How Andrei Sokolov behaves in captivity. Andrey Kuchaev - in German captivity

Alans - debunking the myth of "Mingi-Tau", magazine No. 1, 2020 “Stalin was brought another list of those subject to repression, where the first name was Abaev. Opposite it, he put a tick with a red pencil and said: “Leave this one. Good scientist. Transfer to Moscow. Everything turned out to be simple: the leader used the books of Vaso Abaev (in particular, his work “Ossetian Language and Folklore”), of course, without mentioning it anywhere” 2. Abaev fulfilled the assignment given to him, removed the Turkic people from the territory of the Caucasus and justified that in the Caucasus, only one people can be called - Ossetians. It was at his suggestion that in modern Alan studies a point of view was established about the continuity of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian-speaking peoples in the following sequence: Scythians and Sarmatians → Alans → Ossetians, and the opinion expressed by Abaev became an indisputable scientific statement. However, the belonging of the Scythians to the Indo-Aryans and the assertion that they were an Iranian-speaking people are at least the inventions of Miller and Abaev. Their statements turned out to be so strained, if not fictional, that serious scientific studies have repeatedly appeared in the modern press, completely breaking the ideas and constructions of Abaev. Science has never seen a more falsified book than the "Dictionary of Scythian Words" compiled by Abaev. Neither world history nor world linguistics knows such a blatant forgery. * It was during Stalin's time that Ossetians were unexpectedly appointed to be Alans, and for this statement and "scientific justification" a huge machine called the USSR was involved. One modern researcher noted that at one time in our country it was difficult to find even a newspaper, a magazine or any other publication where the question about the Alans and Ossetians did not appear in the crossword puzzle. Even in "Pionerskaya Pravda" there was a question in the crossword without fail: Who are the ancestors of the Ossetians? The answer is 5 letters. On the topic of Ossetians - the descendants of the Alans, tons of papers were written with references to this or that historian, philologist, linguist, but no one objected to the fact that some of these texts were corrected at the discretion of Ossetian historians and no one objected to their anti-scientific version. And when it comes to the fact that some Caucasian peoples - Ingush, Chechens, cannot be direct descendants of the Alans, then gross accusations are poured. Therefore, it was very difficult for such Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus as Karachays and Balkars to argue with Ossetian authors until a new science appeared: DNA genealogy. But let's start in order. In the USSR, Vasily (Vaso) Ivanovich Abaev became the author and creator of the theory of the origin of the Ossetian people from the Alans. Here is a brief biographical note about him. Here is a page of his biography, this is not our opinion, but taken from materials posted on many sites on the Internet. He is called an outstanding scientist, he is an Iranian-Ossetian scholar, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor, Doctor of Philology, senior researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, full member of the Asian Royal Society (Academy) of England (1966), corresponding member of the Finno-Ugric Society in Helsinki (1973), twice laureate of the Prize. K. Khetagurova, Honored Scientist of Georgia and North Ossetia, laureate of the USSR State Prize. Author of many works on general and comparative linguistics, Iranian studies and Ossetian studies: Nart epic (1945), Ossetian language and folklore (1949). One of Abaev's main works is Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language (1958); it traces the etymology and history of Ossetian words on the material of 190 languages ​​of the world and the connection of the Ossetian language with Iranian and Indo-European, as well as with Turkic, Finno-Ugric and other languages. Emyurleni tereninden 85 Article Vasily (Vaso) Abaev was born in 1900 in the village of Kobi in the family of an Ossetian highlander. He received his primary education at a rural school, and his secondary education at the Tiflis 6th Classical Gymnasium (1910–1918). From 1918 to 1921 he worked as a teacher at the Kobi primary school. In 1922 he entered the Leningrad State University on the Iranian level of the ethnological and linguistic department of the faculty of social sciences. He graduated from the university course in 1925. At the same time, at the suggestion of N. Ya. After graduating from graduate school in 1928, he was sent to work at the Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Tiflis, and in 1930 he was enrolled as an employee of the Japhetic Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later reorganized into the Institute of Language and Thought. N.Ya. Marr, in Leningrad. Since 1929, he has been a professor at the Department of General Linguistics at LIFLI. From December 16, 1930 to December 1931, V. Abaev combined work at the institute with work at the Public Library, at first and. about. chief librarian for the Eastern Department with half the salary, and then the chief librarian of the ONL. In 1935, Abaev was awarded the degree of candidate of philological sciences (without defending a dissertation), in the same year he was appointed head of the Iranian office of the Institute of Language and Thought (the emphasis in this word is placed on the first syllable). Working outside of Ossetia, Abaev did not break ties with his homeland and provided great assistance to local workers, editing and reviewing scientific and other literature, advising them when traveling to the republic. So, in January 1941, Abaev was sent to Ossetia with a special assignment from the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences to advise on the study of the Ossetian Nart epic. During the Great Patriotic War, Abaev failed to return to Leningrad, and in 1941-1945. he worked at the North Ossetian and South Ossetian research institutes, and in 1944 he also headed the department of linguistics at the North Ossetian Pedagogical Institute. Only in the autumn of 1945 did he return to Leningrad. In the autumn of 1945, V. Abaev returned to Leningrad and again began working at the Institute of Language and Thought, which was transformed after a discussion in 1950 into the Institute of Linguistics. There he published his fundamental work on the Ossetian language and folklore. In 1952, together with the main core of the institute's scientists, he was transferred to Moscow. In 1962 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philology (without defending a dissertation), and in 1969 he was awarded the title of professor. Vaso Abaev made a significant contribution to various areas of linguistics. He published more than 270 works on the theory of etymology and the history of linguistic research, Iranian and Indo-European linguistics, and on various issues of general linguistics. Especially much has been done by scientists in the field of Ossetian and Nart studies. All 86 "Mingi-Tau" were subjected to deep research in Ossetian studies. No. 1. 2020 main problems of modern grammar and lexicology, phonetics and morphology, dialectology and history of the Ossetian language. Vaso Abaev is the compiler of the Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the Ossetian Language. Of the large number of folklore works, Abaev’s studies dedicated to the world-famous heroic epos “Narty” stand out. In a number of works, Abaev acts as a literary critic, having published articles on the work of Kost Khetagurov, Geor Maliev, Seka Gadiev, as well as separate theoretical works on various problems of literary criticism. Abaev participated in the XVI Congress of German Orientalists (Halle, 1958) and the XXV International Congress of Orientalists (Moscow, 1960). V. Abaev was a full member of the Royal Asiatic Soc. of Great Britain and Ireland and a corresponding member of the Finno-Ugric Society in Helsinki. He lectured at the Collège de France (Paris, 1966). Vasily Abaev - Honored Scientist of the North Ossetian ASSR (1957) and the Georgian SSR (1980), the first laureate of the State Prize. Kosta Khetagurova (1966), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1981). He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, medals “For the Defense of the Caucasus” and “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945”. Vaso Abaev lived to be 101 years old. An entire era in Russian linguistics and Iranian studies is associated with his name. Abaev became the first pioneer in Alan studies, who made a lot of efforts to establish the idea of ​​Ossetians belonging to the Alan ethnic group. And it happened, as we believe, that's why. When Stalin had the idea of ​​fighting the Turks, he began to look for a specialist who could fulfill this complex idea of ​​the leader, write a scientific justification for the absence of the Turks in the Caucasus. The choice fell on Vaso Abaev not by chance. On the one hand, the beloved student of N.  J.  Marr, who not only practically replaced his teacher after his death, but also successfully promoted the new doctrine of language, taking into account the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of language. And now we need to dwell in some detail on the teachings of Marr and the fulfillment of his precepts by Abaev. * * * Here is a brief biography of the linguist, philologist and archaeologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr (1864/65–1934). He was born on December 25, 1864 (January 6, 1865 according to the new style; according to other sources, May 25, or June 6 according to the new style, 1864) in Kutaisi. His father was the Scot James Marr, the founder of the Kutaisi Botanical Garden, who, having become a widow at the age of 80, married a young Georgian woman. My father spoke only English and French, my mother only Georgian. Marr's childhood passed in Georgia and among the Georgians, he began to study other languages ​​at the Kutaisi gymnasium and showed outstanding abilities for them. Marr's works are written in Russian. In 1888 he graduated from the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg University, in 1891-1918 he taught there, from 1902 he was a professor, from 1911 he was the dean of the faculty. From 1912 Marr was an academician (of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, then the Russian Academy of Sciences, and then the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). In 1918–1934 director of the State Academy of the History of Material Culture, in 1921-1934 director of the Japhetic Institute of the Academy of Sciences founded by him, transformed in 1931 into the Institute of Language and Thought of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1926-1930. director of the Public Library, in 1930–1934 Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He held Marr and a number of other leadership positions and at the same time taught at Leningrad University and other universities. Marr died in Leningrad on December 20, 1934. But behind these sparse lines lies a rather turbulent activity, half of which took place in the Russian Empire, where he was not only a scientist, but also a believer and even the headman of the Georgian church in St. Petersburg. The second half of his life, and with it considerable scientific activity, was already in the Soviet Union, where he had to adapt to the new Bolshevik ideology. We will quote V.M. Alpatov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philology, Professor from his serious work “The History of a Myth: Marr and Marrism” Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, although he was a polyglot, never once in his life listened to a single theoretical course in linguistics. He learned only the general concepts of comparative historical linguistics about the relationship of languages ​​and language families, did not know how to put into practice the method of comparative historical analysis, but, nevertheless, he was drawn to broad and far-reaching constructions that he could not prove. In Marr's character there were many qualities inherent in a great scientist - great natural abilities, extensive knowledge, great capacity for work, enthusiasm for work, conviction in the correctness of his ideas, desire for generalizations, interest in interdisciplinary research, concern for students, talent as an organizer of science. . However, all these qualities were devalued by a complete lack of a sense of proportion and self-criticism. And any of the positive qualities of Marr, going to the extreme, turned into the opposite, the vastness of knowledge - into superficiality and approximation, efficiency and enthusiasm - into graphomania, conviction - into dogmatism, the desire for generalizations and new ideas - into the promotion of fantastic hypotheses, concern for students - into despotism in relation to them, the talent of the organizer - into the desire for monopoly. Marr was called "the iron-fisted dean." Even before the revolution, he expelled all competitors from the field of Caucasian studies (by the way, the only one where he really was a professional), quarreled with all the students of the first generation, as soon as they began to show independence. These properties had less effect on Marr's scientific output while he was engaged in the subject in which he was prepared. But, to the misfortune of himself and science, even in the pre-revolutionary years, Marr began to go more and more into the field of linguistics, where he was an amateur. Even before the revolution, he announced the existence of the so-called Japhetic family of languages, which included almost all the languages ​​of the Mediterranean and Western Asia, whose family ties were not even clear at that time. This delusional hypothesis was still within the limits of the theoretically possible, but the degree of scientificity of its development is already evidenced by the fact that Marr categorically included the undeciphered Etruscan language and the Pelagian language among the Japhetic ones, about which nothing was known at that time except their name. Here is his opinion: “Basque belongs to the Japhetic family of languages ​​and is related to Georgian, Svan, Abkhaz, Batsbi, Lak. The Pelagic language, - Marr wrote further, - on the one hand, in the west, is related to Etruscan, on the other hand, in the east, with such a language as Lezgian or Lak and ancient Urartian in Armenia" 1 . All this nonsense was perceived at that time as a new phenomenon in linguistics. And since the “Japhetic languages”, with the light hand of Marr, became more and more and it became more and more difficult to explain the commonality of their origin only by migrations of ancient peoples, Marr had to make a choice between the results he wanted to obtain and the principles of comparative historical research. linguistics. And the choice was made - in favor of the desired results. In November 1923 (since that time, the Marrists then counted the "new era" in linguistics), Marr made his first report, where he denied the basic postulates of the science of language. The "Japhetic theory" turned into a "new doctrine of language" (although the term "Japhetic theory" as a synonym for "new doctrine" existed later). Marr was never able, despite the huge number of published works, to give a coherent exposition of his teaching, individual fragments of which he subjected to countless modifications until the end of his life. However, in its most general form, this doctrine boils down to two propositions. The first of them was diametrically opposed to the usual linguistic ideas about the development of a family of languages ​​as a gradual disintegration of the once single proto-language into different, but genetically related languages. According to Marr, "proto-language is a scientific fiction that has served its purpose," and the development of languages ​​goes in the opposite direction from plurality to unity. Languages ​​arose independently of each other: not only the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​are not originally related, but each Russian dialect and dialect was once a