The dispute between Normanists and Anti-Normanists has been going on for more than two hundred years, constantly going beyond the framework of a purely scientific discussion. The very thought of that is intolerable to many. that the Scandinavians played a role in the formation of the Russian statehood
In the history of the Russian Middle Ages, the Varangian, or Norman, question occupies a special place. It is inextricably linked with the question "How was the Old Russian state founded?", Which worries those who are interested in the past of their Fatherland. Outside of academic circles, this problem is often reduced to a long-term, or rather, already centuries-old, unceasing discussion that broke out in the 18th century between Normanists (Gottlieb Bayer and Gerhard Miller) and anti-Normanists (Mikhail Lomonosov). German scientists attributed the honor of the creation of the Old Russian state to the Scandinavians (Normans), with which Lomonosov strongly disagreed. In pre-revolutionary historiography, the Normanists prevailed, while in Soviet times anti-Normanism prevailed, while Normanism flourished in foreign historical scholarship. This or something like this see the essence of the matter and students,those who come to the university from school, and those who are interested in Russian history unprofessionally. However, the real picture is not so simple. It is inappropriate to speak of a single discussion between Normanists and anti-Normanists. There were two discussions, and the issues discussed in them differed markedly.
HOW WE LOOKED FOR THE HOMELAND OF THE VARYAGES
The first began in 1749 with the controversy between Lomonosov and Miller. Gerhard Miller (a scientist who did a lot for the development of Russian historical science, he was the first to study the history of Siberia, and also published the "History of Russia" by Vasily Tatishchev, which was not published during the author's lifetime) made a thesis "On the origin of the name and people of Russia." Before him, in 1735, an article on the problem of the formation of the Old Russian state was published in St. Petersburg in Latin by another historian of German origin working in Russia - Gottlieb Bayer; another of his work was released there posthumously, in 1741. From the point of view of a modern scientist, these works are methodologically imperfect, since at that time source study was not yet developed - a discipline designed to check the reliability of historical information. The sources were approached with constant trust, and the degree of this trust was in direct proportion to the degree of antiquity of the source.
Both Bayer and Miller, who relied in many ways on his work, meticulously enough, in the spirit of German science, studied the evidence known at that time. Having discovered in the ancient Russian chronicle - the Tale of Bygone Years - that the founder of the dynasty of Russian princes Rurik and his entourage were the Varangians, invited in 862 to reign "from across the sea" (undoubtedly the Baltic) by the Slavs and Finnish-speaking tribes of the north of Eastern Europe, they stood before the problem: with what people, known from Western European sources, should these Varangians be identified? The decision lay on the surface: the Varangians are Scandinavians, or Normans (that is, "northern people", as they were called in early medieval Europe).
The name ruRikr on the runestone fragment U413 used to build the Norrsunda Church, Uppland, Sweden.
What caused this identification? The fact is that just in the 9th century the so-called "Viking movement" developed among the Scandinavians. This is a migration process that has engulfed the northern peoples (the ancestors of the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) since the end of the VIII century. Their squads made regular raids into continental Europe. Often, following military attacks, the Vikings settled in a particular territory (as either conquerors or vassals of local rulers). The British Isles and the Frankish state (the territory of future France and Germany) suffered most from the Vikings. In England, the Normans conquered the north-eastern part of the country for a long time. On the continent, they managed to settle at the mouth of the Seine, where the Duchy of Normandy was created as part of the Kingdom of France. The Normans also came to power in southern Italy. In parallel with the expansion to the continent, the Scandinavians also mastered the northern territories: they settled Iceland, the south of Greenland, about 1000 Norman seafarers reached the coast of North America. The era of the Vikings ended in the middle of the 11th century, when the formation of the Scandinavian states was completed.
Thus, the Varangians were interpreted by Bayer and Miller as the same Vikings-Normans, but operating in the east of Europe. This was also supported by the Scandinavian, according to these authors, the sound of the names of the first Russian princes - the founder of the Rurik dynasty, his successor Oleg (Helga), the son of Rurik Igor (Ingvar) and Igor's wife Princess Olga (Helga). Since in the then historiography the emergence of the ruling dynasty was identified with the emergence of the state, Bayer and Miller quite logically came to the conclusion that the Old Russian state was founded by the Normans. Another circumstance spoke in favor of this: in the Tale of Bygone Years it is directly stated that the Varangians who came with Rurik were called Rus. It was, according to the chronicler, the same ethnonym as Svei (Swedes), Urmans (Normans, in this case - Norwegians),Goths (inhabitants of the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea) and Lagnans (British)
Chorikov “Rurik. Sineus and Truvor. 862."
