Usually the history of the Russian people begins from the times of Kievan Rus. In turn, the history of the Kyiv state begins in the 9th century, from the reign of Askold, Dir and Rurik. At the same time, the Slavic-Russians are a very ancient family. The Russians are one of his tribes, which were destined to become a great people and create a grandiose Empire, stretching over one sixth of the landmass
1.Antiquity of the Slavs
Russians are Slavs and therefore their origins are in Slavic antiquity.
Historians argue about when the ancient Slavs, who are also called “proto-Slavs,” arose. Various dates have been given for their separation from the general population of Indo-Europeans. The outstanding Russian scientist, academician O. N. Trubachev considered it necessary to talk about the 3rd millennium BC. e. Another giant of academic science, B. A. Rybakov, pointed to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The history of the Slavs goes back centuries.
Meanwhile, the word “Slavs” itself was used by Byzantine authors in the 6th century. n. e. Obviously, before this time the Slavs used a different name. According to the Gothic historian Jordanes, this name was the word “Wends”. This is the oldest Aryan name, which, as the famous Scandinavian poet Snorri Sturluson claimed, once upon a time all of Europe was called. In his opinion, it was called Enetia (“Enets” is one of the forms of the ethnonym “Venet”). (It is very possible that all Indo-Europeans were called Wends during the period of their unity. Then their name passed to the Slavs.)
Russian scientists have convincingly proven that the Proto-Slavic dialect group occupied a central position in the pan-Indo-European ethnic massif and, as a result, changed very slightly. There is numerous evidence of this.
In the field of etymology, Academician O.N. came to amazing results. Trubachev (“Ethnogenesis and culture of the ancient Slavs”). He presented the most convincing arguments in favor of the fact that the ancestral home of the Slavs coincided with one of the ancestral homelands of the Indo-Europeans. The Proto-Slavs, in his opinion, represented the ethnocultural core of the ancient Aryans, and when the migration of the separated dialect groups began, it remained in its original place, retaining the greatest number of ancient features. Then, of course, the migration of the Slavs began, but this happened much later.
The above is indirectly confirmed by the latest anthropological research. Particularly interesting is the hypothesis of V.P. Bunak (“The origin of the Russian people according to anthropological data”), according to which Russian anthropological variants go back to a certain ancient anthropological layer dating back to the Early Neolithic and Mesolithic times. This layer was called by him ancient Eastern European.
The word “vened” itself dates back to the times of Indo-European unity. This was discovered by the Polish toponymist S. Rospond, who compared three ethnonyms: “Venet”, “Anty” and “Vyatichi”. It turns out that they should all be reduced to the common Indo-European root ven.
By all appearances, it turns out that after the separation of peripheral dialects from the Indo-European array, the Proto-Slavic core underwent minimal modifications. By and large, one can even identify the ancient Aryans and Russians, the central Slavic ethnos, whose development as a nation was a development within the original Proto-Indo-European substance.
Academician Rybakov offers this version - spreading across Europe, some of the ancient Slavs called themselves envoys of the great Wendish people. The word "skly" ("sly"), that is, "ambassadors", was combined with the word "Vends". Hence the Skla-Vene, i.e. Sklavins, Slavs.
As you can see, in ancient times different ethnonyms could sound slightly different. The Slavs called themselves Wends. The question arises: maybe the Rus, who are part of the Slavs, also acted?
In various written sources (ancient and medieval) the following ethnonyms are given that could belong to our ancestors - dews, rugs, rugs, rutens, ruzari, odrus, rasens. The last term is very interesting. Rasen - the self-name of the Etruscans (Dionysius of Halicarnassus). There is a version according to which the Rasen Etruscans were Proto-Slavs who underwent Latinization. Many arguments are given in favor of this version.
The Rus-Rugs-Rutens settled in different regions of Europe. Ancient authors place them in Italy, Gaul and the Baltic states, in the Danube region and in the Dnieper region. In Central Europe, the Rugs even created their own powerful kingdom - Rugiland. The king of the Rugians, Odoacer, ruled Rome for some time. (It is curious that the Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnitsky considered Odoacer their ancestor).
2. Glades, but not called Rus'"
But, of course, the most brilliant future awaited the Rus in the Dnieper region, on the lands of the future Kievan Rus. Since ancient times, a zone of highly developed arable farming and handicraft production has been located here. In the 1st millennium BC. e. the father of history, Herodotus, located here some Scythian farmers, otherwise called Skolot. Many historians, for example B.A. Rybakov, are inclined to believe that the Skolites represented the Proto-Slavic part of Scythia (the Scythians themselves were Iranian-speaking nomads). At least, their settlement zone coincides with the zone of ancient Slavic hydronyms (river names). It turns out that even in the last century, people who called their rivers by Slavic names lived on the territory of the Scythian-Skolots. It is clear that these people could only be Slavs.
The Skolites were a highly developed society. They had a friendly stratum, were engaged in numerous crafts and traded grain with the Greek colonists of the Black Sea region. One can, with a certain degree of caution, assume that it was around the chipped stones that the great Scythian kingdom was united, which in the 4th century. BC e. stretched from the Don to the Danube. His troops defeated the army of the Persian king Darius and carried out campaigns in Egypt and Assyria. Scythia was destroyed in the 3rd century. BC e Iranian-speaking Sarmatian nomads. After this, stagnation set in on the lands of the Dnieper region.
The Skolot tribe of the Paralats, otherwise called the Pals (in the language of the Proto-Slavs, “p” easily turned into “l”) or Paleys, managed to overcome it. Once upon a time, this is what the Polyans called themselves - the most powerful tribe of the Eastern Slavs, on whose territory Kyiv, the center of Ancient Rus', arose. Historians argue about when this ancient capital arose. Archaeologists tend to talk about the end of the 6th century. However, according to Polish authors (Stryikovsky, Dlugosh) Kyiv was founded in the 4th century. n. e.