separate, independently emerged language. Then there is a process of crossing, when the two languages ​​are combined into a new, third language, which is equally a descendant of both ancestral languages. For example, French is a crossed Latin-Japhetic language, and the lack of declension and underdevelopment of conjugation is its original Japhetic feature. In turn, Latin is the result of crossing the "language of the patricians" and the "language of the plebeians", the latter also being Japhetic. The process of crossing languages ​​will be completed under communism, when all the languages ​​of the world merge into one, Marr argued. The second provision was as follows. Although languages ​​arose independently of each other, they have developed and will continue to develop according to absolutely uniform laws, although at different rates. Sound speech, which arose in primitive society as a result of the class struggle, initially consisted of the same four elements sol, ber, yon, rosh, which had the character of “diffuse cries”. Gradually, words began to form from their combinations, phonetics and grammar appeared. Languages ​​go through the same stages of development, determined by the level of socio-economic development. At some socio-economic stage, any nation has a language of a certain phonetic and grammatical type. Moreover, these languages, regardless of geographical location, also have a material similarity: Marr wrote that for any people at a certain stage of development, water will be called su, as in a number of Turkic languages. When the basis changes, the language, as part of the superstructure, undergoes a revolutionary explosion and becomes structurally and materially different, but traces of the previous stages remain in the language, up to four elements that can be distinguished in any word of any language. Marr called the search for such traces linguistic paleontology. Both positions of Marr contradicted not only all the linguistic theories that existed by that time, but also the accumulated factual material. It has long been established that, for example, Latin was the parent language for the Romance languages, that the simplification of morphology in French is not an ancient, but a relatively new phenomenon, recorded in monuments, that the separation of the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​also occurred in the historical era. At the same time, no one could prove the existence of the four elements or "language explosions" at critical historical epochs. But for Marr, established facts simply did not exist. In his research on the history of words, he rejected the strict phonetic laws discovered by nineteenth-century science, relying solely on external consonance, which could be assigned to any arbitrary development of meaning. So, Marr connected the German words Hund, “dog”, and hundert, “hundred”, which actually had different origins, inventing the following “patterns of development”: dog - totem “dog” - members of the genus - many people - many - one hundred. He calmly compared the French rouge, “red”, with a part of the races of the Russian red (he simply discarded the initial part of the root as unnecessary), linking both words with the primary element rosh, to which he erected the names of the peoples Russ, Et-Rus-ki, pe-las-gi, lez-gins, etc. All these exercises were pure imagination, moderated only by ideological considerations (Marr indignantly rejected the very real common origin of the words slave and work). Marr could say anything. Either he declared that the Russian language is in many respects closer to Georgian than to Ukrainian, then he defined the German language as transformed by a revolutionary explosion ... Svan, then he called the Smerds an Ibero-Sumerian layer of Russians. In the “new doctrine of language”, some of Marr’s previous ideas were preserved, first of all, the identification of “Japhetic languages”, which were already understood not as a family, but as a stage in language development, although Marr could not describe the signs of this stage. Nevertheless, even before the official recognition and inculcation of the “new doctrine of language” had undeniable popularity. It was not the attraction of scientific theory. That was the attraction of the myth. Marr's passion was due to many reasons. Among them are the scientific authority of Marr, based primarily on his early non-linguistic works, and the brightness of his personality, and the breadth of the range of his problems. But two of them were of particular importance: the coincidence of his activities with the period of the crisis of world linguistics and the consonance of his ideas with the era of the twenties. Criticism of Marr's "new doctrine of language" is a very simple task and accessible to anyone with a philological education. A flagrant inconsistency with the facts and the results obtained in science, lack of evidence and fundamental unprovability of provisions, illogicality, inconsistency, complete isolation from practice - all this is obvious. However, the question is natural: if the doctrine is so obviously bad, why was it fundamental for Soviet linguistics for two decades? The gap between the scientific weakness of the “new doctrine of language” and the strength of its influence is so enormous that it requires explanation” 1. As it has been rightly noted, the twentieth century brought to mankind many myths of various kinds. Among them, a prominent place was occupied by scientific myths, which in a distorted form reflected the notions of the omnipotence of science that had entered everyday life. Real science often did not correspond to such ideas, and pseudoscience consciously or unconsciously speculated on them, promising to solve any existing and non-existent problems. This appealed to the broad masses and representatives of the authorities, who were not specialists in a particular science, and many of them had no education at all. Using their support, the myth-makers achieved a monopoly position not only in science, but also in society. And here Marr was one of these myth-makers, if not the main myth-maker, who invented so much in history and linguistics that the consequences of his crazy ideas still resonate. Especially Marr was a sophisticated inventor of the myth of language. Yes, his lack of linguistic education (at that time strictly separated from Oriental studies) prevented Marr from scientifically testing his a priori hypotheses and did not limit his imagination in any way. Having learned a large number of languages ​​on a practical level, moreover, he more or less fully possessed information about the history of only the Kartvelian and Abkhaz languages. At the same time, the already well-studied history of the Indo-European and Turkic languages ​​was actually ignored by him. He gathered around him a group of students who were not linguists in the full sense of the word, but they were historians, orientalists, and it was easier for him to inspire them with something that they knew little about. Among his students were those who later became prominent scientists, such as I.A. Javakhishvili, I.A. Orbeli, A.A. Kalantar, A.G. SHANIDZE. But the outbreak of the First World War, and then the revolution of 1917 in Russia, interrupted Marr from working on archaeological expeditions in the Caucasus, and this became a great incentive for his theoretical work. Interest in the Caucasus, in the past of its peoples, has always been in the sphere of Marr's constant interests since pre-revolutionary times. It was then that he very energetically promoted the organization of the “Caucasian Historical and Archaeological Institute”. He repeatedly raised the question of creating such a scientific center in the Caucasus, in Tiflis. Back in 1906, he prepared a project for the organization of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. But these projects were shattered by the resistance of the government, which was afraid that such a scientific center would turn out to be a conductor of anti-government ideas. activities set a specific task - compiling an ethnographic map of Russia with explanatory notes. Marr wrote three works for the commission: “The tribal composition of the population of the Caucasus”, “Caucasian tribal names and their local parallels”, “Talysh”, which are actually historical and ethnographic studies. At the same time, he wrote a number of works on historical geography, toponymy, ethnonymy, etc. It was Marr who was one of the first who proved the importance of onomastics, proving how important this science is for studying the historical past of the people. April 18, 1919 Council of People's Commissars, signed by V.I. Lenin approved the project of transforming the former archaeological commission into the State Academy of Material Culture. Marr was elected the first chairman of the GAIMK. Interest in the Caucasus led Marr to the conviction that the ancestral home of the peoples of the Caucasus should be sought far beyond its borders. “The multitude of Japhetic languages ​​in the Caucasus and their location on the square of this region, which do not coincide with the degrees of kinship, prompt us to look for the ancestral home of the Caucasian Japhetids in another place and on a wider territory”1. In his work “How does Japhetic linguistics live?” Marr noted the significance of the natural psychological kinship of the peoples of the Caucasus. “Our new linguistic doctrine,” he wrote, “after all, correctly illuminates this unity of them. This psychology, which springs like a living spring from the nature of the inhabitants of the region, its source, revealed by linguistics, what is taught? They create a new ideological ground for the unity of the peoples of the Caucasus, its inhabitants, they make the psychological necessity of such unity absolutely palpable. We are also convinced of its necessity by the economic study of the natural forces of the region, this necessity is also evidenced by the attempt, repeatedly repeated over the centuries, giving brilliant results, to eliminate the life of the Caucasus by the joint efforts of its inhabited peoples. But natural-psychological kinship also requires cultivation, its growth and development must be supported artificially; each of the peoples of the Caucasus must be imbued with the consciousness of their kinship, its significance, as the most necessary natural and historical factor of progress, must be realized first of all by the peoples of the most advanced, more free-thinking part of them, the youth, the true initiator of the future” 2 . The indigenous peoples of the Caucasus, even the indigenous languages ​​of the Caucasus, according to Marr, are not a phenomenon of local origin: the Japhetic family to which the original population of the Caucasus belongs, alien people here, just like the Ari-Europeans and Turks who subsequently appeared, not to mention others , not introduced by whole tribes, the masses of the people, with the difference, however, that the Japhetic family emigrated from the former territory of its settlement neighboring from the south, if not the ancestral home, from Mesopotamia, naturally spilling over into the neighboring Caucasian countries in ethnic masses. The study of the history of the Caucasus allowed Marr to assert that the peoples of the Caucasus deserved the right to demand “a reassessment of the actual share of participation in the creation of a universal culture of Aryan or non-Aryan peoples, European or non-European countries, nationalities and states great or small in number and territorial size”1. In his outline of the historical process in the Caucasus, Marr wrote that throughout their history the peoples of the Caucasus were strong in unification and that now, when “life has demanded a revision of the relationship between the old and new national groups of the Caucasian world and the freedom of their new self-determination”, it is necessary “to in the interests of human internal cultural coexistence to restore on new principles the ancient solidarity that has now been lost not only in real life, but also in the idea, in the minds of peoples bound by a common destiny” 2 . In the “new doctrine of language” he created (“Japhetic theory”), which he presented in November 1923, completely unscientific, completely unverifiable and unprovable statements, such as the origin of all languages ​​from the “four elements”, the idea “Japhetic languages” as a kind of not genetic, but social-class community, and the like. What is this theory? And where did such a strange name come from? Strange as it may seem, the Bible came to Marr's aid. Marr wrote that the biblical Noah had three sons: Shem (Semitic languages), Ham (Hamitic languages) and Japheth (Yaphet). After the Flood, Japhet began to live in the Caucasus. From him, according to Marr, all the Caucasian peoples originated. Hence, all the Caucasian languages ​​became, according to him, Japhetic. Despite the far-fetchedness and fabulousness of this theory, however strange it may seem, everyone accepted it as a discovery beyond any doubt. Well, then Marr goes deep into "an unexplored source of the history of the Caucasian world" 3 . The deeper Marr captures the material of non-written North Caucasian languages, the clearer becomes what he had long ago expressed at the end of the 19th century, but only in 1916 received a complete formulation, the statement about the paramount importance of studying non-written living languages, for understanding the completeness of the historical process. At first, Marr wanted to fix the relationship of the Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan, Chan languages ​​with Semitic and Hamitic by such postulates. As he argued, after all, Shem, Ham and Japhet were siblings, and they had everything in common, not only the fact of birth, but they also communicated in the same language. But this was only the beginning of his pseudo-linguistic research, on which he did not think to stop. Soon he declared related all the ancient (dead) languages ​​of the Mediterranean basin and Western Asia with living languages ​​(Caucasian or Iberian-Caucasian), Basque, Vershik (Pamir), etc.1 Of course, to declare almost all languages ​​of the East (as dead and alive) only by their descent from three siblings seems like an overstretch. But only for an unbiased reader, who does not even have anything to do with linguistics, but not for Marr. Nor was it a stretch for the internationalist communists, in a word, for all those for whom an idea conceived immaculately, i.e. without contact with the facts, was much more important than its scientific justification. As noted by V.M. Alpatov, Marr, as it were, picked up all the “poorly lying languages”, i.e. not assigned to specific groups and, without hesitation, attached them to the "Japhetic". So, language to language, more than a decent “collection” has gathered and, according to Marr, the Caucasus has become almost the parent center of all languages ​​​​of the world, including all ancient, ancient pre-Greek, Etruscan and Hittite languages. The Chuvash, Hottentot, and Kabyle languages ​​\u200b\u200bare included in the Japhetic languages. It turned out to be surprisingly simple and elegant: “... stubborn facts” made room in front of the “stubborn author”, wrote V.I. Abaev 2 . As time has shown, Marr's main linguistic idea - the kinship of all Caucasian languages ​​- has not been confirmed 3 . But this will happen later, and while Marr's fame is expanding, new students are clinging to him. Quite quickly, new students from among the students began to appear in the group of already determined adherents. Such were V.I. Abaev, S.L. Bykhovskaya, A.N. Genko. Abaev, already in his second year of university, invited to the Japhetic Institute, created by Marr, as a freelancer, recalls this institution as one of the centers of intellectual life in Petrograd in the early 1920s. "They went to the 7th line of Vasilyevsky Island, driven by a thirst for new ideas and the unique strength of Marr's unique personality." And then Abaev noted: "Marr was at the zenith of his glory" 4 . Marr's name is widely known, and the ideas of Japhetidology penetrate even into poetry. Valery Bryusov, who was friends with Marr, wrote the poem “ZSFSR” in 1924: “... And how many legends! From the days of Atlantis The Japhetids bring revelations for us! Vladimir Zakharov

