Peoples of Eastern Europe: composition, culture, history, languages. Early ethnic history of the peoples of Eastern Europe

Settlement and ethno-linguistic affiliation. The territories occupied by non-Slavic peoples in the European part of Russia are mainly located in the eastern and northwestern parts of the region. With rare exceptions, at present they do not form mono-ethnic areas anywhere, living in strips. At the same time, the majority of the rural population in these areas is non-Slavic, and Russians predominate among urban residents.

The non-Slavic population of the European part of Russia, excluding later settlers, according to the linguistic classification, belongs to two language families: Altaic and Ural-Yukaghir.

Representatives of the Altai family are concentrated in the regions of the Middle and Lower Volga regions, as well as the Urals. The only people belonging to the Mongolian branch of this family are the Kalmyks, who first appeared on the territory of the Lower Volga region in the 1930s. 17th century from Dzungaria - one of the regions located in the northwest Central Asia. The Turkic branch of the Altaic language family includes Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Kryashens and Nagaybaks. Tatars, Kryashens and Nagaybaks speak various dialects of the Tatar language. The Tatar and Bashkir languages ​​belong to the Kypchak subgroup Turkic languages, and Chuvash - to the Bulgar.

The peoples of the Ural-Yukaghir language family live both in the Middle Volga and Ural regions, and in the north-west of the European part of the country. The extreme northeast of Eastern Europe is occupied by the Nenets, a people whose ethnic territory also includes the northern regions of Siberia from the Urals to the Taimyr Peninsula. The Nenets speak the Nenets language of the Samoyedic group of the Ural-Yukaghir language family.

The rest of the peoples of the Ural-Yukaghir language family living in the territory of the European part of Russia belong to the Finnish group of the Finno-Ugric branch. In the Urals and the Kama region live ethnic groups that speak the languages ​​​​of the Permian (Finno-Permian) subgroup. The Komi-Zyryan language is native to two peoples - the Komi-Zyryans and the Komi-Izhems. Most Komi-Permyaks use the Komi-Permyak language. Only a small ethnographic group of them - the Komi-Yazvinians, living separately in the north-east of the Perm Territory, formed an independent language. The southernmost people of the Permian (Finno-Permian) subgroup are the Udmurts, who live in the interfluve of the river. Vyatka and Kama. Besermen settled in the north-west of Udmurtia, speaking one of the dialects of the Udmurt language.

Two peoples of the Volga-Finnish subgroup of the Finnish group live in the Middle Volga region. These include the Mari, most of whom speak the meadow (meadow-eastern) Mari language, and the western group, which mainly occupies the right bank of the Volga, speaks the Mountain Mari language. The Mordovians also formed two independent languages: Moksha and Erzya.

In the north-west of the European part of Russia, there are ethnic groups that speak the Baltic-Finnish languages ​​​​of the Finnish group: Finns-Ingrian, Vod, Izhora, Setu, Veps, Karelians. The Karelian language is represented by three significantly different dialects - Karelian proper, Livvik and Ludikov, which are more correctly considered independent languages. Setu speak one of the dialects of the Estonian language. A special position within the Baltic-Finnish subgroup is occupied by the Sami language, which contains about a third of the original, Dao-Finnish vocabulary.

Among other non-Slavic ethnic groups that began to actively settle in the European part of Russia from the 18th century, the most significant in terms of numbers are Germans, Jews and gypsies. For Germans and Jews, the native languages ​​of the Germanic group of the Indo-European language family are German and Yiddish, although the majority uses Russian in everyday life. The gypsy language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch Indo-European languages.

Among the Eastern European gypsies, Russian-Roman (Northern Russian), Lovar (Carpatho-Gypsy) and Kotlyar (Kelderar) dialects of this language are common.

According to the All-Russian population census of 2010, the Tatars are the largest ethnic group in Russia after the Russians. Of the total number of 5.3 million people. 2 million people live in the Republic of Tatarstan, about 1 million people live in the Republic of Bashkortostan. and more than 1.2 million people. in other regions and republics of the Volga and Ural regions. The second largest Turkic people are the Bashkirs - 1.6 million people. They make up a significant part of the population of Bashkortostan - about 1.2 million people. The number of Chuvash people exceeds 1.4 million people. More than half of them - over 0.8 million people. concentrated within the Chuvash Republic. 30 thousand kryashns out of a total number of 35 thousand people. are residents of the Republic of Tatarstan. Of the 8.1 thousand Nagaybaks, about 7.7 thousand people. live in Chelyabinsk region. The vast majority of Kalmyks - 163 thousand out of 183 thousand people. - are residents of the Republic of Kalmykia.

The Komi-Zyryans are predominantly settled in the Komi Republic. More than 202 thousand Komi-Zyryans were recorded here out of a total number of 228 thousand people. The majority of Komi-Izhma residents also live here - 13 thousand out of 16 thousand people. The number of Komi-Permyaks is 94 thousand people, of which 81 thousand people. - the population of the Perm region. Of the 552 thousand Udmurts, 411 thousand people. - residents of the republic of the same name. Significant groups of the Udmurt population are also settled in neighboring regions. The total number of Mari reaches 548 thousand people, of which more than half - 291 thousand people. concentrated within the Republic of Mari El. Mordva is the largest Finnish-speaking people of the Russian Federation, accounting for 744 thousand people. Less than half of all Mordovians live in the Republic of Mordovia - 333 thousand people.

Of the Baltic-Finnish ethnic groups, the Karelians are the largest in number - about 61 thousand people. Most of them - about 46 thousand people. - lives in the Republic of Karelia. Of the 20.3 thousand Ingrian Finns, 8.6 thousand people are concentrated in Karelia, in Leningrad region and St. Petersburg - 6.9 thousand people. The Vepsian population is more than 5.9 thousand people, of which over 3.4 thousand are residents of Karelia, about 1.4 thousand people. lives in the Leningrad region. The Setos mostly live in the Pskov region (123 out of 214 people). Of the 266 Izhorians in the Leningrad region and St. Petersburg, 206 people were recorded. Total 64 people. called themselves Vodya, 59 of them are residents of the Leningrad region and St. Petersburg. Saami - indigenous people Kola Peninsula. IN Murmansk region 1.6 thousand Saami live out of a total population of 1.8 thousand people.

The German population of the Russian Federation is 394 thousand people, but in the European part of the country its number is less than in Siberia. The number of Jews in Russia is 157 thousand people. About half of the Jewish population are residents of the two largest cities - Moscow (53 thousand people) and St. Petersburg (24 thousand people). The Roma population of Russia is 205 thousand people, while a third of them (about 69 thousand people) live in four southern regions of the country: Stavropol, Krasnodar region, Rostov and Volgograd regions.

Anthropologically, the non-Slavic peoples of the European part of Russia belong to both the Caucasoid and Mongoloid large races. Some groups of ethnic groups of the Finnish group of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Ural-Yukagir language family, living mainly in the eastern and northern regions of the European part of Russia, have signs of a Mongoloid race, which distinguishes them as special transitional subarctic (according to V.V. Bunak) and Uralic races . The Saami belong to the subarctic race. Among the Finnish-speaking ethnic groups of the Urals and the Volga region, groups belonging to the Subural type of the Ural race are common (Komi-Zyryans, Komi-Izhemtsy, Komi-Permyaks, Udmurts, Mari, Mordva-Moksha).

Mordva-Erzya, northern and western groups of Komi-Zyryans, Baltic-Finnish ethnic groups (Ingrian Finns, Vods, Izhors, Karelians and Vepsians) are more Caucasoid, having only a slight Mongoloid admixture and belong to the White Sea-Baltic minor race, within which East Baltic and Belomorsky types. Among them, the East Baltic type is the most common, while the White Sea type is characteristic of the northern groups of Karelians, Komi-Zyryans, and Komi-Izhemtsy.

The complexity of the formation of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the European part of the country was reflected in their anthropological appearance. Most of the Chuvash, Tatars, Kryashens, Nagaibaks, and the northwestern groups of Bashkirs belong to the Subural type of the Ural race. The southeastern groups of Bashkirs are dominated by features of the South Siberian race. The Astrakhan Tatars living in the Lower Volga region belong to the same race. Typical Mongoloids of the Central Asian race are the Kalmyks.

Gypsies belong to the North Indian type of the Indo-Pamirian minor race of a large Caucasoid family. Most of the Jews belong to the Armenoid (pre-Naziatian) race. But as a result of mixing with other Caucasians, among them there are representatives various options large Caucasian race.

Among the non-Slavic peoples of the European part of Russia there are adherents of different faiths. The Kalmyks are the only ethnic group whose traditional religion is Buddhism in the form of Lamaism. The Bashkirs, as well as most of the Tatars, adhere to the Sunni direction of Islam. The national religion of the Jews is Judaism. Christianity is represented by all three major denominations. Ingrian Finns are Lutherans. Among the Germans there are both Lutherans and Catholics. Most of the ethnic communities in the region are considered Orthodox. Among them stand out the Old Believers, which include part of the Karelians, Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks. Part of the Mari retains pagan beliefs. Elements of paganism can be traced to varying degrees in most of the ethnic groups professing Orthodoxy, but they are most pronounced among the Saami, Udmurts and Chuvash.

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Theme "SLAVIC PEOPLES OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE"

1. Introduction 3 1.1 History of the Slavs 4-5 1.2. Ethnogenesis of the Slavs 5-6 2. Languages ​​6 2.1. Craft 6-7 3. Religion 8 4. Epic of Mark Kralevich 9 5. Who was involved in the treatment of diseases? 10

Introduction

SLAVES - the largest group of European peoples, united by a common origin and linguistic proximity in the system of Indo-European languages. Slavs, like all modern peoples, arose as a result of complex ethnic processes and are a mixture of previous heterogeneous ethnic groups. The history of the Slavs is inextricably linked with the history of the emergence and settlement of the Indo-European tribes. Four thousand years ago, a single Indo-European community begins to disintegrate. The formation of the Slavic tribes took place in the process of separating them from among the numerous tribes of a large Indo-European family. In Central and Eastern Europe, a language group is separated, which, as shown by genetic data, included the ancestors of the Germans, Balts and Slavs. They occupied a vast territory: from the Vistula to the Dnieper, individual tribes reached the Volga, crowding out the Finno-Ugric peoples. In the 2nd millennium BC. The Germano-Balto-Slavic language group also experienced fragmentation processes: the Germanic tribes went to the West, beyond the Elbe, while the Balts and Slavs remained in Eastern Europe. The words "Slavs" in those ancient times did not have. There were people, but differently named. One of the names - Wends, comes from the Celtic vindos, which means "white." This word has survived to this day in the Estonian language. Ptolemy and Jordan believe that Wends is the oldest collective name of all the Slavs who lived at that time between the Elbe and the Don. Its representatives divided into three subgroups: southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians), eastern (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) and western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians).The total number of Slavs in the world is about 300 million people, including Bulgarians 8.5 million, Serbs about 9 million, Croats 5.7 million, Slovenes 2.3 million, Macedonians about 2 million, Montenegrins less than 1 million, Bosniaks about 2 million ., 146 million Russians (120 million of them in the Russian Federation), 46 million Ukrainians, 10.5 million Belarusians, 44.5 million Poles, 11 million Czechs, less than 6 million Slovaks, about 60 thousand Lusatians Slavs make up the bulk of the population of the Russian Federation, the Republics of Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, the State Community of Serbia and Montenegro, they also live in the Baltic republics, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Austria, Italy, in the countries of America and in Australia. Most of the Slavs are Christians The data of archeology and linguistics connect the ancient Slavs with a vast area of ​​Central and Eastern Europe, bounded in the west by the Elbe and Oder, in the north by the Baltic Sea, in the east by the Volga, in the south by the Adriatic.