“The Tale of Bygone Years” writes: “glades, now called Rus'.” This indicates that the Rus tribe once began to dominate the richest lands of the Paralats-Palov-Polyans. They gave their name to the land of glades, which began to be called Russia. Most likely, the Rus appeared in the Polyansky lands from somewhere in the Volga-Don steppes. The Old Russian chronicle “Synopsis” states that “the Russes of Kiya came from the Wild Field.” Obviously, it was a passionate group of Slavic warriors who founded Kyiv. And Kyiv itself will be destined to unite various East Slavic lands, forming the very state that we all know about from school - Kievan Rus.
3. Rus: people and caste
In medieval Arab sources, the Rus are often contrasted with the Slavs. Thus, Ibn-Ruste assures that the Russians “they attack the Slavs, approach them on ships, disembark, and take them prisoner...” They “they have no arable land, but eat only what they bring from the land of the Slavs.” Gardizi reported the following about the Rus: “Always a hundred or two hundred of them go to the Slavs and forcefully take from them for their maintenance while they are there... Many people from the Slavs... serve them until they get rid of their dependence.” According to Mutakhar ibn Tahir al-Mukadassi, the country of the Rus borders on the land of the Slavs, the former attack the latter, plunder their property and capture them.
Based on these statements, many historians believed and still believe that the Rus were not Slavs, but were either Scandinavians, Iranians, or Celts who had undergone Slavicization. Is it so?
Of course, there is a contradiction. But it is not ethnic in nature. It is necessary to immediately make a reservation - the ethnic opposition between the Slavs and the Rus does not even have the right to be considered a hypothesis, because it contradicts the data accumulated by science. In the Tale of Bygone Years, the main source on the history of Ancient Rus', the Rus are presented as Slavs. It is quite clearly stated there - “Slovenian and Russian languages are one and the same.” The Russians themselves in PVL worship the Slavic gods.
Attention is drawn to the fact that in the treaties between Rus' and the Greeks, most of the names of the Russians do not belong to the Slavic ones. At first glance, this is a powerful argument, however, upon careful consideration of the situation, it ceases to be so. The names of the Rus belong to a variety of ethnic groups - Celts, Illyrians, Scandinavians, Iranians, Slavs proper and even Turks. Such diversity suggests that the Rus were not just one non-Slavic ethnic group. It can be assumed that there are different ethnic sources for the formation of the Rus stratum. But then it is not clear why such a motley campaign became glorified (we are clearly not talking about the first generation of Rus), began to speak Slavic and worship Slavic gods, but left their names the same? Some people are trying to prove that a personal name is more important than the name of God, but this is complete nonsense, especially if we take into account the situation of the Middle Ages, when religion meant everything to a person.
Antiquity knows many cases similar to ours. Thus, the Gothic historian Jordan admitted that the Goths had almost no proper names. In the case of the Rus, we are not even talking about the absence of Slavic names as such. It’s just that some part of the Rus, obviously belonging to the upper stratum, used non-Slavic names. Maybe for reasons of fashion, or maybe in obedience to some ancient customs. Which one? We can assume the following. As you know, many traditions practiced hiding one's true name from outsiders, especially from enemies. A person’s name was considered an energetic expression of his essence and could be used by occult opponents to enslave his “I” or cause damage. When signing an agreement with the Greeks, the Slavs could not call their true names, but names belonging to other, neighboring peoples.
But what about the data from Arab sources separating the Slavs from the Rus? That's how. Today it has been proven that all these texts go back to the text of Ibn Khordadbeh, who stated: “The Russes are a type of Slavs...” During the source analysis, it turned out that the Arabic texts cited above go back to the text of Khordadbeh, but do not contain (for unknown reasons) his passage about the Slavicity of the Rus. But this text is the earliest, so it should be given priority. In addition, there are texts by al-Zaman, al-Marfazi and Muhammad Aufi, in which there is no opposition between the Slavs and the Rus.
Ibn Khordadbeh himself did not leave (with the exception of the above statement) any information about the Slavs; his text has reached us in an abbreviated form. “...References to this author preserved in other, later works, as a rule, do not coincide with the surviving extract,– writes A.P. Novosiltsev. – This suggests that the surviving version of our author’s work represents only the shortest extracts from the larger original.”
Insertions into Khordadbeh's original story should be considered later distortions, made under the impression of certain differences between the Rus and the bulk of the Slavs. Only these differences are not tribal, but social. (Khordadbeh uses the phrase “kind of Slavs”).
This is supported by data from Russkaya Pravda (Yaroslav), according to which Rusyns are “Lyubo Gridin, Lyubo Kupchina, Lyubo Yabetnik, Lyubo Swordsman”. Historian G.S. Lebedev states the following on this matter: “...Yaroslav’s truth emphasizes that princely protection extends to this warrior-merchant class, regardless of tribal affiliation - “even if he is an outcast, he will be a Slovenian.” All of them are guaranteed the same protection as direct members of the princely administration..."
In other words, the Rus are a “caste” of managers and warriors. Moreover, they considered military craft to be the main thing. The Arabs describe them as harsh, fierce and skilled fighters. Being extremely warlike, the Russians taught their children to use the sword literally from the first days of their lives. The father put the sword in the cradle of the newly born child and said: “I will leave you no inheritance, and you will have nothing except what you acquire with this sword.”(Ibn-Rust). Al-Marwazi wrote about the Rus: “Their bravery and courage are well known, so much so that one of them is equal to many of other nations.”
It was this passionate layer of warriors that managed to win primacy among various Slavic tribes. The Arabs describe how the Rus attack the Slavs and impose tribute on them - this is a description of the activities to centralize the tribal union of the Polyans, which involved the collection of a tax (polyudya).
At the same time, the Rus themselves had their own lands, which were more like military bases. One of these bases was the “island of the Rus,” described by Arab authors. The legendary island of Ruyan (Buyan from Russian fairy tales), inhabited by the Ruyan Rus, was the same base.
The Rus caste was in the service of the Kyiv prince - the Arabs write that the island of the Rus was subordinate to the Russian ruler. He used them to strengthen the unity and power of the Polans-Rus. We can compare this caste with the Cossacks, which also represented a separate military stratum living in special territories.
It is interesting that the appearance of the Rus (in the description of the Byzantine Leo the Deacon) is very similar to the appearance of a Cossack - a warrior of the Zaporozhye Sich: “His head was completely naked, but a tuft of hair hung from one side of it...”. It is very possible that the descendants of the Rus caste took an active part in the creation of the Cossacks.