A. Ovchinnikov
Alans and Scythians. ANOTHER FANTASY.
Alans
To begin with, a few quotes about the Alans from Wikipedia articles. 1) Alans - Iranian-speaking tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin; 2) in the 1st-2nd centuries AD the Alans occupied a dominant position among the Sarmatians of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and Ciscaucasia, from where they raided the Crimea, Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, Media; 3) large tribal associations of the Alans were defeated by the Huns in the 4th century AD; 4) part of the Alans participated, starting from the end of the 4th century AD, in the Great Migration of Peoples, reaching North Africa together with the Vandals, forming a kingdom there in the 6th century that lasted more than a hundred years; 5) from the 7th to the 10th century, medieval Alania was part of the Khazar rope; 6) in the 4th-6th centuries AD. The Alans formed independently and with their allies principalities and kingdoms on the territory of modern France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Romania, Hungary, leaving a memory in Europe in the form of about 300 toponyms - places with Alanian roots - (Catalonia, Alencon, etc.) ; 7) "through the Sarmatian-Alanian influence, the heritage of the Scythian civilization entered the culture of many peoples."
The tribal formation of the Eastern Alans fell only in the 13th century under the blows of the Tatar-Mongol Batu, and modern Ossetians are considered the last fragment of the great Alanian ethnos. These are the main provisions of official science, which, alas, again consists of inconsistencies and contradictions. We are interested in the Alans, first of all, in the context of their relationship with the Slavs of the Don region, and these relations were not always cloudless. What kind of Alans are these, “where did they go from”, how did they end up and where did they go. Our version differs in many ways from the commonly used one. So...
The first mention of the Alans appears at the very beginning of the 1st century AD. in Roman sources. That is, presumably, from the moment of the first contact of the Romans (at first, merchants, merchants, scouts) with the tribes of the Black Sea region unknown to them until now. Alani - this is the nickname of a people unfamiliar to the Romans - since then it has forever entered the designation of "nomadic tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin." Why exactly Scythian-Sarmatian? - Yes, simply because the Alans lived within the same boundaries as the Scythians known to the whole world until then and, then, the Sarmatians. At the same time, the same Iranian origin is attributed to the Alanian language as to the Scythian. How is it known that the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, and, therefore, the Alans were "Iranian-speaking"?
Scythians and their imaginary "Iranian-speaking"
Note that there are no written sources. True, there is a small study, which proves the Old Slavic origin of the indistinct and obscure, as it were, Scythian signs discovered by archaeologists. Further, we will see that such an assumption has a right to exist, and with a probability no less than that of generally accepted hypotheses. Although it is not clear how the highly developed Scythian civilization could not have written language, which reached unsurpassed heights in art, culture and military affairs in the Bronze Age, which is comparable in time to the appearance of the first creations of ancient Greek masters. The fact that this is really so easy to be convinced by looking at the samples of the Scythian works of art - see Fig. 1. An ethnic group that managed to create such masterpieces could not help but have its own writing. The writing of the Aryans, Scythians, Slavs, Slavic-Russians is a separate big topic, to which we will devote a separate chapter. Here, we note in advance that in addition to the loss of samples of material culture of the pre-Christian period during wars and invasions, the era of forced Christianization of Russia, which lasted two and a half centuries, played a role, during which almost all the cultural and historical heritage of our ancestors, the so-called pagans, was destroyed.
Today, in all sources, it is customary to consider the language of the Scythians (Sarmatians, Alans) as belonging to the Iranian group of Indo-European languages ​​- and that's it! This was determined only by the names of the leaders and kings of these tribes recorded by the ancient Greeks and Romans. There are several dozen of them in total, for example (here it is necessary to take into account the Greek spelling, namely the predilection of the Greeks for the endings os-as): Olkas, Matasy, Skilur, Palak, Kolandak, Skivlias, Pardokas, Ditylas, Zariva-Tsareva (female), Skoloniy, Teutoma, Tevtar, Shpako, Orpata, Adanfirs, Skopas, Tapsakas, Atey (king) [2]. Let's try to clear these names from Greek sediments, we get: Olk, Mata, Skilur, Palak, Kolandak, Skivl, Pardak, Dit, Tsareva, Skol, Teut, Orpat, Azanfir, Tapsak, Atey. I will give a dozen of the most common non-Muslim names of modern Persia (there, for thousands of years, little has changed culturally, except that the nuclear reactor has started working): Ardashir, Baraz, Javed, Mihran, Parvaz, Sohrab, Shahriyar, Sher. And for comparison, a few old Russian names: Yaroslav, Velimir, Dobrogost, Dobrynya, Budimir, Vseslav, Dobran, Uslad, Svetomir, Radislav, Ratibor (and, what names, speaking, directly moral and military characteristics of our ancestors). For me, the latter is more consonant with the Scythian names than the Iranian names of the same, isn't it?
There is even a dictionary of the Scythian language for 200 words, where the author, a well-known historian, philologist, linguist and Iranian scholar V.I. Abaev - Ossetian by nationality - again out of nothing, out of thin air, just for the sake of proving the involvement of modern Ossetians in those Alans, "pulls by the ears" some modern Ossetian words and concepts, as if consonant, no, rather, they could be similar to some Alanian (Scythian) counterparts. If one devotes one's life to such evidence, then one can compile a Scythian-Honduran dictionary. Such research is carried out on the erroneous assumption that the Russian Plain, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea were inhabited by migrants from the Iranian Highlands, for which there is practically no evidence. That is, it means that all the gigantic expanses of Eurasia from the Elbe to the Urals and from Valdai to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea were inhabited for thousands of years by some kind of proto-Iranian, while, of course, Iranian-speaking tribes. And this statement is stubborn, despite the latest discoveries in biology and genetics, continues to be present in almost all educational and popular publications, including Internet and Wikipedia.
At the same time, the entire "Iranian" nature of these millionth, it seems, the most numerous then (and now) tribes of Europe, in addition to references to several names of Scythian leaders, also rests on the consonance of the hydronyms Don-Dnepr-Dniester-Danube-Donets to the Ossetian (water, river). But we will return to this issue later. The chain of reasoning is as follows: the Ossetians (actually the Iranian group of languages) are the descendants of the medieval Alans, the Alans are a Scythian-Sarmatian tribe, the Scythians are Iranian-speaking, ergo, a Scythian dictionary can be compiled on the basis of the modern Ossetian language. Which was done by the aforementioned Abaev. In particular, the textbook on the history of North Ossetia [4] provides the following examples of the connection between modern Ossetian words and Alano-Scythian words (according to the works of Abaev): mad (mother), fyd (father), rvad (brother), khuerkhe (sister), khur ( sun), mei (month), magz (brain), zerde (heart), syrh (red), ez-az (I), dy (you), mah (we), tayyn (melt), battyn (knit). The latter is very drawn to the "loaf", tied with twine, and I'm not sure that this is just a joke. If we take into account that Khur (the sun) is very consonant with the ancient Russian Yar-Yarilo, then in almost all these classical examples one can hear not Iranian, but our native, Old Russian roots, the language of our ancestors - the Scythians. The eastern part of the common tree of the Indo-European languages ​​can now be represented in the following sequence: the Proto-Indo-European language - the language of the Aryans - the Scythian-Aryans. Further, the Scythian-Aryan common branch is divided into Iranian (and hence already Ossetian) and Scythian-Slavic-Russian. The Iranian group of languages ​​is secondary to the ancient Scytho-Aryan.
Genetics of the Alans and Scythians
Here it is impossible not to bring one more, but "lethal" argument. According to the latest research data of geneticists, Ossetians have nothing to do with the Scythians and Alans. The fact that the Scythians belonged to the haplogroup R1a on the male Y-chromosome is not disputed by anyone and is recognized by the entire scientific world community. But so far this circumstance has not yet imprinted much in the brain of an ordinary descendant of the Scythian tribe - and this is you and me, dear reader, Eastern Slavs. Two-thirds (in the territories south of Moscow) we belong to this "Scythian" haplogroup, but the Ossetians do not. Among Ossetians, the percentage of R1a is negligible. But more on this later.
Let's return to the Alans, consider their "Scythian-Sarmatian" origin, because other hypotheses today are unconvincing and are not seriously considered. To this day, for some reason, in school history textbooks, as well as in university ones, when considering the chain of peoples: Aryans-Cimmerians-Scythians-Sarmatians-Slavs - replacing each other in the vast expanses of Eastern and Central Europe - are completely overlooked, already mentioned above, the achievements of molecular genetics of the last twenty years. In the previous chapters, it was shown that the Aryan tribes that appeared about 4800-4500 years ago in this territory (the culture of battle axes, it is also pit, it is also log and catacomb, it is also the culture of corded ceramics) belonged to the male Y-chromosome, according to the ancestor, to haplogroup R1a. The fact that these were precisely the arias is mentioned in academic publications, but is bashfully silent in more mass circulations. The very name of the tribe, the term "Aryan", Aryan, Aryans was unreasonably tainted by the ideologists of Nazi Germany and since then has been almost abusive and cursed for centuries. Restoring historical justice, we emphasize once again: in Germany itself, only up to 15% of those who can be attributed to the Aryans, to the haplogroup R1a, the rest of the Germans for the most part belong either to the Western European group R1b or Paleo-European groups I1 and I2. Without the rehabilitation of the concept itself, the term "Aryan" is indispensable in the further development and rethinking of the entire history of Europe, and indeed the world.
It is not known exactly what was the composition of the pre-Aryan population of the territories under consideration - Eastern and Central Europe, the Russian Plain, the steppes of the Black Sea, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the Caspian Sea and the Southern Urals). Most likely, it was an autochthonous Paleo-European population of haplogroup I, preserved and survived after the Ice Age. Today, in the territory of northern Russia, they are clearly visible on the gene maps - see Fig. 2. - traces of these tribes: in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, up to 18% of the population belongs to haplogroup I1, Russian Pomors for the most part also belong to this group. It is obvious that the colonization of the Russian Plain by the Aryans had little effect on the Russian north in its time, otherwise these traces would not have been preserved. In southern Russia and Ukraine, the descendants of ancient European aborigines from the haplogroup I2a make up 12-15%. But it is not yet known for sure, perhaps these are traces of the migrations of the population of the Balkans already in later eras. With the accumulation of statistical data on DNA research, the picture of the world will become more and more clear, many secrets and mysteries will be revealed that were previously inaccessible.