History of the Slavs

The Slavs were engaged in arable farming, cattle breeding, various crafts, lived neighboring communities. Numerous wars and territorial movements contributed to the collapse of the 6-7 centuries. family ties. In the 6th–8th centuries many of the Slavic tribes united in tribal unions and created the first state formations: in the 7th century. the First Bulgarian kingdom and the state of Samo, which included the lands of the Slovaks, arose in the 8th century. - the Serbian state of Raska, in the 9th century. - The Great Moravian state, which absorbed the lands of the Czechs, as well as the first state of the Eastern Slavs - Kievan Rus, the first independent Croatian principality and state of the Montenegrins of Duklja. Then - in the 9th-10th centuries. - Christianity began to spread among the Slavs, quickly becoming the dominant religion.

From the second half of the 19th century the desire of many Slavic peoples to create their own, independent states became obvious. Socio-political organizations began to operate on the Slavic lands, contributing to the further political awakening of the Slavic peoples who did not have their own statehood (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Poles, Lusatians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Belarusians). Unlike the Russians, whose statehood was not lost even during the Horde yoke and had a history of nine centuries, as well as the Bulgarians and Montenegrins, who gained independence after Russia's victory in the war with Turkey in 1877–1878, most of the Slavic peoples were still fighting for independence.

National oppression and hard economic situation Slavic peoples in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. caused several waves of their emigration to more developed European countries in the USA and Canada, to a lesser extent - France, Germany. The total number of Slavic peoples in the world at the beginning of the 20th century. was about 150 million people (Russians - 65 million, Ukrainians - 31 million, Belarusians 7 million; Poles 19 million, Czechs 7 million, Slovaks 2.5 million; Serbs and Croats 9 million, Bulgarians 5 .5 million, Slovenes 1.5 million) At that time, the bulk of the Slavs lived in Russia (107.5 million people), Austria-Hungary (25 million people), Germany (4 million people) , countries of America (3 million people).

After the First World War of 1914–1918, international acts fixed the new borders of Bulgaria, the emergence of the multinational Slavic states of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia (where, however, some Slavic peoples dominated others), and the restoration of national statehood among the Poles. In the early 1920s, it was announced that own states- socialist republics - Ukrainians and Belarusians who entered the USSR; however, the trend towards Russification cultural life these East Slavic peoples - which became apparent during the period of existence Russian Empire- was preserved.

At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. the question of the common destinies of all the Eastern Slavs again became topical: Ukrainians, Belarusians, Great Russians, as well as the southern Slavs. In connection with the activation Slavic movement in Russia and abroad in 1996-1999 several agreements were signed, which are a step towards education union state Russia and Belarus. In June 2001, a congress of the Slavic peoples of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia was held in Moscow; in September 2002, the Slavic Party of Russia was founded in Moscow. In 2003, the State Community of Serbia and Montenegro was formed, which declared itself the legal successor of Yugoslavia. Ideas of Slavic unity regain their relevance

After the February Revolution of 1917, attempts were made to create Ukrainian and Belarusian statehood. In 1922, Ukraine and Belarus, together with other Soviet republics, were the founders of the USSR (in 1991 they declared themselves sovereign states). The totalitarian regimes established in the Slavic countries of Europe in the second half of the 1940s with the dominance of the administrative-command system had a deforming effect on ethnic processes(violation of the rights of ethnic minorities in Bulgaria, ignoring by the leadership of Czechoslovakia the autonomous status of Slovakia, aggravation of interethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia, etc.). This was one of the most important reasons for the nationwide crisis in the Slavic countries of Europe, which led here, starting from 1989-1990, to significant changes in the socio-economic and ethno-political situation. Modern processes of democratization of the socio-economic, political and spiritual life of the Slavic peoples create qualitatively new opportunities for expanding interethnic contacts and cultural cooperation, which have strong traditions. The territory of modern Slavic states corresponds more or less Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Northern Asia and consists of the following countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Transnistria (unrecognized state), Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Ethnogenesis of the Slavs

This is the process of formation of the ancient Slavic ethnic community, which led to the separation of the Slavs from the conglomerate of Indo-European tribes. At present, there is no generally accepted version of the formation of the Slavic ethnos.

One of the major Slavic historians, the Czech scientist P.I. Shafarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe, next to their kindred tribes of the Celts, Germans, Balts and Thracians. He believes that the Slavs already in ancient times occupied the vast expanses of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the 4th century. BC. under the onslaught of the Celts moved beyond the Carpathians.

However, even at this time they occupy very vast territories - in the west - from the mouth of the Vistula to the Neman, in the north - from Novgorod to the sources of the Volga and Dnieper, in the east - to the Don. Further, she, in his opinion, went through the lower Dnieper and Dniester along the Carpathians to the Vistula and along the watershed of the Oder and Vistula to the Baltic Sea.

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries. acad. A.A. Shakhmatov developed the idea of ​​two Slavic ancestral homelands: the area within which the Proto-Slavic language developed (the first ancestral home), and the area that the Proto-Slavic tribes occupied on the eve of settling in Central and Eastern Europe (the second ancestral home). He proceeds from the fact that initially the Balto-Slavic community stood out from the Indo-European group, which was autochthonous on the territory of the Baltic states. After the collapse of this community, the Slavs occupied the territory between the lower reaches of the Neman and the Western Dvina (the first ancestral home). It was here that, in his opinion, the Proto-Slavic language developed, which later formed the basis of all Slavic languages. In connection with the great migration of peoples, the Germans at the end of the 2nd century AD. move south and release the river basin. Vistula, where the Slavs come (the second ancestral home). Here the Slavs are divided into two branches: western and eastern. The western branch moves into the area of ​​the river. Elbe and becomes the basis for modern West Slavic peoples; the southern branch after the collapse of the Hun empire (second half of the 5th century AD) was divided into two groups: one of them settled the Balkans and the Danube (the basis of the modern South Slavic peoples), the other - the Dnieper and the Dniester (the basis of the modern East Slavic peoples).

The most popular hypothesis among linguists about the ancestral home of the Slavs is the Vistula-Dnieper. According to such scientists as M. Vasmer (Germany), F. P. Filin, S. B. Bernstein (Russia), V. Georgiev (Bulgaria), L. Niederle (Czech Republic), K. Moshinsky (Poland) and others ., the ancestral home of the Slavs was located between the middle reaches of the Dnieper in the east and the upper reaches of the Western Bug and Vistula in the west, as well as from the upper reaches of the Dniester and the Southern Bug in the south to Pripyat in the north. Thus, the ancestral home of the Slavs is defined by them as modern northwestern Ukraine, southern Belarus and southeastern Poland. However, in the studies of individual scientists there are certain variations. S. B. Bernshtein supports the hypothesis of A. A. Shakhmatov about the initial division of the Slavs into two groups: Western and Eastern; from the latter, the eastern and southern groups at one time stood out. This explains the great proximity of the East Slavic and South Slavic languages ​​and a certain isolation, in particular phonetic, West Slavic.

The problem of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs was repeatedly addressed by B.A. Rybakov. His concept is also connected with the Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis and is based on the unity of the territories inhabited by the Slavic ethnic group for two millennia: from the Oder in the west to the left bank of the Dnieper in the east.

According to the degree of their proximity to each other, Slavic languages ​​are usually divided into 3 groups: East Slavic, South Slavic and West Slavic. The distribution of Slavic languages ​​within each group has its own characteristics. Each Slavic language includes in its composition the literary language with all its internal varieties and its own territorial dialects. Dialect fragmentation and stylistic structure within each Slavic language is not the same.

Branches of Slavic languages: East Slavic branch: Belarusian, Old Russian, Old Novgorod dialect, Western Russian, Russian Ukrainian, Rusyn

The ancient Slavs also developed handicraft production. They made household items from clay, wood, bone, and horn. They were familiar with textile production. The processing of metal, from which agricultural implements and weapons were made, was distinguished by a high level. The Slavs also knew how to make jewelry from non-ferrous metals. Those tribes that lived on the seashore and in general on waterways, knew how to build one-deck boats that served for long-distance travel. The Slavs traded with non-Slavic peoples: they sold slave prisoners of war, bought weapons, jewelry, and precious metals. coin was used for payment foreign origin, but a small number of coins found during excavations indicates that the money was used irregularly. The Slavs lived in huts built of wood and covered with straw, reeds or wood. The dwelling had clay floors and stone stoves.
The Slavs of the VI century had all the typical advantages and disadvantages of the barbarians. Byzantine writers recognized the courage of the Slavs, their love of freedom, honesty, “democratic instinct”, hospitality, pointed to the existence of patriarchal slavery among them. But in the war, the Slavs were cruel. Personal courage, combined with ferocity, replaced for the Slavs what they lacked in military art and in weapons when confronted with the Eastern Roman Empire.

