In the study of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, the key issues are the location of their ancestral home and the beginning of the dialect division of the Proto-Slavic language. Until now, these questions remain unresolved, largely because researchers make a methodological mistake by initially applying the inductive method. Numerous amateur linguists are especially guilty of this, creating popular but false theories about the origin and former greatness of their own peoples on the basis of several indisputable linguistic phenomena that can have different interpretations and reasons. At the same time, official linguistics is mired in the study of insignificant issues such as the search for analogues in the case paradigms of local adverbs. If one of the authoritative specialists takes up a more serious topic, then in order to support his own conclusions, he tries to pick up an arbitrary selection of facts, both linguistic and extralinguistic, creating a new theory or modernizing an outdated one.

In the first half of the last century, there were several theories of the Slavic ancestral home, which can be generalized into two main ones - the Dnieper and the Vistula-Oder, especially popular in the post-war years among Polish scientists ( Filin F.P.., 1972, 10, Shirokova F. G., Gudkov V. P., 1977). Later, authoritative experts, with their search for the ancestral home of the Slavs, only confused scientists and complicated the problem. For example, V.V. Sedov developed his theory of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, with whom he identifies to a certain extent the carriers of the Lusatian, Chernyakhov, and Zarubinets cultures ( Sedov V.V., 1979). O. M. Trubachev built an absolutely fantastic theory. He tried to convince everyone that the ancestral home of the Slavs was somewhere in Pannonia ( Trubachev O. N., 1984, 1985), having very meager and dubious arguments for this. In general, both old and new theories contradict each other to varying degrees, so no one is convinced, which leads to more and more attempts to find a final solution (cf. Popowska Taborska Hanna, 1990, Sedov V.V.., Eremenko V.E., 1997, Aleksakha A.G., 2013, etc.).

Common Slavic were those that had correspondences in nine out of ten Slavic languages, finally left to determine their relationship by graphic-analytical method. Along with common words, in most cases, derivatives from them were also withdrawn, that is, whole nests of words, the main word of which was recognized as common Slavic. For example, if the word * belъ was recognized as common Slavic, then along with it all cognate words were excluded from the list (* bělěti, *belina, *belaš, *belocha, *belota etc.).

In principle, it would be correct to take into consideration all the words that are not common, but there were important reasons for the removal. Firstly, derivative words could arise in different places independently of one another at different times according to the general laws of word formation, and this could damage the establishment of family ties between languages ​​at the time of their isolation from the common language. Secondly, in the used etymological dictionaries of the Proto-Slavic language, there is a large disproportion in the representation of the lexical material of different languages, associated with the lack of sufficiently complete dictionaries for some of them. Quite often, Proto-Slavic words are given in different versions, which are given matches from two or three languages, while the existing matches from other languages ​​are not given even when they can be found in dictionaries. Of course, there should be a certain difference in the volume of Proto-Slavic vocabulary for different languages ​​- in peripheral languages ​​it is less, and in central languages ​​it is more. However, this difference cannot be multiple, therefore, for the objectivity of the study, it was necessary to carry out some correction of the lexical material taken for analysis - to supplement it, if possible, for some languages ​​and to remove excessive, repeated data for others. For such a correction, etymological dictionaries of individual Slavic languages ​​were used, as well as bilingual dictionaries (see). In the correction, the removal of derivatives from common words was continued, for the reason indicated above, although exceptions were sometimes made for words that reflected the meaning of the original concept. If the word was not recognized as common Slavic, then derivatives from it were taken into consideration, unless, of course, they were different variants of the same concept. For example, words with the same root were included in the list, which are not Common Slavonic * xaba, *xabina, *xabor, *xabb, *xabjj, *xab'je, while verbs similar in meaning derived from them were excluded * xabati, *xaběti, *xabiti.

It should also be noted that some of the words with the same root, close in meaning, were put in line with one with the mark "like ...". For example, in the general register there are two Proto-Slavic words * bar and * bara. Although none of them is common Slavic, their identical meaning allows us to consider these words as variants of one common Slavic word, which in one form or another is found in all Slavic languages. Another example of a common Slavic word can be two forms * cmel and * cmela, although such variants can be considered separately, since sometimes even small differences in words correspond to different groups of languages. However, we repeat, such lexical richness is not distributed unevenly across languages ​​only because of insufficient knowledge of individual languages.

Despite the additions made, Macedonian and Lusatian (combined Upper and Lower Lusatian) did not have enough words to include them in the general system of relations. When constructing the scheme, there was also a lack of Belarusian words, which, obviously, is a consequence of insufficient study of the dialect vocabulary.

The first result of the analysis of the Proto-Slavic vocabulary was the verification of the thesis about the dual origin of the Russian language, which had long been put forward by some linguists. For example, A. A. Shakhmatov in one of his works ( Shakhmatov A. A., 1916) not only spoke of the great difference between the northern and southern Russian dialects (dialects), but even considered possible close ties between the northern dialect and the Polish language. V.V. Mavrodin spoke in the same spirit, who admitted the possibility of a Western origin of the Krivichi (Mavrodin V.V., 1973, 82), and L. Niederle spoke even more definitely when he wrote:

Even today, traces of its dual origin are visible in the Great Russian language, since the dialect north of Moscow is very different from the southern Russian dialects ( Niederle Lubar, 1956, 165).

The division of the Eastern Slavs into four nationalities (Russians southern and northern, Ukrainians, Belarusians) is confirmed not only by the difference in language, but also by the ethnographic difference ( D. K. Zelenin, 1991, 29). R. Trautman also supported the thesis about such a four-term division. He also divides the Russians into two separate peoples (bearers of the northern and southern dialects) and, referring to the authoritative testimony of Zelenin, writes that the ethnographic and dialectological difference between these peoples is greater than between Belarusians and Russians of the southern dialect ( Trautman Reinhold, 1948, 135). In general, the division of the Slavs into three or four groups is largely arbitrary. It has long been noticed that certain separate features connect pairs of Slavic languages ​​of different groups, in particular such as Slovak and Slovenian, Ukrainian and Slovak, Slovenian and Ukrainian ( Vanko J. 1984., Meckovska Nina Borisovna. 1985 and others).

When compiling the table-dictionary of the Slavic languages, it was noticed that the Russian language is represented in it by a disproportionately large number of words in relation to other languages, and on the constructed graphical diagram of the relationships between the Slavic languages, the area of ​​the Russian language was superimposed on the areas of the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. In principle, this could be a confirmation of the thesis about the existence of a common Old Russian language for all Eastern Slavs, but in this case, we would have to add to the multitude of Russian words also Ukrainian and Belarusian, which are absent in it. Under such conditions, the construction of a scheme became generally impossible, because the connections between some languages ​​contradicted their connections with others. Only after the division of the entire set of Russian words into two equivalent dialects, the links between all languages ​​were streamlined. This division can be done quite easily, since the etymological dictionaries show the distribution of Russian words by region. To divide the regions into dialects, the following indication was used:

On the modern territory of the distribution of the Russian language, the North Russian and South Russian dialects are distinguished and a large band of transitional dialects between them, which passes through Moscow ( Melnichuk O.S., 1966).

Thus, the words common in Smolensk, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan, Penza, Tambov, Saratov and more southern regions were assigned to the southern dialect. Accordingly, words recorded in more northern regions were assigned to the northern dialect. Words common only in Siberia and the Far East were not taken into account, but there were not many of them. True, the interpenetration of the vocabulary of the two main Russian dialects, associated with the common historical development of their speakers, could not but result in the blurring of the boundaries between them, which affected the construction of the scheme of kinship relations.

Counts of the number of common words between individual languages ​​gave the results shown in Table 13. The total number of words from individual languages ​​accepted for analysis is presented in the cells of the main diagonal of the table.

If we compare the obtained data with the data of the first studies ( , 1987), one can see a certain difference between them. In particular, in the given data, the connection between the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish languages ​​is much weaker, and the connection between the Ukrainian and the northern dialect of Russian is more pronounced. This can be explained by a certain subjectivity of the compilers of dictionaries, associated with their erroneous ideas about the unity of the Great Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. Accordingly, in the lexical fund of the Russian language, at one time many Ukrainian and Belarusian words were involved, which were considered simply South or West Russian. On the other hand, some Ukrainian and Belarusian words that are absent in Great Russian were erroneously considered borrowings from Polish even when they were originally Ukrainian or Belarusian. A particularly negative role was played here by V. Dahl's dictionary of the Russian language ( Dal Vladimir, 1956). Giving him credit for the collected rich factual material, it should still be noted that he considered Ukrainian, Belarusian and both dialects of the Russian language to be a single language and therefore with the same mark "southern." attributed to the Russian language and the words of the southern dialect, and the words of the Ukrainian language, and marked "zap." noted also Belarusian words. A critical assessment of these marks by V. Dahl was already expressed by some scientists, in particular I. Dzendzelevsky ( Dzendzelіvskiy Y.O., 1969).

Table 13 Number of common words in pairs of Slavic languages

Language	floor.	Czech	slvts.	white.	Ukrainian	s.-rus.	y.-rus.	s.-x.	slvn	Bulgarian
Polish	374
Czech	247	473
Slovak	229	364	458
Belarusian	169	167	177	356
Ukrainian	238	257	265	266	487
North Russian	165	198	192	240	271	484
South Russian	189	205	217	253	304	330	480
Serbian-Croatian	172	239	246	154	248	225	241	519
Slovenian	126	199	207	106	180	169	181	303	394
Bulgarian	104	148	148	83	160	162	156	265	193	360

However, despite the partial incorrectness of the studied lexical material, the scheme of family relations of the Slavic languages, built on its basis (see Fig. 41).

Rice. 41. Scheme of kinship relations of Slavic languages.

True, as expected, certain difficulties arose in determining the position of the regions of the two main Russian dialects. Due to the close historical development of these dialects, the number of common words with some other Slavic languages ​​in each of them differ little from each other. In addition, the author's errors in attributing some words to one or another adverb are not ruled out. The two areas of Russian dialects obtained by graphic construction are so close to each other that they could be interchanged on the diagram.