Representatives of the Rus "caste" often seized power in individual Slavic tribes. Then these tribes established their dominance over other tribes. This happened with the glades, led by the Kiya Rus, who founded Kyiv.
4. The name of the Rus is fighting name
The word "Rus" meant red, which was the color of warriors, aristocrats, and princes. Thus, it symbolized the military class among the Indo-Aryans, Iranians and Celts. For example, in Vedic India, the color red belonged to the varna (caste) of the Kshatriyas, i.e. warriors. It symbolized the blood shed in battle.
In various etymological dictionaries, the word “Rus” is identical to the word “Rusy”, which means not so much “white”, as many people think, but “bright red”, and even “red”. Thus, in A. G. Preobrazhensky’s dictionary “rus(b)” (“rusa”, “ruso”, “blond”) means “dark-red”, “brownish” (about hair). It corresponds to Ukrainian. "brown", white and Serbian "Rus", Slovak "rus", "rosa", "rusa glava", Czech. "rusu". M. Vasmer cites Slovenians. "rus" meaning "red". I. I. Sreznevsky reported on the “red” meaning of the word “rus” in his dictionary.
The connection between the words “rus” and “red” can also be traced outside the Slavic languages, which allows us to speak about the Indo-European basis of this phenomenon. An example is Latvian. “russys” (“blood red”), “rusa” (“rust”), lit. “rusvas” (“dark red”), Latin. “russeus”, “russys” (“red”, “red”).
The Latin translator of Theophanes' chronicle translated the word "Russians" as "red". The Slavs also called the Black (Russian) Sea “Chermny”, i.e. “red”.
In general, the color red was very widespread in Ancient Rus'. The cult of the Thunderer Rod, the supreme god of the Eastern Slavs, whom our ancestors considered the creator, was closely associated with him. The name of this deity should be placed on a par with the words “rodriy” (“red”), “rode” (“blush”), “rudy” (“red-haired”, “red”), “ore” (dialectal designation for blood). In addition, Rod has an Indo-Aryan analogue - the god Rudra (Shiva) - “the red boar of the sky.” It turns out that the color red was of great importance for the Eastern Slavs - it was the color of the supreme god, the creator.
It should also be remembered that red banners were the “standards” of the Kyiv princes; they are visible in ancient miniatures; the Tale of Igor’s Campaign speaks about them. According to epics, red was widely used to paint Russian warships. The Russians willingly painted their faces in it, using it as war paint. Ibn Fadlan wrote about the Rus that they are “like palm trees, blond, red in face and white in body...” Nizami Ganjavi (“Iskandername”) depicted this in verse:
“The red-faced Russians sparkled. They
They sparkled like the lights of magicians sparkle.”
The great Russian nation received its name from the knightly, kshatriya caste, famous for its ability and desire to fight. This is highly symbolic, because the Russians are perhaps the most militant people in the world, a people who have shown maximum resilience in the face of numerous enemies and managed to create the greatest empire in extremely unfavorable geopolitical conditions.
5.The power of Kyiv
The Rus, uniting with the Polans, created a powerful state in the Dnieper region. It pursued an active foreign policy, in the system of which military expansion occupied an important place. In 375 (according to the Synopsis), certain “Russian warriors” fought with the Roman Emperor Theodosius.
Patriarch Prokulos of Constantinople (434-447) talks about the victorious campaign of Rus' (in alliance with the Hun ruler Rugila) against Tsar Grad in 424.
The Arab writer at-Tabari attributed the following words to the Derbent ruler Shahriyar (644): “I am between two enemies: one is the Khazars, and the other is the Rus, who are the enemies of the whole world, especially the Arabs, and no one knows how to fight them except the local residents.”
At the beginning of the 20th century. One ancient Georgian manuscript was published in the Russian press, telling about the siege of Constantinople by the Rus in 626. It mentions a certain Russian “khagan” (“khagan”), who entered into an alliance with the Persians in order to attack Constantinople. According to the manuscript, this khan, under the emperor of Mauritius (582-602), attacked Byzantium, capturing 12 thousand Greeks. But the title “khagan” was considered in the East approximately equal to the imperial title; it could only be given to the leader of the strongest state. (By the way, the Byzantines also wrote about a certain “pre-proud kagan of the northern Scythians.”)
By the 7th century n. e. The Dnieper Slavs completed the construction of a grandiose chain of fortifications (“Serpentine Ramparts”) on the border with the steppes. This chain stretched along the line Zhitomir - Kyiv - Dnepropetrovsk - Poltava - Mirgorod - Priluki. It consisted of six parallel shafts. In some places, their diameter reached 20 m and height - 12 m. According to experts, the construction of such a structure required the labor of hundreds of thousands of people. And such construction was impossible without the presence of a strong state organization.
It is obvious that the Dnieper glade-Russ created the state “Kievan Rus” even before the “textbook” 9th century.
Alexander Eliseev
People are children of gods, but you cannot remain children forever.
Yu. D. Petukhov.
The question of the origin of the Russian people and the Slavic group of peoples is one of the cornerstones in the history of Europe and Russia. The chronicler Nestor in The Tale of Bygone Years raised this question: “Where did the Russian land come from?” And he answered it quite correctly: he began the countdown of Russian history from the mythical Japheth-Iapetus, then after a long period of time he located Rus' on the banks of the Danube River in Norik. And only then did he bring Rus' to the banks of the Dnieper and Lake Ilmen, already known from the school course - Kievan-Novgorod Rus'. Thus, even in the heavily edited Tale of Bygone Years, there are two ancestral homelands of the Russian people - the Middle East and the Balkans.
In a rather controversial and not recognized source by all historians, the “Veles Book”, vast territories are indicated as the zone of settlement of Slavic-Russian tribes: Siberia, the Urals, the steppes of Southern Russia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea region, including Crimea-Tavria, the Balkan Peninsula, the Carpathians, the Middle Asia (Semirechye), Mesopotamia - the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Syria, India, the lands of the future Novgorod Rus'.