In the field of family life of the Eastern Slavs, the period of formation and development of the Old Russian people was characterized by the withering away of the clan and the strengthening of the monogamous family. Many tribal customs have become a thing of the past. Russian Truth limited blood feuds to only the closest relatives (parents, children, brothers, nephews), and the desire to replace it with monetary fines is already noticeable. Comes to the fore big family, which includes parents and "their adult children with offspring. The property of a peasant family was apparently at the disposal of the father, after whose death it was divided between the sons. Daughters did not have the right to inherit, but when they married, they brought their future husband into the family dowry.At the same time, a feudal clan was formed and strengthened, the economic basis of which was the ownership of land and serfs.The surviving ancient buildings and materials from archaeological excavations speak of the high development of wooden and stone architecture.Buildings built of wood were distinguished by a wealth of architectural forms, in particular the complexity of the silhouettes of houses, crowned with many intricate roofs and domes; stone buildings, mainly churches * were erected at first according to Byzantine models of brick, but they also had a number of original ancient Russian features. The picture of Slavic culture must be supplemented with more data on their social organization. Still from the Indo-European period unity, the Slavs endured the developed family relationships, single marriage and types of consanguinity, according to the father, kinship. This is evidenced by the pra-Aryan words: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, stern, father-in-law, brother-in-law, yatrov (brother-in-law's wife), daughter-in-law. After the era life together, they developed terms to denote kinship by mother and wife (uy, maternal uncle, etc.). The patriarchal Proto-Slavic family, populating the whole, constituted a community united by ties of consanguinity, in other words, a clan. The clan community had a common name from its ancestor (ending in ichi, ovichi, vtsy), jointly owned property and was ruled by its elder (headman, lord, ruler), who maintained peace and harmony in the community, sorted out misunderstandings in its environment and disposed of the work of its members. Initially, the elder was the natural head of the family - father, grandfather, sometimes great-grandfather, and after death his eldest or most capable (by choice) son. The clan, growing further, broke up into several clans, which, conscious of their kinship, formed the next stage of social organization - brotherhood (Montenegrins still retain traces of this organization in the form of brotherhoods celebrating a common religious holiday one saint who replaced the old ancestor - the forefather). The brotherhood, expanding in the future, or uniting with other brotherhoods, formed a tribe, headed by zhupans, governors, princes, who had the significance of tribal elders and leaders in the war.

Religion: The religion of the ancient Slavs is a combination of religious beliefs and attitudes that have developed in the pre-Christian Slavic culture, as well as ways of organizing spiritual experience and behavior. Historically, the religion of the Slavs goes back to religion ancient Indo-Europeans. It acquires relative integrity and originality in the era of Slavic unity, which lasted until the second half of the 1st millennium AD. Gradual settlement led to the emergence of differences in religious ideas and cults; in addition, there were some forms religious life borrowed by the Slavs from neighboring peoples. Information about the religion of the ancient Slavs was preserved mainly in the oral tradition. The only written source, the Book of Veles, raises serious doubts among experts about its authenticity. Slavic ideas about the sacred were associated with ideas about superhuman strength, life-giving and filling the being with the ability to grow. There was a developed system of concepts denoting supernatural forces. The highest category was the gods. The concept of "God" means - giving a share, inheritance, wealth. The gods, just as in the ancient religion, were divided into heavenly, underground and earthly. Perun, the patron god of princely power, squads and military craft, belonged to the heavenly gods. He had an anthropomorphic appearance of a warrior, sometimes on horseback. Stribog is the god of atmospheric phenomena, and above all of the wind. Dazh-god or Dazhdbog is a giving god who correlated with the sun. Hora (solar - compare Horus or Horus among the ancient Egyptians) and Simargl (the mythological image of a huge eagle, correlated with the upper world). The underground gods include, first of all, the Earth, the “Mother of the Cheese Earth”, the “Breadmaker”, which among the Slavs does not have an erotic coloring and is subsequently identified with Mokosh. Mokosh is a female deity who is endowed only positive qualities. However, the Slavs also had ideas about evil female deities who had to make bloody human sacrifices. Beley was considered a male underground god, who was also called the cattle god and believed that he would give an abundant offspring, and therefore wealth. Another property of Beles was considered clairvoyance. The earthly gods are the gods of the world inhabited by people. Their responsibility extends to cultural activities, social and family relations, life and living environment. First of all, this is Svarog - the god of fire, put at the service of man. The continuity of generations, originating from common ancestors, is personified in the image of the Family, next to which women in labor are mentioned - the maidens of fate, who determine the share, the fate of the newborn. There were ideas about the gods associated with the professional activities of people. Along with ideas about higher gods, there were beliefs in gods lower level, spirits, werewolves. A significant detachment was called demons, who were credited with malice and destructive power. The spirits of places dangerous for visiting were attributed to the demons: the wilderness (goblin), swamps (squirrel, swamp) pools (water). Noon people lived in the field. Outwardly, demons were represented in human, bestial or mixed form. The most dangerous was a group of half-demons of human origin - these are people who have not escaped their life path, - ghouls, ghouls, witches, mermaids. They harm the human race and must be feared. There was also the personification of diseases: in passing, fever, mara, kikimora, etc. The Slavs had faith in the immortality of the soul, in its posthumous existence. During the burial, it was necessary to observe all the subtleties of the rite, and only in this case the soul finds peace and will subsequently help the descendants. The Slavs resorted to different form burials, often to cremation. Special place in the understanding of the world, the Slavs were occupied with water. They believed that water is an element that connects the living and other worlds.

The epic of Mark Kralevich:

Marko Kralevich (1335 - May 17, 1395) - the last ruler of the Kingdom of Prilep in Western Macedonia (1371-1395), self-proclaimed: samodrzhts vysѣm Srblyom (Russian: autocrat of all Serbs), hero of the epic of the Serbian peoples, historical figure. In songs and legends, he acts as a fighter against the Turkish enslavers, a people's defender. The oldest records of songs about Marko Kralevich date back to the 16th century. The epic image of the kralevich Marko is strongly mythologized; the features of Svyatogor were transferred to it. In the Serbian epic, Marko-Korolevich plays a prominent role, everywhere being the defender of the Serbian people against the Ottomans, with whom he either fights or makes friends. Many Serbian epics or heroic (youthful) songs are dedicated to him.

The people gave their favorite a mythical character: they gave him a vila, gave him a voice better voice pitchfork, made him live 300 years and ride the horse Shartse, who sometimes speaks with the owner human voice and whom Marko-Kolevich loves more than his brother. The death of Marko-Korolevich is surrounded by mystery. According to some stories, Marko-Korolevich was killed by some Karavlash governor with a golden arrow in the mouth when the Turks fought with HYPERLINK "https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D0%9A%D0%B0 %D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%B8&action=edit&redlink=1" \o "Karavlakhs (page missing)" caravlakhs and Marko-Korolevich helped the Turks. Others say that Sharats somehow went too deep into the water, so that both - both the horse and the rider - drowned, and they still show this place near Negotin. According to third stories, in one battle so many people were killed that both people and horses were swimming in blood. Marko-Kolevich raised his hands to the sky and exclaimed: "God, what should I do." God had mercy and transferred him, along with his horse, to one cave, where Marko-Kolevich sleeps to this day. His sword is hidden under a large stone, but is gradually moving out of the rock: the horse, standing in front of the master, chews a little wheat from a large sack. When the whole sword comes out and the horse chews up all the wheat, then Marko-Kolevich will wake up and go to the defense of his people. Finally, in the collection of V. Karadzic there is a song about the death of Marko-Korolevich, which tells that he killed his Sharts, broke his sword and threw his buzdovan (battle club) so that they would not get to another, and he himself, having written his will, lay down under a tall tree and fell asleep. The abbots and the novice, who were walking by, did his will and buried him.

Marko-Korolevich appears as a hero-defender only in the epic and in the mouths of the people in Serbia; in the same places where, according to epics, he acted (in Old Serbia, in the vicinity of Prilep and the Kosovo field), a bad memory was preserved about him: there he is called Marko the rapist (Marko-zulumџiјa), Marko-rip-head (Marko -del-basha). According to Goethe, Marko-Kolevich. corresponds to Greek Hercules and Persian Rustem. We can say that Marko-Korolevich is the same folk hero as our Ilya Muromets.

Who was involved in the treatment of diseases?

In the treatment of diseases, healing was used, rituals were performed. This was done by healers, sorcerers, sorcerers, witches, trichs, sorcerers, magicians. They possessed knowledge and abilities that helped a person solve his physical illnesses and other problems.

The most forbidden by the Christian Church concept "Magician" is also one of the oldest names for a person with supernatural powers. Magi, sorcerers were people of a special rank, influencing the state and public life. Since the priests from ancient times were called sorcerers among the Slavs, and their activity was sorcery, then later this word became synonymous with magic and sorcery. The Magi knew many meteorological signs, the strength and action of various herbs, and skillfully used hypnosis. In some cases, the Slavs and the princes were perceived as sorcerers or were them, being both warriors and sorcerers. The Magi also possessed serious knowledge in alternative medicine. They successfully treated patients with medicines of plant and animal origin, were well versed in medicinal plants. Treated with minerals, metals, ashes and secret means; knew diet therapy and reflexology earlier and better than the Chinese; excellent knowledge of acupressure and various types of massage; chiropractic and manual therapy; mastered bone-cutting and the art of treating joints; were able to successfully treat wounds of various origins and injuries; mastered surgery, including energy; mastered obstetric and gynecological methods; knew how to apply physical and therapeutic means of treatment: cauterization, acupuncture, bloodletting, energy massage, compresses and applications, mud therapy, mineral water and aerosols, clay therapy, hydrotherapy, cold therapy, etc.; originally treated rheumatism, sciatica, sprained muscles and ligaments, teeth and toothaches, blood pressure, eye diseases, diseases of the heart and blood vessels; effectively treated, even today still incurable, complex mental illnesses and much more. And the training of a knowledgeable person began with the study of the foundations of the universe, having learned which it was possible to understand the essence of various therapeutic techniques.

One of the most important limitrophic zones on the planet - Eastern Europe, stretching a wide strip from the Baltic to the Aegean Sea - is a single whole in geographical, historical, geopolitical terms, with all the relative diversity of ethnic groups, languages ​​and religions in this space. This means that it is unthinkable and wrong to consider the Slavic and non-Slavic countries and peoples of Eastern Europe in isolation from each other. At the same time, for more than half a century in all universities of our Motherland Slavic studies have been studied and taught in separate departments and within separate courses, while the history of Greece, Albania, Romania, Hungary modestly huddles in general courses foreign (European) history. As a result, students who have passed through such a system of education do not develop a complete picture of Eastern Europe.

A different approach was pre-revolutionary Russia. Although both early and late Slavophiles did pay the main attention to foreign Slavs, they never forgot about their foreign-speaking neighbors either. We will not now dwell on the attention that in Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries was paid to the Christians of the East (Georgians, Armenians, Arabs, Assyrians, Copts, Ethiopians), but we will touch only on the peoples of Eastern Europe. Russian Slavophiles of various trends, as a rule, distinguished three categories among the Slavic peoples: Orthodox Slavs, Catholic Slavs (except Poles) and Poles. Likewise their attitude towards non-Slavic peoples differed.

