For a long time, scholars researching Arabic sources about Eastern Europe noticed that some of them place some as-Sakaliba-Slavs somewhere in the Middle Volga region.
However, since the authors of other sources did not know the Slavs in the Middle Volga region, and archaeological research in the Volga-Kama region did not record, as it was believed, for a long time, signs of Slavic material culture, scientists drew various conclusions from the analysis of these reports. So A. Ya. Garkavi, relying on the news of Ibn Fadlan, who calls the as-Sakaliba of the Volga Bulgarians and Ad-Dimashki about the Volga Bulgarians as a mixture of Turks and as-Sakaliba, believed that the Slavs constituted a significant part of the population of Volga Bulgaria and were gradually assimilated by the Turks (Garkavi A. Ya.. Tales of Muslim writers about the Slavs and Russians. SPb., 1870. S. 104-105), and S. G. Klyashtorny, after analyzing the story of Ibn A'sam al-Kufi about Marwan's campaign against Khazaria in 737, also placed the Slavs that the Arab commander faced,in the Volga region (Klyashtorny S. G. The oldest mention of the Slavs in the Lower Volga region // Eastern sources on the history of the peoples of South-Eastern and Central Europe. T. I. M., 1964).
In contrast, A. Z. V. Togan cited the same news as evidence that the ethnonym Sakaliba in the Arab tradition could denote not only the Slavs, but also other peoples of Eastern Europe: Turks, Finno-Ugrians, etc. (Validi Togan AZ lbn Fadlan's Reisebericht. Leipzig, 1939. P. 296). It is characteristic that only the news about al-Sakaliba in the Volga region gives grounds for the last conclusion: Ibn Fadlan is the only author who personally visited Eastern Europe and used the ethnonym al-Sakaliba so that one can see non-Slavs in him; in all other cases, the identity of al-Sakaliba of Arab authors to the Slavs is beyond doubt (Mishin D. E. Sakaliba (Slavs) in the Arab world in the early Middle Ages. M., 2002). The discussion about al-Sakaliba in the Middle Volga region received a new impetus after a hypothesis was put forward in archaeological science about the Slavic ethnic attribution of the Imenkov culture that existed in this region in the IV-VII centuries. AD (Matveeva G. I. The Middle Volga region in the IV-VII centuries: Imenkovskaya culture. Samara, 2004).
Imenkovskaya culture was identified in the 1950s. N. F. Kalinin and V. F. Gening (the latter gave it the name established in science). For a long time, researchers tried to link its origin either with the local Finno-Ugric cultures or with the migration to the region of the Turks, but neither the first nor the second was reliably proven: neither the Finno-Ugric, nor the Turkic cultures contained many important culture. A revolution in the ethnocultural attribution of the Imenkovian population was made in 1981 by the Samara archaeologist G. I. Matveeva, who compared the materials of the Imenkov and Zarubinets cultures and came to the conclusion about the kinship of the population that left them (Matveeva G. I. About the origin of the Imenkov culture // Ancient and medieval cultures of the Volga region. Kuibyshev, 1981).
In the cycle of his further works G. I. Matveeva and the well-known Slavic archeologist V. V. Sedov convincingly substantiated the conclusion that the origin of Imenkovskaya culture is associated with several migration waves from the area of cultures of burial fields: Zarubinetskaya, Pshevorskaya and Chernyakhovskaya (Matveeva G. I. Ethnocultural processes in the Middle Volga region in the 1st millennium AD // Cultures of the Eastern Europe of the 1st millennium. Kuibyshev, 1986; She. Middle Volga region in the 4th-7th centuries S. 65-74; Sedov V. V. Slavs in antiquity. M., 1994. S. 309-315; He. Essays on archeology of the Slavs. M., 1994. S. 55-58; He. Slavs. Historical and archaeological research. M., 2002. S. 245-249), which is now recognized by the overwhelming majority of researchers. It is within the framework of these cultures, with differing views on a number of specific issues, the overwhelming number of Slavic archeologists (B. A. Rybakov,I. P. Rusanova, V. V. Sedov, P. N. Tretyakov, E. A. Goryunov, V. D. Baran, D. N. Kozak, R. V. Terpilovsky, B. V. Magomedov, E. V. Maximov, S. P. Pachkova, L. D. Pobol, A. M. Oblomsky, O. M. Prikhodnyuk, etc.) is looking for the ancestors of the historical Slavs, respectively, and expressed by G. I. Matveyeva's hypothesis about the belonging of the Imenkovsk culture to one of the Proto-Slavic groups found the support of a number of archaeologists and began to prevail in science (Matveeva G. I. The era of feudalism (collection of abstracts). M., 1988; Same. Middle Volga region in the IV-VII centuries S. 74-78: Sedov V. V. Slavs. S. 252-255; Klyashtorny S. G., Starostin P. N. Proto-Slavic tribes in the Volga region // History of the Tatars from ancient times. Volume I. The peoples of the steppe Eurasia in antiquity. Kazan, 2002; A. V. Bogachev Slavs, Germans, Huns, Bulgarians on the Middle Volga in the 1st millennium AD: Historical and archaeological research. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2011, pp. 72-137).
