaev recently showed, that the East Slavic linguistic unity took shape from components that were heterogeneous in origin. The heterogeneity of tribal associations in Eastern Europe is due to their settlement from different Proto-Slavic groups, and interaction with various tribes of the autochthonous population. Thus, the formation of Old Russian linguistic unity is the result of the leveling and integration of dialects of East Slavic tribal groups (Khaburgaev G. A., 1980, pp. 70-115). This was due to the process of the addition of the ancient Russian people. Archeology and history know many cases of the formation of medieval peoples in the conditions of the formation and consolidation of statehood.

Established by the IX century. the ancient Russian feudal state (also called Kievan Rus by historians) arose as a result of a very long and gradual process of splitting society into antagonistic classes, which took place among the Slavs throughout the first millennium of our era. Russian feudal historiography of the 16th - 17th centuries. sought to artificially link the early history of Russia with the ancient peoples of Eastern Europe known to her - the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans; the name of Rus was derived from the Saomatian tribe of the Roxalans.
In the XVIII century. some of the German scientists invited to Russia, who were arrogant about everything Russian, created a biased theory about the dependent development of Russian statehood. Based on an unreliable part of the Russian chronicle, which conveys the legend of the calling of a number of Slavic tribes as princes of three brothers (Rurik, Sineus and Truvor) - Varangians, Normans by origin, these historians began to assert that the Normans (detachments of Scandinavians who robbed in the 9th century on seas and rivers) were the creators of the Russian state. "Normanists", who poorly studied Russian sources, believed that the Slavs in the 9th-10th centuries. were completely wild people, who supposedly did not know either agriculture, or handicrafts, or settled settlements, or military affairs, or legal norms. They attributed the entire culture of Kievan Rus to the Varangians; The very name of Russia was associated only with the Vikings.
M.V. Lomonosov heatedly objected to the "Normanists" - Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, initiating a two-century scientific controversy on the issue of the emergence of the Russian state. A significant part of the representatives of Russian bourgeois science of the 19th and early 20th centuries. supported the Norman theory, despite the abundance of new data that refuted it. This stemmed both from the methodological weakness of bourgeois science, which failed to rise to an understanding of the laws of the historical process, and from the fact that the chronicle legend about the voluntary calling of princes by the people (created by the chronicler in the 12th century during the period of popular uprisings) continued into the 19th - XX centuries retain its political significance in explaining the question of the beginning of state power. The cosmopolitan tendencies of a part of the Russian bourgeoisie also contributed to the predominance of the Norman theory in official science. However, a number of bourgeois scholars have already criticized the Norman theory, seeing its inconsistency.
Soviet historians, approaching the question of the formation of the ancient Russian state from the standpoint of historical materialism, began to study the entire process of the disintegration of the primitive communal system and the emergence of the feudal state. To do this, it was necessary to significantly expand the chronological framework, look into the depths of Slavic history and draw on a number of new sources that depict the history of the economy and social relations many centuries before the formation of the Old Russian state (excavations of villages, workshops, fortresses, graves). It took a radical revision of Russian and foreign written sources that speak of Russia.
The work on studying the prerequisites for the formation of the ancient Russian state has not yet been completed, but even now an objective analysis of historical data has shown that all the main provisions of the Norman theory are incorrect, since they were generated by an idealistic understanding of history and an uncritical perception of sources (the range of which was artificially limited), as well as the bias of the researchers themselves. At present, the Norman theory is being promoted by individual foreign historians of the capitalist countries.

Russian chroniclers about the beginning of the state

The question of the beginning of the Russian state was of keen interest to Russian chroniclers of the 11th-12th centuries. The earliest chronicles, apparently, began their exposition with the reign of Kyi, who was considered the founder of the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv principality. The prince of the cue was compared with other founders of the largest cities - Romulus (founder of Rome), Alexander the Great (founder of Alexandria). The legend about the construction of Kyiv by Kiy and his brothers Shchek and Khoryv arose, obviously, long before the 11th century, since it was already in the 7th century. was recorded in the Armenian chronicle. In all likelihood, the time of Kiy is the period of Slavic campaigns on the Danube and in Byzantium, i.e. VI-VII centuries. The author of "The Tale of Bygone Years" - "Where did the Russian (s) land (and) who in Kyiv began the first prince ...", written at the beginning of the 12th century. (as historians think, by the Kyiv monk Nestor), reports that Kiy went to Constantinople, was the guest of honor of the Byzantine emperor, built a city on the Danube, but then returned to Kyiv. Further in the "Tale" follows a description of the struggle of the Slavs with the nomadic Avars in the VI-VII centuries. Some chroniclers considered the “calling of the Varangians” to be the beginning of statehood in the second half of the 9th century. and to this date they drove all the other events of early Russian history known to them (Novgorod Chronicle). These writings, the tendentiousness of which was proved long ago, were used by the supporters of the Norman theory.