Speaking of the Greeks, one should bear in mind, first of all, the chance missed by Russia in the first third of the 19th century. When the prominent Russian diplomat and patriot Ioannis Kapodistrias became the first president of independent Greece, Petersburg not only did not take care of the stability of his power, but imposed on Greece, instead of organic Orthodox laws, a parliamentary constitution in a Western way. Kapodistrias was soon killed, and Greece came under the influence of the Western powers. The Russian emperors did not abandon attempts to return her to the orbit of their influence, but even when Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna, a Russian patriot and pupil of the Slavophil General Kireev, became the Queen of the Hellenes, she found herself isolated in the political arena of Greece and could not seriously influence even her husband George I Glucksburg. By the end of the 19th century, against the backdrop of Greek distrust of Russia, anti-Greek sentiments grew among Russian thinkers and publicists. Only Konstantin Leontiev and Tertiy Filippov clearly gave preference to the Greeks over the Bulgarians and Serbs, but in general, Russian pan-Slavism acquired an increasingly pronounced anti-Greek orientation. It was more feared to give Constantinople to the Greeks than to leave it in the hands of the Turks. But even at that time, the voice of the largest Russian Slavic scholar Vladimir Lamansky, who created the doctrine of the unity of the Greek-Slavic "middle world" and the need for the closest cultural interaction between Russia and Greece, did not stop.

Hungary after 1848 and especially after 1867 had a well-deserved reputation as a cruel persecutor and oppressor of the Slavs and Romanians (in fairness, we note that after the defeat in the First World War, the position of the Hungarians themselves in Czechoslovakia and Romania will become incomparably worse - they will turn out to be the same powerless lower caste , deprived of elementary human rights, which are now Russians in Latvia and Estonia). The quite sensible position of Nikolai Danilevsky, according to which the Hungarians, along with the Romanians and Greeks, should “willingly or unwillingly” enter the Slavic federation, contributed to the fact that certain episodes of negotiations between Russian public figures and Hungarian politicians took place. Magyar stubbornness made itself felt, and yet certain shifts towards the recognition of national rights for the Slavs and Romanians of Transleitania took place. With the Hungarians, the Russians did not experience such problems as with the Austrian Poles.

Romania during the 19th century always remained in the field of view of the best Russian thinkers and statesmen, although now this has been thoroughly forgotten. Alexander I abandoned Moldavia and Wallachia just as recklessly as he abandoned Galicia and Bukovina, Serbia and Greece, but under Nicholas I the Danube principalities were under the control of Count Kiselev. Is it true, Crimean War turned Romania into the camp of principal enemies of Russia and the Greek-Slavic culture, and only Bessarabia (present-day Moldova) saved by Russia in 1812 retained its former identity and did not succumb to Romanization even in the terrible years from 1918 to 1940.

The 20th century changed a lot in the destinies and self-consciousness of the peoples of Eastern Europe. First of all, let's note the unique role of Romania - the only one of the two dozen Eastern European countries that in the past century gave birth to a large galaxy of scientists, intellectuals, and world-class writers. The legacy of Codreanu and Eliade entered the golden fund of all mankind. Since the unprecedented spiritual and cultural upsurge in 20th-century Romania came almost entirely from Orthodoxy, this could help build a bridge between Russia and Romania. Unfortunately, the issue of Moldova and its identity is so fundamental that concessions on it are impossible, and this makes rapprochement with the Romanians extremely problematic.

But if Orthodox Romanians for Russians remain “strangers among their own”, then before our eyes a unique opportunity opens up to see “ours among strangers” in Catholic Hungarians. The challenge to the modern world - the world of “tolerance”, abortion, gay parades and private central banks - that Hungary threw down would deserve praise even if there were serious contradictions between Russians and Hungarians. But there are no such contradictions. The territorial claim of Hungary to the cities and villages of Transcarpathia inhabited by the Magyars like Beregovo, which became part of the USSR in 1947, does not affect the interests of the Great Russians and Little Russians and may well be satisfied. The service that the Hungarian Jobbik party rendered to Russia quite recently, having achieved the exclusion of Tyagnibokov's Svoboda from the alliance of European right-wing parties, is so great that it would be nice to thank the Hungarians. In conclusion, let us refer to the Italian politician, the leader of Italian Eurasianism and a great friend of Russia, Claudio Mutti, who in 2012 devoted an entire article to proving the inevitability of the future of Hungary as a member of the Eurasian Union (perhaps along with the European Union) and as a Russian outpost in Eastern Europe. Perhaps Hungary can really share this role with Slovakia.

The people of Greece and Cyprus, pressed on both sides by the greedy European Union and the neo-Ottoman project of Erdogan, are turning towards Russia and the planned Eurasian Union before our eyes. The recent triumphal trip of Alexander Dugin and his interviews to Greek magazines - bright to that certificate. If we recall that the authoritative professor Dimitris Kitsikis rehabilitated Lamansky's concept of the Greek-Slavic "middle world" at a new level, then the prospect of Greece and Cyprus turning towards Russia becomes quite realistic.

Finally, the Russians should get rid of the stereotypes about Albania. Today, admiration for the European Union and the United States in this country (unlike Kosovo) is no more than in Serbia, Montenegro or Bulgaria, but the attitude towards Russians is even warmer. It affects half a century of the Stalinist regime, when all Albanians learned Russian, unlike the Yugoslavs; but the real absence of contradictions between our peoples also affects. Thus, Albania, especially after the restoration of justice in Kosovo, may well become an additional support for Russia in Eastern Europe.

A similar reassessment of the roles of "us" and "them" can, of course, be carried out in relation to the Slavs. Perhaps Russians do not always realize that Poles and Croats, Czechs and Serbs are no longer the same as we knew them in tsarist or Soviet times. But this is a topic for a separate discussion.

Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are peoples who are very close to each other in terms of language, culture, common historical development. Among the peoples of the USSR, they make up three-quarters of the total population.

According to official data from the 1979 census, 137,397 thousand Russians, 42,347 thousand Ukrainians, and 9,463 thousand Belarusians live in the USSR. The vast majority of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians live within their historically established ethnic territories in Eastern Europe. But in other national republics and regions, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are widely settled and often make up a significant part of the population. So, in the autonomous republics of the Volga region and the North Caucasus, the East Slavic population is about half, in the Baltic republics - up to 1 / 3 of the population, in Moldova - more than a quarter. The proportion of the East Slavic population is somewhat smaller in the Central Asian republics (1/6) and in the republics of Transcaucasia (one tenth). In the Kazakh SSR, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians make up more than half of the population. Among the population of Siberia, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are the absolute majority (90%).

Such a picture of the settlement of the East Slavic peoples took shape over a long period - throughout the 2nd millennium AD. e., and this resettlement proceeded simultaneously with the complex processes of ethnic formation of both the East Slavic peoples themselves and their neighboring peoples. Especially noticeable is the intensity of the settlement of the East Slavic population from the 16th century. and up to the present. This led and continues to lead to a great influence of the culture of the East Slavic peoples on the life and progress of all the peoples of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the culture of the East Slavic peoples themselves was enriched and developed in close interaction with the culture of other peoples of the USSR.

A little more than 2 million Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians live outside the USSR. Of the half a million of all Eastern Slavs in Europe, about half live in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania. In other European countries, these are relatively small groups (the largest in Yugoslavia, England, France). A significant number of Russians and Ukrainians settled in America (USA, Canada) - 970 thousand Russians, 1250 thousand Ukrainians, 40 thousand Belarusians. Sometimes groups of the Russian and Ukrainian population are concentrated compactly in rural areas, retaining to some extent the language, some features of life and culture. Most of the immigrants of East Slavic origin moved to America before the revolution, at the beginning of the 20th century. A significant flow of immigrants came from the Ukrainian lands of bourgeois Poland.

East Slavic languages ​​- Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian are included in the Slavic group of the Indo-European family of languages. Among other language groups of this family, the Letto-Lithuanian languages ​​(Lithuanian and Latvian) are close to Slavic. Researchers note the great proximity of all Slavic languages ​​to each other. Of the three branches of the Slavic group, the East Slavic and South Slavic languages ​​\u200b\u200bare most similar (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian). There is somewhat less linguistic commonality between the Eastern Slavs and the Western Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles). The linguistic proximity of the Slavs with a wide geographical distribution is a phenomenon that is difficult to explain. There is a particularly great similarity in vocabulary and grammar between the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages: it is practically possible to understand everyday speech without special training. There were even attempts to consider these three languages ​​as one, divided into 4 dialects (A. A. Shakhmatov singled out South Russian dialects as the fourth dialect). As you know, language is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a social one. Each of the East Slavic languages ​​serves the communication needs of the independent nations of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. Extensive literature (fiction, socio-political, scientific) and national art exist and develop in these languages. With the natural spread of the Russian language as a means of interethnic communication of the entire Soviet people, national languages ​​continue to play a decisive role in the intranational communication of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet republics.

The linguistic proximity of the East Slavic peoples led to the fact that, on the one hand, even at the end of the 19th century. it was difficult to draw a clear linguistic boundary between Russians and Belarusians, between Belarusians and Ukrainians. Border dialects combined features of neighboring languages. On the other hand, in areas with a mixed population (Donbass, Krivoy Rog, the Black Sea lands of Ukraine, Kuban), norms for combining the features of the Russian and Ukrainian languages ​​(in vocabulary, phonetics) arose in everyday, everyday language. The proximity of languages ​​also gives rise to organic bilingualism, when the use of two related languages ​​in a conversation does not in the least interfere with mutual understanding. The same applies to reading literature.

The modern development of culture and education, mass media (radio, television) is gradually nullifying the existence of a number of dialects, local dialects. The remaining differences come down mainly to phonetics. So, in Russian, the northern and southern dialects differed in the pronunciation of the letter "g". In literary Russian and North Russian dialects, "g" is pronounced firmly, in South Russian, as well as in Ukrainian, softly, with aspiration. The North Russian population "okay", clearly pronouncing "o" in unstressed syllables. In southern Russian dialects, as in literary Russian, "akayut". There are other differences, but they do not go beyond the norms of a single language.

The Ukrainian language is divided into three groups of dialects: northern, southeastern and southwestern. The literary language developed mainly on the basis of southeastern Ukrainian dialects. IN Belarusian language the differences between the northeastern and southwestern dialects are small.