The dispute between Normanists and anti-Normanists was not an abstract academic discussion, it also had a political background. The debate was held within the walls of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts in St. Petersburg, that is, on the land conquered by Peter I from the Swedes (descendants of the early medieval Normans) during the Northern War (1700-1721). The events of those years were in the memory of most of the participants in the discussion. Moreover, just six years before Miller's clash with Lomonosov, another Russian-Swedish war (1741-1743) ended, started by Sweden with the aim of regaining the lost Baltic lands.
Fragment of the painting by Ilya Glazunov "Grandsons of Gostomysl: Rurik, Sineus and Truvor". The author of the canvas is an anti-Normanist, as evidenced not only by the name of the canvas, but also by the Slavic fibula (fastener) on Rurik's cloak
On the right is a true Varangian fibula from a burial mound near the village of Gnezdovo in the Smolensk region (X century)
And this is the situation in which historians - foreigners by origin - find themselves, who claim that the Russian statehood was created by the ancestors of these very Swedes! This could not but cause a protest. Lomonosov, an encyclopedic scientist who had not previously studied history (he will write his historical works later), criticized Miller's work as "reprehensible to Russia." At the same time, he had no doubt that the arrival of Rurik in Eastern Europe meant the formation of a state. But regarding the origin of the first Russian prince and his people, Lomonosov held a different opinion than Bayer and Miller: he argued that the Vikings were not Normans, but Western Slavs, inhabitants of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. The first round of discussion ended in a peculiar way: after a dispute at the Academy of Sciences, Miller's work was recognized as erroneous, and its circulation was destroyed. But the controversy continued and spilled over into the 19th century.
STATE ANTINORMANISM
Those who identified the Varangians with the Normans tried to support their opinion with new arguments, and their opponents multiplied versions of the non-Scandinavian origin of the Varangians: the latter were most often identified with the Western Slavs, but there were versions of the Finnish, Hungarian, Khazar and others. The main thing remained unchanged: the disputants did not doubt: it was the Varangians, who came to Eastern Europe in 862, who founded the state in Russia.
However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the discussion practically died down due to the accumulation of scientific knowledge, especially in the field of archeology and linguistics. Archaeological excavations have shown that heavily armed soldiers of Scandinavian origin were present on the territory of Russia at the end of the 9th - 10th centuries. This coincided with the data of written sources, according to which the Varangians were the foreign warriors of the Russian princes.
Linguistic research has confirmed the Scandinavian origin of the names of Russian princes of the first half of the 10th century and many people in their entourage mentioned in the chronicles and contracts of Oleg and Igor with Byzantium. From which, of course, the conclusion followed that the bearers of these names had Scandinavian, and not some other origin. After all, if we assume that the Varangians were Slavs from the southern coast of the Baltic, then how to explain the fact that the names of the representatives of the top of the South Baltic Slavs (encouraged and lyutichi), mentioned in Western European sources, sound Slavic (Dragovit, Vyshan, Drazhko, Gostomysl, Mstivoi and so on), and the names of the Varangians operating in Eastern Europe - in Scandinavian? Unless by making a fantastic assumption that the South Baltic Slavs in their homeland bore Slavic names, and having come to their Eastern European brothers,for some reason they decided to "hide behind" the Scandinavian pseudonyms.
It would seem that the discussion is over: Normanism has won. Indeed, in the 20th century, there were few authors who argued that the Varangians were not Normans. And most of them were representatives of the Russian emigration. In Soviet historiography, those who did not consider the Varangians to be Normans were counted literally in units. So where did the stable idea of the dominance of anti-Normanism in the historical science of the Soviet period come from?