Classic version
The classic hypothesis about the origin of the Russian people - Rusov, is very Russophobic in its content and is very close to the heart of any Westerner or liberal. They say that Russian history begins in the 8th-9th centuries, with the calling of the Varangian Germans to Novgorod, some remove the boundary of the beginning of the “civilized” history of Rus' until the 10th-11th century - when Christianity became the dominant form of faith.
And before this milestone, the Rus were supposedly in a “wild state”, they did not know God, almost in a “primitive” state. Yes, and they were “aliens” on the Russian Plain, who came from nowhere (possibly from the Pripyat swamps) and displaced the Finno-Ugric and Balt tribes. This classic scheme was founded by German scientists who were in the service of the Russian state in the 18th century - G. Z. Bayer (1694-1738), G. F. Miller (1705-1783), A. L. Schletser (1735-1809).
In the 19th century, this concept was enshrined in the 12-volume work of N. M. Karamzin (1766-1826) “History of the Russian State,” which consolidated the German conclusions with the phrase: “This great part of Europe and Asia, now called Russia, in its moderate climates was originally inhabited, but by wild, ignorant peoples who did not mark their existence with any historical monuments of their own.” Karamzin’s conclusions were continued by the historian S. M. Solovyov (1820-1879) in “History of Russia since Ancient Times” in 29 volumes, and the historian V. O. Klyuchevsky in “The Complete Course of Russian History” in 4 volumes.
They consolidated the “classical” version of Russian history: its essence is that the History of Russia goes from the 4th (6th) – 8th (10th) centuries, with the calling of the Varangians and the adoption of baptism, and before that there were “dark ages”, “savagery”, "desolation". This scheme continued to dominate in the 20th century, at the beginning of the 21st century with minor modifications, it is studied in schools and higher educational institutions as the only and uncontested Truth.
Position of the state and church
The state supported this version, because it was not interested in information that went beyond the framework of state legal structures. The emergence of the state and law was associated with the emergence of the Rurik dynasty. The arrival of the “Varangians” was also beneficial to the authorities for foreign policy reasons, connecting the Rurikovichs and then the Romanovs with “enlightened Europe” by common origin and dynastic alliances. Particularly important was the connection with the German ruling houses and England. The Romanovs became famous for their love for these countries.
The church organization is more than satisfied with the thesis about the “savagery” of the Slavic-Russian tribes, before the arrival of Christian missionaries and the baptism of Rus'. After all, it gives the Church the right to assert that the development of culture (writing alone is worth it) is connected with the establishment of Christianity in Rus'.
Modernity
This concept, cherished and encouraged in every possible way, occupies a dominant position today - in schools, higher educational institutions, popular science literature, the media, and cinema. Only a few ascetics are trying to break through the veil of lies and convey at least part of the historical Truth.
The statement about “young Russia”, the “backwardness” of Russians is one of the weapons of the Information War - with the aim of undermining the historical memory of the Russian people, weakening the Will and killing the Spirit of the Russian World. Therefore, the Vatican, historical schools in England and Germany also support the “academic” version of world history.
The approaches of this version are rather shaky; researchers, in most cases, take as a basis the thesis that the first written monuments speaking about the Slavs appeared in the 4th-6th centuries AD. But it is well known that “written evidence” is a very subjective category, while people are objective; peoples exist even without the will of writers and chroniclers. For example: Indian cultures existed outside of chronicles for thousands of years.
Only one fact deals a strong blow to the “classical” scheme - the number of Slavs and Russians. The Russian people, after the terrible upheavals of the 20th century - participation in 2 world wars, 4th revolutions, including the December 1991, civil war, liberal democratic genocide of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a huge number of regional wars and conflicts, are one of the most numerous ethnic groups on the planet. So, according to the calculations of the Russian genius D.I. Mendeleev (1834-1907), if there had not been a catastrophic 20th century in its consequences, in the middle of the 20th century there would have been 400 million Russians, and in the middle of the 21st century 800 million. But even today, Russians and Slavs are the largest linguistic group, ethnic community in Europe.
A thousand years ago, there were approximately 10 million Slavs and, as in modern times, they were the largest ethno-linguistic community in Europe. A legitimate question arises: how did a large part of the European population appear out of “nowhere”?
Russian (Slavophile) concept of history
Fortunately for us, many researchers have sought the answer to this question based on common sense, and not dead truisms. They looked for the origins of Russian identity at the very beginning of human history, finding the roots of our ancestors in various parts of Eurasia. The tradition of the Russian concept of history goes back to the Croatian (Italian?) researcher Mavro Orbini (? – 1614), who in his work “Historiography of the Slavic People” written in 1606 (published in St. Petersburg in 1722), relying on those that have not reached us sources (apparently seized by the Vatican), directly wrote: “The Russian people are the most ancient people on earth, from which all other peoples descended. The Empire, with the courage of its warriors and the best weapons in the world, kept the entire universe in obedience and submission for thousands of years. The Russians have always owned all of Asia, Africa, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Macedonia, Illyria, Moravia, the land of Slön, the Czech Republic, Poland, all the shores of the Baltic Sea, Italy and many other countries and lands..."
This concept was supported by two Russian geniuses V. N. Tatishchev (1686-1750) in “Russian History” and M. V. Lomonosov (1711-1765) in “Ancient Russian History”. Research on the ascetics was published only after their death. However, the main thing is that both thinkers came to the same conclusion, taking it separately from each other: the roots of the history of the Slavs and Russians go back thousands of years and concern many ancient peoples who have lived in Eurasia since time immemorial. They are known under different names to ancient and other authors (compilers of the Bible, Arabic, Persian, Chinese chroniclers).
Tatishchev traced the genealogy of the Slavic-Russian tribes from the Scythian clans. Scythians and related tribes have been known since the 1st millennium BC. and occupied a vast territory from the Danube to the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, the Byzantines were called “Scythians.” "Tauroscythians" warriors of the Russian princes Askold, Oleg, Igor, Svyatoslav. And Rus' was often called “Great Scythia-Skuf.”