Anthropologically, the population included in the East Slavic nations belongs to the large Caucasoid race. However, complex and lengthy processes of mixing of population groups of different origins on the plains of Eastern Europe, the gradual transformation and spread of their anthropological features- all this created a complex picture of the distribution of anthropological types. In the northern areas of Russian settlement, as well as among the neighboring Finnish-speaking population, the White Sea-Baltic anthropological type prevails. In addition to Caucasoid features (clear profiling of the face, strong development of the tertiary hairline, wavy hair), it is characterized by a strong development of the cheekbones. Pigmentation ranges from very light blondes to moderate types - gray eyes, blond hair. Here, in the North, an admixture of Laponoid features is also noticeable. Anthropologists consider them the heritage of the most ancient population of Northern Europe.

In a vast region of the central regions of Eastern Europe, among the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian populations, types of the Central European small race are common. They have a much higher degree of pigmentation than the northern group. The features of the individual types of this small race, determined by anthropologists, so far allow us to speak only of a very large mixture of the population of this zone. In the eastern regions, the degree of manifestation of the features of Mongoloidity is increasing. This is the legacy of the ancient contact zone of the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids of the Mesolithic era. The influence of later Mongoloid groups can be traced very weakly.

Among the steppe population of the southern regions of Ukraine and the Sea of ​​Azov, anthropologists noted the predominance of the Atlanto-Black Sea types of the southern small race of Caucasians. These types are also common among neighboring peoples - from the North-Western Caucasus to the Balkans and the Danube. In the steppe regions, features of Mongoloidity are also noticeably manifested, associated with the penetration of nomads (Pechenegs, Polovtsy, etc.) into the southern Russian steppes. Among the East Slavic population of Siberia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, the appearance of anthropological features typical of groups of the non-Slavic population of these regions is noticeable.

ethnic history. The origin of the East Slavic peoples has long been of interest to scientists. Even in the last century, it was firmly established that the Slavs, both in language and in origin, are firmly connected with Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century the famous Czech scientist L. Niederle, on the basis of the most extensive written, linguistic, anthropological, ethnographic and archaeological sources available by that time, tried to recreate the general picture of the formation and settlement of the Slavic peoples, outlining the vast area of ​​​​their formation - from the Carpathians to the lower reaches of the Vistula and from the Elbe to the Dnieper. In general terms, this concept is still shared by many researchers, although the emergence of new materials, especially archaeological ones, has made it possible to clarify and detail the history of the formation of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe in many ways. Systematic archaeological research based on modern scientific methods has revealed a complex picture of the interaction of various groups of the ancient population over a large chronological period. Of course, the bulk of the modern population of Eastern Europe are the descendants of local tribes that lived here for many centuries BC. But the same archaeological data made it possible to correctly assess the role of migrations, resettlements and mixing of newcomers with the local population. Similar processes took place repeatedly. Behind them lies a complex picture of ethno-linguistic processes, the displacement of some languages, the spread of others, and the processes of linguistic assimilation. The data of linguistics (the works of F. P. Filin and others) make it possible to outline the most ancient area for the formation of Slavic languages ​​- the basin of the river. Pripyat and the Middle Pod-Nieprovie. But this is only the oldest area. So far, it is difficult to correlate any archaeological culture or a number of cultures with the ancient Slavic population. There are constant discussions on this topic. Even the appearance of the first mentions of the Slavs in written sources does not specify their habitats. With sufficient certainty, it can be argued that by the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. Slavic-speaking tribes were settled in vast areas in the basins of the rivers Laba (Elbe), Vistula, in the Middle Dnieper. At the same time, separate groups of Slavic tribes began to move south, through the Carpathians, and northeast into the Upper Dnieper and Upper Volga regions. At the same time, Slavic-speaking groups entered into complex relationships with the local population, which led to the linguistic assimilation of the local population and the spread of Slavic languages.

The Tale of Bygone Years gives us the first sufficiently detailed map of the settlement of the tribes of Eastern Europe. The picture drawn by the chronicler already reflects the result of the complex ethnic and political processes that took place in Eastern Europe by the 8th-9th centuries. The “tribes” of Slovenes, Krivichi, Vyatichi and others were vast unions of tribes, which, in addition to Slavic components, also included non-Slavic groups. By the 8th-9th centuries. the unification had already gone so far that most of the population of such tribal unions was indeed Slavic in language, as the chronicle tells about this. The chronicle specifically notes which of the named "tribes" were Slavic and which were non-Slavic (Merya, Muroma, Meshchera, etc.).

Further ethnic processes in Eastern Europe took place already within the framework of the Old Russian state. The formation of feudal relations had a great influence on the nature and intensity of ethnic transformations. The formation of the Rurik dynasty with its center in Kiev, the organization of a feudal centralized system of political power brought to life the adoption of Christianity as a common ideological superstructure, the emergence of writing, the spread of Old Russian as the common official language of the new state, and the unification of judicial and legal norms. The active aggressive policy of the Kiev princes included many neighboring peoples in the new state: Meryu, Murom and Meshchera in the northeast in the Volga-Oka interfluve, all in the North, Vod, Izhora and other groups of the Finnish-speaking population (“chud” of Russian chronicles) - in North-west. Long-term relationships with the nomads of the steppes (Polovtsy, etc.) led to the settling of some of these tribes on the southwestern borders of the Kievan land. Being part of the Kiev state under the influence of its feudal state system, these peoples gradually assimilated, mixed with settlers from other regions of the Old Russian state. Merging into the composition of the Slavic-speaking population of Ancient Russia, they also exerted their influence on local features in language, culture, and customs.

The disintegration of the Kievan state into separate feudal lands led to the fact that the former divisions into tribal unions became a thing of the past. The population of new large state formations, such as Kiev, Chernigov, Galicia-Bolyn, Po-potskoe, Vladimir-Suzdal and other principalities, consisted of descendants of various tribal groups, and not only Slavic-speaking ones. Already in the 12th century. the last mentions of the former "tribes" disappear from the pages of the annals. At the same time, political and economic ties within the principalities are gradually uniting their population around feudal centers - cities. The population of such a city and the lands surrounding it now recognized themselves as a certain community (Kiev, Novgorod, Smolensk, Vladimir, etc.). Territorial ties occupied a dominant place. Within such land associations, the mixing of individual groups of the population was more intense, the spread common language(dialects), common self-consciousness. But one should not exaggerate the role of these processes, since the isolation, isolation of individual districts under the feudal mode of production limited the degree of formation of the community of the population.

The normal development of the ancient Russian principalities was interrupted by the Tatar-Mongol invasion. It is difficult to imagine the scale of the rout and ruin that befell Russia. Entire regions were deserted, cities lay in ruins, economic and cultural ties that had developed over the centuries were broken. Weakened by the struggle against the Tatar-Mongols, the western and southwestern Russian principalities were captured by the Lithuanian state, which had grown stronger by this time, and part of them - by Poland and Hungary. The further ethnic development of the East Slavic peoples is now concentrated within three regions.

The progressive development of the productive forces of the East Slavic population was slowed down by wars and the oppression of the enslavers, but not stopped. For a number of reasons, the centers of economic, commercial, political and cultural development have shifted to the northeast, to wooded areas. By the 15th century the principality of Moscow, which led the political and military struggle against the Golden Horde, noticeably comes to the fore in the first place. The political role of Moscow as the unifying center of all Russian lands was based on the growing and strengthening economic ties of the Russian principalities. The development of urban crafts, the growth of settlements and trade, the development of agricultural production in forest areas - all this strengthened the tendency towards centralization, the unification of all Russian principalities into a single whole. The Muscovite sovereigns succeeded without much resistance in uniting the main Russian lands under their rule in the 15th century, creating a strong state and freeing themselves from the remnants of dependence on the Golden Horde.

The new state provided favorable conditions for the further economic development of the united lands. The population of urban and monastic settlements grew rapidly, and with it their trade relations. Improved the administrative system, the organization of the troops. All this required the uniformity of the norms of state life (in the tax system, laws, religion, etc.). The importance of writing, a single language, has sharply increased. Naturally, the language of the Moscow population, which combined the features of South Russian and North Russian dialects, became the standard, the model of such a language. Moscow, with its population of many thousands, began to form all-Russian norms in other areas of culture as well. Of course, one should not exaggerate the importance of this culture in the life of the entire population - the peasant masses, and they made up 97% of the population, continued to live in the interests of a narrow district, preserving their customs, local dialects, local types of costume, local beliefs. But the ruling stratum of the population, the rapidly increasing service nobility, the clergy, and eminent merchants now imitated the Moscow models of life.

From the 16th century the expansion of the lands of the Moscow state begins. After the victory over the Kazan Khanate, the Russian peasants are moving east and southeast, into the Volga region. This advance, together with the Russian administrative system, in a number of places led to the Russification of local population groups, especially in Mordovia. Slowly but steadily, the forest-steppe and steppe regions in the south were returning to the Russian lands. The advance further south of the “zasechnye lines”, i.e., the fortifications against the Crimean Tatars, led to the settlement of small service nobles on new lands, who later became known as “odnodvortsy”. This peculiar group until the 19th century. maintained isolation in culture and dialect from the local South Russian peasant population. Behind the “odnodvortsy” peasants also began to move, voluntarily or at the behest of the landlords (sometimes entire volosts). Together with the remnants of the indigenous pre-Mongolian population of these regions, they formed the bulk of the South Russian population. Settlers and up to the 20th century. retained some features in culture, brought with them from their former places.

Much remains unclear in the history of the formation of the Cossacks. According to early documents, it appears as a special group of the military service population, which retained almost complete independence. From the Moscow sovereigns, they irregularly received salaries in ammunition, fabrics, money for service in the interests of Moscow. Relations with them went through the Posolsky order, as with foreign states. By origin, the Cossacks were very motley, incorporating daredevils from the Russian lands, from the Black Sea region, from the Turkic population of the steppes, By the 16th century. there were already centers of attraction and settlement of Cossack groups - on the Volga, on the Don, at the Dnieper rapids, a little later - on the Terek and the Urals (Yaik). Most of the Cossacks were from Russian and Ukrainian lands, professed Orthodoxy and were aware of their commonality with the rest of the East Slavic population, but in the conduct of their affairs they strove for independence, resolving all matters in Cossack "circles".