The fact is that the so-called anti-Normanism of Soviet historiography is a phenomenon fundamentally different from the pre-revolutionary anti-Normanism. The main question of the discussion was posed differently: it was not the ethnic origin of the Varangians that was discussed, but their contribution to the creation of the Old Russian state. The thesis that it was decisive has been revised. The formation of the state began to be seen as a long process, which required the maturation of prerequisites in society. Such an approach was already outlined in the pre-revolutionary decades (for example, by V. O. Klyuchevsky) and was finally consolidated with the approval of Marxist methodology in Russian historical science. The state "appears where and when and where there is a division of society into classes" - this thesis of Lenin is very difficult to combine with the idea of introducing statehood by an alien prince. Accordingly, the appearance of Rurik began to be interpreted only as an episode in the long history of the formation of statehood among the Eastern Slavs, an episode that led to the emergence of a princely dynasty ruling in Russia. Soviet historians were anti-Normanists in precisely this sense: while recognizing that the Varangians are Normans, they did not recognize their decisive role in the formation of the Old Russian state, which was their difference from both the Normanists and the anti-Normanists of the century before last.they did not recognize their decisive role in the formation of the Old Russian state, which was the difference between them both from the Normanists and the anti-Normanists of the century before last.they did not recognize their decisive role in the formation of the Old Russian state, which was the difference between them both from the Normanists and the anti-Normanists of the century before last.
Rurik at the Millennium of Russia Monument
Promotional video:
The notion that the role of the Varangians in the formation of the state in Russia was insignificant was fully established by the end of the 1930s. And here, too, it was not without ideology. Normanism came to be regarded as a bourgeois theory put forward with the aim of proving the fundamental inability of the Slavs to create their own statehood. Here, a certain role was also played by the fact that the legend of Rurik's vocation was adopted by Nazi propaganda: Hitler and Himmler's statements about the inability of the Slavic race to an independent political life, about the decisive influence of the Germans on it, whose northern branch are the Scandinavians, became famous. After the victory over Nazi Germany, this factor disappeared, but the outbreak of the Cold War gave rise to a new ideology: Normanism began to be viewed as a distortion and belittling of the country's past,the first to embark on the path of forming a new, communist social formation.
CIRCLE CLOSED
It would seem that at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, the Varangian question should finally get rid of the ideological trail. But instead, something else is observed - the activation of extreme points of view. On the one hand, both in our country and abroad, works appear in which the formation of the Old Russian state is understood exclusively as the activity of the Normans in Eastern Europe, and the participation of the Slavs in this process is practically ignored. Such an approach, in fact, is a disregard for the scientific results achieved by modern Slavic studies, from which it follows that stable territorial-political (and not tribal, as it was previously believed) formations formed on the Slavic lands in the VI-VIII centuries, on the basis of which the processes took place. formation of states.
On the other hand, the point of view is being revived that the Vikings were not Scandinavians. And this despite the fact that during the XX century significant material (primarily archaeological) has been accumulated, leaving no doubt about the opposite. Numerous burials of the late 9th-10th centuries were found on the territory of Russia, in which immigrants from Scandinavia were buried (this is evidenced by the similarity of the funeral rite and objects with those that are being excavated in the Scandinavian countries themselves). They were found in the north of Russia (Novgorod region - Ladoga), and on the Middle Dnieper (Smolensk region), and in the Middle Dnieper (Kiev and Chernigov region), that is, where the main centers of the emerging state were located. In terms of their social status, these were mainly noble warriors-vigilantes. In order to deny the Scandinavian origin of the chronicled Varangians (and the chronicles call the Varangians just warriors of foreign origin), it is necessary, therefore, to admit the incredible: about the warriors - immigrants from Scandinavia, from whom archaeological evidence in Eastern Europe remained, written sources were silent, and vice versa, those foreign The vigilantes who are mentioned in the annals under the name of the Varangians, for some reason, did not leave material traces.
In part, this return to the old anti-Normanism is a reaction to the activation of those who represent the Normans as the only state-forming force in Eastern Europe. In fact, the supporters of both extreme points of view, instead of solving the real problem - what is the role of non-Slavic elements in the genesis of the ancient Russian statehood - proclaim the positions long refuted by science. At the same time, both of them, for all the polarity of their positions, agree on one thing - the statehood of the Eastern Slavs was introduced from outside.
What do historical sources say about the role of the Vikings in the emergence of the state of Rus?