The very term "Aryan" has been known since the 19th century, thanks to the decoding and translation of the ancient Iranian epic "Zend-Avesta". Modern studies of the remains of the Aryans of Iran, Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia, Arabia and the Aryans of the Russian Plain prove their complete identity in terms of the first ancestor, the male Y chromosome. Moreover, the primacy is unambiguously determined, we emphasize this circumstance once again, of the Aryans of precisely Eastern Europe, some of whom migrated to Western Asia, Iran, India 4000-3500 years ago after the colonization and settlement of the European part of Eurasia. Surprisingly, this fact, generally accepted and generally recognized by the scientific community, has not yet been reflected even in the “advanced” Wikipedia. Hence: the appearance of the “cart before the horse” is completely incomprehensible when it is asserted that the Iranian element prevails in the indicated territory, including the language.
Cimmerians - the forerunners of the Scythians
In modern historical science, it is generally accepted that the Aryans disappeared, almost without a trace, dissolving in the tribes that followed them, in particular in the Cimmerians and Scythians. We know about the Cimmerians from many sources, but the discoverer - not of the people, but only of its name - is the "father of history" Herodotus. With his light hand in the spaces of Eastern Europe from about 1300 BC. tribes named by Herodotus as Cimmerians are recorded. Where did they come from and where did the tribes that preceded them go - historians and archaeologists have no exact answer to this, only dozens of unintelligible hypotheses. It turns out that the Cimmerians owe their very name to the Greeks, of course, nothing is known about their self-name. It was determined, however, that they again belonged to the same “Iranian group of languages”, and they “guessed” this only and only by the three (!) names of the leaders mentioned in the ancient lists. Here they are: Tugdamme, Teushpa, Sandakshatru. And these three names were alternately attributed to the Celts, then to the Thracians and Caucasians, but, in the end, the linguists settled on the Iranian version. And here, for example, I propose to consider them Russian-Indian - and what ?! Those who wanted to see Iranian roots in these names saw it, but I did not. Here, and as we will see later, it must be assumed that a powerful layer of the scientific community of some Iranianists has formed, who have been bending and defending their line for decades. And it is already impossible for them to turn off this path - in this case, their entire universe will be destroyed! In historical science, it’s like this: whoever saddled what Temka will defend it to the last drop of ink, even realizing that he is wrong.
The Cimmerians imperceptibly disappear from the historical arena, and they are replaced in the 8th-7th centuries BC. Scythians. How they called themselves is unknown, since the “Scythians” are again from the Greeks. Further, two hundred years before the beginning of the New Era, the Sarmatians appear in the same territories, while the Scythians mysteriously disappear somewhere. And again, “in all the textbooks of the country”: the Scythians were partially destroyed, partially assimilated by the Sarmatians, and the latter are of the same Iranian root as the Scythians. No one thought about how it is possible to “partially destroy and partially assimilate” (that is, kill men and take women as slaves) of a huge people known to the entire world of that time and still influencing this world through their cultural heritage! And the answer is on the surface: Scythians and Sarmatians are one and the same. What is confirmed by the conclusions of geneticists. And according to archaeologists, only the latter, if they want to see some differences in the culture of these two, as it were, different peoples, they find them. And it will become fashionable and relevant to consider them as one - there will immediately be irrefutable evidence of this. For hundreds of years, the culture and way of life of the same ethnic group has certainly changed, otherwise we would still be running after mammoths with sticks. Compare Russia in 1900 and 1800 - the people are the same, but the country is completely different. So are the Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians and ... Slavs.
Sarmatians. Are the Alans Slavs?
At the turn of the 200-300 years of the New Era, the Sarmatians are less and less mentioned in the works of contemporaries and, on the contrary, under various names, more and more often, the Slavs. Herodotus called at one time some Cimmerians, others Scythians - and so it went. The Romans called the same people Sarmatians (Sauromates), the Byzantines caught on about the Slavs - Alans. I want to emphasize once again, to sew with a red thread: there was no chain of different peoples replacing each other on our land; namely: Aryans - Cimmerians - Scythians - Sarmatians - Slavs, it was and is one and the same people, descendants of the ancient Aryans. This conclusion, regardless of the achievements of modern science and archeology, relying only on cold logic and numerous testimonies of ancient authors, was also reached by the notorious Russian researcher of antiquities of the first half of the 19th century E. Klassen. Following Lomonosov, he was one of the first to draw attention to the discrepancy between the views of the then historical science (as we see, and today's) on the problem of the origin and disappearance of the Scythians regarding the true state of affairs, the correct placement of accents and the rethinking of primary sources. So, according to Klassen, the Alans are a Slavic tribe, whose name is derived from the Old Russian word “alan” (which was quite common even in his time), which means lowland, pasture. And today the map of Russia is replete with geographical names with a similar root "elan" (transformed from "alan"). That is, the Alans are shepherds, cattle breeders, or steppe Slavs, in contrast to the Slavs of the forest and forest-steppe zone. And we have no reason not to trust this conclusion of the famous Russian scientist. Moreover, almost everywhere and everywhere it is stated: the Alans are “an Iranian-speaking tribe of the Scythian-Sarmatian type”. Here, as we see, there are big problems with the first statement, and we will consider the second one to be true. Although, it must be admitted, there is no 100% evidence of conformity in genetics, in terms of the original genus, of the Alans and Scythians, but more on that later.
In the meantime, for today, it turns out like this: the southeastern, steppe part of the Scythian-Aryans is the Alans of the early Middle Ages. It was they who were involved in the whirlwind of the Asian-Hun invasion during the period of the Great Migration of Peoples, and they also walked throughout Europe and even Africa. It is believed that “the traditions of medieval European chivalry, including vestments and weapons, military equipment, the moral code and ideology of the military elite, date back to the Sarmatian-Alanian (military) culture. The Alanian basis is found in the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. A characteristic feature of the equipment of the Sarmatian, and then the Alanian knights, was a protective shell of a scaly type, which later transformed into its lighter modification - chain mail. It was these Alano-Scythians who, over the 200 years of their stay in Europe, left a memory in toponymy and, what is especially important for us, managed to leave clear imprints of their stay in these places on modern gene maps of Western Europe and North Africa in such a short historical period - see Fig. fig.3. Only they could leave traces of the haplogroup R1a from 2.5 to 5%. Before that and further on, there were no such long-term invasions of the descendants of the Aryans in the west of Europe.
"New Alans" 8-12 centuries.
The period from the end of the 4th to about the 7th-8th centuries is a dark spot in the history of the ancient, first Alans. But during the same period, there are numerous references by contemporary authors about the appearance of already Slavic tribes on these lands, in particular, Venets, Roxolans, Antes, Boruses, Sklavens. After the relocation of the Alans, together with the Goths and Huns to Europe, the vacant spaces of the Lower Don and Ciscaucasia are gradually penetrated by the tribes of the Ants from the north and northwest, and from the east by the Avars (Russian sources), then the Bulgars and Khazars (since 650). It turns out that about two hundred years pass from the time the Alans left to the west to their first clashes with the Avars - and almost nothing is known about this period in the history of the Alans. It turns out that in the period from the end of the 4th century and on until the beginning of the 2nd millennium, several ethnic groups of different tribes lived in the steppe spaces between the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas, moreover, they did not have clear boundaries between themselves. These are, firstly, the Alans themselves, about whom it is said in the textbooks that they were part of a certain Khazar Khaganate (about it in the next chapter), secondly, the Slavs-Rus (Antes), and, thirdly, Avars, Bulgars , Khazars and even the Pechenegs who appeared here from the end of the 9th century.
The Russian chronicles of the 11th century describe in some detail the relationship between the Rus and the Khazars, which have never been cloudless. If in the first period of this confrontation, the Russians were forced to pay tribute to the Khazars, then in the end, the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav forever “closed” this problem, destroying the Khazar Khaganate itself as a state. Further, the Russians had to deal with the Pechenegs, then with the Polovtsians. But back to the Alans. The authors of the Nikon Chronicle, who are quite aware of the confrontation between the Russians and the Khazars, starting from about the 7th century, do not tell us anything about the Alans, who, by the way, lived, according to the legends, on the same lands at the same time.
Nevertheless, in all other, not Old Russian, sources, the presence at the same time of the Alans in these territories and their, for some reason, peaceful coexistence with both the Bulgars and the Khazars, and often in the same settlement, are stubbornly pointed out. A classic, but hardly the only example is the Mayatskoye settlement on the Quiet Pine (100 km south of Voronezh). The settlement itself served as one of the symbols for designating the whole “Saltano-Mayatskaya” culture, in which archaeologists and historians lump together the heritage of the Khazars, Bulgars and Alans. Unprecedented for that era tolerance and a model of peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups. Moreover, everything that cannot be identified as belonging to the Bulgar or Khazar culture is automatically considered Alan.
