Monday, February 17th, 2014
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Rus
▪ people
also spelled Ros
ancient people who gave their name to the land of Russia. Their origin and identity are much in dispute. Traditional Western scholars believe them to be Scandinavian Vikings (Viking), an offshoot of the Varangians, who moved southward from the Baltic coast and founded the first consolidated state among the eastern Slavs, centring on Kiev. Russian scholars, along with some Westerners, consider the Rus to be a southeastern Slavic tribe that founded a tribal league; the Kievan state, they affirm, was the creation of Slavs and was attacked and held only briefly by Varangians.
The Viking, or “Normanist,” theory was initiated in the 18th century by such German historian-philologists as Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694–1738) and August Ludwig von Schlözer (1735–1809); Bayer was an early member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. These two relied on The Russian Primary Chronicle (Russian Primary Chronicle, The), an account written in the 12th century and covering the period 852 to 1110; it says that the Rus, a Norman people, were first asked to come to Novgorod by the local population to put an end to their feuds; the Rus later extended their rule to Kiev, making it their keystone of defense. This theory was advanced in the 19th century by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen (1842–1927) and the German-Russian historian-philologist Ernst Eduard Kunik (1814–99). It was noted that early Arabian writers had represented the seat of Rus as an island covered with woods and marshes; excavations of 9th- and 10th-century tumuli confirmed the presence of Norse warriors in such a region around Lake Ilmen, near the ancient town of Novgorod, and Lake Ladoga, where the Neva River has its origin. These Baltic regions seemed to indicate the origin of the Rus.
Russian scholars have rejected The Russian Primary Chronicle as unreliable and have insisted that the eastern Slavs, before the entry of the Varangians, had evolved a sophisticated feudal state comparable to the Carolingian empire in the West. The Rus were simply a southern Slavic tribe living on the Ros River.
Russian Primary Chronicle, The
▪ Russian literature
also called Chronicle of Nestor or Kiev Chronicle , Russian Povest vremennykh let (“Tale of Bygone Years”)
medieval Kievan Rus historical work that gives a detailed account of the early history of the eastern Slavs to the second decade of the 12th century. The chronicle, compiled in Kiev about 1113, was based on materials taken from Byzantine chronicles, west and south Slavonic literary sources, official documents, and oral sagas; the earliest extant manuscript of it is dated 1377. While the authorship was traditionally ascribed to the monk Nestor, modern scholarship considers the chronicle a composite work
Khazar
▪ people
member of a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes that in the late 6th century AD established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia. Although the origin of the term Khazar and the early history of the Khazar people are obscure, it is fairly certain that the Khazars were originally located in the northern Caucasus region and were part of the western Turkic empire (in Turkistan). The Khazars were in contact with the Persians in the mid-6th century AD, and they aided the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (reigned 610–641) in his campaign against the Persians.
By the beginning of the 7th century, the Khazars had become independent of the Turkic empire to the east. But by the middle of that century, the expanding empire of the Arabs had penetrated as far northward as the northern Caucasus, and from then on until the mid-8th century the Khazars engaged in a series of wars with the Arab empire. The Arabs initially forced the Khazars to abandon Derbent (661), but around 685 the Khazars counterattacked, penetrating southward of the Caucasus into present-day Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Khazars and Arabs fought each other directly in Armenia in the 720s, and, though victory passed repeatedly from one side to the other, Arab counterattacks eventually compelled the Khazars to permanently withdraw north of the Caucasus. The Khazars' initial victories were important, though, since they had the effect of permanently blocking Arab expansion northward into eastern Europe. Having been compelled to shift the centre of their empire northward, the Khazars after 737 established their capital at Itil (located near the mouth of the Volga River) and accepted the Caucasus Mountains as their southern boundary.
During the same period, however, they expanded westward. By the second half of the 8th century, their empire had reached the peak of its power—it extended along the northern shore of the Black Sea from the lower Volga and the Caspian Sea in the east to the Dnieper River in the west. The Khazars controlled and exacted tribute from the Alani and other northern Caucasian peoples (dwelling between the mountains and the Kuban River); from the Magyars (Hungarians) inhabiting the area around the Donets River; from the Goths; and from the Greek colonies in the Crimea. The Volga Bulgars and numerous Slavic tribes also recognized the Khazars as their overlords.
Although basically Turkic, the Khazar state bore little resemblance to the other Turkic empires of central Eurasia. It was headed by a secluded supreme ruler of semireligious character called a khagan—who wielded little real power—and by tribal chieftains, each known as a beg. The state's military organization also seems to have lacked the forcefulness of those of the greater Turkic-Mongol empires. The Khazars seem to have been more inclined to a sedentary way of life, building towns and fortresses, tilling the soil, and planting gardens and vineyards. Trade and the collection of tribute were major sources of income. But the most striking characteristic of the Khazars was the apparent adoption of Judaism by the khagan and the greater part of the ruling class in about 740. The circumstances of the conversion remain obscure, the depth of their adoption of Judaism difficult to assess; but the fact itself is undisputed and unparalleled in central Eurasian history. A few scholars have even asserted that the Judaized Khazars were the remote ancestors of many eastern European and Russian Jews. Whatever the case may be, religious tolerance was practiced in the Khazar empire, and paganism continued to flourish among the population.
The prominence and influence of the Khazar state was reflected in its close relations with the Byzantine emperors: Justinian II (704) and Constantine V (732) each had a Khazar wife. The main source of revenue for the empire stemmed from commerce and particularly from Khazar control of the east-west trade route that linked the Far East with Byzantium and the north-south route linking the Arab empire with northern Slavic lands. Income that was derived from duties on goods passing through Khazar territory, in addition to tribute paid by subordinate tribes, maintained the wealth and the strength of the empire throughout the 9th century. But by the 10th century the empire, faced with the growing might of the Pechenegs to their north and west and of the Russians around Kiev, suffered a decline. When Svyatoslav, the ruler of Kiev, launched a campaign against the Khazars (965), Khazar power was crushed. Although the Khazars continued to be mentioned in historical documents as late as the 12th century, by 1030 their political role in the lands north of the Black Sea had greatly diminished. Despite the relatively high level of Khazar civilization and the wealth of data about the Khazars that is preserved in Byzantine and Arab sources, not a single line of the Khazar language has survived.
Eastern Europe
The eastern Viking expansion was probably a less violent process than that on the Atlantic coasts. Although there was, no doubt, plenty of sporadic raiding in the Baltic and although “to go on the east-Viking” was an expression meaning to indulge in such activity, no Viking kingdom was founded with the sword in that area.