Nevertheless, the scheme almost does not differ in its configuration from that published in the previous work ( , 1987), except that instead of one region of the Russian language, there are two regions of its two dialects, and the regions of some other languages ​​have somewhat moved one relative to the other. (cf. diagram to the left).

Graphic system of relations between Slavic languages
(Stetsyuk V.M.., 1987, p. 38)

bg - Bulgarian language, Br - Belarusian language, P - Polish language, R - Russian language, Sln - Slovenian language Slts - Slovak language SH - Serbo-Croatian, At - Ukrainian language, H - Czech.

The unconditional presence of errors in the lexical material of the samples, on the basis of which both schemes were made, does not significantly affect their configuration, because the errors are of a non-systemic nature, while relations between languages ​​have a certain regularity. In connection with the special proximity of the dialects of the Russian language, when placing them in the general scheme of Slavic relations, other considerations were taken into account. In particular, the phonetic features of the Northern Russian dialect (more specifically, Novgorod-Pskov) give reason to place it closer to the Polish language than the Southern Russian, as Shakhmatov noted. In addition, the above partial incorrectness of the lexical material of the southern Russian dialect, which included words characteristic of more Western languages, was taken into account. However, since the newly obtained scheme of Slavic kinship relations does not differ much from the one built earlier, it overlaps quite well with the same place on the geographical map (see Fig. 42). The map shows the areas where the primary isolation of individual Slavic dialects began, from which the modern Slavic languages ​​later developed.

Rice. 42. Areas of formation of individual Slavic languages.

Bolg- Bulgarian language, Br- Belarusian language, P- Polish language, Yu.-r- southern dialect of the Russian language, S.-r- northern dialect of the Russian language, slv- Slovenian language Slts- Slovak language S/X- Serbo-Croatian, Ukr- Ukrainian language, H- Czech.
(A map of the entire original Slavic territory is provided in the section).

The distribution of the areas of the initial formation of individual Slavic languages ​​coincides with the territory of the second ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans. Moreover, as studies have shown, the formation of Germanic and Iranian languages, as well as Slavic dialects, also took place in the same areas of the Middle Dnieper basin. The study and explanation of the cause of this phenomenon can be carried out by the efforts of scientists of various specialties - ethnologists, ethno-sociologists, geographers, etc., but so far they have been given the working name "". The existence of ethno-forming areas confirms the opinion of some Slavists, who believe that even in the depths of the Proto-Slavic, certain dialect formations were formed, from which modern languages ​​later developed. Also, in fairness, it should be noted that a few years before the publication of the first results of research by the geographical method, the territory of the settlements of the Slavs was similarly defined by Machinsky:

A comparison of the data of written sources and archeology convinces us that from the beginning of the 2nd century. BC. and up to the middle of IV d. AD the bulk of the ancestors of the historical Slavs (called by the Germans Venethi) lived in the territory bounded from the west by the middle Neman and the middle and upper Bug, from the south by a line running from the upper reaches of the Western Bug to the lower Psel, from the east by a line connecting the upper reaches of the Psl and Oka, the northern border is conditionally drawn on the basis of linguistic data according to middle Western Dvina to the source of the Dnieper to the upper Oka ( Machinsky D. A., 1981, 31-32).

Kukharenko in one of his early works, having studied the monuments of the early Slavic tribes, the so-called "burial fields", outlines the southeastern border of the settlement of the early Slavic tribes so that it "passed from the upper reaches of the Southern Bug to the east, along the Ros River and further along the Dnieper to approximately the confluence of the Psel river into the Dnieper .., turned to the north east, went Pslom, and then passed into the upper reaches of the Sula ”( Kukharenko Yu. V., 1951, 15-16). It can be seen on the map that such a definition almost exactly corresponds to the southern border of the ethno-forming areas of the Middle Dnieper.

In favor of the reliability of the areas of formation of the Slavic languages ​​determined by us, the data of toponymy speak. True, so far there are convincing data only for the areas of the Czech and Slovak languages. It is known that the Czech Republic has its own Volyn (near Strakonice, South Bohemian region), as well as several settlements Duliby from the tribal name Duleby, which once inhabited Volyn, the ancestral home of the Czechs. Comparing the names of the settlements of the Czech ancestral home and the modern Czech Republic, one can see certain parallels in them: Dubne - Dubna, Ostrov - Ostrov, Rudná - Rudnya, Hradec - Gorodets. However, similar names are from common appellatives such as oak, birch, alder, apple tree, black, white, city, field, stone, sand, island, etc. can be formed according to the general laws of word formation independently in different places of Slavic settlements. Names that are quite original should be taken into account, at least those that do not have several doubles. And it turned out that there are quite a few parallels in the names of the settlements of Volyn and the Czech Republic:

Duchkov(Northern Czech region) – Duhce(to the north of Rozhishch, Rozhishchevsky district, Volyn region),

JaromEr(north of Hradec Kralove, East Bohemian region) – Yaromel north-east of Kivertsy, Kiveretsky district of Volyn region),

Jicin(East Czech region) – Yuchin(near Tuchin, Goshchansky district, Rivne region),

Krupa(Central Czech region) – Groats(near Lutsk),

Lipno(South Czech region) – Lipno(in the extreme east of the Kiveretsky district of the Volyn region),

Letovice(South Moravian region) – letovishche(in the extreme north of the Shumsky district of the Ternopil region),

Ostroh(to the east of Brno, South Moravian region) – Prison(Rivne region),

Radomysl(near Strakonice, South Czech region) - Radomyshl (south of Lutsk), although there is another Radomyshl already on the territory of the Slovak ancestral homeland),

Telc(in the west of the South Moravian region) – Telci(in the extreme east of the Manevichi district of the Volyn region).

However, it is interesting that there are names of settlements that, by their form, confirm that it was from Volyn that the Czechs migrated to their modern territory. It is known that during migrations people sometimes give their new settlements diminutive names from the old ones. In our case, we have three such examples:

Horazd "ovice(in the south of the West Bohemian region) - from Garazja(south of Lutsk),

Pardubice(East Czech region) – from Paridubs(to the west of Kovel in the Starovizhevsky district of the Volyn region),

Semcice(near Mladá Boleslav, Central Czech region) – seeds(on Styri, Manevichi district, Volyn region).

Czech, Moravian and Slovak toponyms with parallels in Ukraine. Czech toponyms are in blue, Moravian in black, Slovak in red.

Many parallels can be found between Slovak toponymy and the toponymy of the Slovak ancestral home, although sometimes they have doublets elsewhere, which may be either coincidental or reflect a migration route. Here are examples of diminutive names in new places of settlements:

Malinec(Central Slovak region, east of Zvolen) - Malin(district center of the Zhytomyr region and a village in the Mlynovsky district of the Rivne region),

Malice(East Slovak region), Malchitsy (Yavorovsky district, Lviv region) - Maltsy(Narovlyansky district, Belarus),

Lucenec(south of the Central Slovak region), Luchinets (Murovano-Kurilivsky district of Vinnitsa region) - Luchin(Popelnyansky district, Zhytomyr region),

Kremnica(Middle Slovak region) – Kremno(Luginsky district, Zhytomyr region).

There are also pairs of almost identical names:

Makovce(north of the East Slovak region) – Makovitsy(Novogradvolynsky district, Zhytomyr region),

Presov(East Slovak region) – Pryazhev(somewhat south of Zhytomyr),

Kosice(East Slovak region) – kitties(Ovruch district, Zhytomyr region),

Levoca(East Slovak region) – Levachi(Bereznevsky district, Rivne region).

There are also several pairs of names, the coincidences between which may be random: Humenne (East Slovak region) - Gumenniki (Korostishevsky district, Zhytomyr region), although there is Humennoye near Vinnitsa, Bardejov (East Slovak region) - Bardy ( Korostensky district, Zhytomyr region), etc. Of the hydronymic names, only the Uzh can be noted - there are rivers under this name in Slovakia and in the ancestral home of the Slovaks (Pripyat settlement).

Slavic toponymy is considered in more detail in the block "Prehistoric toponymy of Eastern Europe" and in the section "".

If the localization of the areas of the formation of the Slavic languages ​​is determined correctly, then new or previously unknown facts will confirm its location. This happened after getting acquainted with the ethnographic map of the Belarusians, compiled by Professor E.F. Karsky in 1903, which marked the areas of individual Belarusian dialects. As it turned out, the dialect with the most characteristic features of the Belarusian language overlaps to a large extent the ancestral home of the Belarusians. A fragment of the map with the area of ​​this dialect shaded in red and marked with the border of the ancestral homeland of the Belarusians in dark color is shown on the left.

The specified dialect (very "screaming" and with a hard r ) occupies the central part of the entire Belarusian territory. More peripheral dialects are characterized to a greater or lesser extent by features in common with Russian, Ukrainian or Polish, which is obviously due to later influences of neighbors. The most characteristic features of the Belarusian language are also the most ancient, that is, they correspond to the language at the beginning of its formation. Thus, we see that a dialect with ancient features has been preserved very close to a certain territory of its original formation. The lack of a complete match is easily explained by later migrations.

The reliability of the localization of the areas of the formation of the Slavic languages ​​can also be confirmed by other facts, in particular this one. Based on various data, we will come to the conclusion that the Mordovian ethnos always remained in the area of ​​​​its ancestral home between the upper reaches of the Oka and Don, or not far from these places. If the ancestral home of the Bulgarians, indeed, was on the left bank of the Desna, then the Mordvins should have been their closest neighbors in the east, and in this case there should have been some specific Mordovian-Bulgarian correspondences that have no analogues. It could also be linguistic connections, but in this case we have other compelling evidence. Exploring Slavic and Mordovian epic songs, the Russian scientist Maskaev revealed interesting Mordovian-Bulgarian motifs, in particular in the epic about the construction of a large city (Gelon?) and, denying the possibility of mediation by Russians or other peoples (there is nothing similar in Russian and other epics), takes take the liberty to state the following:

The conclusion suggests itself that the Mordovian-Bulgarian community in the epic song is more likely due to the long-term neighborhood of the tribes of these peoples in the past ( Maskaev A.I., 1965, 298).