East Slavic tribes and unions of tribes on the eve of the formation of the state in Russia

The state of Rus was formed from fifteen large regions inhabited by Eastern Slavs, well known to the chronicler. Glades have long lived near Kyiv. The chronicler considered their land to be the core of the ancient Russian state and noted that in his time the glades were called Rus. The neighbors of the meadows in the east were the northerners who lived along the rivers Desna, Seim, Sula and the Northern Donets, which retained the memory of the northerners in its name. Down the Dnieper, south of the meadows, lived the streets, who moved in the middle of the 10th century. in the interfluve of the Dniester and the Bug. In the west, the neighbors of the glades were the Drevlyans, who often quarreled with the Kievan princes. Even further to the west were the lands of the Volhynians, Buzhans and Dulebs. The extreme East-Slazian regions were the lands of the Tivertsy on the Dniester (ancient Tiras) and on the Danube and the White Croats in Transcarpathia.
To the north of the glades and the Drevlyans were the lands of the Dregovichi (on the swampy left bank of the Pripyat), and to the east of them, along the Sozhu River, were the Radimichi. The Vyatichi lived on the Oka and the Moscow River, bordering on the non-Slavic Meryan-Mordovian tribes of the Middle Oka. The chronicler calls the northern regions in contact with the Lithuanian-Latvian and Chud tribes the lands of the Krivichi (the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper and Dvina), Polotsk and Slovenian (around Lake Ilmen).
In the historical literature, the conditional term “tribes” (“tribes of the glades”, “tribe of Radimichi”, etc.) was strengthened behind these areas, but was not used, however, by the chroniclers. In terms of size, these Slavic regions are so large that they can be compared with entire states. A careful study of these areas shows that each of them was an association of several small tribes, whose names were not preserved in the sources on the history of Russia. Among the Western Slavs, the Russian chronicler mentions in the same way only such large areas as, for example, the land of the Lutichi, and from other sources it is known that the Lutichi are not one tribe, but an association of eight tribes. Consequently, the term "tribe", speaking of family ties, should be applied to much smaller divisions of the Slavs, which have already disappeared from the memory of the chronicler. The regions of the Eastern Slavs, mentioned in the annals, should be considered not as tribes, but as federations, unions of tribes.
In ancient times, the Eastern Slavs apparently consisted of 100-200 small tribes. The tribe, representing a set of related clans, occupied an area of ​​about 40 - 60 km in diameter. In each tribe, probably, a veche gathered to decide the most important issues of public life; a military leader (prince) was chosen; there was a permanent squad of youth and a tribal militia (“regiment”, “thousand”, divided into “hundreds”). Within the tribe there was a "city". A tribal veche gathered there, there was a bargaining, a court was held. There was a sanctuary where representatives of the entire tribe gathered.
These "grads" were not yet real cities, but many of them, which for several centuries were centers of tribal districts, with the development of feudal relations turned into either feudal castles or cities.
The result of major changes in the structure of tribal communities, replaced by neighboring communities, was the process of formation of tribal unions, which proceeded especially intensively from the 5th century BC. 6th century writer Jordanes says that the common collective name of the populous people of the Wends "is now changing according to different tribes and localities." The stronger the process of disintegration of primitive tribal isolation went on, the stronger and more durable the alliances of tribes became.
The development of peaceful ties between tribes, or the military victories of some tribes over others, or, finally, the need to fight a common external danger, contributed to the creation of tribal alliances. Among the Eastern Slavs, the addition of the fifteen large tribal unions mentioned above can be attributed approximately to the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e.