To date, scientists have identified more than 600 monuments (fortified settlements, settlements, burial grounds) of the Imenkovo culture. It is characterized by both open and, less often, fortified settlements, which consisted of two types of dwellings: square-shaped semi-dugouts with ground structures in the form of log cabins and frame-and-pillar structures slightly deepened into the ground. Burial grounds of Imenkovskaya culture - burial-free with the prevailing cremations (corpses are explained by the penetration of a foreign population into the Imenkovo area) on the side and the subsequent placement of the remains on the bottom of oval or quadrangular pits with a cup-shaped, flat or stepped bottom. Burials, as a rule, either do not contain inventory at all, or contain only individual items. The lack of inventory or lack of inventory is a characteristic feature of the Slavic burial rite, noted by L. Niederle. This feature distinguished the Slavs from their neighbors - the Balts, Germans, Celts, etc. In some cases, clay vessels and pottery fragments were placed in the grave pits. "Imenkivtsi" were engaged in agriculture and cultivated millet, spelled, wheat, barley, oats, peas and, which is very important - rye, which, as we know thanks to the research of K. Yazhzhevsky, was a specifically "Slavic" culture and spread throughout Eastern and Central Europe together with the resettlement of the Slavs (Yazhzhevsky K. On the value of rye cultivation in the cultures of the early Iron Age in the basins of the Odra and Vistula // Antiquities of the Slavs and Rus. M., 1988). Cattle breeding was also highly developed: "Imenkovites" bred horses, large and small cattle, as well as pigs. Ceramics were made mainly by hand, they had developed iron processing (finds of iron handles, sickles,braid pink salmon, etc.) and bronze.
In the VII century. Imenkov culture ceased to exist, and this did not happen as a result of a military defeat. Apparently, most of the Imenkov population simply left the Middle Volga region, which most likely happened as a result of the gradual penetration of the Turkic-speaking nomads into the region - the Bulgars. According to V. V. Sedov, the "Imenkovites" went to the southwest, to the area of the Dnieper left bank, where they became the nucleus of the formation of a new culture - the Volyntsev culture (Sedov V. V. Slavs. Pp. 253-255), whose Slavic affiliation is beyond doubt. At the same time, most likely, a part of the Imenkov population remained in the Middle Volga region, where it was gradually assimilated by the Bulgars and merged into the population of the Volga Bulgaria. The descendants of the Slavs - "Imenkovites" played an important role in the development of agriculture and crafts in this state and in the settling of the Bulgars to the land (V. V. On the ethnogenesis of the Volga Bulgarians // Russian archeology. 2001. No. 2), i.e. in the Volga Bulgaria, approximately the same situation of the Slavic-Turkic synthesis could have taken place as in the Danube, only with a greater role of the Turks and a lesser role of the Slavs.
The hypothesis of the Slavism of the bearers of the Imenkov culture makes it possible to associate with them the as-Sakaliba mentioned in the Middle Volga region by the Arabs (Klyashtorny S. G. Praslavians in the Volga region // Klyashtorny S. G., Savinov D. G. Steppe empires of ancient Eurasia. SPb, 2005).