An in-depth study of the folklore of the Mordovians and Bulgarians can reveal other interesting parallels. And in general, various evidence can be found to confirm the location of the areas of formation of the Slavic languages. However, it seems that after a sharp criticism of the graphic-analytical method and the results obtained with its help ( Zhuravlev A.F., 1991) the topic of the ancestral home of the Slavs turned out to be closed for linguists. At least in Russian publications, it no longer rose. It remains unclear whether the linguists agreed with my localization of the places of settlement of the ancient Slavs, or whether this topic is no longer of interest to them. The same can be said about archaeologists, who do not demand an alternative from linguists.

The first evidence of the Slavs. The Slavs, according to most historians, separated from the Indo-European community in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The ancestral home of the early Slavs (Proto-Slavs), according to archaeological data, was the territory east of the Germans from the river. Oder in the west to the Carpathian Mountains in the east (the territory of modern Poland). A number of researchers believe that the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape later, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC.

The first written evidence about the Slavs dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. Greek, Roman, Arabic, Byzantine sources report about the Slavs. Ancient authors mention the Slavs under the name Wends(Roman writer Pliny the Elder, historian Tacitus, 1st century AD; geographer Ptolemy Claudius, 2nd century AD).

In the era of the Great Migration of Nations (III-VI centuries AD), which coincided with the crisis of the slave-owning civilization, the Slavs mastered the territory of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. They lived in the forest and forest-steppe zone, where, as a result of the spread of iron tools, it became possible to conduct a settled agricultural economy. Having settled in the Balkans, the Slavs played a significant role in the destruction of the Danube border of Byzantium.

The first information about the political history of the Slavs refers to the GU century. AD From the Baltic coast, the Germanic tribes of the Goths made their way to the Northern Black Sea region. The Gothic leader Germanaric was defeated by the Slavs. His successor Vinitar deceived 70 Slavic elders headed by God (Bus) and crucified them. Eight centuries later, the unknown author of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" mentioned "the time of Busovo".

A special place in the life of the Slavic world was occupied by relations with the nomadic peoples of the steppe. Along this steppe ocean, stretching from the Black Sea to Central Asia, wave after wave of nomadic tribes invaded Eastern Europe. At the end of the IV century. the Gothic tribal union was broken by the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Huns, who came from Central Asia. In 375, the hordes of the Huns occupied the territory between the Volga and the Danube with their nomads, and then moved further into Europe to the borders of France. In their advance to the west, the Huns carried away part of the Slavs. After the death of the leader of the Huns, Atilla (453), the Hunnic State disintegrated, and they were thrown back to the east.

In the VI century. the Turkic-speaking Avars (the Russian chronicle called them obrams) created their own state in the southern Russian steppes, uniting the tribes that roamed there. The Avar Khaganate was defeated by Byzantium in 625. "Proud in mind" and in body the great Avars-obras disappeared without a trace. "Keep dead like a find" these words, with the light hand of the Russian chronicler, became an aphorism.

The largest political formations of the VII-VIII centuries. in the southern Russian steppes there was the Bulgarian kingdom and the Khazar Khaganate, and in the Altai region - the Turkic Khaganate. The states of the nomads were unstable conglomerates of the steppes, who hunted for military booty. As a result of the collapse of the Bulgarian kingdom, part of the Bulgarians, led by Khan Asparuh, migrated to the Danube, where they were assimilated by the southern Slavs who lived there, who took the name of Asparukh's warriors, i.e. Bulgarians. Another part of the Bulgarian-Turks with Khan Batbai came to the middle reaches of the Volga, where a new power, Volga Bulgaria (Bulgaria), arose. Its neighbor, who occupied from the middle of the 7th century. the territory of the Lower Volga region, the steppes of the North Caucasus, the Black Sea region and partly the Crimea, was the Khazar Khaganate, which levied tribute from the Dnieper Slavs until the end of the 9th century.

Eastern Slavs in the 6th-9th centuries. In the VI century. Slavs repeatedly made military campaigns against Byzantium, the largest state of that time. From that time, a number of works by Byzantine authors have come down to us, containing original military instructions on the fight against the Slavs. So, for example, the Byzantine Procopius from Caesarea wrote in his book "War with the Goths": "These tribes, Slavs and Antes, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times live in democracy (democracy), and therefore they consider happiness and unhappiness in life to be a matter of common ... They believe that only God, the creator of lightning, is the lord over all, and bulls are sacrificed to him and other sacred rites are performed ... Both of them have the same language ... And once even the name of Slavs and Antes were one and the same.

Byzantine authors compared the way of life of the Slavs with the life of their country, emphasizing the backwardness of the Slavs. Campaigns against Byzantium could only be undertaken by large tribal unions of the Slavs. These campaigns contributed to the enrichment of the tribal elite of the Slavs, which accelerated the collapse of the primitive communal system.

The formation of large tribal associations of the Slavs is indicated by the legend contained in the Russian chronicle, which tells about the reign of Kyi with the brothers Shchek, Khoriv and sister Lybid in the Middle Dnieper. The city founded by the brothers was allegedly named after the elder brother Kyi. The chronicler noted that other tribes had the same reigns. Historians believe that these events took place at the end of the 5th-6th centuries. AD

The territory of the Eastern Slavs (VI-IX centuries). The Eastern Slavs occupied the territory from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Middle Oka and the upper reaches of the Don in the east, from the Neva and Lake Ladoga in the north to the Middle Dnieper in the south. The Slavs, who developed the East European Plain, came into contact with a few Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes. There was a process of assimilation (mixing) of peoples. In the VI-IX centuries. the Slavs united in communities that no longer had only a tribal, but also a territorial and political character. Tribal unions are a stage on the way to the formation of the statehood of the Eastern Slavs.

In the chronicle story about the settlement of Slavic tribes, a dozen and a half associations of Eastern Slavs are named. The term "tribes" in relation to these associations has been proposed by historians. It would be more correct to call these associations tribal unions. These unions included 120-150 separate tribes, whose names have already been lost. Each individual tribe, in turn, consisted of a large number of clans and occupied a significant territory (40-60 km across).

The story of the chronicle about the settlement of the Slavs was brilliantly confirmed by archaeological excavations in the 19th century. Archaeologists noted the coincidence of the excavation data (burial rites, women's jewelry, temporal rings, etc.), characteristic of each tribal union, with an annalistic indication of the place of its settlement.

The glades lived in the forest-steppe along the middle reaches of the Dnieper. To the north of them, between the mouths of the Desna and Ros rivers, lived northerners (Chernigov). To the west of the glades on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Drevlyans "sedesh in the forests". To the north of the Drevlyans, between the rivers Pripyat and the Western Dvina, the Dregovichi settled (from the word "dryagaa" a swamp), which, along the Western Dvina, neighbored the Polochanamn (from the river Polota, a tributary of the Western Dvina). To the south of the Bug River, there were Buzhans and Volynians, according to some historians, the descendants of the Dulebs. The interfluve of the Prut and the Dnieper was inhabited by streets. Tivertsy lived between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug. The Vyatichi were located along the Oka and Moscow rivers; to the west of them lived the Krivichi; along the river Sozh and its tributaries Radimichi. The northern part of the western slopes of the Carpathians was occupied by white Croats. Ilmen Slovenes lived around Lake Ilmen.

The chroniclers noted the uneven development of individual tribal associations of the Eastern Slavs. At the center of their story is the land of the glades. The land of glades, as the chroniclers point out, bore the same name "Rus". Historians believe that this was the name of one of the tribes that lived along the Ros River and gave the name to the tribal union, the history of which was inherited by the meadows. This is just one of the possible explanations for the term "Rus". The question of the origin of this name is not fully understood.

The neighbors of the Eastern Slavs in the north-west were the Baltic Letto-Lntovskie (Zhmud, Lithuanian, Prussians, Latgalians, Semigallians, Curonians) and Finno-Ugric (Chud-Ests, Livs) tribes. The Finno-Ugric peoples coexisted with the Eastern Slavs both from the north and the northeast (Vod, Izhora, Karelians, Saami, all, Perm). In the upper reaches of the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama lived Yugras, Merya, Cheremis-Mars, Murom, Meshchera, Mordvins, Burtases. East of the confluence of the river Belaya in the Kama to the middle Volga was the Volga-Kama Bulgaria, its population was the Turks. The Bashkirs were their neighbors. South Russian steppes in the VIII-DC centuries. the Magyars (Hungarians) were occupied by Finno-Ugric pastoralists, who, after their resettlement in the region of Lake Balaton, were replaced in the 9th century. Pechenegs. The Khazar Khaganate dominated the Lower Volga and the steppe spaces between the Caspian and Azov Seas. The Black Sea region was dominated by Danubian Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire.

The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks". The great waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was a kind of "pillar road" connecting Northern and Southern Europe. It arose at the end of the ninth century. From the Baltic (Varangian) Sea along the river. Neva caravans of merchants fell into Lake Ladoga (Nevo), from there along the river. Volkhov to Lake Ilmen and further along the river. Fishing up to the headwaters of the Dnieper. From Lovat to the Dnieper in the region of Smolensk and on the Dnieper rapids they crossed by "drag routes". The western coast of the Black Sea reached Constantinople (Tsaryrad). The most developed lands of the Slavic world, Novgorod and Kyiv, controlled the northern and southern sections of the Great Trade Route. This circumstance gave rise to a number of historians following V.O. Klyuchevsky argue that the trade in fur, wax and honey was the main occupation of the Eastern Slavs, since the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was "the main core of the economic," political, and then the cultural life of the Eastern Slavs.