Thus, during the VI - IX centuries. the prerequisites for feudal relations arose and the process of folding the ancient Russian feudal state took place.
The natural internal development of Slavic society was complicated by a number of external factors (for example, nomadic raids) and the direct participation of the Slavs in major events in world history. This makes the study of the pre-feudal period in the history of Russia especially difficult.

Origin of Russia. Formation of the Old Russian people

Most pre-revolutionary historians associated the origin of the Russian state with the ethnicity of the people "Rus". about which chroniclers speak. Accepting without much criticism the chronicle legend about the calling of princes, historians sought to determine the origin of the "Rus" to which these overseas princes allegedly belonged. The "Normanists" insisted that "Rus" is the Varangians, the Normans, i.e. inhabitants of Scandinavia. But the absence in Scandinavia of information about a tribe or locality called "Rus" has long shaken this thesis of the Norman theory. Historians "anti-Normanists" undertook a search for the people "Rus" in all directions from the indigenous Slavic territory.

Lands and states of the Slavs:

Eastern

Western

Borders of states at the end of the 9th century.

Ancient Rus were searched among the Baltic Slavs, Lithuanians, Khazars, Circassians, Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region, Sarmatian-Alanian tribes, etc. Only a small part of scientists, relying on direct evidence from sources, defended the Slavic origin of Russia.
Soviet historians, having proved that the annalistic legend about the calling of princes from across the sea cannot be considered the beginning of Russian statehood, also found out that the identification of Rus with the Varangians in the annals is erroneous.
Iranian geographer of the middle of the 9th century. Ibn-Khordadbeh points out that "the Rus are a tribe of Slavs." The Tale of Bygone Years speaks of the identity of the Russian language with the Slavic. The sources also contain more precise indications that help to determine among which part of the Eastern Slavs one should look for Rus.
Firstly, in the "Tale of Bygone Years" it is said about the glades: "even now the calling of Russia." Consequently, the ancient Rus tribe was located somewhere in the Middle Dnieper region, near Kyiv, which arose in the land of glades, on which the name of Rus subsequently passed. Secondly, in various Russian chronicles of the time of feudal fragmentation, a double geographical name of the words “Russian land”, “Rus” is noticed. Sometimes they understand all the East Slavic lands, sometimes the words "Russian land", "Rus" are used in the land should be considered more ancient and very narrow, geographically limited sense, denoting the forest-steppe strip from Kyiv and the Ros River to Chernigov, Kursk and Voronezh. This narrow understanding of the Russian land should be considered more ancient and date back to the 6th-7th centuries, when it was within these limits that a homogeneous material culture existed, known from archaeological finds.

By the middle of the VI century. The first mention of Russia in written sources also applies. One Syrian author - the successor of Zechariah Rhetor - mentions the people "ros", who lived next to the mythical Amazons (whose residence is usually dated to the Don basin).
On the territory outlined by chronicle and archaeological data, several Slavic tribes lived here for a long time. In all probability. The Russian land got its name from one of them, but it is not known for certain where this tribe was located. Judging by the fact that the oldest pronunciation of the word "Rus" sounded somewhat different, namely as "ros" (the people "rose" in the 6th century, "Rossky letters" in the 9th century, "Pravda Rosskaya" in the 11th century), apparently , the initial location of the Ros tribe should be sought on the Ros River (a tributary of the Dnieper, below Kyiv), where, moreover, the richest archaeological materials of the 5th-7th centuries were found, including silver items with princely signs on them.
The further history of Russia must be considered in connection with the formation of the ancient Russian nationality, which eventually embraced all the East Slavic tribes.
The core of the ancient Russian people is that "Russian land" of the 6th century, which, apparently, included the Slavic tribes of the forest-steppe zone from Kyiv to Voronezh. It included the lands of the glades, northerners, Russ and, in all likelihood, the streets. These lands formed a union of tribes, which, as one might think, took the name of the most significant Rus tribe at that time. The Russian union of tribes, which became famous far beyond its borders as a land of tall and strong heroes (Zacharia Rhetor), was stable and long-lasting, since a similar culture developed throughout its space and the name of Russia was firmly and permanently entrenched in all its parts. The union of the tribes of the Middle Dnieper and the Upper Don took shape during the period of Byzantine campaigns and the struggle of the Slavs with the Avars. The Avars failed in the VI-VII centuries. to invade this part of the Slavic lands, although they conquered the Dulebs who lived to the west.
Obviously, the rallying of the Dnieper-Don Slavs into an extensive alliance contributed to their successful struggle against the nomads.
The formation of the nation went in parallel with the folding of the state. National events consolidated the ties that were established between the individual parts of the country and contributed to the creation of the Old Russian people with a single language (if there were dialects), with their own territory and culture.
By IX - X centuries. the main ethnic territory of the Old Russian people was formed, the Old Russian literary language was formed (based on one of the dialects of the original "Russian Land" of the 6th-7th centuries). The ancient Russian nationality arose, uniting all the East Slavic tribes and becoming the single cradle of the three fraternal Slavic peoples of later times - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.
In the composition of the ancient Russian people, who lived in the territory from Lake Ladoga to the Black Sea and from Transcarpathia to the Middle Volga, small foreign-speaking tribes gradually joined in the process of assimilation, falling under the influence of Russian culture: Merya, all, Chud, the remnants of the Scythian-Sarmatian population in the south, some Turkic-speaking tribes.
Faced with the Persian languages, which were spoken by the descendants of the Scythian-Sarmatians, with the Finno-Ugric languages ​​​​of the peoples of the northeast and others, the Old Russian language invariably emerged victorious, enriching itself at the expense of the conquered languages.