M.V. Lomonosov in “Ancient Russian History” believed that the Slavic-Russian tribes inhabited a huge region from the Baltic and Central Europe to the Black Sea and the Caucasus, and they were known under the names of Vends-Venetians, Varangians-Ros, Sarmatians, Roksolans. Lomonosov refuted the fabrications of German historians that Rurik and the Varangians were of German descent, proving that Rurik and the Varangians were Western Rus. Even the name “Rurik” has a Russian root and means “rarog” - falcon.
Lomonosov and Tatishchev were not the only ones who carefully studied the question of the origin of the roots of the Russian people. This problem was analyzed in great detail and carefully by V.K. Trediakovsky (1703-1769) in his historical work: “Three discussions about the three most important Russian antiquities, namely: I about the primacy of the Slovenian language over the Teutonic, II about the origins of the Russians, III about Varangians-Russians, Slovenian rank, family and language." An excellently educated scientist and writer, who studied at the Moscow Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, in Holland, France, who spoke many living and dead languages fluently, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Latin and Russian eloquence, an outstanding Russian educator who stood with M.V. Lomonosov at the origins of Russian grammar and versification. Trediakovsky supported and developed Tatishchev’s idea about the Russian origin of the “Scythians”, and also proved the Russian origin of their self-name. “Scythians-Sketes” are “wanderers,” that is, people leading a fairly active lifestyle, “nomads.”
The Russian concept of history, coming from thinkers of the 18th century, was continued and consolidated in the works of researchers of the 19th and 20th centuries: Tadeusz (Thaddeus) Wolansky (1785-1865), A.D. Chertkov (1789-1858), E.I. Klassen ( 1795-1862), Y. Venelina (1802-1839), F. L. Moroshkina (1804-1857), A. S. Khomyakova (1804-1860), I. E. Zabelina (1820-1909), D. I Ilovaisky (1832-1920), D. Ya. Samokvasov (1843-1911), A. I. Sobolevsky (1857-1927), G. V. Vernadsky (1877-1973) and a number of other devotees.
G.V. Vernadsky, in the book “Ancient Rus'”, began the history of the Russian people from the Stone Age and led through the Cimmerian, Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnic-Antian periods. Archaeologist and historian D. Ya. Samokvasov defended the Scythian roots of the Russian people, calling the ancestral home of Rus' “Ancient Wandering.”
Bulgarian historian, Slavist, devotee of the Slavic national revival Yu. I. Venelin believed that Attila was the Grand Duke of the Rus. He was the first to suggest that the first ruling dynasty of France, the Merovingians, was founded by the Russian prince Merovey.
Of great importance for Russian self-awareness are the works of the President of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities A.D. Chertkov: “Essay on the Ancient History of Proto-Words”, “Pelasgo-Thracian Tribes that Inhabited Italy”, “On the Language of the Pelasgians who Inhabited Italy”. Based on his deep knowledge of ancient languages and the huge number of sources available to him, Chertkov pointed out the linguistic and ethnocultural affinities between the Slavs and Pelasgians, Etruscans, Scythians, Thracians, Getae, ancient Greeks and Romans. The discovery of Chertkov did not become an event of enormous importance and significance in Russian and world history, since it did not correspond to the generally accepted concept of world history.
Chertkov's discovery that the Etruscan-Rasens are related to the Slavs was supported in his research by the Polish ascetic T. Wolansky. He deciphered a large number of Etruscan inscriptions; in deciphering he was based on Slavic languages. T. Volansky also studied the inscriptions of other civilizations and made a sensational conclusion that the zone of settlement of Slavic-Russian clans in the south in ancient times extended from North Africa (Egypt, Carthage) to Persia and India. Indirectly, the correctness of his path is proven by the fact that the works of F. Volansky in 1853 were listed in the Vatican’s “Index of Prohibited Books” and sentenced to immediate burning. Wolansky challenged the Western concept of world history and the papacy responded immediately.
Subsequently, Volansky’s research was used by various types of researchers, supporters of the kinship of the Etruscans and Slavs. Modern researcher V. Chudinov (born 1942) believes that the Slavic-Russian Vedic civilization and Slavic runic writing were the first on the planet.
Linguist G. S. Grinevich (born in 1938) compiled a summary table of Proto-Slavic writing. He concluded that a significant part of the ancient inscriptions - Terterian, ancient Indian, Cretan, Etruscan - were made in the Proto-Slavic language.
Modern research in the field of DNA genealogy is of great importance; A. Klyosov pushed back the border of the origin of the Russian people by 12 thousand years.
Currently, the most complete concept of True Russian history, from the 40th millennium BC to the present day, as the main core of the World historical process, was compiled by the Russian thinker, philosopher, historian Yu. D. Petukhov (1951-2009). In his work “The Roads of the Gods,” published back in 1990, he, on the basis of comparative myth analysis and linguistics, answered the most important question - who were the mysterious Indo-European Aryans. He proved that the ancestors of the Indo-European language family were the Slavs-Aryans-Russians.
In 1994-2000, Petukhov made a series of trips around the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, Egypt, Asia, studying the most important archaeological excavations in this territory, studying the collections of leading museums in these regions. And having received a huge material database confirming his conclusions, in 2000 he began publishing the multi-volume “True History of the Rus” (from 40 thousand BC), unfortunately, the strange death that interrupted the life of the Russian titan of the Spirit did not allow him to complete the publication of the work, the thinker gave basic data from 40 to 3 thousand BC. e. But most importantly, he concluded that “the Rus people are incredibly ancient, almost eternal, they gave birth to many other peoples.”
And the work of Russian historians, patriots, to continue what was started by Russian ascetics of the 18th-20th centuries, to break through the conspiracy of silence.
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For many centuries, scientists have been breaking their spears, trying to understand the origin of the Russian people. And if research in the past was based on archaeological and linguistic data, today even geneticists have taken up the matter.
Of all the theories of Russian ethnogenesis, the most famous is the Danube theory. We owe its appearance to the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years”, or rather to the centuries-old love of domestic academics for this source.
The chronicler Nestor defined the initial territory of settlement of the Slavs as the territories along the lower reaches of the Danube and Vistula. The theory about the Danube “ancestral home” of the Slavs was developed by such historians as Sergei Solovyov and Vasily Klyuchevsky.