Economy of the Slavs. The main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations that have found seeds of cereals (rye, wheat, barley, millet) and garden crops (turnips, cabbage, beets, carrots, radishes, garlic, etc.). A person in those days identified life with arable land and bread, hence the name of grain crops "zhito", which has survived to this day. The agricultural traditions of this region are evidenced by the borrowing by the Slavs of the Roman bread norm of the quadrantal (26.26 l), which was called the quadrant in Russia and existed in our system of weights and measures until 1924.

The main agricultural systems of the Eastern Slavs are closely connected with natural and climatic conditions. In the north, in the area of ​​taiga forests (the remnant of which is Belovezhskaya Pushcha), the dominant system of agriculture was slash-and-burn. Trees were cut down the first year. In the second year, dried trees were burned and, using the ashes as fertilizer, they sowed grain. For two or three years, the plot gave a high harvest for that time, then the land was depleted and it was necessary to move to a new plot. The main tools of labor were an ax, a hoe, a plow, a knotted harrow and a spade, which loosened the soil. Harvested with sickles. They threshed with chains. The grain was ground with stone grinders and hand millstones.

In the southern regions, fallow was the leading system of agriculture. There were many fertile lands and plots of land were sown for two or three or more years. With the depletion of the soil, they moved (shifted) to new areas. The main tools used here were a plow, a ralo, a wooden plow with an iron plowshare, i.e. tools adapted for horizontal plowing.

Cattle breeding was closely related to agriculture. The Slavs bred pigs, cows, and small cattle. In the south, oxen were used as working livestock, in the forest belt of horses. Other occupations of the Slavs include fishing, hunting, beekeeping (collecting honey from wild bees), which had a large share in the northern regions. Industrial crops (flax, hemp) were also grown.

Community. The low level of productive forces in the management of the economy required huge labor costs. Labor-intensive work that had to be carried out within strictly defined deadlines could only be performed by a large team; it was also his task to oversee the correct distribution and use of land. Therefore, a large role in the life of the ancient Russian village was acquired by the community of peace, rope (from the word "rope", which was used to measure the land during divisions).

By the time the state was formed among the Eastern Slavs, the tribal community was replaced by a territorial, or neighboring, community. The community members were now united, first of all, not by kinship, but by a common territory and economic life. Each such community owned a certain territory on which several families lived. All possessions of the community were divided into public and private. The house, household land, livestock, inventory were the personal property of each community member. In common use were arable land, meadows, forests, reservoirs, fishing grounds. Arable land and mowing were to be divided between families.

As a result of the transfer by the princes of the right to own land to the feudal lords, part of the communities fell under their authority. Another way of subordinating neighboring communities to feudal lords was their capture by warriors and princes. But most often, the old tribal nobility, subjugating the community members, turned into boyars-patrimonials.

Communities that did not fall under the rule of the feudal lords were obliged to pay taxes to the state, which, in relation to these communities, acted both as the supreme authority and as a feudal lord.

Peasant farms and farms of feudal lords had a natural character. Both those and others sought to provide for themselves at the expense of internal resources and had not yet worked for the market. However, the feudal economy could not live completely without a market. With the appearance of surpluses, it became possible to exchange agricultural products for handicraft goods; cities began to take shape as centers of crafts, trade and exchange, and at the same time as strongholds of the power of the feudal lords and defense against external enemies.

City. The city, as a rule, was built on a hill, at the confluence of two rivers, as this provided a reliable defense against enemy attacks. The central part of the city, protected by a rampart, around which a fortress wall was erected, was called the kremlin, krom or citadel. There were palaces of princes, courtyards of the largest feudal lords, temples, and later monasteries. On both sides, the Kremlin was protected by a natural water barrier. From the side of the base of the Kremlin triangle, they dug a moat filled with water. Bargaining was located behind the moat under the protection of the fortress walls. The settlements of artisans adjoined the Kremlin. The handicraft part of the city was called the settlement, and its separate i districts, inhabited, as a rule, by artisans of a certain specialty, settlements,

In most cases, cities were built on trade routes, such as the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks" or the Volga trade route, which connected Russia with the countries of the East. Communication with Western Europe was also maintained by land roads.

The exact dates of the founding of ancient cities are unknown, but many of them existed at the time of the first mention in the annals. For example, Kyiv (the legendary chronicle evidence of its founding dates back to the end of the 5th-6th centuries), Novgorod, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl South, Smolensk, Suzdal, Murom, etc. According to historians, in the 9th century. in Russia there were at least 24 large cities that had fortifications.

Social system. At the head of the East Slavic tribal unions were the princes of the tribal nobility and the former tribal elite - "deliberate people", "best men". The most important issues of life were decided at the people's meetings and veche gatherings.

There was a militia ("regiment", "thousand", divided into "hundreds"). At the head of them were the thousand, sotsky. The squad was a special military organization. According to archaeological data and Byzantine sources, East Slavic squads appeared already in the 6th-7th centuries. The druzhina was divided into the eldest, from which ambassadors and princely administrators came out, who had their own land, and the youngest, who lived with the prince and served his court and household. The warriors, on behalf of the prince, collected tribute from the conquered tribes. Such campaigns for the collection of tribute were called "polyudye". The collection of tribute usually took place in November-April and continued until the spring opening of the rivers, when the princes returned to Kyiv. The unit of tribute was the smoke (peasant yard) or the land area cultivated by the peasant yard (ralo, plow).

Slavic paganism. The ancient Slavs were pagans. At an early stage of their development, they believed in evil and good spirits. A pantheon of Slavic gods developed, each of which personified various forces of nature or reflected the social and social relations of that time. The most important gods of the Slavs were: Perun, the god of thunder, lightning, war; Svarog god of fire; Veles is the patron of cattle breeding; Mokosh protecting the female part of the economy; Simargl god of the underworld. The god of the sun was especially revered, which was called differently by different tribes: Dazhdbog, Yarilo, Horos, which indicates the absence of stable Slavic intertribal unity.

In the most ancient descriptions of our country, up to the first centuries of our era, we do not even find a mention of the name of the Slavs. The ancestors of the Slavs separated from the Indo-European family of peoples around the 1st millennium BC. Ancient and Byzantine authors describe them under the name of Wends, Slavs or Antes. There is every reason to believe that the area of ​​settlement of the Slavs was very small.

The process of expanding the territory of the ancient Slavs, and then the three groups of peoples of their descendants, took many centuries of historical development. Apparently, those historians are right who place the initial territory of the settlement of the Slavs in Central Europe - from the Elbe basin to the Upper Volga, from the Baltic to the Don, Danube and Balkans.

By the middle of the 1st millennium AD. the process of settlement of the Slavs in Europe is basically completed. This is connected with the beginning of the division of the Slavs into three main groups: western (later Poles, Czechs, Slovaks), southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrins, Macedonians) and eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians). The separation of a branch of Eastern Slavism from a single Slavic community dates back to the 6th century.

The Eastern Slavs arose as a result of the merging of the Proto-Slavs, the speakers of the Slavic speech, with other ethnic groups of Eastern Europe. "The Tale of Bygone Years" names the following East Slavic associations: Polans, Northerners, Drevlyans, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Krieichi, Ilmen Slovenes, Dregovichi, Volynians (or Dulebs), White Croats, Tivertsy and Ulichi. A number of scholars believe that the annals are not talking about tribes, but about alliances of tribes, associations of a pre-state order that occupied a clearly fixed territory; consequently, one can speak of the beginning of a transition to a political unification of the type of an early class society. The most important group of tribes were the meadows, in whose land the capital of Ancient Russia, Kyiv, was located. They settled in the Middle Dnieper region north of the Ros river, a tributary of the Dnieper, which gave grounds to many historians to associate the origin of the name "Rus" with it.

The names of the East Slavic tribes had either a geographical etymology associated with the nature of the occupied territory (glade, drevlyans, northerners), or patronymic, after the name of legendary ancestors (Radimichi from Radim, Krivichi - on behalf of Krivoy). The settlements of the Slavs were grouped into a kind of nest of three or four villages, and several villages formed a community - a verv.

The main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was slash-and-burn agriculture, combined with developed cattle breeding and various kinds of crafts (beekeeping, hunting, fishing). In the north, crafts were of greater importance, especially since the export of furs played a special role in foreign trade with the East and Byzantium. If here agriculture was mainly slash and low-profit, then in the south, in the forest-steppe, the conditions for agriculture were very favorable. The rivers Volga, Dnieper, Don, etc., which were of international importance, were most often used as means of communication.

Leading role in transit trade through Eastern Europe in the VIII-IX centuries. played the Volga route along the Volga and the Caspian. But since the ninth century the “path from the Varangians to the Greeks” is gaining more and more importance, connecting the north of Europe with the Black Sea and making the Eastern Slavs, as it were, a link in trade between the Asian, Greek and Europeans, they occupied an important geographical position until the beginning of the Crusades in the XI-XII centuries, when the movement of world trade routes created a new, more direct route of communication between Western Europe and Asia. This route now led past Kyiv, across the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and the Italian trading cities, especially Venice and Genoa, began to play the main role, establishing their trading posts in the East.

It was at the end of the VIII-IX centuries. the so-called Viking Age began, when, due to an excess of population in the poor Scandinavian countries, a stream of people poured out of them to the west and east. In the east, the Vikings, the Normans (or, as they were called, the Rus, and then the Varangians) clashed with the local population, who were at the same level of civilization. The origin of the term "Rus", as it was said, many historians associate with immigrants from the north, from Scandinavia, i.e. the original Rus (VIII-IX centuries) were Scandinavians, who then established ties with the Slavic lands, including alliances with the local population, especially in the north.

The Norman Vikings were not limited to devastating raids on coastal European countries, and did not refuse trade operations where they seemed more profitable than military ones. They were attracted by the rich, populous capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (Tsargrad), where they went along the great waterway "from the Varangians and the Greeks." Along this route there were a number of Russian trading cities, of which the main ones were Novgorod in the north and Kyiv in the south.

By the time the Varangians appeared in Russia, obviously no later than the 8th century, the Eastern Slavs had their own reigns, the forerunners of statehood, which was the result of property inequality and social stratification. At the same time, in Eastern Europe in the ninth century. at the head of some principalities were the "summoned" Varangian princes.