Formation of the state of Russia

The formation of the state is the natural completion of a long process of formation of feudal relations and antagonistic classes of feudal society. The feudal state apparatus, as an apparatus of violence, adapted for its own purposes the previous tribal governments, which were completely different from it in essence, but similar to it in form and terminology. Such tribal bodies were, for example, "prince", "voivode", "team", etc. KI X-X centuries. the process of gradual maturation of feudal relations in the most developed areas of the Eastern Slavs (in the southern, forest-steppe lands) was clearly defined. Tribal elders and leaders of squads, who seized communal land, turned into feudal lords, tribal princes became feudal sovereigns, tribal unions grew into feudal states. A hierarchy of landowning nobility took shape and was established. coaod^-management of princes of different ranks. The young emerging class of feudal lords needed to create a strong state apparatus that would help it secure communal peasant lands and enslave the free peasant population, as well as provide protection from external intrusions.
The chronicler mentions a number of principalities - federations of tribes of the pre-feudal period: Polyansky, Drevlyansky, Dregovichsky, Polotsk, Slovenian. Some Eastern writers report that Kyiv (Kuyaba) was the capital of Russia, and besides it, two more cities were especially famous: Dzhervab (or Artania) and Selyabe, in which, in all likelihood, you need to see Chernigov and Pereyas-lavl - the oldest Russian cities always mentioned in Russian documents near Kyiv.
Treaty of Prince Oleg with Byzantium at the beginning of the 10th century. knows the already branched feudal hierarchy: boyars, princes, grand dukes (in Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Lyubech, Rostov, Polotsk) and the supreme overlord of the “Grand Duke of Russia”. Eastern sources of the 9th century. they call the head of this hierarchy the title "khakan-rus", equating the prince of Kyiv with the lords of strong and powerful powers (Avar Khagan, Khazar Khagan, etc.), sometimes competing with the Byzantine Empire itself. In 839, this title was also included in Western sources (the Vertinsky Annals of the 9th century). All sources unanimously call Kyiv the capital of Russia.
The fragment of the original chronicle text that survived in The Tale of Bygone Years allows us to determine the size of Russia in the first half of the 9th century. The composition of the ancient Russian state included the following tribal unions, which previously had independent reigns: the glades, the northerners, the drevlyans, the Dregovichi, the Polochans, and the Novgorod Slovenes. In addition, the chronicle lists up to a dozen Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes who paid tribute to Russia.
Russia of that time was a vast state, which already united half of the East Slavic tribes and collected tribute from the peoples of the Baltic and the Volga region.
In all likelihood, the Kiya dynasty reigned in this state, the last representatives of which (judging by some chronicles) were in the middle of the 9th century. princes Dir and Askold. About Prince Dir, an Arab author of the 10th century. Masudi writes: “The first of the Slavic kings is the king of Dir; it has vast cities and many inhabited countries. Muslim merchants arrive in the capital of his state with various kinds of goods. Later, Novgorod was conquered by the Varangian prince Rurik, and Kyiv was captured by the Varangian prince Oleg.
Other Eastern writers of the 9th - early 10th centuries. provide interesting information about agriculture, cattle breeding, beekeeping in Russia, about Russian gunsmiths and carpenters, about Russian merchants who traveled along the "Russian Sea" (Black Sea), and made their way to the East in other ways.
Of particular interest are data on the internal life of the ancient Russian state. So, the Central Asian geographer, who used the sources of the 9th century, reports that “the Rus have a class of knights”, that is, the feudal nobility.
Other sources also know the division into noble and poor. According to Ibn-Ruste (903), dating back to the 9th century, the king of the Rus (i.e., the Grand Duke of Kyiv) judges and sometimes exiles criminals "to the rulers of remote regions." In Russia, there was a custom of "God's judgment", i.e. resolving disputes by duel. For particularly serious crimes, the death penalty was applied. The king of the Rus annually traveled around the country, collecting tribute from the population.