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A very important and chronologically closest to the time of the existence of the Imenkov culture, a block of information related to al-Sakaliba in the Volga region is presented in the news on the Arab campaign of 737 against the Khazaria, the most detailed of which belongs to the pen of the historian Ibn A'sam al-Kufi (d. in 926. The news we are interested in is included in his “Book of Conquests” / “Kitab al-futuh.” Russian translation see: Klyashtorny SG The most ancient mention of the Slavs …; Abu Muhammad Ahmad ibn A'sam al-Kufi. conquests (extracts on the history of Azerbaijan VII-IX centuries.) / Translated from Arabic by Z. M. Buniyatov. Baku. 1981. S. 50-51; Kalinina TM Waterways of communication of Eastern Europe in the representations of Arab-Persian authors IX-X centuries // Jackson T. N., Kalinina T. M., Konovalova I. G., Podosinov A. V. "Russian river":Riverways of Eastern Europe in Ancient and Medieval Geography. M., 2007. S. 159-160), mentioning at the same time the hydronym Nahr al-Sakaliba ("river of the Slavs"), on the banks of which the Arab army collided with the Slavs during the named campaign. The question of which river he means by the name "Slavic" and whether it is the same water body as Ibn Khordadbeh, Ibn al-Fakih and Abu Hamid al-Garnati caused a long discussion during which the opinions of researchers were divided mainly between two largest rivers of Southeast Europe: some scholars associated it mainly with the Don ("Don" hypothesis: al-Kufi. Book of Conquests. P. 81; Novoseltsev A. P. Khazar state and its role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. M., 1990. S. 115, 184-187), others - with the Volga ("Volga" hypothesis: Artamonov M. I. History of the Khazars. 2nd ed. SPb., 2002 S. 234-237; Klyashtorny S. G. The oldest mention of the Slavs …; He's the same. Pre-Slavs in the Volga region; Galkina E. S. Nomads of Eastern Europe: ethnic groups, society, power (1st millennium AD). M., 2006. S. 195-202, 313).
In 737, the governor of the Caliph (who later became the Caliph himself) Marwan ibn Muhammad undertook a grandiose campaign against Khazaria, which culminated in a long period of the Arab-Khazar wars, which had been going for hegemony in the Caucasus for almost a century (from about the middle of the 7th century). Marvan's goal was the decisive defeat of Khazaria, which was supposed to put an end to its claims to hegemony in the Transcaucasus and the North Caucasus forever. Marvan achieved his goal: the Khazar Kaganate suffered a crushing defeat, its centers located in modern Dagestan (Balanjar, Samandar, etc.) were defeated (For this campaign see: Artamonov M. I., History of the Khazars. Pp. 233-238 and others; Novoseltsev A. P. Khazar state … S. 184-187; Galkina E. S. Nomads … S. 312-313). It was after this defeat, which was second only to the one that Svyatoslav carried out in Khazaria,the population and political centers of the kaganate finally move to the north - to the safe steppes of the Northern Caspian region, the Lower Don region and the Volga region.
Information about Marwan's campaigns against Khazaria (prior to the 737 campaign, he made other campaigns against her, which were not so grandiose and did not have such destructive consequences for her), which comes from various sources, is present in a number of Arab authors: al-Ya'kubi, Ibn al-Fakikha, al-Balazuri, at-Tabari, Bal'ami, al-Kufi, Khalifa ibn Hayyat, Ibn al-Athir, etc. Of these, in the stories of al-Balazuri, al-Kufi and Ibn Hayyat, whose story contains a slightly different version of events (about it later), it is said that during his war with Khazaria, Marwan attacked the people of al-Sakaliba i.e. Slavs.
Periodically undertaken attempts to identify al-Sakaliba al-Balazuri, al-Kufi and Ibn Hayyat with some other people, which the Arabs mistook for Slavs, for example, Burtases (Artamonov M. I. History of the Khazars, p. 234), Kasogs (Tortica A. A. North-West Khazaria in the context of the history of Eastern Europe. Kharkov, 2006. S. 280-288), etc. are groundless, since all these peoples were well known to the Arabs under their own names. By the ethnonym al-Sakaliba, in almost all known cases, the Arab authors understood precisely the ethnic Slavs. By the time of Marwan's campaign, the Arabs were already well acquainted with the Slavs: back in the 7th century. they penetrated from Byzantium to the lands of the Caliphate, often in very significant numbers and joined the ranks of the Arab army (Mishin DE Sakaliba … pp. 101-114). That,that the speech in the stories about the campaign of Marwan is about the Slavs is also confirmed by one phrase from al-Kufi, which says that along with the Slavs, Marwan also attacked other "unbelievers" ie pagans. This clearly indicates that the ethnonym Sakaliba here means a very specific people and is not used in any “broad” sense. In general, al-Kufi's story about the clash of Marwan with the Slavs is the most detailed:
[Marwan's troops] set out and soon reached the city of al-Bayda ', in which the Khakan, the king of the Khazars, was staying. Says [author]: Marwan and the Muslims in the Khazar country were successful, and they reached the lands located beyond the Khazaria. Then they raided al-Sakaliba and other neighboring tribes of unbelievers and captured 20,000 of them prisoners. After that, they went further and soon reached the river of the Slavs (nahr as-Sakaliba) (Kalinina TM Waterways of communication … p. 159).