The formation of the Old Russian state is usually associated with two dates - 862 and 882. The Tale of Bygone Years reports that before Rurik was called, the Varangians in northern Russia dominated the Slavs and took tribute from them; in 862 the Varangians were expelled, but soon, because of the civil strife that had begun, they called Rurik. Thus, in the annalistic text, it is not about the creation of a state in Russia, but about the appearance of the Varangian dynasty in the Novgorod land. Further, some Askold and Dir, according to the annals of the boyars Rurik, who ruled in the north in the land of the Ilmen Slavs. went on a campaign to Kyiv and established themselves there. Askold and Dir freed the glades from tribute to the Khazars.

Rurik died, leaving behind his young son Igor, instead of whom a relative of the prince Oleg (879-912) began to rule. This suggests that at that time inheritance did not go from father to son, but passed to the eldest in the family. This order of succession to the throne of the ruling Varangian dynasty reflected the view of the state as the collective patrimonial property of the conquering princes.

In his campaign to the south, Oleg entrenched himself in the lands along the "path from the Varangians to the Greeks", reached Kyiv, where he killed Askold and Dir, and began to rule there from 882. Then he subjugated the nearest neighbors of the glades - the Drevlyans and northerners. Gradually, Oleg subjugated all the lands on the "path from the Varangians to the Greeks." During his famous campaign against Byzantium, Oleg managed to take its capital Constantinople and establish peace with the Greeks. The result of the campaign was the conclusion in 911 of a peace treaty beneficial for Russia, according to which Russians who came to Byzantium for the purpose of trade received a privileged position and could trade duty-free in Constantinople. The texts of the agreement were drawn up in Russian and Greek and contain references to the "Russian law" - the internal legal norms of the ancient Russian state.

The reign of Oleg, nicknamed the Prophet, was a milestone in its significance: it was from the 80s. 9th century we can talk about the existence of the Old Russian state, the power of the Rurikovich as a result of the unification of the two political centers of the Eastern Slavs: southern (Kyiv) and northern (Novgorod). It was a kind of political association. Unlike the "barbarian" states of Western Europe, which inherited many of the state and legal traditions of antiquity, Eastern Europe did not have such traditions. This can explain the relatively slow maturation of state institutions and their uniqueness. Oleg and his inner circle were Varangians, but in the south they quickly became “glorified”, although the term “Rus? and in the first half of the tenth century. was used only in relation to the princely squad. At the same time, the unification of the Slavic tribes around the center of the land of the glades of Kyiv, which became the ethnic and political core of Russia, later determined the characteristic features of the future state, and the concept of "Rus, Russian land" spread to other East Slavic lands.

From a political point of view, the early Kievan state was an association of principalities and territories subordinate to the Grand Duke, in the socialist-Khonshyacheskhsh lden it was a combination of territorial communities with elements of tribal relations. Perhaps the main task of the first Russian princes was the organization of polyudya - an annual nationwide event to collect tribute from the subordinate population. Tribute was collected from the peasant household ("smoke"). Polyudia served to consolidate the East Slavic lands under the rule of Kyiv within the established boundaries and with a single system of taxes in favor of the Kiev prince, who relied on the strength of the squad and the local nobility. By stimulating the alienation of the surplus product, polyudye accelerated the transition to feudal relations.

Oleg's heir was Igor (912-945), whom the chronicle calls the son of Rurik. At that time, a nomadic Turkic people appeared near the Russian borders, breaking through Khazaria to the Black Sea steppes. In 915, Igor made peace with the Pechenegs. The Pechenegs migrated to the Danube, but soon Russia had to fight with them. The prince undertook two campaigns against Byzantium, which ended with the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Greeks in 945.

The events that strengthened the Old Russian statehood are connected with the reign of Igor. In 945, at the insistence of a squad that returned from the field, Igor again went to the land of the Drevlyans to demand a day in excess of the one established by the row (contract). The indignant Drevlyans attacked the prince, killed him and killed his companions. The widow of Prince Olga, who became regent for her young son Svyatoslav, brutally avenged her husband's murderers, dealt with the Drevlyan ambassadors and laid siege to their capital, Iskorosten. The city was taken, but Olga had to go through an important administrative reform that streamlined tax collection. The archaic polyudya system was replaced by the systematic payment of tribute, which was collected in the prescribed amount (lessons) and in specially designated places (graveyards) by tax disputers (tiuns) appointed for this purpose .

An important event was the baptism of Olga in 955 in Constantinople, where she took the name Helen in honor of the empress, who baptized Byzantium. The chronicle has preserved a colorful story about Olga's baptism: she turned to Emperor Constantine with a request to be her godfather's statre: "There is a pagan," i.e. heathen. Struck by her 1fa "hundredth, Konstantin made the princess an offer of marriage:" I want to five you as a wife, "but was refused:" How do you want me to be buried, having baptized me himself and called me a daughter? According to the Orthodox canon, the godfather could not marry his goddaughter, and Konstantin was forced to admit, “You outwitted (outwitted) me, wise Olga!”

Returning to Russia, Olga stopped campaigning against Byzantium. She hoped by her example to influence Svyatoslav and the Kiev nobility so that they would accept Christianity and it would become established as the state religion. But this did not happen: both Svyatoslav and his squad remained faithful to paganism.

In 964, Svyatoslav (964-971) removed his mother from power and changed the course of foreign policy, resuming campaigns against Byzantium. He paid more attention not to internal, but to external affairs. Chronicles preserved evidence of his glorious campaigns, created the image of a fearless warrior prince who defeated the Volga Bulgaria and the nomadic hordes of the Pechenegs. His appeal to the squad became a famous saying.

Svyatoslav dealt a decisive blow to the Khazar Khaganate, defeated its main cities and captured the capital Atil. This led "to the formation of the Russian settlements of the Tmutarakan principality" on the Taman Peninsula (Eastern Sea of ​​Azov). Svyatoslav managed to subdue another East Slavic tribal group, the Vyatichi, who until then paid tribute to the Khazars.

By agreement with the Byzantine emperor, he opposed the Danube Bulgaria and won, and then led the fight against Byzantium for the Balkan Peninsula. However, this struggle ended unsuccessfully: with great difficulty, Svyatoslav managed to escape to Russia, signing an agreement with Byzantium in 971, according to which he lost all the positions he had won in the Balkans. On the way home, Svyatoslav with his army was ambushed at the Dnieper rapids and was killed by the Pechenegs. Wanting the glory of the defeated prince to pass to him, the Pecheneg Khan Kurya ordered to make a bowl bound with gold from the skull of Svyatoslav for his feasts.

In 980, one of the sons of Svyatoslav Vladimir (980-1015) became the ruler of the ancient Russian state. Having come to power, he had to make a choice between the old pagan clans, guided by the Varangians and the ideals of "military democracy", and the Kievan nobility, who understood the need for reforms that could bring the then Rus to the civilized world. However, the time for such reforms has not yet come.

First, Vladimir made concessions to those who helped him establish himself on the throne of the grand duke - the pagan clans. In 980, he attempted to create a pantheon (single system) of pagan gods and to strengthen the Old Russian state on the basis of the religion of polytheism. Deities and cults revered in different lands were brought together and made up the official hierarchy of pagan beliefs. The formidable god of war Perun, formerly known among the Varangians as Perkun, was recognized as the patron of the grand ducal power and the Kiev squad. Whiter, who was called the "cattle" god (from the term "cattle" - money), patronized trade. The pantheon included the deities of southern origin Hora (the god of the sun), Semargl (a sacred bird whose functions are not entirely clear), the Slavic Stribog (patron of the wind), Dazhdbog (also associated with the sun), Mokosh (female deity, patroness of women's activities).

With Byzantium, Vladimir conducted a lively and profitable trade, but competed for influence in the Northern Black Sea region. Byzantine outposts were Chersonese and other Greek cities in the Crimea. Russian influence spread through the Tmutarakan principality, to which Vladimir annexed the eastern part of the Crimean peninsula. The defense of Russia from the Pechenegs became his most important task. In the south of Russia, Vladimir began the construction of fortresses along the tributaries of the Dnieper, the Desna, the Sula and other rivers, and created three lines of earthen fortifications with cities and fences on the border with the Wild Field. Among them, one of the most important centers of Kievan Rus arose - Pereyaslavl, which took upon itself the attacks of the steppe nomads.

The creation of the first state of the Eastern Slavs opened a new, feudal period in the history of the peoples of Eastern Europe, which replaced the primitive one.

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Federal State Educational Institution of Higher Education "Nizhny Novgorod Agricultural Academy"

Department of History and Culture

discipline: "History"

on the topic: "Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs. Eastern Slavs in antiquity. Territory, economy, religion"

Completed by: student of the veterinary faculty of group 15B

Romanov Evgeny Albertovich

Checked by: Associate Professor of the Department of History and Culture

Kochnova Ksenia Alexandrovna

Nizhny Novgorod - 2016

Introduction

1. Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs

2. Eastern Slavs in antiquity

2.1 The first written evidence about the Slavs

2.2 Neighbors of the Eastern Slavs

2.3 Cities

2.4 Public relations

3. Territory, economy, religion

3.1 Territory

3.2 Housekeeping

3.3 Religion

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

To understand the processes that led to the formation of a unified Old Russian statehood, it is necessary to represent the territorial location and dynamics of the settlement of the Slavic tribes in the pre-state period, that is, to clarify the issues of the territorial and geographical order: where did the "Pervoslavs" live, with whom they neighbored, with what natural and geographical conditions faced, what are the ways of subsequent movements of the Slavic tribes. And here an important question immediately arises about the origin of the Slavs - the time and place of their formation in the ancient Indo-European environment.

There have been and are many hypotheses on this problem. The original regions of the ancient ethnic communities of the Slavs, which received the names of the "ancestral home" of the Slavic tribes, are still ambiguously determined by scientists.