The Russian tribal union, which turned into a feudal state, subjugated the neighboring Slavic tribes and equipped distant campaigns across the southern steppes and seas. In the 7th century sieges by the Rus of Constantinople and formidable campaigns of the Rus through Khazaria to the Derbent passage are mentioned. In the VII - IX centuries. the Russian prince Bravlin fought in the Khazar-Byzantine Crimea, passing from Surozh to Korchev (from Sudak to Kerch). About the Rus of the 9th century the Central Asian author wrote: "They fight with the surrounding tribes and defeat them."
Byzantine sources contain information about the Rus who lived on the Black Sea coast, about their campaigns against Constantinople, and about the baptism of a part of the Rus in the 60s of the 9th century.
The Russian state was formed independently of the Varangians, as a result of the natural development of society. Simultaneously with it, other Slavic states arose - the Bulgarian kingdom, the Great Moravian state and a number of others.
Since the Normanists greatly exaggerate the impact of the Varangians on Russian statehood, it is necessary to resolve the question: what is the actual role of the Varangians in the history of our Motherland?
In the middle of the 9th century, when Kievan Rus had already formed in the Middle Dnieper region, on the far northern outskirts of the Slavic world, where the Slavs lived peacefully side by side with the Finnish and Latvian tribes (Chud, Korela, Letgola, etc.), detachments of the Varangians began to appear, sailing from the Baltic Sea. The Slavs and the Chud drove these detachments away; we know that the Kyiv princes of that time sent their troops to the north to fight the Varangians. It is possible that it was then that, next to the old tribal centers of Polotsk and Pskov, a new city, Novgorod, grew up on an important strategic site near Lake Ilmen, which was supposed to block the Varangians from reaching the Volga and the Dnieper. For nine centuries until the construction of St. Petersburg, Novgorod either defended Russia from overseas pirates, or was a “window to Europe” for the trade of the northern Russian regions.
In 862 or 874 (the chronology is inconsistent), the Varangian king Rurik appeared near Novgorod. From this adventurer, who led a small squad, without any particular reason, the genealogy of all Russian princes of the "Rurikovich" was conducted (although Russian historians of the 11th century led the genealogy of princes from Igor the Old, without mentioning Rurik).
The Varangians-aliens did not take possession of Russian cities, but set up their fortifications-camps next to them. Near Novgorod they lived in the “Ryurik settlement”, near Smolensk - in Gnezdovo, near Kyiv - in the Ugorsky tract. There could be both merchants and Varangian warriors hired by the Russians. The important thing is that nowhere the Varangians were the masters of Russian cities.
Archaeological data show that the number of Varangian warriors themselves, who lived permanently in Russia, was very small.
In 882 one of the Varangian leaders; Oleg made his way from Novgorod to the south, took Lyubech, which served as a kind of northern gate of the Kyiv principality, and sailed to Kyiv, where he managed to kill the Kyiv prince Askold and seize power by deceit and cunning. Until now, in Kyiv, on the banks of the Dnieper, a place called "Askold's Grave" has been preserved. It is possible that Prince Askold was the last representative of the ancient Kiya dynasty.
The name of Oleg is associated with several campaigns for tribute to neighboring Slavic tribes and the famous campaign of Russian troops against Constantinople in 911. Apparently, Oleg did not feel like a master in Russia. It is curious that after a successful campaign in Byzantium, he and the Varangians surrounding him ended up not in the capital of Russia, but far to the north, in Ladoga, from where the path to their homeland, Sweden, was close. It also seems strange that Oleg, to whom the creation of the Russian state is completely unreasonably attributed, disappeared without a trace from the Russian horizon, leaving the chroniclers in bewilderment. Novgorodians, geographically close to the Varangian lands, Oleg's homeland, wrote that, according to one version known to them, after the Greek campaign, Oleg came to Novgorod, and from there to Ladoga, where he died and was buried. According to another version, he sailed across the sea "and I will peck (his) winters in the leg and from that (he) will die." The Kievans, repeating the legend of the snake that stung the prince, told that he was buried in Kyiv on Mount Schekavitsa (“Serpent Mountain”); perhaps the name of the mountain influenced the fact that Shchekavitsa was artificially associated with Oleg.