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky believed that the Slavs moved from the Danube to the Carpathian region, where an extensive military alliance of tribes arose led by the Duleb-Volhynian tribe.
From the Carpathian region, according to Klyuchevsky, in the 7th-8th centuries the Eastern Slavs settled to the East and Northeast to Lake Ilmen. The Danube theory of Russian ethnogenesis is still adhered to by many historians and linguists. The Russian linguist Oleg Nikolaevich Trubachev made a great contribution to its development at the end of the 20th century.
One of the most vehement opponents of the Norman theory of the formation of Russian statehood, Mikhail Lomonosov, leaned toward the Scythian-Sarmatian theory of Russian ethnogenesis, which he wrote about in his “Ancient Russian History.” According to Lomonosov, the ethnogenesis of the Russians occurred as a result of the mixing of the Slavs and the “Chudi” tribe (Lomonosov’s term is Finno-Ugric), and he named the place of origin of the ethnic history of the Russians between the Vistula and Oder rivers.
Supporters of the Sarmatian theory rely on ancient sources, and Lomonosov did the same. He compared Russian history with the history of the Roman Empire and ancient beliefs with the pagan beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, finding a large number of similarities. The ardent struggle with the adherents of the Norman theory is quite understandable: the people-tribe of Rus', according to Lomonosov, could not have originated from Scandinavia under the influence of the expansion of the Norman Vikings. First of all, Lomonosov opposed the thesis about the backwardness of the Slavs and their inability to independently form a state.
The hypothesis about the origin of Russians, unveiled this year by Oxford scientist Garrett Gellenthal, seems interesting. Having done a lot of work studying the DNA of various peoples, he and a group of scientists compiled a genetic atlas of migration of peoples.
According to the scientist, two significant milestones can be distinguished in the ethnogenesis of the Russian people. In 2054 BC. e., according to Gellenthal, trans-Baltic peoples and peoples from the territories of modern Germany and Poland migrated to the northwestern regions of modern Russia. The second milestone is 1306, when the migration of Altai peoples began, who actively interbred with representatives of the Slavic branches.
Gellenthal's research is also interesting because genetic analysis proved that the time of the Mongol-Tatar invasion had practically no effect on Russian ethnogenesis.
Another interesting migration theory was proposed at the end of the 19th century by Russian linguist Alexei Shakhmatov. His “two ancestral homelands” theory is also sometimes called the Baltic theory. The scientist believed that initially the Balto-Slavic community emerged from the Indo-European group, which became autochthonous in the Baltic region. After its collapse, the Slavs settled in the territory between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina. This territory became the so-called “first ancestral home”. Here, according to Shakhmatov, the Proto-Slavic language developed, from which all Slavic languages originated.
Further migration of the Slavs was associated with the great migration of peoples, during which at the end of the second century AD the Germans went south, liberating the Vistula River basin, where the Slavs came. Here, in the lower Vistula basin, Shakhmatov defines the second ancestral home of the Slavs. From here, according to the scientist, the division of the Slavs into branches began. The western one went to the Elbe region, the southern one was divided into two groups, one of which settled the Balkans and the Danube, the other - the Dnieper and Dniester. The latter became the basis of the East Slavic peoples, which include the Russians.
Finally, another theory different from migration theories is the autochthonous theory. According to it, the Slavs were an indigenous people inhabiting eastern, central and even part of southern Europe. According to the theory of Slavic autochthonism, Slavic tribes were the indigenous ethnic group of a vast territory - from the Urals to the Atlantic Ocean. This theory has quite ancient roots and many supporters and opponents. This theory was supported by the Soviet linguist Nikolai Marr. He believed that the Slavs did not come from anywhere, but were formed from tribal communities living in vast territories from the Middle Dnieper to Laba in the West and from the Baltic to the Carpathians in the south.
Polish scientists - Kleczewski, Potocki and Sestrentsevich - also adhered to the autochthonous theory. They even traced the ancestry of the Slavs from the Vandals, basing their hypothesis, among other things, on the similarity of the words “Vendals” and “Vandals”. Of the Russians, the autochthonous theory explained the origin of the Slavs Rybakov, Mavrodin and Greeks.
POPOV Flegont Petrovich
G. Chisinau, 1986
HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE.
We find the first information about our ancestors, the Slavs, in the ancient Russian chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years,” which the chronicler Nestor began with the words: “Behold the Tale of Bygone Years, where did the Russian land come from, who began the first reign in Kyiv, and where did the Russian land come from?” "
The history of the Russian people goes back to the distant historical past, to the first settlements of the Slavs in Eastern Europe, and later to ancient Rus' of the 9th – 12th centuries, on the territory of which the feudal system, progressive for that time, grew and strengthened. Kievan Rus was the basis of the statehood and culture of three fraternal peoples - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.
From the Carpathian Mountains and the Western Dvina, from the upper reaches of the Oka and Volga, from Ilmen and Ladoga to the Black Sea and the Danube, in the vast expanses of Eastern Europe, among forests and swamps, in forests and along river banks, at the very edge of forests, on the border with the steppe and in the far North, Russian tribes lived on the eve of the formation of the Kyiv state. The Carpathian Croats, the Danube Ulichi and Tivertsy, the Pobuzhian Dulebs or Volynians, the inhabitants of the swampy forests of Pripyat - the Drezovichi, the Ilmen Slovenes, the inhabitants of the dense Oka forests - the Vyatichi, numerous Krivechs of the upper reaches of the Dnieper, the Western Dvina and the Volga, the Trans-Dnieper northerners and other East Slavic tribes made up a certain ethnic unity “Slovenian language in Rus'” (language - people). This was the eastern Russian branch of the Slavic tribes. Their ethnic proximity contributed to the formation of a single state, and a single state united the Slavic tribes into an ethnic massif.
The Eastern Slavs included not only Proto-Slavic and Early Slavic tribes, but also other peoples. During the long process of the formation of the Slavs, different tribes of peoples were included in it, with their own customs, language culture, and it was not they who absorbed the Slavs, but the Slavs who dissolved them in their midst.