The following describes the defeat of the Khazar army on its shores. To understand where Marwan collided with the Slavs, you must first find out the location of the city of al-Bayda ', which is debatable and on the position of which the general reconstruction of the route of the Arab commander's campaign depends. There are two main hypotheses for its location. According to one of them, this is the name of the first capital of the Khazars on the Lower Volga (Artamonov MI History of the Khazars, p. 234). According to another hypothesis, this city was located in modern Northern Dagestan. It was even allowed to completely identify the three Khazar "capitals" located in Northern Dagestan: Balanjar, Samandar and al-Bayda ', for which there are no grounds, as well as for the identification of Samandar and al-Bayd' (Novoseltsev A. P. Khazar state … P. 128), based on the factthat both of these names are semantically identical and are etymologized as "white city" (Samandar) and "white" (al-Baida '). However, firstly, similar names of cities were very common in Khazaria (remember, at least Sarkel, whose name means "white fortress"). It is especially important that one of the parts of Itil was called Sarashen - "yellow (city)", the Arabic analogue of which could well be al-Bayda '- "white" (Artamonov MI History of the Khazars, p. 398).whose Arabic analogue could well have been al-Bayda '- "white" (Artamonov MI History of the Khazars, p. 398).whose Arabic analogue could well have been al-Bayda '- "white" (Artamonov MI History of the Khazars, p. 398).
Secondly, the authors describing the campaign of Marwan (al-Kufi, ibn Hayyat, and others) mention Samandar and al-Bayda 'together as different cities, therefore it is impossible to identify them. Moreover, apparently, al-Bayda 'was located north of Samandar (Marwan took Samandar and moved to al-Bayda'). It is most likely, therefore, that we are really talking about the first capital of the Khazars on the Lower Volga, which later became part of Itil. Its second part was the city of Hamlidj, although, apparently, their merger did not happen immediately, but only in the 9th century, since Ibn Khordadbeh mentions two separate cities instead of one Itil: Hamlij and al-Bayda '(Ibn Khordadbeh. Book of Ways and Countries / Translated from Arabic, commentary, research, pointers and maps by N. Velikhanova, Baku, 1986, p. 124). That is why the city of al-Bayda 'subsequently disappears from the pages of sources and is not mentioned in any stories about subsequent events. It is curious that al-Masudi talks about the ancient Khazar capitals Balanjar and Samandar and about the transfer by the Khazars, as a result of the campaign of Marwan, the capital from Samandar to Itil (Galkina ES Nomads of Eastern Europe … p. 312. Note 4). Apparently, the name of the new city has already overshadowed the ancient name of one of its parts, which was once a separate city.
Considering the lower Volga location of the city of al-Bayda ', we can confidently say that in this story the "Slavic River" refers to the Volga. Arab troops, having defeated the centers of the kaganate located in modern Dagestan, moved in the direction of al-Bayd ', where the Khazar kagan was located, who, when the Arab troops approached, apparently fled north along the Volga banks: since he was not ready for battle, he was not there was no point in crossing to the right bank of the river, along which the Arab army was moving. Marwan, firmly intending to achieve in this war the complete defeat of Khazaria, followed him, and reached the lands located "beyond Khazaria", where he clashed with the Slavs and "other neighboring tribes of unbelievers", and then the defeat of the Khazar army. Apparently, Marwan reached those placeswhere the Slavs lived - the descendants of the bearers of the Imenkov culture. There is no other explanation for this news, and it confirms the position of those archaeologists who believe that some part of the Imenkovites remained in the Middle Volga region after the end of the 7th century.
Interesting details regarding the further fate of the captured Slavs are reported by al-Balazuri:
Marwan raided as-Sakaliba, who were in the country of the Khazars, captured 20,000 families from among them, and resettled them in Kakheti. Then they killed their ruler and fled, but they were caught up and killed (Kalinina TM Waterways of communication … p. 160).