In the IX - X centuries. Normans played an important role in the history of many peoples of Europe. They attacked the shores of England, France, Italy from the sea in large fleets, conquered cities and kingdoms. Some scientists believed that Russia was subjected to the same massive invasion of the Varangians, while forgetting that continental Russia was the complete geographical opposite of the western maritime states.
The formidable fleet of the Normans could suddenly appear in front of London or Marseilles, but not a single Varangian boat that entered the Neva and sailed upstream of the Neva, Volkhov, Lovat, could not go unnoticed by Russian watchmen from Novgorod or Pskov. The portage system, when heavy, deep-sea vessels had to be pulled ashore and rolled for tens of miles along the ground on skating rinks, excluded the element of surprise and robbed the formidable armada of all its fighting qualities. In practice, only as many Varangians could get into Kyiv as the prince of Kievan Rus allowed. Not without reason, that one time, when the Varangians attacked Kyiv, they had to pretend to be merchants.
The reign of the Varangian Oleg in Kyiv is an insignificant and short-lived episode, overblown by some pro-Varangian chroniclers and later Normanist historians. The campaign of 911 - the only reliable fact from his reign - became famous thanks to the brilliant literary form in which it was described, but in essence this is only one of the many campaigns of Russian squads of the 9th - 10th centuries. on the coast of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, about which the chronicler is silent. During the X century. and the first half of the 11th century. Russian princes often hired detachments of the Varangians for wars and palace service; they were often entrusted with murders from around the corner: hired Varangians stabbed, for example, Prince Yaropolk in 980, they killed Prince Boris in 1015; Varangians were hired by Yaroslav for the war with his own father.
In order to streamline the relationship between the mercenary Varangian detachments and the local Novgorod squad, Yaroslav's Pravda was published in Novgorod in 1015, limiting the arbitrariness of violent mercenaries.
The historical role of the Varangians in Russia was negligible. Appearing as "finders", the newcomers, attracted by the splendor of the rich, already far-famous Kievan Rus, they plundered the northern outskirts in separate raids, but they were able to get to the heart of Rus only once.
There is nothing to say about the cultural role of the Varangians. The treaty of 911, concluded on behalf of Oleg and containing about a dozen Scandinavian names of the Oleg boyars, was written not in Swedish, but in Slavonic. The Varangians had nothing to do with the creation of the state, the construction of cities, the laying of trade routes. They could neither speed up nor significantly delay the historical process in Russia.
The short period of Oleg's "principality" - 882 - 912. - left in the people's memory an epic song about the death of Oleg from his own horse (processed by A.S. Pushkin in his "Songs about the Prophetic Oleg"), interesting for its anti-Varangian tendency. The image of a horse in Russian folklore is always very benevolent, and if the owner, the Varangian prince, is already predicted to die from his war horse, then he deserves it.
The struggle against the Varangian elements in the Russian squads continued until 980; there are traces of it both in the annals and in the epic epic - the epic about Mikul Selyaninovich, who helped Prince Oleg Svyatoslavich fight the Varangian Sveneld (black raven Santal).
The historical role of the Varangians is incomparably less than the role of the Pechenegs or Polovtsy, who really influenced the development of Russia for four centuries. Therefore, the life of only one generation of Russian people, who endured the participation of the Varangians in the administration of Kyiv and several other cities, does not seem to be a historically important period.