The first appearance of powerful Rus' on the stage of world history was the Russian attack on Surozh*. This was at the end of the 8th or beginning of the 9th century. In 813, the Russians attack the island of Schinu*. In the first third of the 9th century, the Russians made a campaign against the city of Aleastrida (on the southern coast of the Black Sea, near Sinop). The impression made by these campaigns of Russian squads was enormous.
They learned about Rus', they started talking about it, they began to respect its weapons, they were forced to reckon with it. People started talking about Rus' not only in Byzantium, it was well recognized in the East. At the same time, the West also learned about Rus'. And this happened because Rus' is not only a “wild and rude” people, as the frightened “Romans” (Byzantines) characterize it, who were ready to award militant Rus' with any monstrous features, but also a people creating their own, albeit barbaric, primitive , but still its own state, resorting to diplomatic negotiations and agreements.
Arab writers of the 9th century speak of three centers of Rus'. Before us, pre-chronicle Rus' appears as a country with three political associations: Northwestern Slavia, southern Dnieper “Kuyava” * and southern or southeastern Artania *. Each of these pre-state political entities, according to information reported by Arab and Persian sources, has its own “king” and pursues an independent policy.
The chronicle also mentions the division of the Eastern Slavs according to their political destinies into two groups: northwestern and southeastern.
The Slavs, Krivichi, Chud, Merya and all form one political union - the northwestern one. In it, the Ilmen Slovenes are of primary importance.
The second political formation is made up of the Polyans, who, together with the Northerners, Rodimichs and Vyatichi, were part of the Khavar* group of Slavs. This is a southeastern association of Slavic tribes.
In the north-west the Varangians “violently deyhu”, in the south-east the Khazars. But when Ilmen Rus' and Dnieper Rus' accumulated forces, they threw off the rule of the “finders” from the lower Volga (Khazars) and from gloomy Scandinavia (Varangians). This is how “first two states” arose, Kyiv and Novgorod (K. Marx), and only later their history became closely intertwined, only later did they merge into the Kiev state.
In the first half of the 9th century, the Normans appeared in the north-west of Rus'; they tried to make Ladoga their stronghold. These were warriors and robbers, merchant robbers, hunters for furs and live goods, Arab girges, oriental jewelry, and the riches of the legendary Biarma. Robbing, killing, enslaving, trading, imposing tribute, they swept through the lands of the Slavic and Finnish tribes like a storm. These were more robbers than merchants, more enemies than rulers.
But the Slavic and Finnish population were not going to tolerate the violence of the Varangians and their robbery in their native land.
By this time, the existence of individual volosts was relegated to the realm of legend. A powerful tribal union is taking shape. The tribes that were part of it took up arms and “rose from Slovenia and Krivichi and Merya and Chud to the Varangians, and I drove them overseas, and began to rule for themselves and build cities.”
From this moment on, the very role of the Norman in Rus' changes. These are no longer robbers seeking glory and booty, warriors-rapists, merchants-robbers, the Normans in Rus' act as “Varangians” - merchants trading with the East, West and Byzantium. Most of the Normans acted as hired soldiers, Varangians, and warriors of Russian tribal princes. From the middle of the 9th century, the Varangian freemen irrevocably entered the service of the Russian semi-feudal nobility - the “great” and “bright” princes.
Chronicles report on the struggle between the tribes and cities of the northwestern association of Slavic and Finnish tribes. Having put an end to the predatory invasions of the Varangians, “they began to fight among themselves,” the princes and elders of Slovens and Krivichi, Chuda and Meri began an internecine struggle, “and generation after generation arose,” “they began to fight against each other, and there was great strife between them, and hail upon hail rose, and there was no truth in them.”
Given this situation, it is quite understandable for the Slavs, Chud, Vesya, Krivichi and other tribes to invite the Varangian mercenary squad. This invitation from the squad of the Norman King was reflected in the famous chronicle story about the invitation of the Varangians.
RURIK - according to legend, the first Russian prince (830 - 879), who came to Novgorod in 862 along with the brothers Sineus and Truvor.
SINEUS - Russian prince, brother of Rurik, with whom he arrived in Russian land in 862; settled in Belozersk; died 864; after his death, his possessions passed to Rurik.
TRUVOR - according to legend, he was called to reign in Rus' with the brothers Rurik and Sineus; took over the Krivichi region and founded the capital in Izborsk. Died 864; his possessions passed to Rurik.
The Kyiv princes who followed Rurik began to be conventionally called Rurikovichs.
The chronicle tells that supposedly the envoys of the Slovenians, Chuds, Krivichis and Vesi went “overseas the sea to the Varangians,” to the tribe of Rus', and addressed them with words, pointing out that their land was great and abundant, but there was no order in it, and asked to come reign and rule over them. And at the call of the envoys, three brothers appeared - Varangians from the Rus tribe - Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, who laid the foundation for Russian statehood and the very name Rus, and the Russians, “before Besha Slovenia.”
These lines gave rise to the creation of countless Normanist and pan-Normanist theories about the Varangians, their invitation or conquest by them, the origin of the term “Rus”, all those problems that worried researchers from the 18th century to the present day.
Traditions preserved in Novgorod and included in the chronicles speak of the Novgorod “elder” GOSTOMYSL. The folk tale in this form preserved until the time of the chronicle the memory of those times when Novgorod was ruled by “elders”.
One of these rulers invited some Varangian King, whom the chronicle legend called Rurik, to help in the fight against other “elders.” “And he came to the Slovenes first and cut down the city of Ladoga and the oldest Ladoga, Rurik.”
But the Varangian Viking found the prospect of capturing Novgorod itself tempting, and he and his retinue arrived there, carried out a coup, eliminated or killed the Novgorod “elders,” which was reflected in the chronicle story of the death of Gostomysl, and seized power into his own hands. The usurper met with long and strong resistance from the Novgorod “men”, the best men from the “Slovenian Thousand” - the ancient Novgorod military organization.
Soon after the coup in 864, “kill Rurik Vadimi the Brave and many other Novgorodians who were his companions.” The fight against the Varangian usurper lasted a long time. Three years have passed and “...you will beat many Novgorod men from Rurik from Novgorod to Kyiv.”