The first who tried to answer the questions: where, how and when the Slavs appeared on the historical territory, was the ancient chronicler Nestor, the author of The Tale of Bygone Years. He determined the territory of the Slavs, including the lands along the lower Danube and Pannonia. It was from the Danube that the process of the settlement of the Slavs began, that is, the Slavs were not the original inhabitants of their land, we are talking about their migration. Consequently, the Kyiv chronicler was the ancestor of the so-called migratory territory of the origin of the Slavs, known as the "Danubian" or "Balkan". It was popular in the writings of medieval authors: Polish and Czech chroniclers of the 13th - 14th centuries. This opinion was shared for a long time by historians of the XVIII - early. XX centuries The Danubian "ancestral home" of the Slavs was recognized, in particular, by such historians as S.M. Solovyov, V.O. Klyuchevsky and others.

The origin and spread of another migration theory of the origin of the Slavs, which received the name "Scythian-Sarmatian", dates back to the Middle Ages. It was first recorded in the Bavarian chronicle of the 13th century, and later adopted by many Western European authors of the 14th-18th centuries. According to their ideas, the ancestors of the Slavs moved from Western Asia along the Black Sea coast to the north and settled under the ethnonyms "Scythians", "Sarmatians", "Alans" and "Roksolans". Gradually, the Slavs from the Northern Black Sea region settled to the west and southwest.

A different version of the migration theory was given by another major historian and linguist, Academician A.A. Chess. In his opinion, the basin of the Western Dvina and the Lower Neman in the Baltic region was the first ancestral home of the Slavs. From here, the Slavs, having taken the name of the Wends (from the Celts), advanced to the Lower Vistula, from where the Goths had just left in front of them in the Black Sea region (the turn of the 2nd - 3rd centuries). Therefore, here (Lower Vistula), according to A.A. Shakhmatova, was the second ancestral home of the Slavs. Finally, when the Goths left the Black Sea region, part of the Slavs, namely their eastern and southern branches, moved east and south in the Black Sea region and formed tribes of southern and eastern Slavs here. So, following this "Baltic" theory, the Slavs came to the land, on which they then created their own state.

There were and still are a number of other theories of the migratory nature of the origin of the Slavs and their "ancestral home".

Domestic historians, in reflecting this issue, note the complexity of the very process of the origin of the Slavs. According to their deep conviction, initially separate small scattered ancient tribes took shape on a certain vast territory, which then formed into larger tribes and their associations and, finally, into historically known peoples that form nations. This is the common path of ethnic, cultural and linguistic development of peoples and nations. Consequently, peoples were formed in the course of history not from a single primordial "ancestral people" with its "ancestral language" through its subsequent disintegration and settlement from some initial center ("ancestral home"), but on the contrary, the path of development mainly went from the initial multiplicity of tribes to their subsequent gradual unification and mutual crossing. In this case, of course, in some cases a secondary process could also take place - the process of differentiation of large ethnic communities that had already formed earlier. In the course of the formation of the ethnos of the Slavs, the tribes gradually and consistently went through certain stages of their cultural and linguistic development, which determined their ethnic characteristics. The role of resettlements (migrations) in this development is, according to Russian historians, secondary.

1. Ethnogenesis of Eastern Slavsn

At the turn of the III - II millennium BC. during the Bronze Age, when the mastery of metal tools and weapons led to the rapid development of Indo-European tribes, they began to separate from each other and speak Indo-European dialects. The tribes that used the Slavic dialect of the Indo-European language perfectly understood then their Indo-European neighbors - the Germanic and Baltic tribes. The Slavic dialect was also close to the Iranian languages ​​spoken by the Indo-Europeans who lived southeast of the future Slavs.

But where did these ancestors of the Slavs live, who were their closest neighbors?

It is established that in the II millennium BC. e. the ancestors of the Slavs, who had not yet divided into separate peoples, lived somewhere between the Balts, Germans, Celts and Iranians. The Balts lived to the northwest of the Slavs, the Germans and Celts lived to the west of them, the Indo-Iranian tribes lived in the southeast, and the Greeks and Italics lived in the south-southwest.

In the middle of the II millennium BC. e. we find the ancestors of the Slavs, who occupied the vast territory of Eastern Europe. Their center is still the lands along the Vistula River, but their migration extends already to the Oder River in the West and the Dnieper in the East. The southern border of this settlement rests on the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube, the northern part reaches the Pripyat River. eastern slavic antiquity economic

By the middle of the II millennium, the process of consolidation of kindred tribes settled in their places into large ethnic groups was outlined.

From the second half of the II millennium BC. the uniformity of the Proto-Slavic world is broken. Bronze weapons appear among European tribes, equestrian squads stand out among them. All this leads to an increase in their military activity. The era of wars, conquests, and migrations is coming. At the turn of II and I millennia BC. in Europe, new communities appear, sometimes consisting of multilingual tribes, there is an impact of some tribes on others. New groups of Proto-Slavs at this time are concentrated in two places.

One of them is located in the northern half of Central Europe and outlines the western part of the Proto-Slavic world and some part of the Celtic and Illyrian tribes. This grouping for many years was called the Wends.

In the eastern part of the Proto-Slavic world, a grouping is formed with a center in the Middle Dnieper. It is this region that interests us the most, since it was here that the Eastern Slavs appeared, and the state of Rus arose.

Here arable farming becomes the main occupation of the Proto-Slavs; at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. they are already mastering the smelting of iron from marsh and lake ore. This circumstance dramatically changes their life, allows them to more successfully master nature; conduct defensive and offensive wars.

Since that time, from the X - VII centuries. BC e., we begin to talk about that branch of the Slavic world, which, after a series of changes and historical cataclysms, is gradually turning into the world of East Slavic tribes. For several centuries there was a Balto-Slavic community. The Balts occupied the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea, reached the upper reaches of the Oka, and the ancestors of the Slavs lived to the south - from the Middle Dnieper and Pripyat Polissya to the Vistula and Oder basins.

The Balts and Slavs spoke the same language, were close in the traditions of life, economy, they had common gods. In the future, having separated from each other, the Balts and Slavs were peoples - cousins. Much in their life and language reminded of the ancient community.

At that time, the contacts and mutual influences of the ancestors of the Slavs with the northern Iranian tribes were close, from which the permanent rivals of the Slavs, the Scythians and Sarmatians, later emerged. It is no coincidence that such borrowings from Iranian languages ​​as "God", "axe", "cat" (a small paddock, barn) and others appeared in the Slavic language. But so far it is still a single world. He speaks a single Balto-Slavic language, so far there is no division into separate peoples.

By this time, the first known to us invasion of the steppe nomads on the sub-Dnieper land dates back. The equestrian tribes of the Cimmerians attacked the farmers of the Dnieper region. The struggle continued for many years.

In the VI - IV centuries. BC e. the eastern lands of the Slavic ancestral home were subjected to a new invasion and conquest by the Scythians - Iranian nomadic tribes. The Scythians moved in large horse masses, lived in wagons.

It was at that time that the tribal formations of the Eastern Slavs were born. In the area of ​​settlement of farmers of the Scythian time, in the future, a tribe of glades will appear, which gave rise to Kiev.

In the period from 400 to 100 BC. e. on the vast territory between the middle reaches of the Oder and the Pripyat Polissya and the Dnieper region, a population that already spoke Slavonic.

From the end of the 2nd century BC e. and up to the 5th c. n. e. the heirs of the early Slavs live on the same territory. They set up their villages on coastal elevations or among swampy lowlands difficult for the enemy to pass. Their houses are wooden, chopped; there is still no division into separate rooms, the room is one, common. Small outbuildings and a shed adjoin the house. In the center of the house is a stone or adobe hearth. In some places there are already stoves made of stones and clay. Among the wooden houses there are also large semi-dugouts with hearths, where the population may have lived in the cold winter.

Starting from the II century. BC e. these lands experienced a new onslaught of enemies. From the lower reaches of the Don, from the Black Sea steppes, nomadic hordes of Sarmatians advanced north to the Middle Dnieper. And again, the Dnieper inhabitants partly went north, dispersed through the forests, and partly moved south, where, together with the Scythians, they resisted the invasion.

Peace and tranquility in the Slavic lands in the II - V centuries. have borne fruit. Starting from the 5th c. on the lands where the Scythians and Sarmatians ruled even earlier, in the basins of the Dnieper and Dniester, a powerful union of East Slavic tribes called Antes was formed.

Now, to the east of the Slavs, there was no intermediate laying with the steppe. Turkic-speaking tribes approached them closely, becoming their eternal enemy for many centuries.

From the 5th century the rise in the East Slavic lands led to a sharp increase in the Slavic population in the regions of the Carpathian region, forest-steppe and steppe, and the development of powerful social processes. The role of tribal leaders and elders increased, squads formed around them, property stratification arose in the once unified environment. The population, who had taken refuge in the northeastern forests, began to migrate back to the south, to their ancient ancestral lands, to the regions of the Middle Dnieper, to the basins of the Dniester and the Bug.

All this was the basis for the 5th century. a powerful movement of East Slavic tribes to the regions of the Danube, to the Balkan Peninsula, within the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire. Militant, well-armed Slavic squads begin to undertake long-range risky military enterprises. In the course of this movement to the south, the Slavs create strong military alliances, unite their squads, form huge river and sea flotillas, on which they quickly move over long distances.

First decades of the 6th century became a triumph of Slavic pressure on Byzantium. Byzantine authors report constant raids of the Transdanubian Slavs, as well as Antes, on the possessions of the empire. They constantly cross the Danube, appear in the Byzantine provinces of Thrace and Illyricum, take possession of Greek cities and villages, capture the inhabitants and take huge ransoms for them. The Slavic retinue floods the Danube and the Northern Balkans, individual jets of this stream reach the territory of ancient Sparta and the Mediterranean coast. In essence, the Slavs begin the colonization of Byzantine possessions, settle within the empire, and begin their business there.