The territories of the North Caucasus, the Lower Don, the Caspian Sea, starting from the end of the 7th century, attracted the attention of the Arab conquerors. The Arab expansion, which by that time had captured Transcaucasia, was spreading to the North Caucasus and the steppes of the Kuban region. The settled tribes that lived here are forced to retreat either to the impregnable gorges of the Caucasus, or to the north, to the Don. Well, since, in that era, in Ciscaucasia, according to the then ideas of the Byzantines, Persians and Arabs, the Alans lived, then on the Don, of course, the tribes that migrated from the south are also recorded by historians as Alans. But, at the same time, it is not said anywhere how related the Western Alans, lost in Europe and North Africa as early as the 5th-6th centuries, are related to these Alans, who remained in the steppes between the Azov and Caspian Seas. Here lies another of the main and unresolved mysteries of the early Middle Ages: why are the tribes that lived north of the Caucasus Mountains up to the Volga-Don interfluve considered Alans? Based on what, what research, what excavations? The written testimonies of the Romans (including Josephus Flavius) break off at the beginning of the New Era, and this is by no means the 7th-8th centuries ... It turns out that contemporaries continued to call these tribes "Alans" out of habit, out of inertia, in order to at least somehow designate heterogeneous, multi-tribal ethnic groups that had gathered by that time in the territories previously occupied by the Western Alans. It turns out that the Alans of the early Middle Ages, the Alans who left for Europe at the end of the 4th century and disappeared among the local population, gave their name to all subsequent "forced migrants" from the Caucasus to the north.
The facts and evidence cited by researchers about the "Alanian" nature of the later Alans are unconvincing and seem to be attracted to a predetermined answer. These Alans, who migrated to the north, to the Don, in the 7-8 centuries, become one of the bearers of the mentioned Saltan-Mayak culture. Once again: the first Alans, the Western Alans of the early Middle Ages, leave around 400, together with the Goths and Huns, on a campaign against Rome and further to Western Europe; the remaining, eastern Alans, according to most historians, continue to remain in the previously occupied territories between Azov and the Caspian, but, at the same time, until the invasion of the Avars in 555, nothing is known about them. Almost immediately after the subjugation of these Alans by the Khazars in the middle of the 7th century and the occupation by the latter of these lands, the Arabs around 670 already pushed the Khazars (and Alans) from the Caucasus to the north. We note that by that time Kyiv had already been founded in Russia and Slavic tribes were coming to the forefront of history, for the first time Russians-Russians are mentioned, who become neighbors of just these eastern Alans in the middle and lower Don region.
Eastern Alans are attributed by historians to almost peaceful coexistence with the Khazars, or at least vassalage. And so on until the defeat of the Khazar Khaganate by the Russian prince Svyatoslav in 929. Further, these accommodating Alans also quietly coexist with the Pechenegs, then with the Polovtsy. But they were not lucky with the Mongol-Tatars, it was too cruel that they turned out to be and had to fight with them, and, having been defeated, take refuge in the impregnable Caucasian gorges. So, according to the legend, modern North Ossetia was born. However, any textbook will tell you the same thing.
"Don Alans" of the 10th century.
But such an incident occurred not so long ago during a comprehensive study of the remains of the so-called "Don Alans" from the Saltovsky and Dmitrovsky burial grounds (middle Don region). 6 male and 6 female skeletons were studied, presumably from the burials of the Alans and tentatively by date no later than the 10th century. Further I quote: "... the craniological features of the skull, ... osteometric studies, ... odontological sources [and so on] ... allow us to associate the studied remains with the Alanian ethnic community." That is, the task of matching the discovered burials to the Alan ones seems to have been completed, but ... DNA analysis unexpectedly revealed that the remains of men, according to the haplotype, belong to the Central Caucasian, almost autochthonous, group G2a. On the gene map for this haplogroup - see fig. 2 - the "epicenter" of the distribution of this haplogroup is clearly visible - this is the Central Caucasus. Here are the Alans for you, here are the heirs of the Scythians! Modern Ossetians, by the way, have the following ratio of haplogroups: G2a - up to 70%, J2 - 14% (this is the Middle Eastern group), R1b - 7% (Western European), while the Scythian-Aryan haplogroup R1a is negligible.
As already mentioned, the following definition of the Alans, which has become canonical, is generally accepted: "Alans are Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin." But, the Scythians, which are South Siberian, which are Ural, which are Eastern European, belonged according to the male Y-chromosome, according to the first ancestor, to the Aryan haplogroup R1a, and no one doubts this. This means that the Alans, if they are of Scythian-Sarmatian origin, must also physically and biologically belong to R1a. By the way, female samples were assigned to group I according to mitochondrial DNA (Asian, by the way, but Scythian women, for the most part, belonged to group H according to this label). In general, female genetic marks allow us to determine only belonging to a certain group (by the first mother), as well as the closest ancestors in the female line - mother, grandmother ... But some kind of localization of the ethnic group according to the female type is difficult, if not impossible. The same applies to the direction of migrations of tribes, since during the interpenetration, assimilation or even subjugation of one tribe by another, the female element is shuffled like the queen of spades in a deck of cards. While the mark on the male chromosome (a certain set of nucleotides in the DNA molecule) remains unchanged and constant.
Thus, the whole construction is crumbling: either the Alans (but it is these “eastern” ones who remained in Ciscaucasia after the Western Alans left for Europe in the 5th century) have nothing to do with the Scythians and Sarmatians, or the Scythians (and you and I, like them descendants) are also natives of the Caucasus. As the ancients said: tercium non datum (there is no third) - choose what you like. There is, however, an option that the ancient Alans, the real Alans of the early Middle Ages, like the “quasi-Alans”, also belonged to the G2a haplogroup, but then again, one has to put a bold cross on their Scythian-Sarmatian origin.
I propose the following way out of this logical impasse and vicious circle. The Alans of the early Middle Ages, who dissolved in the expanses of Europe and Africa in the 5th-7th centuries, were precisely those “heirs of the Scythian-Sarmatian civilization”, or the same Scythians, who only lived “beyond the Don”, to the east of the Don. Slavs-cattle breeders, or Alano-Aryans - inhabitants of the Zadonsk steppes. And it is not for nothing that Alanian historiography has a gap of 200 years from 400 to 600 years. In the territories between the Sea of ​​Azov, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus during this period there is no material evidence (archaeological data) of any stable tribal formations, and so on until the appearance of the Avars (557) and the Khazars (650). But later, in clashes with the Khazars, historians again mention some Alans. But, if these “new Alans” belonged to the Caucasian haplogroup G2a, then it is logical to assume some kind of migration during this period of the Central Caucasian tribes to the north, to the practically empty, but fertile steppes of the Kuban, Azov and Don regions. This migration continued for centuries, but at the same time, the share of representatives of these tribes in the population of the Khazar Khaganate (about the Khazars - in the next chapter) was insignificant. Thus, out of 350 burial sites of the Khazars (possibly Bulgars) discovered and studied by archaeologists, there are only 10, attributed to the Alans, the late Alans, or the Caucasian Alans. Moreover, there are not unfounded versions, according to which the appearance of G2a marks on the Don is associated with even earlier migrations of representatives of this genus from the Balkans and Asia Minor. But let's not delve into this jungle.
Ossetians - descendants of Alans and Scythians?
So, what do we have for the Alans. If you believe the official historical science, especially the Soviet and Russian parts of it, then the following sequence of successive tribes, originally belonging to the same ethnic group, has been determined: Scythians - Sarmatians - Alans - modern Ossetians. And all of them are “Iranian-speaking”. Hence, since the majority of Ossetians (70%) have the genetic mark of the “Caucasian” haplogroup in the male line, we can draw a logical reverse conclusion: the Alans of the early Middle Ages, as well as the Sarmatians and Scythians, should also be assigned to the G2a group on the male Y chromosome. Again a dead end. Again, the same conclusion: either declare that the Alans, who conquered Europe in the 5th century AD. - these are people from the Caucasus, not related to the Sarmatians and Scythians; or admit that the Ossetians have nothing to do with either the first Alans, or, of course, with the Scythians, and all the evidence for this has been drawn, since 1944, by the father of the "Alan" Ossetians V.I. Abaev. Both of these are a revolution in historical science, and it is unlikely that any of the greats will go for it. Personally, I would recommend the second option. This implies the following assumption about the origin of the late, secondary Alans: the tribes that descended from the mountains of the Caucasus to the liberated territories after the departure of the original Alans to Europe, and not immediately, but after 150-200 years, contemporaries (Byzantines, Persians, Arabs) called Alans out of habit , according to the habitat of the former authentic Alans. The Ossetians themselves never considered themselves Alans until the discoveries of the aforementioned Abaev. I think if this respected scientist (he lived, by the way, 100 years) knew about the insoluble contradiction according to genetics, he would have devoted his life to other sciences.
Now with regard to the Iranian language, or rather, the Iranian-speaking of the Scythians, Alans and Ossetians. It is on this that the main arguments of the "Alanists and Scythians" are built, producing these peoples from the Iranian root. Although language as a means of communication is a very plastic, flexible thing, easily transforming and adapting to new circumstances. In the history of the Earth, there are hundreds and thousands of examples when, in two or three generations, conquered peoples switched to the language of the conqueror, introducing, of course, elements of their own into the new language substratum. The situation is the same in the relations of neighboring more and less developed civilizations, actively penetrating and diffusing into each other: the language is changing, especially “on the borders of the spheres”. If we lost the war to Nazi Germany, the survivors today would communicate with the gentlemen in German, and among themselves in a Russian-German cocktail.
We have already learned about the "Iranian" language of the Scythians, now about the Ossetians. The self-name of Ossetians is Iron, Iron, and “Ossetians” came into the Russian language through the Georgian “ossa, ovsy”. Iron, of course, is practically Iran and this is not just a coincidence. But let's not rush. As already mentioned, any researcher of antiquity sees in artifacts, archaeological finds, written sources only what he needs for publication, scientific career, fame, money, after all. And I'm afraid that the Iranian roots of the Ossetian language are also attracted by biased linguists, as well as the "Iranian" language of the Scythian-Aryans - examples of the intersection of words are given at the beginning of the article. It is very difficult to imagine how the language of the Aryans (ancestors of the Scythians) can be Iranian, if in Iran, on the Iranian Highlands, Iranian-Aryans appeared later than on the Russian Plain by 500-800 years, and they came to their new homeland from here. In one of the previous chapters, the direction of ancient migrations in time and space was shown with appropriate references to sources.