The Cossack regions were centers of attraction for all the feudal lords who were dissatisfied with the authorities and were constantly replenished with fugitive peasants. But among the Cossacks, property inequality and social stratification were inevitable. Part of the newcomer population here also found itself in the position of dependent, semi-serf "claps" in farmsteads-estates of the Cossack foreman. The government tolerated Cossack self-government and liberties as long as there was a need for military force Cossacks as a barrier against the raids of the Crimean Tatars. In the 18th century the position is changing. Part of the Cossacks managed to be enslaved, part (foreman) joined the nobility. The main mass had to be defined as a special class that retained personal freedom and some rights in self-government. Cossacks have become ordinary farmers. But for this somewhat privileged position, they were obliged to bear military service, "to pay tax in blood". The Zaporizhian Cossacks were evicted from the Dnieper to the lower reaches of the Don and to the Kuban, where they, together with Ukrainian peasant settlers and part of the Don Cossacks and Russian soldiers, formed the Kuban Cossacks. The Cossack regions in Siberia were formed in the same mixed way, Central Asia, where the number of Cossacks included ("recorded") and the local population - Buryats, Kazakhs, Evenks.

The Old Believers, or Old Believers, do not represent a single group either in ethnographic or in socially. The split of the Russian Church in the 17th century. in the peasant environment was perceived as a form of anti-feudal protest. Despite strong pressure from the authorities, groups of peasants who did not recognize the official church remained in a number of places. Some of the Old Believers fled away from the authorities, to the Trans-Volga forests, to the Urals, to Altai, to Siberia. They were exiled to Siberia in whole villages (“Semei” in Transbaikalia). The Old Believers differed from the surrounding population only in their more patriarchal way of life and in the peculiarities of their cult. At the same time, they had almost universal literacy, including among women. There were many artisans, enterprising businessmen, and merchants among the Old Believers.

Another well-known group of the Russian population, the Pomors, lived on the coast of the White Sea. They were distinguished by the fact that the basis of their economy was seal fishing and fishing, while agriculture and cattle breeding faded into the background. The early development of commodity relations (they sold fish and animal skins) led to a strong property differentiation in Pomeranian villages. By origin, most of the Pomors are associated with Novgorod, from where, since the 12th century. settled groups of ushkuins. But the Pomors also included local Arkhangelsk peasants, and many newcomers who sought work from wealthy owners of boats and gear.

The population of the southern and southwestern Russian principalities after the Tatar invasion found itself in a somewhat different situation. The establishment of the political power of the Lithuanian and Polish feudal lords did not contribute to the integration of the population in the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. The vast majority of the ruling class in the newly annexed lands were sharply alienated from the peasant masses both in language and in religion. The desire to increase the exploitation of the conquered lands on the part of the Polish-Lithuanian magnates and the gentry increased this alienation even more. Class contradictions merged with national and religious contradictions and acquired the features of national liberation movements. At the head of this struggle were a few descendants of the former feudal strata of the Russian principalities, who had preserved Orthodoxy, and the Cossacks. The latter constantly absorbed the most active fighters against pan-dominated bondage from the peasantry and became in fact the leader of the entire national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. In this struggle, a natural ally of the Ukrainians turned out to be the rising and growing Moscow state, with which the Ukrainian population was connected not only by a common historical past, linguistic proximity, but also by a common religion, commonality in culture, and writing. In addition, the power of the Polish-Lithuanian state extended to the east no further than the Dnieper region. To the east of the Dnieper lay lands, although sparsely populated due to the constant Tatar raids, but beckoning the Ukrainian peasants with the opportunity to get rid of the lord's oppression there. In "Sloboda Ukraine", which was under the auspices of Moscow, there was a stream of migrants from both Russian and Ukrainian regions. After the reunification of Ukraine with Russia in 1654, this migration to the east intensified.

Most of the Ukrainian lands, the most populated and economically developed, remained under the rule of foreigners (Poland, Turkey). The Polish state and the Catholic Church intensified national oppression towards the end of the 17th century by banning the use of Ukrainian writing and sharply restricting the rights of the Orthodox Church. The national liberation struggle of the Ukrainians increasingly took on an anti-feudal character. The divisions of Poland reunited most of the Ukrainians within the Russian Empire, but some Ukrainians (Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) were able to finally unite with Ukraine only after 1945. Despite the national oppression, the persecution of any manifestations of national culture, the Ukrainian population both in Poland and in the possessions of Austria-Hungary retained its language, national identity, consciousness of community with other East Slavic peoples.

Different historical fates of certain groups of the Ukrainian people influenced the formation of some features of their culture. There are noticeable differences in vocabulary, elements of culture between the Left-bank and Right-bank Ukraine. On the Right Bank, the influence of the culture of Polish cities was more affected, this is even more noticeable in Galicia. But these differences are small and insignificant and are connected with the penetration of already urban influences.

All groups of Ukrainians, in whatever political conditions they live, are characterized by the consciousness of a common Ukrainian community, which is based on a common language and cultural heritage. But along with the ethnonym "Ukraine", "Ukrainian" there were others. Thus, the population of Galicia retained the ancient ethnonym "Rusyns", coming from Kievan Rus and its principalities. The same roots have the names "Transcarpathian Rus", "Rusnak" (Ukrainians of Slovakia). In the mountainous and foothill regions of the Carpathians, there lived several culturally isolated groups of Verkhovynians, Hutsuls, and others. Differed from the rest of the Ukrainians and "polekhs", the population of the Ukrainian-Belarusian Polissya along the river. Pripyat. Transitional dialects between the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, a peculiar culture that developed in the conditions of the swampy-forest region, distinguished the Polekhs from Ukrainians and Belarusians.

The Western Russian principalities (Turovo-Pinsk, Polotsk), having turned out to be from the 14th century. as part of Lithuania, at first played a significant role in the life of this state. The language of the population of these principalities remained the official language of Lithuania for a long time. And the principalities themselves, although divided into small destinies, retained considerable independence. After the union of Lithuania with Poland, the spread of Catholicism as the state religion began, and with it, intensive processes of colonization among the ruling strata. The constant and protracted military-political struggle with the Muscovite state further aggravated these processes in Lithuania. Trying to preserve their rights, most of the feudal lords renounced Orthodoxy and their native language. As in Ukraine, a situation has developed in which class differences have merged with national ones. The struggle for one's culture, one's language, one's faith became at the same time a struggle with the magnates and the nobility. Attempts to spread Uniatism among the peasant masses were not successful. The national-class contradictions became especially aggravated towards the end of the 17th century, when the Catholic Church and the authorities increased their pressure: in 1696 the Polish language was introduced as the state language, Orthodoxy was actually banned, the peasants were forcibly converted to Uniatism. But all these measures turned out to be of little effect, since the Belarusian people saw support for their struggle for an independent existence in neighboring Russia. Partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, 1795 included almost all Belarusian lands in Russia. The Belarusian people got the opportunity to develop their culture in more favorable conditions.

The conditions of the feudal Russian Empire delayed the development of capitalist tendencies and the formation of national markets. Arising back in the 17th century. the all-Russian market served the needs of the entire state, dominating local interests. But gradually economic development led to the growth of economic ties in national regions (this process became especially strong after the abolition of serfdom). All this was accompanied by noticeable manifestations of national self-consciousness, Ukrainian and Belarusian intelligentsia appeared, the struggle for national schools, national literature, and independence of national development intensified. By the middle of the 19th century. three peoples close in culture and language - Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians - formed a nation.

The material culture of the Eastern Slavs developed historically on the basis of the achievements and experience of many generations of the population of Eastern Europe. It has much in common with the culture of neighboring peoples, not only because mutual influences were inevitable in close proximity, but also because in the process of the formation of the peoples themselves, groups that had common or similar cultural traditions poured into them. The general geographical conditions were also of great importance.

Agriculture appeared in Eastern Europe no later than the 4th millennium BC. e. By the 1st millennium BC. e. it has spread over almost all areas, from the steppe zone to the taiga forests of the North. Its distribution came from two centers - the Dnieper and the Middle Volga. Gradually, the population of Eastern Europe developed economic complexes that combined agriculture and cattle breeding with other sectors of the economy - hunting, gathering, and fishing. Depending on soil and climatic conditions, two main types of land use can be distinguished. In the steppe and forest-steppe zones, agriculture was based on different types of fallow land, when areas of virgin lands or fallow lands were constantly plowed up. For several years, such fields gave a good harvest, then they were abandoned for many years, turning them into a fallow to restore fertility. In accordance with this, certain sets of tools for cultivating the land were also used - for lifting up virgin soil and deposits - heavy plows, sometimes with a wheeled limber; for the processing of old-arable fields, lighter tools of the ral type were used. The fields were sown with wheat, barley, oats, legumes. Vegetables (cabbage, onions, beets, etc.) were cultivated in vegetable gardens near the settlements. Industrial crops were also sown here - flax, hemp. From the 18th century Sunflower, sugar beets, and tomatoes are widely spread in Ukraine and in some southern Russian regions. Smaller areas were occupied by potatoes.

In the forest areas, a different economic complex has developed, based on the use of either forest fallow or slash-and-burn agriculture in its pure form. In both cases, a section of the forest was cut down before sowing. When the cut bushes and trees dried up, they were burned. On such a field, fertilized with ash, barley, rye, oats, buckwheat, millet, legumes were sown. In two or three years, the land was depleted, and it was allowed to be moowed or abandoned, developing new areas. Under such conditions, a different type of implement was used for cultivating the land - plows, well adapted to work on small forest fields with thin podzolic soil. The peasants created many modifications of arable implements, each of which was well adapted to the local characteristics of the soil (roe deer plows, various types of plows). Harrows were used to plant seeds in the ground. Tools for harvesting crops and herbs were more of the same type. Pity with a sickle. Mowed with different types of braids. Before threshing, sheaves must be kept in the field. In the northern and northwestern regions, they were also dried in barns and rigs.

Cattle breeding of the East Slavic peoples was closely connected with agriculture. Pasture-stall keeping of livestock prevailed. Only in the Carpathian region was distant pastoralism developed, and in the 19th century. in the steppes of the Black Sea region, sheep breeding developed on a significant scale. Cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, poultry were an indispensable part of an ordinary peasant economy. Livestock was used as draft power and to obtain milk, wool, meat, and skins. In the zones of podzolic soils, manure was also of great importance as a fertilizer for the fields. The system of three-field crop rotation, which arose very early, from the 11th-12th centuries, could not do without fertilizing with manure.

In the 19th century the role of hunting and fishing in most places has descended to the level of ancillary occupation or amateurism. But where there was still enough game and fish, these occupations were constant and played a significant role in the family economy. Gathering was a great help for the peasants. Not only berries, nuts, mushrooms, but also many types of herbs were eaten. In famine years and in spring, this saved many from death.