Not having the strength to restrain this unstoppable onslaught by force, the Byzantine authorities paid off the Slavic invasions with territories rich in gifts - gold, expensive woven, precious vessels, took Slavic leaders to their service.

2. Eastern Slavs in antiquity

2.1 The first written evidence about the Slavs

By the middle of the II millennium BC. Slavs stand out from the Indo-European community. The oldest known habitat of the Slavs in Europe was the lower and middle reaches of the Danube. By the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The Slavs became so significant in terms of numbers, influence in the world around them that Greek, Roman, Arabic, Byzantine authors began to report on them (the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, the historian Tacitus - I century AD, the geographer Ptolemy Claudius - II century BC). AD Ancient authors call the Slavs "Antes", "Sklavins", "Venedi" and speak of them as "countless tribes".

· Part of the Slavs remained in Europe. Later they will be named southern Slavs(Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Montenegrins will come from them).

Another part of the Slavs moved north - Western Slavs(Czechs, Poles, Slovaks). Western and southern Slavs were conquered by other peoples.

· The third part of the Slavs, according to scientists, did not want to submit to anyone and moved to the northeast, to the East European Plain. Later they will be named Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians).

It should be noted that in the era of the great migration of peoples, most of the tribes sought to Central Europe, to the ruins of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire soon fell under the blows of the alien barbarians (476 AD). On this territory, the barbarians, having absorbed the heritage of ancient Roman culture, will create their own statehood. The Eastern Slavs, on the other hand, went to the northeast, into the dense forest jungle, where there was no cultural heritage. The Slavs left to the northeast in two streams: one part of the Slavs went to Lake Ilmen (later the ancient Russian city of Novgorod would rise there), the other part to the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper (another ancient city Kyiv would become there).

In the VI - VIII centuries. Eastern Slavs mainly settled in the East European Plain.

2.2 Neighbors of the Eastern Slavs

Other peoples already lived on the East European (Russian) plain. On the Baltic coast and in the north lived the Baltic (Lithuanians, Latvians) and Finno-Finnish (Finns, Estonians, Ugrians (Hungarians), Komi, Khanty, Mansi, etc.) tribes. The colonization of these places was peaceful, the Slavs got along with the local population.

The situation was different in the east and southeast. There, the steppe adjoined the Russian Plain. The neighbors of the Eastern Slavs were the steppe nomads - the Turks (the Altai family of peoples, the Turkic group). In those days, peoples leading a different way of life - settled and nomadic - were constantly at enmity with each other. The nomads lived by raiding the settled population. And for almost 1000 years, one of the main phenomena in the life of the Eastern Slavs will be the struggle against the nomadic peoples of the Steppe.

The Turks on the eastern and southeastern borders of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs created their own state formations.

In the middle of the 6th c. in the lower reaches of the Volga there was a state of the Turks - the Avar Khaganate. In 625 Avar Khaganate was defeated by Byzantium and ceased to exist.

· In the VII - VIII centuries. here appears the state of other Turks - Bulgar (Bulgarian) kingdom. Then the Bulgar kingdom broke up. Part of the Bulgars went to the middle reaches of the Volga and formed Volga Bulgaria. Another part of the Bulgars migrated to the Danube, where it was formed Danube Bulgaria (later the newcomer Turks were assimilated by the southern Slavs. A new ethnic group arose, but it took the name of the newcomers - "Bulgarians").

The steppes of southern Russia after the departure of the Bulgars were occupied by new Turks - Pechenegs.

On the lower Volga and in the steppes between the Caspian and Azov seas, semi-nomadic Turks created Khazar Khaganate. The Khazars established their dominance over the East Slavic tribes, many of whom paid tribute to them until the 9th century.

In the south, the neighbor of the Eastern Slavs was Byzantine Empire(395-1453) with its capital in the city of Constantinople (in Russia it was called Tsargrad).

2.3 Cities

Among the Eastern Slavs in the V - VI centuries. cities arose, which was associated with the long-standing development of trade. The most ancient Russian cities are Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk, Suzdal, Murom, Pereyaslavl South. In the ninth century the Eastern Slavs had at least 24 large cities. Cities usually arose at the confluence of rivers, on a high hill. The central part of the city was called the Kremlin, Detinets and was usually surrounded by a rampart. The Kremlin housed the dwellings of princes, the nobility, temples, monasteries. A moat filled with water was erected behind the fortress wall. Bargaining was located behind the moat. A settlement adjoined the Kremlin, where artisans settled. Separate areas of the settlement, inhabited by artisans of the same specialty, were called settlements.

2.4 Public relations

The Eastern Slavs lived in clans. Each clan had its own foreman - the prince. The prince relied on the tribal elite - "the best husbands." The princes formed a special military organization - a squad, which included warriors and advisers to the prince. The squad was divided into senior and junior. The first included the most noble warriors (advisers). The younger squad lived with the prince and served his court and household. Vigilantes from the conquered tribes collected tribute (taxes). Campaigns for the collection of tribute were called polyud. From time immemorial, the Eastern Slavs had a custom - to solve all the most important issues in the life of the family at a secular gathering - a veche.

3. Territory, economy, religion

3.1 Territory

In the era of the great migration of the peoples of the Slavs, other peoples began to crowd on the Danube. The Slavs began to split up.

Part of the Slavs remained in Europe. Later they will receive the name of the southern Slavs (later Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Montenegrins will come from them).

Another part of the Slavs moved to the north - the Western Slavs (Czechs, Poles, Slovaks). Western and southern Slavs were conquered by other peoples.

And the third part of the Slavs, according to scientists, did not want to submit to anyone and moved to the northeast, to the East European Plain. Later they will receive the name of the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians).

The Eastern Slavs occupied the territory from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Middle Oka and the upper reaches of the Don in the east, from the Neva and Lake Ladoga in the north to the Middle Dnieper in the south. The Slavs, who developed the East European Plain, came into contact with a few Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes. There was a process of assimilation (mixing) of peoples. In the VI-IX centuries. the Slavs united in communities that no longer had only a tribal, but also a territorial and political character. Tribal unions are a stage on the way to the formation of the statehood of the Eastern Slavs.

In the chronicle story about the settlement of Slavic tribes, a dozen and a half associations of Eastern Slavs are named. The term "tribes" in relation to these associations has been proposed by historians. It would be more correct to call these associations tribal unions. These unions included 120-150 separate tribes, whose names have already been lost. Each individual tribe, in turn, consisted of a large number of clans and occupied a significant territory (40-60 km across).

The story of the chronicle about the settlement of the Slavs was brilliantly confirmed by archaeological excavations in the 19th century. Archaeologists noted the coincidence of the excavation data (burial rites, female adornments - temporal rings, etc.), characteristic of each tribal union, with an annalistic indication of the place of its settlement.

The glades lived in the forest-steppe along the middle reaches of the Dnieper. To the north of them, between the mouths of the Desna and Ros rivers, lived northerners (Chernigov). To the west of the glades on the right bank of the Dnieper, the Drevlyans "sedesh in the forests". To the north of the Drevlyans, between the rivers Pripyat and the Western Dvina, the Dregovichi settled (from the word "dryagva" - a swamp), which along the Western Dvina neighbored the Polochans (from the Polota River, a tributary of the Western Dvina). To the south of the Bug River, there were Buzhans and Volynians, according to some historians, the descendants of the Dulebs. The interfluve of the Prut and the Dnieper was inhabited by streets. Tivertsy lived between the Dnieper and the Southern Bug. The Vyatichi were located along the Oka and Moscow rivers; to the west of them lived the Krivichi; along the river Sozh and its tributaries - radimichi. The northern part of the western slopes of the Carpathians was occupied by white Croats. Ilmen Slovenes lived around Lake Ilmen.

The chroniclers noted the uneven development of individual tribal associations of the Eastern Slavs. At the center of their story is the land of the glades. The land of the meadows, as the chroniclers pointed out, was also called "Rus". Historians believe that this was the name of one of the tribes that lived along the Ros River and gave the name to the tribal union, the history of which was inherited by the meadows.

3.2 economy

The basis of the economic life of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture. The Slavs, who lived in the forest-steppe and steppe zones, were engaged in arable farming with two-field and three-field crop rotation. The main tools were a plow with an iron tip, a sickle, a hoe, but a plow with a plowshare was already used. The Slavs of the forest zone had slash-and-burn agriculture, in which forests were cut down and burned, ash mixed with the top layer of soil served as good fertilizer. For 3-4 years, a good harvest was taken, then this area was abandoned. The main tools of labor: an ax, a hoe, a plow, a knotted harrow and a spade, a sickle, stone grain grinders and hand millstones. They grew barley, rye, wheat, millet, oats, peas, buckwheat. From garden crops: turnips, cabbage, beets, carrots, radishes, garlic, etc.). Flax and hemp were important industrial crops. A person in those days identified life with arable land and bread, hence the name of grain crops "zhito", which has survived to this day. The economic activity of the Slavs was not limited to agriculture: they were engaged in cattle breeding, bred cattle and pigs, horses, sheep, and poultry.

Hunting and fishing were developed. Valuable furs paid tribute, they were the equivalent of money. The Slavs were also engaged in beekeeping - collecting honey from wild bees. Drinks were made from honey.

An important branch of the economy was the production of iron. It was mined from iron ore, deposits of which were often found in swamps. Tips for plows and plows, axes, hoes, sickles and scythes were made from iron.

Pottery was also a traditional branch of the economy of the ancient Slavs. The main form of dishes among the Slavs throughout the Middle Ages were pots. They were used for cooking, food storage, as ritual utensils: in pre-Christian times, the dead were burned, and the ashes were placed in a pot. Burial mounds were piled at the place of burning.

3.3 Religion

Like other ancient peoples, like the ancient Greeks in particular, the Slavs populated the world with a variety of gods and goddesses. Among them were major and minor, powerful, all-powerful and weak, playful, evil and kind.

At the head of the Slavic deities was the great Svarog - the god of the universe, reminiscent of the ancient Greek Zeus.