VARIANA CONTRIBUTION
The oldest Russian annalistic monuments - the so-called Primary Code, written at the end of the 11th century (the text of it was brought to us by the Novgorod First Chronicle), and the Tale of Bygone Years, published at the beginning of the 12th century - testify that about 1200 years ago in the most developed East Slavic communities (among the Slovenes in Novgorod and among the glades in Kiev) princes of Varangian origin came to power: in Novgorod Rurik, in Kiev Askold and Dir. Rurik was called to reign by the Slovenes, Krivichs and the Finnish-speaking community (according to the Primary Code - merey, according to the Tale of Bygone Years - Chudyu), after these peoples drove out the Vikings, who took tribute from them. Then (according to the Tale of Bygone Years - in 882) the successor of Rurik Oleg (according to the version of the Primary Code - the son of Rurik Igor,under which Oleg was a voivode) captured Kiev and united the northern and southern political formations under a single power, making Kiev his capital.
The chronicles are more than two centuries apart from the events described, and much of which they report is clearly based on legends, oral traditions. Therefore, a natural question arises: how reliable is the information conveyed by the chronicle monuments? To answer it, it is necessary to involve both foreign sources and archeological data.
Archaeologically, the presence of immigrants from Scandinavia in the north of Eastern Europe is clearly traced since the 9th century, and in the 10th century - in the south, in the Middle Dnieper region. In turn, the earliest written news about a political formation called Rus is in a certain way connected with the Scandinavians. Thus, the ambassadors of the ruler of the “people of Ros”, who, according to the so-called Vertinsky annals, arrived at the court of the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious in 839, were “Sveons” (Swedes). In a 871 letter from the Frankish emperor Louis II to the Byzantine emperor Basil, the ruler of Russia is called the "kagan of the Normans", which speaks of his Scandinavian origin. Thus, there is no sufficient reason to doubt the chronicle news,according to which, around the middle of the 9th century, Norman rulers came to power in the two most developed East Slavic communities - near the glades in Kiev and among the Slovenes in Novgorod.
From Western sources of the mid-9th century - the Frankish annals - we know about the Danish king (prince) Rörik - Rurik's namesake from the Russian chronicles. The version about the identity of Rorik and Rurik, shared by many researchers (although there are those who completely reject it), remains the most probable. It allows us to satisfactorily explain why the Slovenes, Krivichi and Chud (or Meria), having driven out the Varangians, turn in search of a prince not to anyone, but to the Vikings. The fact is that the tribute from the peoples of the north of Eastern Europe was undoubtedly collected by the closest neighbors - the Swedish Vikings, so it was natural to call for the reign of the leader of the "other" Vikings - Danish. Inviting the prince from the outside, that is, a person who did not participate in local conflicts between Slovenes, Krivichs and their Finnish-speaking neighbors,was quite a common action (this practice is common in the Middle Ages). It says a lot about the level of the local society: since it expelled the Swedish Vikings and came to an agreement on the invitation of a new ruler, it was clearly at a fairly high level of political development. Among the Slovenes, apparently, there were natives of the Slavobodrites who lived on the southern coast of the Baltic next to the Danes, and they could have initiated the invitation of Rurik.they could have initiated the invitation of Rurik.they could have initiated the invitation of Rurik.
Thus, the significant role of the Normans at the time of the formation of Russia is beyond doubt: the ancient Russian princely dynasty, like a significant part of the nobility, was of Scandinavian origin. But is there any reason to speak of a Norman influence on the pace and nature of the formation of Russian statehood? Here, first of all, it is necessary to compare the processes of state formation in Russia and among the Western Slavs (who did not experience the Norman influence) and see if there were specific features in the formation of the Old Russian state that may be associated with the influence of the Varangians.
Wall painting in the Faceted Chamber, 16th century (restored in the 19th century). In Muscovy, it was believed that Rurik was a descendant of the Roman emperor Augustus, and Russia, respectively, was the direct political heir to the Roman Empire.
The West Slavic state of Great Moravia emerged in the first half of the 9th century (at the beginning of the 10th century it will perish as a result of the Hungarian invasion). Other West Slavic states that retained their independence - the Czech Republic and Poland - emerged simultaneously with Russia, during the 9th-10th centuries. Consequently, there is no reason to assert that the Normans provided an acceleration, in comparison with their Slavic neighbors, of the process of state formation in Russia. The characteristic features of this process were also similar. And in Russia, and in Moravia, and in the Czech Republic, and in Poland, one of the pre-state communities became the core of the state territory (in Russia - the glade, in Moravia - the Moravians, in the Czech Republic - the Czechs, in Poland - the Gneznenskie glades),and the neighboring ones gradually fell into dependence on it (in Scandinavia, on the other hand, practically every pre-state community grew its own state formation).
