Rus' people

Etymology

According to the most prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Finnish name for Sweden (Ruotsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden, as it was known in earlier times. The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi.

History

Having settled Aldeigja (Ladoga) in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists played an important role in the early ethnogenesis of the Rus' people and in the formation of the Rus' Khaganate. The Varangians (Varyags, in Old East Slavic) are first mentioned by the Primary Chronicle as having exacted tribute from the Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859. It was the time of rapid expansion of the Vikings in Northern Europe; England began to pay Danegeld in 859, and the Curonians of Grobin faced an invasion by the Swedes at about the same date.

Due largely to geographic considerations, it is often argued that most of the Varangians who traveled and settled in the lands of eastern Baltic, modern Russian Federation and lands to the south came from the area of modern Sweden.

The Varangians left a number of rune stones in their native Sweden that tell of their journeys to what is today Russia, Ukraine, Greece, and Belarus. Most of these rune stones can be seen today, and are a telling piece of historical evidence. The Varangian runestones tell of many notable Varangian expeditions, and even account for the fates of individual warriors and travelers.

The Norsemen allegedly had some enduring influence in Rus, as testified by loan words (these ones persist from Glagolitic script at Adriatic prior and out of any norse), such as yabeda "complaining person" (from æmbætti, embætti "office"), skot "cattle" (? from skattr "tax") and knout (from knútr, "a knotty wood"). Moreover, three Nordic names of the first Varangian rulers also became popular among the later Rurikids and then among the East Slavic people in general: Oleg (Helgi), Olga (Helga) and Igor (Ingvar).

Normanism

The Western account of the Norsemen was introduced to Russians by the German historian Gerhardt Friedrich Müller (1705–1783), who was invited to work in the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1748. At the beginning of an important speech in 1749, Müller declared that the "glorious Scandinavians conquered all the Russian lands with their victorious arms". This statement caused much anger in the hearts of his Russian audience, and earned him much animosity during his professional career in Russia. The remainder of the speech represented a lengthy list of Russian defeats by the Germans and Swedes, Müller was forced to curtail his lecture by shouts of anger from the audience. The scathing criticism from Lomonosov, Krasheninnikov, and other Russian historians led to Müller being forced to suspend his work on the issue until Lomonosov's death. Although the printed text of the original lecture was destroyed, Müller managed to rework it and had it reprinted as Origines Rossicae in 1768.

There were, however, some Russian historians who accepted this historical account—including Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) and his disciple Mikhail Pogodin (1800–75)—gave credit to the claims of the Primary Chronicle that the Varangians were invited by East Slavs to rule over them and bring order. The theory was not without political implications. According to Karamzin the Norse migration formed the basis and justification for Russian autocracy (as opposed to anarchy of the pre-Rurikid period), and Pogodin used the theory to advance his view that Russia was immune to social upheavals and revolutions, because the Russian state originated from a voluntary treaty between the people of Novgorod and Varangian rulers.

Anti-Normanism

Starting with Lomonosov (1711–1765), East Slavic scholars have criticised the idea of Norse invaders. In the early 20th century, the traditional anti-Normanist doctrine (as articulated by Dmitry Ilovaisky) seemed to have lost currency, but in Stalinist Russia, the anti-Normanist arguments were revived and adopted in official Soviet historiography. Mikhail Artamonov ranks among those who attempted to reconcile both theories by hypothesizing that the Kievan state united the southern Rus' (of Slavic stock) and the northern Rus' (of Germanic stock) into a single nation.

The staunchest advocate of the anti-Normanist views in the post-WWII period was Boris Rybakov, who argued that the cultural level of the Varangians could not have warranted an invitation from the culturally advanced Slavs. This conclusion leads Slavicists to deny the Primary Chronicle, which writes that the Varangian Rus' were invited by the native Slavs. Rybakov assumed, that Nestor, putative author of the Chronicle, was biased against the pro-Greek party of Vladimir Monomakh and supported the pro-Scandinavian party of the ruling prince Svyatopolk. He cites Nestor as a pro-Scandinavian manipulator and compares his account of Rurik's invitation with numerous similar stories found in folklore around the world.