His sons - Svarozhichi - the sun and fire, were carriers of light and heat. The sun god Dazhdbog was highly revered by the Slavs. The Slavs prayed to Rod and women in childbirth - to the god and goddesses of fertility. This cult was associated with the agricultural occupations of the population and was therefore especially popular. The god Veles was revered by the Slavs as the patron of cattle breeding, it was a kind of "cattle god". Stribog, according to their concepts, commanded the winds, like the ancient Greek Aeolus.

As the Slavs merged with some Iranian and Finno-Ugric tribes, their gods also migrated to the Slavic pantheon.

So, in the VIII - IX centuries. the Slavs revered the sun god Khors, who obviously came from the world of Iranian tribes. From there, the god Simargl appeared, who was depicted as a dog and was considered the god of the soil, the roots of plants. In the Iranian world, it was the master of the underworld, the deity of fertility.

The only major female deity among the Slavs was Makosh, who personified the birth of all living things, was the patroness of the female part of the economy.

Over time, as the Slavs of princes, governors, retinues, began to advance in the public life of the Slavs, the beginning of great military campaigns, in which the young prowess of the nascent state played, the god of lightning and thunder Perun, who becomes the main heavenly deity, comes to the fore more and more among the Slavs, merges with Svarog, Rod as more ancient gods. This does not happen by chance: Perun was a god whose cult was born in a princely, retinue environment.

But pagan ideas were not limited to the main gods. The world was also inhabited by other supernatural beings. Many of them were associated with the idea of ​​the existence of an afterlife kingdom. It was from there that evil spirits - ghouls - came to people. And the good spirits that protect a person were the coastlines. The Slavs sought to protect themselves from evil spirits with conspiracies, amulets, the so-called "amulets". Wood goblin lived in the forest, mermaids lived near the water. The Slavs believed that these were the souls of the dead, coming out in the spring to enjoy nature.

The Slavs believed that each house is under the auspices of the brownie, which they identified with the spirit of their ancestor, the ancestor, or shchur, chura. When a person believed that he was threatened by evil spirits, he called on his patron - the brownie, chur, to protect him and said "Chur, me, chur, me!"

Births, weddings, and funerals were arranged with complex religious rites. So, the funeral custom of the Eastern Slavs is known to bury together with the ashes of a person (the Slavs burned their dead at the stake, placing them first in wooden boats; this meant that a person floats into the underworld) one of his wives, over whom a ritual murder was committed; the remains of a war horse, weapons, jewelry were placed in the grave of a warrior. Life continued, according to the ideas of the Slavs, beyond the grave. Then a high mound was poured over the grave, and a pagan trizna was performed: relatives and comrades-in-arms commemorated the deceased. During the sad feast, military competitions were also held in his honor. These rites, of course, concerned only the tribal leaders.

The whole life of a Slav was connected with the world of supernatural beings, behind which stood the forces of nature. It was a fantastic and poetic world. He entered the everyday life of every Slavic family.

Conclusion

There were and still are a number of theories of the migratory nature of the origin of the Slavs and their "ancestral home".

Domestic historians, in reflecting this issue, note the complexity of the very process of the origin of the Slavs. According to their deep conviction, initially separate small scattered ancient tribes took shape on a certain vast territory, which then formed into larger tribes and their associations and, finally, into historically known peoples that form nations. This is the common path of ethnic, cultural and linguistic development of peoples and nations. Consequently, peoples were formed in the course of history not from a single primordial "ancestral people" with its "ancestral language" through its subsequent disintegration and settlement from some initial center ("ancestral home"), but on the contrary, the path of development mainly went from the initial multiplicity of tribes to their subsequent gradual unification and mutual crossing. In this case, of course, in some cases a secondary process could also take place - the process of differentiation of large ethnic communities that had already formed earlier.

The main economic activity of the Eastern Slavs were: agriculture. Cattle breeding was closely connected with agriculture. Other occupations of the Slavs include fishing, hunting, beekeeping, which had a large share in the northern regions. Industrial crops (flax, hemp) were also grown.

The constantly improving economy of the Eastern Slavs, in the end, led to the fact that a separate family, a separate house, ceased to need the help of the clan, relatives. This is how the right of private ownership, private property, was born.

Under these conditions, the power and economic capabilities of tribal leaders, elders, tribal nobility, and warriors surrounding the leaders sharply increased. This is how property inequality originated in the Slavic environment, and especially clearly in the regions of the Middle Dnieper.

In many ways, these processes were helped by the development of not only agriculture and cattle breeding, but also crafts, the growth of cities, trade relations, because conditions were also created here for the additional accumulation of social wealth, which more often fell into the hands of the wealthy, deepening the property difference between the rich and the poor.

The religion of the Eastern Slavs was complex, diverse with elaborate customs. Its origins go back to Indo-European ancient beliefs and even further back to Paleolithic times. It was there, in the depths of antiquity, that man's ideas about the supernatural forces that control his fate, about his attitude to nature and her attitude to man, about his place in the world around him, were born. The religion that existed among different peoples before they adopted Christianity or Islam is called paganism.

Bibliography

1. A.A. Danilov, L.G. Kosulin. Russian history. M.: Enlightenment, 2000. - 336 p. ill. kart.

2. A.N. Sakharov, V.I. Buganov. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 17th century. M.: Enlightenment, 1995. - 304 p.

3. A.S. Orlov, V.A. Georgiev, N.G. Georgieva, T.A. Sivokhin. History of Russia: textbook. - 2nd ed. M.: TK Velby, publishing house Prospekt, 2004. -520 p.

4. V.V. Sedov. Eastern Slavs in the VI - XIII centuries. M. - 1992-214 p.

5. V.V. Sedov. Origin and early history of the Slavs. M. -1998-281 p.

6. V.M. Khachaturian. The history of world civilizations from ancient times to the end of the 20th century. M.: Bustard, 2000. - 512 p.: map.

7. V.P. Kobychev. In search of the ancestral home of the Slavs. M. - 1989-256 p.

8. History of Russia from ancient times to the second half of the XIX century. Course of lectures / Ed. prof. B.V. Lichman. Ekaterinburg: USTU. 1999-304 p.

9. L. Kuhn. General history. - M.: Rainbow, 1992-564 p.

10. L.N. Gumilyov. Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe. M. - 1999-300 p.

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Origin and features of the territorial settlement of the Eastern Slavs. "The Tale of Bygone Years" - the first Russian chronicle - the most serious written source. Features of material and spiritual culture, religion, social system of the Slavs.

Ethnogenesis is the initial stage of the emergence of a people and the further formation of its anthropological, ethnographic, and linguistic features.
Eastern Slavs - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians.
Most of Europe and a significant part of Asia have long been inhabited by Indo-European tribes. Slavs are part of the Indo-European language family. This Indo-European language family already existed around the 4th millennium BC. e. There were constant migrations of various tribes. During this movement, the Slavs were divided into three branches - eastern, western and southern. The Eastern Slavs were located on the territory of modern Eastern Europe. Disputes about the origin of the Eastern Slavs are still going on.
The Slavs were not the first inhabitants, at least 4 nationalities lived before them:
Scythians - had a developed culture and statehood (in the 1st millennium BC, the ancient Greeks wrote about various peoples of the northern Black Sea region, calling them "Scythians" (but does not mean that all of them were Scythians));
 Ancient Greek colonists - neighbors of the Scythians;
 Sarmatians - nomadic people from Asia;
 Finno-Ugrians are a people who came from Siberia.
At the beginning of the first millennium A.D. e. the Romans wrote about "barbarians", among whom there could also be the ancestors of the Slavs.
In the 4th-7th centuries AD. e. there was a great migration of peoples, among whom were the Slavs.
In the 5th-7th centuries AD. e. Slavs occupied lands from the Elbe River (lava) in the West to the Dnieper River in the East. From the Baltic in the north to the Mediterranean in the south.
The historical community of the Eastern Slavs, who gave rise to the ancient Russian state, was formed on the territory of the Dnieper region.
Neighbors - Baltic (modern Lithuanians and Latvians), Finno-Ugric, Finnish tribes (Estonian, Finnish).
In the steppes of the northern Black Sea region lived nomadic pastoralists - Turkic tribes.
Neighbor states: Byzantium (medieval Greece), Khazaria (Khazar Khaganate; control over the Great Silk Road; Khazaria was in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don), Volga Bulgaria (Kazan).
The Eastern Slavs consisted of 15 large tribes (Polyany, Dvelyans, Krivichi, Slovene - the most developed). Each tribe had its own internal organization, tribal leaders. Kyiv became a major Polyana center.
The main occupations of the Eastern Slavs:
Forest trades (appropriating the type of economy);
Farming (arable) Most of the forests were covered with forests, so trees had to be cut down, stumps uprooted and burned. When the soil became unsuitable, they switched to another. This is a slash-and-burn farming system. They plowed with a plow, a plow, a harrow, then harvested the grain with sickles. Grain crops - wheat, millet, barley, buckwheat, rye, oats.
Animal husbandry (bred cows, goats, sheep, pigs, horses)
Home crafts (blacksmithing), as well as beekeeping, fishing and hunting;
Weaving (wool of goats, sheep, linen.)
The main religion is paganism (beliefs that arose at the stage of tribal relations; it is characterized by the animation of the surrounding world, the worship of the forces of nature and ancestors). 2 main cults - the cult of nature and the cult of ancestors. The Slavs were distinguished by their love of freedom.
In the 9th century, Varangians (mercenary warriors) appeared on the land of the Eastern Slavs. Version - people from Scandinavia and the coast of the Baltic Sea.
As the Eastern Slavs settled over large areas, blood and family ties began to disintegrate. In the 9th century, the tribal community turns into a neighboring one, where unity is maintained not by family ties, but by economic ones. The harsh natural conditions determined the longevity of the neighboring community, since often large amounts of work had to be done in a short time.
In the Slavic communities, tribal nobility (1-2%), warriors, and elected leaders stand out. This stage in the development of society is military democracy.
At this time, elements of the future statehood are being born. Pre-state stage of social development.