Briefly recall. 15-12 thousand years ago, the Caucasoid peoples of modern southern Siberia, or Central Asia, began a gradual movement to the west, having reached Europe for millennia. From here, about 5 thousand years ago, they begin a reverse reverse movement towards the Urals, as well as through the Caucasus to Iran and Asia Minor, reaching Arabia, and also inhabit the north of Hindustan. In Iran and India, the Aryans of the Russian Plain appear about 3800-3500 years ago. That is, in history and linguistics everything is still turned upside down. As the cartoon character said, “Yes, on the contrary!” The language of the Persian-Iranians, both modern and ancient, is a branch of the common Aryan proto-language, but not vice versa. Also Scythian. And this will have to be recognized, not immediately, I understand: it’s impossible right away, not everyone’s heart can withstand it, but over time.
An unbiased, honest analysis-research on the correspondence of the modern Ossetian language to some Iranian roots is required. True, there is still a variant of perception of the language of the conqueror, or of a more culturally and economically developed neighboring dominating people. But from the side of really Iranian-speaking Persia-Iran, for the entire period under review in the Caucasus, only Iran of the era of the Sassanid Empire could be such - this is the 3-7th century AD. But even in this case, the influence of Iran did not extend north of the Main Caucasian Range - so this option does not work either. There was also a campaign of the Persians Darius in the 6th century BC. through these places, but it was rather short-lived.
Now, as for the seemingly undoubted correspondence of the hydronyms of Ossetian rivers such as Ar-don, Karma-don, Fiag-don with a well-defined root "don" - water (river) to the same set of great European rivers Don, Danube in meaning and sound , Dnipro, Dniester. There is a corresponding Iranian-Avestan root da-nu (river, flow) and also in Sanskrit danu- flow, oozing liquid. The argument, of course, is weighty, but it turns out that the “water” roots dn - d-n are similar in meaning in the dictionaries of other languages, including Slavic, Semitic, and even the Hittites. Some experts are generally inclined to believe that the names of the mentioned large rivers of Europe belong to some pre-Indo-European languages, that is, the names of the rivers were given by the tribes that lived in this territory even before the invasion of the Aryans. And the Aryans, as conquerors-colonizers, adopted the names of the largest rivers (mountains, lakes) from the local population, and the less significant ones were already renamed to their liking, in honor of themselves, loved ones. Here, by the way, the origin of the hydronym "Voronezh" is also unsolved. There are many hypotheses and assumptions, but they are all probabilistic. And it is also quite likely that the very word Voronezh goes back to pre-Indo-European, to pre-Aryan times. The principle of the adoption by the colonizers of geographical names of dominant objects from the local population and the renaming of less significant ones is also seen in modern times when Europeans conquered other continents.
To date, the exact ethnic composition of the pre-Indo-European (pre-Aryan) population of Eastern Europe has not been determined - from 5000 years ago and earlier. As already mentioned, peculiar “tails” of traces of the stay in the north and south of this zone of the Paleo-European population of haplogroups I1 and I2a, respectively, have been established. In the Don, Kuban and Terek basins, representatives of the haplogroups E, G, J, immigrants from the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Western Asia, and the Middle East, could live - and still live to this day. Who exactly gave names and in what language to the rivers of Europe and the North Caucasus remains unknown. Perhaps we will never know who was the first on Earth who had the idea to name the river (water) by the name Don and in what strange ways, thanks to what vicissitudes of fate, small rivers, practically streams of the Central Caucasus, became consonant with the greatest European rivers. This is another mystery for posterity. If the Aryans on the way from Europe to Western Asia, to the notorious Iran - through the Darial Gorge and the Cross Pass (one of the three main routes when crossing the Main Caucasian Range) - would have lingered here for a long time, sufficient to rename local water flows in their own way , so much so that these names then survived for millennia, then they should have left, of course, traces of their stay here in the genetics of the modern population, namely among the Ossetians. But this is not. Genetically, these are different ethnic groups, according to the genetics of Ossetians, they are autochthonous of the Central Caucasus, but their language is defined as Indo-European, and in this regard, “don is a river” is a lethal argument. Well, what if it's just a banal consonance of unrelated words of different origin languages?
"Yasy - Asy - Yazi" of the first Russian chronicles
In the first Russian chronicles, there are often references to the people of yazi, yasi, aze, even wasps, who were the neighbors of the Russians precisely along the Don steppe. Scientists unequivocally connect these Yas-Ases with the Ossetians of our time and, therefore, with the Alans. That is, it is argued that the Asy-Yasi-Az of the Russian chronicles are the Alans. Let's see how true this is. We are talking about the 9th-11th centuries, that is, starting from pre-Christian Russia. At that time, the steppes of the Sea of ​​Azov, the interfluve of the Don and Volga, and the Kuban were simultaneously occupied by several tribes: the Khazars, the Pechenegs, the Bulgars, and the first detachments of the Polovtsians. What kind of peoples we will consider in the following chapters, but for now we note that among them, in the neighborhood of the growing strength of Russia, some yases also lived. The Russians of that time were mainly at enmity with these peoples, sometimes, however, entering into short-term alliances with them against others. So it was with the yasas. The leaders and princes of all the tribes of the steppe often performed dynastic and allied intertribal marriages. So, the wife of Prince Yaropolk (1116), captured by him in a campaign against yas, was called Yasynya (“daughter of the Yassky prince”). The wife of Andrei Bogolyubsky (1176) was also named Yasynya, but it is said about her: “because she is a Bulgarian by birth” - here the chronicler classifies the Yasses as Bulgars. We emphasize: to the Bulgars, and not to the Alans-Ossetians, as the majority of researchers would like to see. I want to the point that unconditionally and, most importantly, completely unproven, having no written sources and audio recordings, it is stated: “... the steppe Alans of the Don region of the 8th-10th centuries spoke the same language that was spoken in the Middle Ages and is still spoken by Ossetians , Irons and Digors in the Caucasus Mountains".
Perhaps, but not so categorically. The appearance of Yasses-Asses-Osses in the neighborhood of Russia in the 8th century can indeed be associated with the forced migration of some foothill Caucasian tribes under the pressure of Arab expansion. And they are similar in haplogroups - (see above). The “Alans” of the Saltovo-Mayak culture, like modern Ossetians, are assigned to the G2a group. But, as stated in the same work, these are different substrates of one people, separated by time. In other words, these "Don Alans" - (yases?), who have the same G2a genomet, nevertheless, are not related to modern Ossetians. The appearance of the first Ossetians (ancestors of modern Ossetians in these territories - the region of the Darial Gorge) is determined in the work at 1450 years ago, or approximately 550 AD, and the "alleles" of the Don Alans are much older. Ossetians, their origin, language continue to be one of the unsolved mysteries of history and ethnography. Approximately the same riddles were left to posterity by those who disappeared at the end of the 1st millennium BC. the Etruscans and the Basques still living in the Pyrenean mountains. The people are a mystery. The only one among the numerous peoples of the Caucasus (except for the Armenians) is a native speaker of the Indo-European language, moreover, he adopted Christianity at about the same time as Russia and remains Orthodox surrounded by Islam. As an assumption: some elements of the language of the Aryans, Scythian-Aryans (Indo-European) could penetrate the Ossetian through the centuries-old border contacts of the ancestors of the Ossetians with the Slavs-Rus, with Russia precisely in the pre-Mongolian period in the 7th-12th centuries. The interpenetration of neighboring languages ​​in border environments is a common phenomenon today. It is enough to visit the south of the Voronezh region to make sure that there is a special mixed Russian-Ukrainian dialect that has its own name - surzhik.
Today, unfortunately, we have a completely insufficient amount of data on the genetics of the peoples of southeastern Europe of the period under review. Ancient burials are not systematized and practically not investigated in terms of studying the DNA of the discovered remains. Much has to be determined from insignificant, fragmentary data. In particular, this chapter provides links to a genetic study of the remains of the alleged "Don Alans" from only six samples. Of course, this is completely insufficient. But molecular biology, or DNA biology (there is no official name yet) is developing rapidly and I would like to believe that already during the lifetime of our generation, sufficient data will be accumulated for more unambiguous conclusions, including on the Alans and Scythians.
CONCLUSIONS:
1. The Alans of the early Middle Ages and the Alans of the North Caucasus of the 7th-11th centuries are different peoples, not related to each other (except for the name);
2. The tribes that lived in this period in this territory were called Alans by contemporaries by analogy with the tribe that lived here earlier;
3. Yasy-Asy-Osy of Russian chronicles is one of the minor tribes neighboring Russia on the border with the Wild Field (Zadonye), and their relationship with modern Ossetians has not been proven;
4. The Iranian-linguality of the Scythians-Sarmatians-Alans is one of the accustomed stereotypes of world history. The true chain of "Indo-European" languages ​​looks like this: Aryans - Scythians - Iranians (and Sanskrit). Moreover, the spread of the Proto-Indo-European language (aka Aryan) went from the territory of Eastern Europe in divergent directions to Central, Western and Southern Europe, as well as to Iran (Anterior Asia) and Hindustan, along with migrations of speakers of this language - the ancient Aryans in the period from 5000 to 2000 years ago.
SOURCES:
1. Chudinov V.A. Scythian and Antian writing was discovered. – www.runitsa.ru/publications/publication-8.php;
2. www.academia.edu/7304760/Scythian names;
3. 4. History of the North Ossetian ASSR, ed. Dzugaeva E.Kh., v.1, Ordzhonikidze, "Ir", 1987, 529 p.;
5.haplogroup.narod.ru>celeb.html;
6. ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan migrations;
7. Zolin P. Haplogroup R1a and Proto-Indo-Europeanism - www.site/2009/12/07/544;
8. Klassen E. New materials for the further history of the Slavs ... Rusograd. Rusograd Library at http://rusograd.da.ru;
9.