Since Rurik’s reign in Novgorod occurred as a result of a coup, against the will and desire of the Novgorod men and even in spite of them, this naturally gave rise to a struggle between the Varangian usurpers and the Novgorodians, who sought to overthrow the power of the Varangian Viking imposed on them by force.
The history of ancient Rus' indicates that the Varangians more than once tried to do something similar to what happened in Novgorod. This was the case under Vladimir, when they captured Kyiv. A similar phenomenon happened under Yaroslav the Wise in Novgorod, when the Varangian warriors robbed and raped the Novgorodians, which caused a revolt against themselves and the massacre of the Varangians.
After coming to Russian soil in 862, Sineus settled in Belozersk, and his brother Truvor founded the capital in Izborsk. Both princes died in 864. Their possessions passed to Rurik.
The Dnieper south, Kyiv, lived its own special life at that time and was still weakly connected with Novgorod. Relations with Byzantium continued.
The relationship between Russians and Greeks was determined by agreements and treaties. But apparently, shortly before 860, the Greeks violated the agreements and killed Russian ambassadors and “guests” (merchants). The response to Byzantium's violation of the treaty with Russia was the Russian campaign against Byzantium. On June 18, 860, 200 Russian ships unexpectedly attacked Constantinople, the outskirts of the capital were burning. The week-long siege of the city, after negotiations, was lifted. The Russians won and took with them a treaty of “peace and love” with the defeated empire.
A new agreement between Rus' and Byzantium dates back to 866-867. By distributing rich gifts to the Russians, they managed to persuade them to “friendship and agreement” and even accept Christianity and the bishop “shepherd” from Constantinople.
Our chroniclers associate this agreement with the name of ASKOLDA and DIRA.
Byzantine sources say that in 866–867 the leader of the Russians (or, as the Byzantines call them, “Russians”) also converted to Christianity.
Our chronicle reports that the Church of St. Nicholas stood on Askold’s grave, emphasizing that Askold was a Christian.
Dir, “the first of the Slavic kings,” is also known by the Arab historian of that time, Masudi (d.956). Masudi’s message about “many inhabited countries” subject to Dir, and the testimony of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople that Rus' “subjugated its neighbors” even before the campaign of 860, confirm the news of later Russian chronicles about the war of Askold and Dir with neighboring peoples and tribes (Derevlyans , streets, etc.).
The first campaigns of the Russians in Transcaucasia date back to the time of Dir. Askold and Dir were still remembered in chronicle times. Their graves were shown in Kyiv.
The Rus' of Askold and Dir covers only the region of glades, the Kyiv land. The remaining tribes act more as allies than subjects. But Rus' is already powerfully entering the international arena. The West and the East are fighting for influence on Rus'. The Byzantine emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople enter into a fight with the German emperor and the Pope, who tried to spread Christianity (Catholic) in Rus' back in 854.
But she goes her own way, independently solves the problems facing her. This Rus' is still divided into two parts: Novgorod and Kyiv. We are at the threshold of the Kyiv state. But it hasn’t worked out yet. Its origin is from the merger of both Russian centers on the great waterway “from the Varangians to the Greeks” - Kyiv and Novgorod.
The formation of the Kyiv state should be considered the moment of complete merger of Kyiv and Novgorod; this happened during the time of Oleg in 891.
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Where is the beginning of the Russian land?
Our land is great and vast. Different peoples live on it. Russians and Tatars, Mordovians and Maris, Bashkirs, Avars and many, many others. And where they came from, how they settled, how they lived, science history tells us about this.
The largest people in Russia are Russians. He is probably one of the oldest peoples living in our country. And that’s what the least is known about.
Where did the Russians come from, who are they? There are many assumptions, but there is no definitive answer to this question yet. It is only known that the first mentions of the Rus as a people appeared two thousand years ago. They say that they came from the places where Swedes, Finns and Belgians now live. This, they say, is not a Slavic tribe. This opinion is disputed by other scientists, arguing that the Rus are Slavs. And they came from the Balkan Mountains.
One way or another, the Russians settled in the land where Ukrainians now live, Ukraine. Slavic tribes lived next to them. The Antes settled in the east. The Venets are in the north, and the Sklavins are in the south. Sometimes they lived peacefully, sometimes they quarreled among themselves. The Russians were the most bullied. They constantly raided their neighbors, stealing livestock, taking away property and people. But over time, the tribes began to mix with each other and become related. This is how a people was formed that began to be called Russian.
Actually, all peoples on earth appear the same way. First, people (tribes) gather in one place, they begin either to be at enmity or to be friends. Gradually, the people who make up the tribes become related to each other, then unite into one common thing - the people. This is a community of people who have a common land, language, customs, that is, culture. And, of course, the general story. It is about the history of the Russian people and the peoples living with them that we will talk.
Someone once came up with the idea that the Russians had no history before they accepted the Christian faith. They lived, they say, like animals, in dugouts, they couldn’t write or read. They supposedly didn’t even have cities. Don't believe it. Long before the baptism, Rus' was called by our European neighbors a country of cities - Gardarika. There were more of them on our land than in all European countries. And where there are cities, there are always books. And that means literate people.
One of our oldest cities is Novgorod the Great. It is much older than Kyiv, which became the capital of the first known Russian state. There is a small town near Novgorod. It is called Staraya Ladoga. The first Russian prince, Rurik, was either born or settled in this town. It is not known exactly when he was born, but it is known when he died. And he died in 879.
He was a Varangian. The exact meaning of this word is also not known. It is assumed that it means either a hired warrior, or an armed merchant, or a salt cooker. But whoever Rurik was, in the middle of the 9th century he began to rule in Novgorod. Again, either he himself seized power in the city, or he was invited to reign in Novgorod, that is, to rule the city.
Back then it was easy in Rus'. Citizens in cities gathered at meetings and resolved their issues. For example, they could invite a prince to rule them and protect the city from enemies. If you didn’t like the way it worked, they could have kicked you away. The prince, at that time, was like our president. That is, they chose him and invited him, he was annoying. kicked out After the death of Rurik, his sons began to reign in Kyiv. It became the capital of the first known Russian state.
This is how the Russian people began.
