Explosive and fraught with numerous interethnic conflicts, the beginning of the XXI century, perhaps more than ever, makes people think about the eternal question: "Who are we and where are we from?"
But in order to answer this question at least somewhat intelligibly, we need to plunge into the depths of millennia. And there, at the cradle of the modern peoples of Europe, we will see a picture, in many ways unexpected and instructive.
It is well known that in the deepest antiquity (up to about the 5th millennium BC), the ancestors of almost all modern peoples of Europe spoke a single, so-called Indo-European language and lived in a single ancestral home …
… back in the nineteenth century. Penka argued quite strongly the hypothesis about the Northern or Northeast European ancestral home of the Aryan peoples, on the basis of the fact that the Northeast Europeans and Scandinavians, like the historical Aryans, are blue-eyed.
And besides, all the above-named scholars in one way or another turned to such ancient literary monuments of the Aryan peoples as the Rig Veda and the Mahabharata, the codification of texts of which dates back to the 2nd millennium BC.
The description of events in the scriptures of the Rigveda and Mahabharata, in ritual hymns, epic stories and myths takes us into the deepest archaic. And although the main event of the Mahabharata - a battle between related clans (Pandavas and Kauravas) on the Kursk field - took place in 3102 BC. (i.e., at the turn of the 4th-3rd millennia BC), much of what is told in the epic has been pushed much further into the depths of the millennia.
Moreover, judging by the ancient texts, the ancestral home of their creators was precisely the territory of Eastern Europe, and the descriptions contain details that are characteristic only of the polar regions. It is to these details, such as the description of the movement of the constellations of the Polar Sky, the Northern Lights, an indication of a continuous winter night and a continuous summer day, that the outstanding Indian scientist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who wrote at the beginning of the 20th century, drew attention to. (1903) his famous book "The Arctic Homeland in the Vedas" …
So what kind of “arctic ancestral home” is this, about which, the most ancient legends of the Indo-Europeans, carried away by their descendants in the II millennium BC, tell? to hot India, and preserved for millennia in the memory of peoples?
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So even on the map in the essay "What lands lie in the world", which belonged to the Scandinavian author of the 12th century, the territory of Sweden is called "Svitod", i.e. "The lot of light". On the same map - Eastern Europe is called "Great Svitod".
Describing the countries of the world, the Scandinavian geographer notes: "All those countries that are listed from Indialanda … up to the Great Svitod … In that state there is a part called Russia, we call it Gardariki" are called Great Asia. The legends of the Scandinavians speak of their ancient ancestral home in the lands of the Great Svitod.
Here, it probably makes sense to remember that in the middle of our century, the Swedish researcher G. Yehansson came to the conclusion that the geographical names of Scandinavia and the entire North of Europe have a powerful Indo-Iranian sub-basis.
To begin with, the very name of Scandinavia had no reliable explanation. Perhaps the clue here can be the ancient Aryan myth about the god of war Skanda, who is called the "Milk brother of Stozharov" - one of the constellations of the northern sky. Probably the geographical name of Scandinavia consists of two parts: the name of the god of war Skanda and the concept of "navya" or "naviua", which means new, fresh, young (Sanskrit) …
According to the Skanda myth, he performed his feats while on the shining island of Shvetadvita, which literally means "the bright island." The epic Mahabharata places it in the northwest of the White Sea. The names of the neighboring Scandinavian countries are also characteristic. So the very name of Finland - Suomi has no reliable explanation in Finnish languages, but corresponds to the name of the northwestern country "Saumya" in the ancient Indian text "Vayu Purana". The name of Denmark can be associated with the name of the peoples of the "Danavs" who lived according to the Mahabharata in the northern country of Rasatal, along the banks of the "Molochny" i.e. Of the White Sea …
God of War Skand (Indian epic Mahabharata).
It is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of rivers and lakes in the Russian North have names that can be explained only with the help of Sanskrit.
Here are just some examples: the Ganga river, Gango lake, Gangreka river, Gangozero lake, Dan river (Danu “river” in the Rigveda), Ida (Ida - "river" in the Rigveda), p. Kush (kusha-sedge), the Kala river (kala-dark, quiet), the Dala river (barking-play, overflow with waves), r. Mandara - (mandara - thick, slow), Padma (padma - water lily), river Puya (puya-pure flowing), river Rana (wound-rumbling), etc.