In all these countries, the main state-forming force was the princely squad, in Scandinavia, in addition to the kings squads, a significant role was played by the clan nobility - the Khovdings. Everywhere (except Moravia) there is a replacement of old fortified settlements (castles) with new ones that served as a support of state power. Thus, there are no traces of the influence of the Normans on the nature of state formation. The reason here is that the Scandinavians were at the same level of political and social development as the Slavs (they also formed states in the 9th-10th centuries), and were relatively easily included in the processes taking place in the East Slavic lands. In principle, statehood can be brought in from the outside, but on one condition: foreigners must be at a significantly higher level of development than the local population. Meanwhile in Sweden,from where the supporters of the extreme point of view, who deny its Slavic roots, derive the origins of Old Russian statehood, the state was formed only at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century (and according to another version, even in the 12th century), that is, later than in Russia.
Nevertheless, in the way the Old Russian state was formed, there is one feature that can to a certain extent be associated with the activities of the Varangians, but which is in no way connected with the specifics of the formation of the Scandinavian states. It is about the unification of all Eastern Slavs in one state. This is usually taken for granted. Meanwhile, this circumstance is unique: neither the Western nor the southern Slavs did not unite in one state - both had several state formations (Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Carantania, Great Moravia, Czech Republic, Poland). And in Russia, all the East Slavic tribes were united around a single center. The formation of such a unified state is likelywas largely due to the presence of a powerful force core - the squads of the first Russian princes-Vikings.
It provided the Kiev princes with a noticeable military superiority over other East Slavic princes. Without this factor, most likely, the Eastern Slavs would have developed several state formations by the 10th century: at least two (for the glades with the capital in Kiev and among the Slovenes and their neighbors with the capital in Novgorod), and maybe more.
It should also be borne in mind that Rurik's squad was made up (if his identification with the Danish Rurik is correct) people who were well acquainted with the most developed Western European statehood at that time - Frankish. The fact is that Roerik for many years (almost four decades, from the late 830s to the 870s) was a fief of Frankish emperors and kings, descendants of Charlemagne, and owned Friesland (the territory of modern Holland). He and his entourage (a significant part of whom were no longer natives of Denmark, but of the Frankish Empire), unlike most other Normans of that era, had to have the skills of government. Perhaps this played a role in the development of the vast territory of Eastern Europe by Rurik's successors. But this kind of influence on the formation of ancient Russian statehood, rather, should be considered not Scandinavian,and Frankish, only transferred by the Scandinavians.
The Scandinavian elite quickly assimilated into the Slavic environment. Already a representative of the third generation of princes - Svyatoslav (son of Igor) - had a Slavic name, but the names of the ruling dynasties were sacred, and the alien dynasties usually resisted assimilation for a long time. For example, the representatives of the Turkic dynasty, which ruled from the end of the 7th century in the Bulgarian kingdom, had Slavic names only in the middle of the 9th century. In the middle of the 10th century, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, describing in his treatise "On the Administration of the Empire" the detour of the Kiev prince's warriors of the subject territories in order to collect tribute, calls this event the Slavic word tyualZoCha - "polyudye". The single Scandinavian language of that time had its own term for this kind of detour - "Weizla". However, Constantine uses precisely the Slavic term. The same story also contains (in the Greek translation) the Slavic verb "feed": the warriors leaving Kiev, during the winter, "feed", according to the author, on the territories of subordinate Slavic communities ("Slaviny"). Obviously, the elite stratum of Russia by the middle of the 10th century already used mainly the Slavic language.
Thus, in the VIII-IX centuries, the processes of state formation were actively going on among the Eastern Slavs, and statehood would have developed without the participation of the Normans. Nevertheless, the "Varangian contribution" to this process should not be underestimated. It was thanks to the Varangians (and not to any Vikings, namely to Rurik and his heirs with their squads) that the East Slavic lands were united together.
"Around the World" October 2011