There have been quite a few alternative, non-Normanist origins for the word Rus, although none was endorsed in the Western academic mainstream:

According to F. Donald Logan, "In 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs." The Scandinavians were assimilated and, unlike their brethren in England and in Normandy, they left little cultural heritage in Eastern Europe. This near absence of cultural traces (aside from several names, and perhaps the veche-system of Novgorod, comparable to thing in Scandinavia), is remarkable, and the Slavicists therefore call the Vikings "cultural chameleons", who came, ruled and then disappeared, leaving little cultural trace in Eastern Europe.

Beyond the Normanist/anti-Normanist debate

Scholars such as Omeljan Pritsak and Horace G. Lunt offer explanations that go beyond simplistic attempts to attribute 'ethnicity' on prima facie interpretation of literary, philological, and archaeological evidence. They view the Rus' as disparate, and often mutually antagonistic, clans of charismatic warriors and traders who formed wide-ranging networks across the North and Baltic Seas. They were a "multi-ethnic, multilingual and non-territorial community of sea nomads and trading settlements" that contained numerous Norsemen—but equally Slavs, Balts, and Finns.

Whilst all their names appear to have been originally Scandinavian, this might reflect the sacral position held by the island of Uppsala. Evidence provided by the Primary Chronicle, written some three centuries later, cannot be taken as an accurate ethnographic account; as tales of 'migration' from distant lands were common literary topoi used by rulers to legitimise their contemporary rule whilst at the same time differentiating themselves from their "Baltic" and "Slavic" subject tribes. Tolochko argues "the story of the royal clan's journey is a device with its own function within the narrative of the chronicle. ... Yet if we take it for what it actually is, if we accept that it is not a documentary ethnographic description of the 10th century, but a medieval origo gentis masterfully constructed by a Christian cleric of the early 12th century, then we have to reconsider the established scholarly narrative of the earliest phase of East European history, which owes so much to the Primary Chronicle.

Numerous artefacts of Scandinavian affinity have been found in northern Russia. However, exchange between the north and southern shores of the Baltic had occurred since the Iron Age (albeit limited to immediately coastal areas). Northern Russia and adjacent Finnic lands had become a profitable meeting ground for peoples of diverse origins, especially for the trade of furs, and attracted by the presence of oriental silver from the mid-8th century AD. There is an undeniable presence of goods and people of Scandinavian origin; however, the predominant people remained the local (Baltic and Finnic) hunter-gatherers.

The increasing volume of trade and internal competition necessitated higher forms of organization. The Rus' appeared to emulate aspects of Khazar political organization—hence the appearance of a Rus' chaganus in the Carolingian court in 839 (Royal Frankish Annals). Legitimization was sought by way of adopting a Christian and linguistically Slavic high culture that became the Kieven Rus'. The burials ('chamber' or 'retainer' graves) attributed to the Kievan Rus' have only a superficial resemblance to supposed Scandinavian prototypes—only the grave construction was similar, whilst the range of accompanying artefacts, the inclusion of weapons, horses and slave girls have no parallels in Scandinavia. Moreover, there is doubt if the emerging Kievan Rus' were the same clan as the "Rus" who visited the Carolingians in 839 or who attacked Constantinople in 860 AD.

The rise of Kiev itself is mysterious. Devoid of any silver dirrham finds in the 8th century AD, it was situated west of the profitable fur and silver trade networks that spanned from the Baltic to the Muslim lands, via the Volga-Kama basins. At the prime hill in Kiev, fortifications and other symbols of consolidation and power appear from the 9th century, thus preceding the literary appearance of 'Rus' in the middle Dnieper region. By the 10th century, the lowlands around Kiev had extensive 'Slavic' styled settlements, and there is evidence of growing trade with the Byzantine lands. This might have attracted Rus' movements, and a shift in power, from the north to Kiev. Thus, Kiev does not appear to have evolved from the infrastructure of the Scandinavian trade networks, but rather it forcibly took over them; as evidenced by the destruction of numerous earlier trade settlements in the north, including the famous Staraja Ladoga.