Reviews

I fully admit the theory that the Alans have nothing to do with the Ossetians (especially in the Caucasus, no one except the Ossetians themselves classifies them as Alans).
But I must note that all fabrications about the ancient Slavs and Russians are also taken from the finger, and not only in your work.

One thing is certain:

The Arabs reached the center of France 1300 years ago and they were in heavy armor and chain mail (the famous heavy Arab cavalry) and Europe was forced to urgently arm itself in the same way, and no one except the Arabs could claim to introduce chain mail and armor in Europe, for only a terrible fear forced the Europeans to urgently produce all this.

Now about the arias.



So what?

An adult is not ashamed to rush about with ideas ... oh, did we come from the stinkers of such and such a haplogroup?

And with foam at the mouth discuss it.

I am laughing.

But the fact that the Russians until 1861 gave themselves as slaves to keep the Germans-Romanovs is not funny.

And explains a lot about modernity.

"in the Caucasus, no one except the Ossetians themselves ranks them among the Alans).
Only "in the Caucasus" has the right to judge whether the Ossetians are the descendants of the Sarmatian tribal union, known as the "Alans"?

One thing is certain:

The Arabs reached the center of France 1300 years ago and they were in heavy armor and chain mail (the famous heavy Arab cavalry) and Europe was forced to urgently arm itself in the same way, and no one except the Arabs could claim to introduce chain mail and armor in Europe, for only a terrible fear forced the Europeans to urgently produce all this."
This is your speculation, nonsense, except for indicating that the Arabs invaded the territory of modern France from Spain in the 8th century and gradually took over about half of the country. They did not have any heavy cavalry. The defeated feudal lords of Aquitaine lamented that shame had fallen on their Christian heads, for they allowed "the Arabs, lightly armed and basically devoid of military vehicles, to triumph over warriors dressed in armor and armed with the most terrible weapons." To this Karl Martell replied: "... they are at the height of courage and like a stream that overturns everything in its path. Inspiration replaces their shells, courage strength. But when their hands are occupied with the loot, when they feel the taste of a good, easy life, when ambition takes possession of the leaders and strife begins between them, then we will go against them, confident in victory.
Now about the arias.
Yes, thousands of years ago, smelly, grimy nomads roamed all over Eurasia, wild, thieving and stupid, including carriers of the haplogroup RA1.
And now there is a people (gypsies) who roam the world.
So what?"
And the fact that this is also speculation, or, to put it in Russian, an attempt to manipulate the facts. In India, the haplogroup R1a1 is found mainly among representatives of the upper castes. The gypsies, who came out of India (Rajahstan) about 10 centuries ago, belonged to the "untouchables", and are carriers of the H1 haplogroup. Only a small part of the gypsy camps in Central Europe has the haplogroup R1a, in particular, in Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia. Either they were representatives of the higher castes, expelled for some sins 525-+120 years ago from India (the common smelly and grimy ancestor of these "Aryans" appeared in Hungary or Slovakia exactly then, and not two thousand years ago), or we are talking about about people who received their haplogroup R1a-M576 in an "unordered" way.

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In the middle of the 1st century A.D. e. Among the eastern Sarmatian unions, the Alans stand out for their militancy - nomadic tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin, who came from the lower reaches of the Volga. Some of their clans remained to the east of the Caspian Sea after the migration of the main horde in a westerly direction.

In the Russian chronicles, the Alans were called the word "yasy". In the Nikon chronicle, under the year 1029, Prince Yaroslav's victorious campaign against the Yasses is reported. In the Armenian chronicles, the Alans are called the word "wasps". In Chinese chronicles, the Alans are known under the name of the Alan people. The Armenian medieval geographical atlas Ashkharatsuyts describes several Alanian tribes near the Caucasus Mountains.

Archaeological data show that the Lower Don - Sea of ​​Azov - Ciscaucasia, the Caucasus mountains themselves - one of the oldest areas of human life, starting from the Stone Age, and constitute a historical region in which the population currently speaks dozens of different languages, professes various religions, very the specifics of their economic and cultural traditions are different. However, over a long period of development, the peoples in this territory are united by a common historical destinies.

The appearance of the Alans in Eastern Europe - in the lower reaches of the Don, the Northern Black Sea region and the Ciscaucasia - is considered a consequence of their strengthening within the North Caspian association of nomadic Sarmatian tribes, previously led by the most influential tribe among the Eastern Sarmatians, the Aorsami (Osset. Vors - white) - one of the tribes close to the Siraks, who occupied the territory between the Azov and Caspian Seas and along the western coast of the Caspian Sea to the Caucasus. By the end of the 1st century A.D. e. both the Aorsi and the Siraci recognized the supremacy of the Alans.

In connection with the dominant role of the Alans in the entire Sarmatian tribal union, their name began to spread to all the eastern Sarmatian unions headed by the Aorses. At the same time, the names of other Sarmatian tribes disappeared from the pages of sources. This was due to the fact that the Alans, according to the 4th century author Ammian Marcellinus, “with their repeated victories, they gradually broke the peoples they met, and, like the Persians, incorporated them under their national name.” The remains of the Sarmatian language are kept by the Finns, Komi, Ostyaks, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Mordovians.

Alans in the Kuban and the Caucasus

At the turn of the II century. n. e. Alans begin to dominate the Kuban steppes. They are also mentioned in the “Book of Veles”, which says that the Rus and Alans lived in the Volga and Don steppes and foothills of the North Caucasus, where “the Slavic kingdom of Ruskolan was previously created, in which all clans constituted a single people of the fair-haired Alans.”

The Alans made campaigns through the Caucasus, using both the Daryal (another name is the “Alan Gates”) and the Derbent passes, devastating Caucasian Albania and reaching Cappadocia, as was the case in 134. Having established contact with some North Caucasian mountain tribes, the Alans kept the whole of Transcaucasia in fear. Echoes of these events have been preserved, except for ancient ones, in Georgian chronicles. The ruler of Cappadocia, Flavius ​​Arrian, considered it important to create the work "Alanian History". The military authority of the Alans was so significant that in the Roman Empire they issued a special military manual - a manual for fighting the Alans, and the Roman cavalry borrowed a number of tactics from the Alanian cavalry.

From the steppe territory they controlled along the Sea of ​​Azov from the lower Don to the lower Volga and to the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, the Alans gradually spread north, to the region of the upper Don and Donets, entering the mixed forest-steppe zone. Among the tribes subject to the Alans, there were many Slavic tribes, and the Antes took the name of their new rulers. It is believed that the name "Antes" was the name of one of the Alanian tribes of Turkestan. In the Donetsk steppes, part of the Alans, or Ases, mixed with the Slavs (Antes), and in the North Caucasian region - with local tribes, such as the Kasogs (Circassians).

Among the aces of the North Caucasian region, under the control of the Alans, there were Slavic communities as numerous enclaves in the Alanian territory. In the Don region, Alanian and Slavic communities coexisted, possibly since the beginning of the Christian era. Due to the fact that the ruling clans of the Aso-Slavs (Antes) were of Aso-Alan origin, the connection between the Ants and the Alans was very close. But in the Arabic sources there is a clear separation of the Aso-Slavs (Antes) from the Ases (Alans, Ossetians). Most of these tribes survived the Hunnic invasion and continued to exist even in the XII century, at the beginning of which the Russian prince Yaropolk, son of Vladimir Monomakh, began a war against the Yases (Ases) on the lower Don.

Influence of Great Bulgaria

Before the fall of Great Bulgaria, the Antes inhabited three different regions, and these groups of Ases were separated from one another by the Bulgar and Ugric tribes wedged between them. These three groups consisted of the western Antes in the area of ​​the lower Danube, the eastern Antes in the basin of the Seversky Donets, and the southern Ases and Russ in the Kuban and the North Caucasus.
The Western Antes were conquered by the Danube Bulgars. Part of the Eastern Antes submitted to the Bulgars or Ugrians (Magyars), another part of them could be forced out of the region of the upper Donets to the lower Don and the Sea of ​​Azov. The North Caucasian Ases and Russ, who also had settlements on the lower Don and at the mouth of the Kuban, were forced to recognize the rule of the Khazars, but they retained their autonomy. They probably soon established some kind of connection with the Eastern Antes, who by that time had settled in the area of ​​the lower Don. These Antes (or Ases) on the lower Don and in the Azov region, together with the North Caucasian Ases, were in the territory controlled by the Khazar Khagan. During the Khazar-Arab wars, the southern group of Ases may have largely migrated north and mixed with the Donetsk (Eastern) Antes.