Geographical conditions and socio-political, economic factors affected the characteristics of settlement, types of settlements and peasant households. In the steppe zone they settled in large villages, either of an elongated street, street-quarter plan, or in cumulus villages, with intricate crooked streets. Such streets once helped defend against Tatar horse raids. The farther to the north, the smaller the settlements. By the 19th century they are already acquiring a certain order - ordinary or street. There were also other types of settlements. The typology of peasant households is also changing in the latitudinal direction. In the northern Russian regions, impressive complexes of residential and outbuildings were formed, united under one roof. Such mansions, cut from large logs, can still be found in the northern villages. In the central Russian regions and in forest Belarus, living quarters were lower, outbuildings were placed next to the house or behind it. In the southern Russian regions and in Ukraine, southwestern Belarus, the house and courtyard buildings were located either freely or along the perimeter of the courtyard. In Ukraine and Belarus, the orientation of the house to the cardinal points was preserved.

Much more ethnographic specifics can be found in folk clothes. Until recently, its production was one of the types of home crafts. They themselves grew flax, hemp, they themselves received wool and spun it, they processed the leather themselves. Women were obliged to strain, weave everything necessary for the family. Such home production, as well as a number of superstitious beliefs that considered certain types of clothing to be a talisman, protection from evil forces, for a long time preserved traditional, very stable types of clothing. The basis of both women's and men's clothing was a shirt, for men to the knees, for women - longer. Men's shirts of the same type of tunic cut. Only the Russians in a number of regions had a shirt with an oblique cut of the collar. There was much more variety in the cut of women's shirts, for example, shirts with oblique poliks in the southern Russian regions, shirts with straight poliks in the Dnieper region. There were also other types of shirts. Equally interesting are the types of traditional "maid" clothing. Firstly, these clothes in women reflected the division into age and sex groups. Only women could wear it. Secondly, the area of ​​distribution of different types of such clothing seems to coincide with the area of ​​settlement of ancient ethnocultural communities. Thus, checkered skirt-shaped complexes, as a rule, coincide with the region of settlement of the Indo-European groups. Similar striped skirts

characteristic of the more northern regions, i.e., they coincide with the distribution zone of the Finno-Ugric languages. Such clothes were necessarily sewn from semi-woolen fabric, richly decorated, colored.

A sundress, or feryaz, as a type of women's maid's clothing appeared much later. Its appearance is associated with the transformation of outerwear of the retinue type, sukman, into a maid. The sundress was widespread in the central and northern Russian regions and among some neighboring peoples (Karelians, Vepsians, Komi, Mordovians, etc.).

Even more interesting for ethnography are the female headdresses of the East Slavic peoples. They were strictly different for girls and married women. The dressing of a woman's headdress was the culminating moment of the entire ceremony in traditional wedding rituals. Girls' dresses left their heads open at the top, and hairstyles were combined with them - loose hair or braided in one braid. In the 19th century certain types of girlish dressings have already been developed. In the southern Russian regions, Ukrainians and Belarusian women used to have wreaths, and many dressings in the central regions resemble such wreaths in ornament and shape. Women's hats were necessarily deaf, closed, so that not a single hair was visible. In turn, women's attire was divided into everyday (a small hat - a cap, a warrior and a scarf) and festive or ceremonial, consisting of many parts and sometimes having bizarre complex shapes. Interestingly, the types of peasant ceremonial headdresses coincide (although by no means always and not in everything) with the distribution areas and some features of the temporal rings of the East Slavic tribes.

Outerwear was more versatile, there were no strong differences between men and women. These are caftan-shaped retinues, chunis, sukmans, broader coats in cut, sheepskin coats. Jackets were sewn from sheepskins, which the Russians later began to call fur coats. The legs were wrapped with onuchs. Shoes were of different cuts: postols or opanki - a piece of leather that grabbed the foot and pulled around the ankle, boots. They also wore bast shoes woven from birch bark, linden bast, elm bark, and willow. The impoverishment of the peasants in the Central Russian villages made this type of footwear almost the only possible one.

Of particular interest is the decoration of clothing with ornaments - embroidered or woven. In the images of the ornament, many characters of ancient pagan beliefs have survived to this day. The typology of the ornament and the history of its development have not yet been sufficiently studied and promise many interesting conclusions, including those on the ethnic history of the peoples of Eastern Europe.

The community organization among the Eastern Slavs existed for a long time. But behind the external forms of the communal order, complex real relations within the peasant world, “huge masses”, property inequality and cruel exploitation were hidden. In a family organization until the 20th century. both complex large-six-family collectives, uniting several generations, and the most common small families were preserved. Internal relationships in the family and the ethics of behavior were subject to the strict rules of a strict division of labor between family members. The living conditions of the peasants preserved many traditions of neighborly and family mutual assistance. This also explains the existence of ties between relatives, which are usually called patronymy. Such connections were reflected in existence until the 20th century. complex terminology of kinship and properties.

According to the official religion, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians belonged to the Orthodox Church of the Christian religion. But Christianity itself was perceived by the masses as an external, official rite. Even the saints, canonized by the church, the peasants "adapted" to the role of patrons of their needs and interests. St. Nicholas was considered the patron of artisans and merchants, George the Victorious was known as the patron of cattle and shepherds, Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa was considered the intercessor and patroness of women and women's activities. In a word, representations connected with the former pagan deities continued to live in the guise of saints. The beliefs of the “small pantheon” were also preserved: the world, according to the ideas of the peasants, was inhabited by goblin, brownies, mermaids, ghouls. Superstitious worship of animals (bear, chicken, crow) has also been preserved. Such "paganism" coexisted peacefully with the church. And some ancient rites entered the church ceremonies (treatment with honey at the honey spa, ritual porridge “kutya” at funerals, etc.). The cycle of calendar rituals - Christmas Eve, Maslenitsa, Trinity, the feast of Ivan Kupala - was quite fully preserved. The Church has only entered its holidays into this cycle. Ritualism itself was permeated with ancient pagan features. Many traces of ancient beliefs have been preserved in folklore (fairy tales).

Ritualism, family and calendar, was the focus of the richest artistic creativity of the people (songs, dances, games).

In artistic form, the people conveyed both historical legends (Russian epics, thoughts in Ukraine) and lyrical experiences (songs), and humor, satire on gentlemen (everyday fairy tales, puppet theater). Complex dramas were also played out (“Tsar Maximilian”, “The Boat”).

Inexhaustible artistic imagination and skill were also manifested in handicrafts. Ornament, painted scenes adorned household items, utensils, tools, housing. Since the 16th century centers of artistic production began to emerge. Gzhel near Moscow was famous for its potters, glass-blowing workshops arose in Ukraine, the Volga villages produced painted wooden utensils and chests. There were many such centers throughout the East Slavic lands. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. Zemstvo authorities and democratic intelligentsia tried to solve the acute problems of the Russian countryside by developing art crafts. Under their influence, such well-known industries as the Fedoskin lacquer miniature, the production of painted trays in Zhestov, etc., arose.

Genuine national flourishing in all areas of culture, in all spheres of life began only after the Great October Socialist Revolution. Soviet authority The socialist system has created real conditions for the full development of each national culture on the broadest, all-people basis. It was only in the USSR that each republic acquired its own statehood, national arts (theater, literature, cinema), education in the national language. A new upsurge was experienced by folk art, which preserved and continued the ancient artistic traditions of the peoples. At the same time, international ties were strengthened and developed in all areas of culture, enriching and supplementing the culture of each people.

The ancient Slavic tribes played a big role in the ethnic geography of Eastern Europe in the 1st millennium AD. e. The earliest written evidence, dating back to the 1st-2nd centuries, reports that they occupied a significant area of ​​Central and Eastern Europe. Ancient historians and geographers of this period - Pliny, Tacitus, Claudius Ptolemy - they were known under the name of "Venedi", a group of tribes that lived, according to their information, in the territory from the north to the Carpathian Mountains in the south, along the banks of the Vistula (Vistula) River . The name "Slavs" is sometimes associated with the name of one of the tribes of the Wends ("Suovens" according to Ptolemy), which later becomes the main name for the entire ethnic group. Gothic historian of the 6th century. Jordan already reported on three kindred unions of tribes - Veneti, Ants and Sklavens, and he called the territory from the Dniester to the Dnieper the place of residence of the Ants, and the Sklavens - from the Sava to the upper reaches of the Vistula and to the Dniester. Byzantine authors of the 6th-7th centuries. Procopius of Caesarea, Theophylact Simokatta and others described the Slavs inhabiting the Danube region and the north of the Balkan Peninsula.

Modern historical science, based on this fragmentary information, as well as on the data of archeology, ethnology and toponymy, gave rise to quite a few theories about the origin and place of the initial settlement of the Slavs. However, most of these hypotheses agree that the Slavs are an autochthonous population of Central and Eastern Europe, and the main period of their separation into an independent ethnic group from the Indo-European linguistic community falls on the 1st millennium BC. e. The main territory of the initial settlement of the Slavs (in a broad sense) can be considered the land from the Oder in the west to the middle reaches of the Dnieper in the east and from the coast Baltic Sea(between the Vistula and the Oder) in the north to the Northern Carpathian region in the south. On this territory, traces of several archaeological cultures that took part in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs have been preserved: Lusatian, Pomeranian, Przeworsk, Zarubinets, Chernyakhov and some others. Most researchers consider the cultures of the Prague type (Prague-Penkovskaya and Prague-Korchak) to be the immediate predecessors of the Slavs, the distribution area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich fits into the outlined space.

The great migration of peoples and the formation of separate Slavic groups

In the I-II centuries. n. e. the ancient Slavs coexisted in the north with the Germans and the Balts, who were also part of the northern group of Indo-European tribes. Indo-Iranian tribes lived in the southeast - the Scythians and Sarmatians, in the south - the Thracians and Illyrians, in the west - the Germans. Further resettlement and ethnic history of the Slavs are closely connected with significant movements of the Germanic, Scythian-Sarmatian and other tribes.