As you know, the natural conditions of the Scandinavian Peninsula became favorable for the residence of large human communities no earlier than the turn of the 7th-6th millennium BC. But many Aryan peoples are mentioned in sources at an earlier period. Where, then, could the Aryans live, including the Daityas and Danavas?
And here it makes sense to turn to the sacred book of the ancient Iranians "Avesta", which, along with the sacred river Ardvisura Anahkta (Northern Dvina), also mentions the river "Good Daytya" (Datia), which also flows into the Arctic Ocean. It was along the banks of these rivers, according to the Avesta, that the ancestral home of the Aryans was located - the country “Aryanam Vaidha”, which means “Aryan space”.
The only large river (near the Northern Dvina), which flows into the Arctic Ocean, was and remains the Pechora River, the upper course of which during the last glaciation was occupied by meadow-cereal forest-steppe, along which numerous herds of mammoths, rhinos, deer, wild horses, tours and saigas.
Probably it was the Oka that was called “good Daitya”. In addition to the "Daityas", Avesta mentions: "the people of Danu", Scandinavia (SKANDAVA), the country of Mazan (Mezen), the Rus and Tsar Francrasian.
Thus, all ancient Aryan sources indicate that the ancestral home of the Aryans, including the Russians and the Germans, was the lands of the north of Eastern Europe.
The same is said by the great Gothic historian Jordan, who in his book "On the origin and deeds of the Getae" (511) indicates that in 1490. BC: "From this very island of Skanda, as if from the workshop of the peoples, according to legend, the Goths once left with their king named Berig" and moved to Central Europe.
However, Skanda Island, according to the authoritative opinion of Jordan, occupied not only the present Scandinavian Peninsula, but also the coast of the White Sea, the basins of the Vagi and Sukhona rivers, i.e. the territory of the Vologda and Arkhangelsk provinces.
Historian, philosopher, publicist Y. Petukhov wrote about the Norwegian land in the following way: “It is no coincidence that it was in these places at the beginning of our century that the tradition of geometric ornament was firmly preserved in the weaving and embroidery of Russian peasant women, the origins of which can be found in the ancient cultures of the Stone Age of Eastern Europe, some scholars consider the “visiting card” of the Aryan peoples.
In sagas and chronicles, Norway is called Noreg, Norwegians are called Noreg. Noreg = Norek, Noreg = Norek. Here we immediately see the amazing similarity of the toponym and ethnonym with the chronicle land, the homeland of the Slavs Norik and the Slavs themselves, the Rus - Noriks. Considering that the ancestors of the noregs were not autochthonous in Scandinavia, but came there, according to archaeologists, from the southeast in the III-II millennia BC, it can be assumed that we are not dealing with an accidental coincidence. In the middle of the 1st millennium A. D. (see the historical and ethnographic reference book "Peoples of the World", 1988) on the territory of the future Norway, that is, in Norege-Norik, there lived the tribes of Helegs, trends, ranriks, raums, augands, facets and rugs.
The Rugs, as you know, are the Baltic Slavs, otherwise - the Rus. They formed the basis of the population of Norega-Norik. Anthropologically, Norwegians-Norwegians belong to the Baltic type of the Atlanto-Baltic race of the great Caucasoid race. The western Slavs of the Baltic and North Sea coasts are of the same type.
Self-name - islendingar, that is, icelandic-ar, icelandic-yar = "Icelandic yars", or "island yars". The etymology of the ethnonym, based on the above, is clear to us. Moreover, these "yars" are also natives of the Slavic-Russian (for the 1st millennium AD) Norway-Noregi-Norik ".
In the 6th century AD, the Scandinavians called other Russian lands Gardarik - the kingdom of many cities. According to their descriptions on the territory of Russland there were at least 4,000 large well-fortified cities, developed trade, agriculture, and a highly developed culture.
All this was not in any other country in the world. We see Russia as a developed state, which not only existed for more than one millennium at that time, but also exerted a strong influence on neighboring territories, bringing its culture and knowledge there.
Svetlana Zharnikova, Alexey Vinogradov, Yuri Petukhov