OSSETIANS, iron, digoron [self-name; the ethnonyms Tualag (Dvals, a group of Ossetians of the Naro-Mamison region) and Khusayrag (Khusars, a group of Ossetians in South Ossetia)], people in the Russian Federation (the main population of North Ossetia, numbering about 335 thousand people) and Georgia (the main population of South Ossetia, the number of 65 thousand people); they also live in Kabardino-Balkaria (10 thousand people), in Karachay-Cherkessia (4 thousand people). The number in Russia is 402 thousand people. Main sub-ethnic groups: Irons and Digors (in the west of North Ossetia). They speak the Ossetian language of the Iranian group of the Indo-European family. It has 2 dialects: Iron (formed the basis of the literary language) and Digor. Writing (since the 19th century) based on the Russian alphabet. Believers - Orthodox, there are Muslims. The ethnonym Digor (Ashdigor) was first mentioned in Armenian Geography (7th century). Dvals are named in the same source. The Georgian historian Leonty Mroveli (XI century) points to the significance of the "Great Dval road", which passed from Georgia through the territory of the Dvalians to the North Caucasus. Ossetians are one of the ancient peoples of the Caucasus. Since the time of the Scythian campaigns in Asia Minor, they are referred to in the Georgian chronicle as ovs (wasps, hence the Russian name for Ossetians). The Svans called them Saviars, the Mingrelians called them Ops, the Abkhazians called them Auaps, the Chechens and Ingushs called them Iri, the Balkars and Karachays called them Duger, and the Kabardians called Kuschkhe. The formation of the Ossetian people is associated with the aboriginal population of the North Caucasus (the creators of the Koban culture) and with the alien Iranian-speaking peoples - the Scythians, Sarmatians and especially the Alans (from the 1st century AD). As a result of the settlement of the latter in the Central Caucasus, the indigenous population adopted their language and many cultural features. The powerful union of the Alans that had developed here (was - in Georgian and yases, dormouse - in Russian medieval sources) laid the foundation for the formation of the Ossetian people. In the XIII century, the Alanian state was defeated by the Mongol-Tatars, the Alans were pushed back from the fertile plains to the south, into the mountain gorges of the Central Caucasus. On its northern slopes, 4 large "societies" were formed, dating back to the tribal division (Digorsky, Alagirsky, Kurtatinsky, Tagaursky), on the southern slopes - many smaller "societies" that were dependent on the Georgian princes. Quite a few Ossetian-Alans went to Mongolia and especially to the countries of Eastern Europe (a large compact group of descendants of the Alans settled in Hungary, who call themselves Yass, but lost their native language). Since the 40s of the 18th century, Russian-Ossetian relations have been developing. The Russian government created the Ossetian Spiritual Commission. Members of the commission organized the Ossetian embassy in St. Petersburg (1749-52), contributed to the resettlement of Ossetians in Mozdok and the Mozdok steppes for settlement and development of new lands. Ossetians, experiencing an acute need for land, repeatedly applied through a commission with a request to the Russian government to resettle them in the foothill regions of the North Caucasus. In 1774 Ossetia became part of Russia. The consolidation of the Ossetian people has intensified. At the end of the XVIII-XIX centuries. began the resettlement of part of the Ossetians from the mountains to the plains. The lands transferred to the Ossetians by the Russian government were assigned mainly to the Ossetian nobility. After 1917 there was a mass migration of Ossetians to the plains. On April 20, 1922, the South Ossetian Autonomous Okrug was formed as part of the Georgian SSR, in 1924 - the North Ossetian Autonomous Okrug, which on December 5, 1936 was transformed into the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the RSFSR. In 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic adopted the Declaration on State Sovereignty of the Republic of North Ossetia. On the plain, the main traditional occupation is agriculture (wheat, corn, millet, barley, etc.). In the mountains, along with agriculture, cattle breeding (sheep, goats, cattle) was developed. The traditional farming system on the plain is the three-field system. Gla

From the unimaginable depths of history, the name of the ancient people, the Alans, has come down to us. The first mention of them is found in Chinese chronicles written two thousand years ago. The Romans were also interested in this warlike ethnic group, who lived on the borders of the empire. And if today there is no “Alana” page with a photo in the atlas of the living peoples of the world, this does not mean that this ethnic group has disappeared from the face of the earth without a trace.

Their genes and language, traditions and attitude were inherited by direct descendants -. In addition to them, some scientists consider the Ingush to be the descendants of this people. Let's open the veil over the events of bygone eras in order to dot the i's.

Millennial history and geography of settlement

Byzantines and Arabs, Franks and Armenians, Georgians and Russians - with whom they just did not fight, did not trade and did not enter into alliances with the Alans in their more than a thousand-year history! And almost everyone who came across them, one way or another, recorded these meetings on parchment or papyrus. Thanks to eyewitness accounts and records of chroniclers, we can today restore the main stages of the history of the ethnos. Let's start with the origin.

In the IV-V Art. BC. Sarmatian tribes roamed over a vast territory from the Southern Urals to the nomadic. Eastern Fore-Caucasus belonged to the Sarmatian union of the Aorses, who were described by ancient authors as skillful and brave warriors. But even among the Aorses there was a tribe that stood out for its special militancy - the Alans.

Historians believe that, although the relationship between this warlike people with the Scythians and Sarmatians is obvious, it cannot be argued that only they are their ancestors: in their genesis in a later period - from about the 4th century. AD - other nomadic tribes also took part.

As can be seen from the ethnonym, it was an Iranian-speaking people: the word "Alan" goes back to the common word "arya" for the ancient Aryans and Iranians. Outwardly, they were typical Caucasians, as evidenced not only by the descriptions of chroniclers, but also by DNA archeological data.

About three centuries - from I to III AD. - they were reputed to be a thunderstorm of both neighbors and distant states. The defeat inflicted on them by the Huns in 372 did not undermine their strength, but, on the contrary, gave a new impetus to the development of the ethnic group. Some of them, during the Great Migration of Nations, went far to the west, where, together with the Huns, they defeated the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and later fought with the Gauls and Visigoths; others - settled in the territory of the central.

The morals and customs of these warriors of those times were harsh, and the way of waging war was barbaric, at least in the opinion of the Romans. The main weapon of the Alans was a spear, which they masterfully wielded, and fast war horses made it possible to get out of any skirmish without loss.

The favorite maneuver of the troops was a false retreat. After an allegedly unsuccessful attack, the cavalry retreated, luring the enemy into a trap, after which it went on the offensive. Enemies that did not expect a new attack were lost and lost the battle.

The armor of the Alans was relatively light, made of leather belts and metal plates. According to some reports, the same ones protected not only warriors, but also their war horses.

If you look at the territory of settlement on the map in the early Middle Ages, then, first of all, the huge distances from to North Africa will catch your eye. In the latter, their first state formation appeared - which did not last long in the 5th-6th centuries. Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans.

However, that part of the ethnos, which was surrounded by tribes distant in culture and traditions, rather quickly lost its national identity and assimilated. But those tribes that remained in the Caucasus not only retained their identity, but also created a powerful state -.

The state was formed in the VI-VII centuries. Around the same time, Christianity began to spread in its lands. The first news of Christ, according to Byzantine sources, was brought here by Maximus the Confessor (580-662), and Byzantine sources call Gregory the first Christian ruler of the country.

The final adoption of Christianity by the Alans took place at the beginning of the 10th century, although foreign travelers noted that Christian traditions in these lands were often intricately intertwined with pagan ones.

Contemporaries left many descriptions of the Alans and their customs. Described as very attractive and strong people. Among the characteristic features of culture, the cult of military prowess, combined with contempt for death, and rich rituals are noted. In particular, the German traveler I. Shiltberger left a detailed description of the wedding ceremony, which attached great importance to the chastity of the bride and the wedding night.

“The yas have a custom according to which, before the marriage of the maiden, the groom's parents agree with the mother of the bride that the latter must be a pure maiden, otherwise the marriage would be considered invalid. So, on the day appointed for the wedding, the bride is brought to the bed with songs and laid on her. Then the groom approaches with young people, holding a drawn sword in his hands, with which he strikes the bed. Then he, together with his companions, sits down in front of the bed and feasts, sings and dances.

At the end of the feast, they undress the groom to his shirt and leave, leaving the newlyweds alone in the room, and a brother or one of the groom's closest relatives appears outside the door to guard with a drawn sword. If it turns out that the bride was no longer a girl, then the groom informs his mother about this, who approaches the bed with several friends to inspect the sheets. If on the sheets they do not meet the signs they are looking for, then they are sad.

And when the bride's relatives arrive in the morning for the feast, the groom's mother already holds in her hand a vessel full of wine, but with a hole in the bottom, which she plugged with her finger. She brings the vessel to the mother of the bride and removes her finger when the latter wants to drink and the wine pours out. “That's exactly what your daughter was like!” she says. For the bride's parents, this is a great shame and they must take their daughter back, as they agreed to give a pure maiden, but their daughter did not turn out to be one.

Then the priests and other honorable persons intercede and convince the groom's parents to ask their son if he wants her to remain his wife. If he agrees, then the priests and other persons bring her to him again. Otherwise, they are bred, and he returns the dowry to his wife, just as she must return dresses and other things donated to her, after which the parties can enter into a new marriage.

The language of the Alans, unfortunately, has come down to us in a very fragmentary way, but the surviving material is enough to attribute it to the Scythian-Sarmatian. The direct carrier is modern Ossetian.

Although not many famous Alans went down in history, their contribution to history is undeniable. In short, they were the first knights with their fighting spirit. According to the scholar Howard Reid, the legends about the famous King Arthur are based on the great impression that the military culture of this people made on the weak states of the early Middle Ages.

Their worship of the naked sword, impeccable possession, contempt for death, the cult of nobility laid the foundation for the later Western European knightly code. The American scientists Littleton and Malkor go further and believe that Europeans owe the image of the Holy Grail to the Nart epic with its magic cup Watsamonga.

Legacy controversy

The kinship with the Ossetians and Alans is not in doubt, however, in recent years, the voices of those who believe that there is the same connection with, or more broadly - have been heard more and more often.

One can have different attitudes towards the arguments that the authors of such studies cite, but one cannot deny their usefulness: after all, attempts to understand genealogy allow one to read little-known or forgotten pages of the history of one's native land in a new way. Perhaps further archaeological and genetic research will provide an unambiguous answer to the question of whose ancestors the Alans are.

I would like to end this essay somewhat unexpectedly. Do you know that about 200 thousand Alans live in the world today (more precisely, their partially assimilated descendants)? In modern times they are known as yases, they have lived in Hungary since the 13th century. and remember their roots. Although their language has long been lost, they maintain contact with their Caucasian relatives, who were rediscovered by them more than seven centuries later. So, it's too early to put an end to this people.