Russians are one of the most numerous peoples of the Earth, but scientists are still arguing about which people can be considered its progenitor. One thing is clear: Russian roots are older than official history suggested.
Normans
The Norman theory of the origin of the Russian nation is for the most part the fruit of the efforts of Swedish historiography, whose ideas were taken up by Russian science of the 18th-19th centuries. Thus, the Swedish writer of the 16th century Olaus Magnus, in his work "History of the Northern Peoples", called not only the inhabitants of Scandinavia, but also the population south of the Baltic Sea, including Lithuanians and Russians, as Normans.
Chronicler Henrik Brenner was quite sure that the Russians were descended from the Swedes. He associated the word "Rus" with the Finnish name of the Swedes "rotzalainen", which in turn came from "Ruslagen" - the name of the coastal regions of the historical province of Sweden Uppland.
The German historian Ludwig Schlözer expressed the opinion that the countdown of "Russian existence" should be started from the vocation of the Varangians.
He is echoed by Karl Marx, noting that as a result of the conquering campaign of the Rurikovichs, "the victors and the vanquished merged together in Russia faster than in other areas conquered by the Scandinavian barbarians."
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However, the candidate of historical sciences Lydia Groth is skeptical about the Norman theory, believing that the Swedish historiographic tradition is "historical fantasies" brought to the point of absurdity.
Wends
Historian Boris Rybakov, referring to ancient sources, expressed the opinion that the Slavs under the name of the Wends appeared around the 1st century AD as a result of "the contact of the Romans with the tribes of the southern Baltic states." Indeed, many Latin authors of the 7th - 8th centuries. the Slavs and Wends meant the same people.
However, some sources suggest that the Wends were the direct ancestors of the Russians.
The language of the Finnish peoples retains the memory of the Wends, who have always been identified with the Russians. In particular, the Finnish "Venäläinen" is translated as Russian, the Karelian "Veneä" - as Rus, and the Estonian "Venemaa" is Russia.
The writer Sergei Ershov is convinced that the Wends are Russes: they began to be called Slavs 400-500 years later than the emergence of the ethnonym “Rus” - in the 6th-7th centuries. n. e. "Venedy-Rus", according to the writer, inhabited the entire territory of modern Poland, up to the mouth of the Elbe, and in the south of their lands occupied the boundaries of the future Kievan Rus. By the 3rd century, the Russians began to gradually "branch off" from the Wends, forming their own language.
The Slovak scientist Pavel Shafranik in this Proto-Slavonic language finds the term "rusa", which, in his opinion, meant a river. “This root Slavic word, as a common noun, has already remained in use only among some Russians in the word“channel”, the scientist concludes.
Etruscans
Historians have long been concerned about the fate of the Etruscans, who by the middle of the 1st century BC. e. almost completely disappear from the culture of Rome. Is the richest heritage of the Etruscans sunk into oblivion? Evidence from the excavations of ancient Etruria suggests no.
The nature of the burials, the names of the Etruscans, their traditions reveal common roots with the culture of the Slavs.
Back in the 19th century, the Russian scientist Yegor Klassen suggested using the Old Russian language to translate Etruscan inscriptions. Only since the 1980s. linguists continued the beginnings of the Russian researcher. From that time on, a version appeared in which the Etruscans began to be considered Proto-Slavs.
Philosopher and political scientist Alexander Dugin does not go into the linguistic jungle and understands the word "Etruscan" literally - "this is Russian." Further, he draws symbolic parallels, in which he finds common ground between the Capitoline she-wolf, who nursed the founders of Rome, and the gray wolf from Russian fairy tales, who saved children lost in the forest. According to Dugin, the Etruscans gave rise to two branches - the Turkic and Russian peoples. As evidence, he names the thousand-year coexistence of two peoples as part of the Golden Horde, the Russian Empire and the USSR.
Usuni
No less curious is the version about the Siberian roots of the Russian people. Thus, the historian Nikolai Novgorodov believes that the Russians were known to the ancient Chinese from the "pre-Christ times" under the name "Usun". According to this version, the Usuns eventually moved from Siberia to the west and began to be referred to by the Chinese as "Orus".
Chinese historians, as proof of the kinship of the South Siberian people of the "Usun" and the Russians, refer to the descriptions of their neighbors drawn from ancient sources.
In one of the characteristics, “they are people with blue sunken eyes, a prominent nose, a yellow (red) curly beard, and a long body; a lot of strength, but they like to sleep and when they sleep, they don't wake up right away."
Note that the Arab scientists of the X - XII centuries. distinguished three Ancient Rus - Kuyavia, Slavia and Artania. If Kuyavia was identified by Western European and Russian historians with Kievan Rus, Slavia - with Novgorod Rus, then there was no consensus about the localization of Artania. Novgorodov suggested looking for her in Siberia.
In particular, he refers to the mention in Arabic sources of black sables, which at that time lived only in Siberia. Also, on some medieval geographical maps, the region with the name Arsa (Arta) is placed on the territory of modern Altai in the area of Lake Teletskoye.
Scythians
A large and powerful nation - the Scythians - suddenly disappeared into history: by the 4th century AD, its mention disappears from the chronicles. However, the excavations of Soviet archaeologists carried out on the Dnieper, Bug, Dniester, Don and Kuban showed that the Scythians did not disappear anywhere, but simply became part of another cultural era.
At one time Lomonosov wrote that Scythians are not the least of the ancient ancestors of the present Russian people.
Many modern historians share the view of the great scientist. In particular, an expert in the field of historical anthropology Valery Alekseev noted that the physical predecessor of the Russian type is the Scythian-Sarmatian branch.
The similarities between the Russians and the Scythians can be seen in the surviving images, as well as from the descriptions of the chroniclers. The appearance of the Scythians was characterized by rather tall stature, slender and strong constitution, light eyes and light brown hair.
Historian and archaeologist Pavel Shultz complements the picture of Scythian-Russian identity, noting that "in the living quarters of the Scythian capital of the Crimea - Naples - beautiful plates of carved bone were found, which vividly resemble Russian woodcarving in character."
Russian Kaganate
Writers Sergei Buntovsky and Maxim Kalashnikov express the idea that the ancestral home of the Russian ethnos was the so-called “Russian Kaganate”, where representatives of different peoples were assimilated. In their opinion, archaeological evidence presents the civilization of the ancient Khaganate as a mixture of the cultures of the Slavs, Turks and Alans.
Researchers suggest that due to the predominance of the Alans from the 6th to the 8th century, the Iranian and Slavic blood merged within the framework of the “Russian Kaganate”.
However, other peoples living on the territory of the Kaganate - Bulgars, Yases and Scandinavians left their own, albeit a lesser trace in the Russian genealogy.
The author of the book "Secrets of the Russian Kaganate" Elena Galkina sees the upper reaches of the Don River, Seversky Donets and Oskol as the center of the state and identifies it with the Saltovsko-Mayatskaya archaeological culture. Donetsk historian and publicist Aleksey Ivanov defines the borders of the Kaganate as the present southeast of Ukraine, outlining them from the east by the Don, and from the west by Kiev.
Confirmation of the version of the existence of the "Russian Kaganate" Galkin finds in Byzantine, Muslim and Western sources of the 9th century. In her opinion, after the defeat of the Khaganate by the Hungarians, the terms “Rus” and “Rus” passed from “Rus-Alans” (Roksolans) to the Slavic population of the Middle Dnieper region.
Taras Repin