Marwan's decision to resettle the Slavs may have been caused by the Arab experience of using the Slavs as guards and military settlers in the border areas. For example, the Cordoba emirs and caliphs had a "Slavic guard". Moving from Byzantium to Arab possessions in the Middle East, the Slavs settled in large tracts in Syria and other regions of the Arab world, replenishing the troops of the caliphs (Mishin DE Sakaliba … pp. 101-136). The practice of using the Slavs as federates was also practiced by Marvan himself, becoming the caliph (Ibid. P. 114). It is also very interesting that, as V. M. Beilis, “a hajib (courtier, in charge of the inner chambers of the residence, chamberlain) of Caliph Marwan (Marwan became caliph in 744 and was him until 750 years - M. Zh.) was unknown to us closer Saklab, possibly a freedman from among the prisoners of al-Sakalib,captured during Marwan's campaigns to the north of the Caucasus "(Beilis V. M. Messages of Khalifa ibn Hayyat al-'Usfuri about the Arab-Khazar wars in the 7th - first half of the 8th century. // The most ancient states of Eastern Europe. 1998. Moscow, 2000. P. 51).
Important information about the attack of Marwan on the Slavs, which differs from the information of al-Kufi and al-Balazuri, is given by Khalifa ibn Hayyat al-'Usfuri. The description of the campaign itself in 737 is very laconic and does not contain any information about the clash of Marwan with the Slavs:
This year, Marwan ibn Muhammad undertook a long campaign from Arminia (the common name of Transcaucasia, adopted in Arabic literature - M. Zh.). He entered the gates of the Alans (Bab al-Lan - Darial Gorge - M. Zh.), passed the land of al-Lan (Land of the Alans - M. Zh.), then left it into the Khazar country and went through Balanjar and Samandar and reached al-Baida ', in which the Khakan resides. Khakan fled from the city (Beilis V. M. Messages … p. 43).
There is no information about further hostilities between Marwan and the Khazars and Slavs. But under 114 / 732-733, Khalifa ibn Hayyat gives unique information:
Abu Khalid said from the words of Abu-l-Bara'a: “Marwan set out in the one hundred and fourteenth year and [advanced] until he crossed the river ar-R.mm. (this name is no longer found in Arabic literature, apparently, we are talking about the Volga or some of its tributaries - M. Zh.). He killed, took prisoner and raided the as-Sakaliba (Beilis V. M. Messages … p. 42).
Al-Kufi (al-Kufi. Book of Conquests. P. 48) under this year reports on Marwan's campaign against the Khazars, which ended, in essence, without result (except for the captured cattle) due to weather conditions (there were almost continuous rains and the roads became impassable), but nothing is mentioned about the collision of Marwan with the Slavs. At the same time, Khalifa ibn Hayyat under this year does not say anything about the campaign against the Khazars. Apparently, he mistakenly attributed this campaign to Maslama ibn 'Abd al-Malik, who was the governor of Transcaucasia before Marwan. The description of Maslama's campaign, given by Khalif ibn Hayyat, fully corresponds to the description by other authors of Marwan's campaign, undertaken after Maslama's departure from Transcaucasia, that is, approximately in 732.
Khalifa ibn Hayyat has a certain confusion regarding the campaigns of Maslama and Marwan against Khazaria. Therefore, most likely, this story should be associated with the "truncated" description of the campaign of 737, which our author has and consider them to be parts of the narration about the same campaign of Marwan - the campaign of 737.
Contrary to the opinion of some researchers, there is nothing incredible that Marvan reached the Middle Volga region. The same was done by two more armies, who also invaded Eastern Europe through the North Caucasus: the troops of Jebe and Subedei and the troops of Tamerlane. Apparently, the route of Marvan's campaign was approximately similar to the route of Tamerlane's campaign, and his battle with the Khazars took place, in all likelihood, in approximately the same area as the battle of Timur with Tokhtamysh. Marwan's campaign differed from all earlier Arab campaigns against Khazaria both in its scale and in the goals that he pursued (the complete elimination of the "Khazar problem"). Accordingly, Marwan was determined to defeat the Khazar troops, and therefore pursued them to the end. It is interesting that Marwan's enemies called him "deaf" - not listening to the "voice of reason", thus notinghis penchant for bold and unconventional actions.
The topic is discussed in more detail by the author in the articles: M. I. 1) The Arab tradition of al-Sakaliba in the Middle Volga region and Imenkovskaya culture: the problem of correlation // Countries and peoples of the East. Issue XXXIV. M.: Vostochnaya literatura, 2013. S. 165-186; 2) Notes on early Slavic ethnonymy (Slavs in the Middle Volga region in the 1st millennium AD) // Historical format. 2015. No. 4. S. 129-150.
Maxim Zhikh, historian