In II-V centuries. Germanic tribes of Goths and Gepids made the transition from the southern shore of the Baltic Sea and the lower reaches of the Vistula, through Slavic lands, to the Northern Black Sea. Apparently, under the influence of this advance among the Slavs, separation into the eastern and western branches is planned. In the IV-VII centuries. in the vast expanse of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, many tribes are moving. This process is known as the Great Migration of Nations. In the second half of the 4th c. made a transition to the west through the Don, the Northern Black Sea region to the Central and the Hunnic tribal union. This union was formed in the II-IV centuries. as a result of the mixing of the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Xiongnu (Xiongnu), who originally lived in, with the autochthonous population of the Southern Urals and the Ugric tribes. The Huns defeated the Sarmatian-Alanian tribes occupying the territories between the Caucasus, the Don and the Volga, and then the Goths in the Northern Black Sea region. After that, one part of the Goths (Ostrogoths) became part of the Hunnic tribal union, and the other (Visigoths) made a long journey across Europe to Southern Gaul and. The Huns themselves at the end of the 4th c. formed a state that subjugated the tribes and peoples of the Northern Black Sea region, the Danube region, and the southern Carpathian region. In the middle of the 5th century The leader of the Huns, Attila, tried to extend his power to Western Europe, but was defeated in the Battle of Cataluan, and after his death, the state of the Huns fell apart.

From the end of the 5th century the tribes of Antes and Sklavins move south to the Danube, in the North-Western Black Sea region, then the Antes tribes through the lower reaches of the Danube, and the tribes of Sklavians from the north and north-west invade the Balkan provinces of Byzantium, as a result of which the Balkans are settled by Slavs and begin to take shape southern group Slavic tribes. Simultaneously with this process, the Slavs are resettling in the northwestern and northeastern directions. They inhabit the lands along the Lower Elbe and the southwestern coast of the Baltic Sea, as well as the Upper Dnieper.

In the middle of the VI century. through the Volga-Don steppes, the tribal union of the Avars (obry or obri of Russian chronicles) invaded the northern Black Sea region, in which the Turkic-speaking tribes played the main role. Having devastated the lands of the Antes, in the 560s. The Avars invaded Pannonia (the middle reaches of the Danube), where they founded the Avar Khaganate. The Khaganate did not have precise and permanent borders. It is known that the Avars raided Byzantium, Slavs, Franks, Lombards and other tribes and peoples in order to plunder and collect tribute. From the 20s. 7th century as a result of defeats from the Byzantines and the rebellious Slavic tribes, the gradual weakening and disintegration of the kaganate begins. This process was completed at the turn of the 8th-9th centuries, when the Avar Khaganate suffered a decisive defeat from the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne, who acted in alliance with the southern Slavs. By the end of the ninth century the Avars were assimilated by the peoples of the Danube and the North-Western Black Sea region.

Assimilation(ethnologist.) - the merger of one people with another, with the loss of one of them of their language, culture, national identity.

In the second half of the VI century. the steppes of Central Asia and the territories between the Volga and the Don were united within the framework of one state - the Turkic or Turkut Khaganate, formed by a Turkic-speaking (basically Avar) tribal union. This state collapsed at the very beginning of the 7th century. into the Western Turkic and Eastern Turkic Khaganates. The Western Turkic Khaganate, which included the Northern Black Sea region and the territory between the Don, the Volga and the Caucasus, did not last long, since already in the middle of the 7th century. Bulgarians invaded here modern science they are usually called Proto-Bulgarians) - also a Turkic-speaking nomadic tribe. They formed their own state here - the Great, the central part of which was in the lower reaches of the Don and on the east coast. At the turn of the 7th-8th centuries. the Proto-Bulgarians split up. One part - the "black Bulgarians" - continued to roam in the steppes between the Don and the Caucasus and gradually dissolved into the mass of other ethnic groups of this region. There is a version that it is from them that the name of one of the modern peoples - the Balkars - comes from. The other part, the so-called "horde of Khan Asparukh", went west, to the region of the lower Danube, where over time it was assimilated by local Slavic tribes (this community formed the basis of the modern Bulgarian people). At the end of the 7th century Here the First Bulgarian Kingdom was formed. Finally, the third group made a transition to the northeast (to the middle Volga and the Lower Kama). On this territory, the assimilation of the local Finno-Ugric population by the Proto-Bulgarians led to the formation of the ethnos and the state of the Volga Bulgars (or Bulgarians).

In the 8th century a large group of Ugric tribes - the Magyars, who had previously lived along the Yaik and Ori, made the transition to the west, through the Volga and Don to the Black Sea steppes, and then further to the middle Danube.

Under the influence of the Great Migration of Peoples, the Slavs were forced to develop new territories, their linguistic and ethnic community was gradually violated, and as a result, three Slavic groups that still exist today were formed: western, eastern and southern. The southern Slavs settled on the Balkan Peninsula (Thrace, Northern, Dalmatia, Istria) up to the coast of the Adriatic Sea and the valleys of the Alpine mountains, on the banks of the Danube and to the Aegean Sea. Western Slavs settled between in the west and the Vistula in the east, the coast of the Baltic Sea in the north and the middle course of the Danube in the south.

The resettlement of the Eastern Slavs at the end of the 1st millennium AD. e.

The most complete picture of the settlement of the East Slavic and neighboring tribes at the turn of the 1st-2nd millennium is given by a comparison of the data of the Russian chronicle early XII V. - "The Tale of Bygone Years" (hereinafter - PVL) with other written sources and archaeological, ethnographic, linguistic materials. The place of initial settlement of the Slavs PVL calls the middle and lower reaches of the Danube, "where the land of Ugric and Bulgarian is now", where the Slavs, according to the chronicler, came from Asia after the Babylonian pandemonium and the so-called "mixing of languages". This plot, based on a biblical legend, is not confirmed by archeological data, but with a further presentation of the history of the Slavs, the author of the Tale provides more reliable information. He reports that the Slavs were divided into three groups - western, southern and eastern, and that the eastern Slavs began to settle in a northeasterly direction, gradually occupying the vast territories of Eastern Europe. Even more important is the chronicle listing the East Slavic tribal unions with a description of the territories of their residence.

According to these data, the forest-steppe region of the Middle Dnieper, between the mouths of the Desna and Ros rivers, was inhabited by a tribal union of glades. Its name was due to the fact that the glade, according to the chronicle, is “in poly gray”. Their largest center was Kyiv, which arose from several villages on the "mountains", or rather the hills, located on the right bank of the Dnieper. To the west of the glades, in Polissya, in the basins of the rivers Teterev, Uzh, Goryn, up to Pripyat in the north, the Drevlyans lived. The landscape feature of this region in the annals is emphasized by the fact that the Drevlyans "sedosha in the forests", hence the name of the tribal union. The most famous of the cities of the Drevlyans is Iskorosten. To the north of the Drevlyans, between Pripyat and the Dvina, lived the Dregovichi. In the modern language and some Western Russian dialects, the word "dryagva" means "swamp". Along the Western Dvina, the Dregovichi came into contact with the Polotsk people, in respect of whom the chronicler indicated that they “sedoshed on the Dvina and ditched the Polotsk river for the sake of, even flowing into the Dvina, in the name of Polot”.

The settlement area of ​​the Ilmenian Slovenes in the north reached the Neva River, Lake Nevo (Ladoga), and in the west, somewhat retreating from the coast of the Gulf of Finland, went south along the Narova River and along Lake Peipsi. The author of the PVL reports that it was the Slovenes who founded Novgorod. It is characteristic that the Slovenes, unlike other tribes, "were nicknamed by their own name", that is, they retained the common name of the Slavs. Obviously, this was due to the fact that this part of the Slavic ethnic community, as it moved to a new territory, found itself in a foreign language environment. The self-name "Slavs" (modified - "sklavins", "sklavins", "suovens", etc.) originally had the meaning of "owning the word, speech", and emphasized the difference from foreigners who do not speak Slavic. Therefore, the Ilmen Slovenes, neighboring with the Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes, have retained this ethnonym. In a similar way, the ethnonyms “Slovaks” and “Slovenes” arose, since these peoples also found themselves on the periphery of Slavic settlement, surrounded by foreign-speaking tribes.

The upper reaches of the Dnieper, Volga and Western Dvina, reaching Lake Pskov in the west, were occupied by the Krivichi, whose tribal center was Smolensk on the Dnieper. On the left bank of the Dnieper, along the Sozh River and its tributaries, there was an area of ​​​​settlement of Radimichi, and along the Oka, in its upper reaches - Vyatichi. The names of these two unions of tribes are not explained by the chronicler. geographical features their places of residence, and the names of the ancestors - Radim and Vyatko. To the northeast of the glades, in the rivers of the Desna, the Seim and the Sula, northerners lived. This term also has a "geographical" origin, since the PVL describes the Slavic tribes, from the point of view of the meadows, for which such a designation of the northern neighbors is quite natural. In addition, according to the statement of the author of the chronicle, the northerners came from the Krivichi, therefore, they moved to the Middle Dnieper from the north, which could also serve as a motive for the name.

To the west of the glades and the Drevlyans lived the Buzhans, "beyond the sedyashe along the Bug", later called the Volhynians. The territory inhabited by them covered both banks of the Western Bug and the upper reaches of the Pripyat. It is possible that the predecessor of the Buzhans (Volynians) was tribal union, known to the chronicler under the name Dulebs and disintegrated by the 10th century. The tribes of the Whites, who occupied mainly the northwestern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, also belonged to the Eastern Slavs. Most southern tribes Eastern Slavs were Ulichi and Tivertsy, who inhabited the coast of the Dniester and the lands between the Southern Bug and Prut. True, their ethnicity is quite controversial. Some researchers suggest that these were Turkic-speaking or Iranian-speaking tribes that were under the strong cultural influence of the Slavs.

It is worth emphasizing once again that the listed ethnonyms denoted large unions of tribes that had internal divisions. However written sources do not provide information about them, so their selection is possible only on the basis of archaeological data. Nevertheless, the annalistic code repeatedly emphasizes the unity of all East Slavic tribes, which was based on a common language.

Thus, the territory of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, according to the PVL, seems to be very extensive. Its border in the west ran from the confluence of the Neva into the Gulf of Finland along the coast to the river. Narva; stretched along the Peipsi and Pskov lakes; crossed the Western Dvina in the middle reaches; then from the middle reaches of the Neman it passed to the upper reaches of the Vistula; through the northern part of the Carpathian Mountains it went south to the Seret River and along the Danube to. The northern border of the settlement of the East Slavic tribes from the Neva ran along the southern tip of Lake Nevo (Ladoga), the Syas, Chagoda, Sheksna rivers, to the Volga, to the Nerl to the Klyazma, from the Klyazma to the Moscow River, along it to the Oka and, capturing the upper reaches of the Don , Oka, Seimas, descended along the Psel River to the Dnieper. In the south, from the mouth of the Psel, the border went up the Dnieper and, not reaching the Ros River, went west to the Southern Bug, and then along the Bug to, known in ancient times as Russian.

These borders of the East Slavic population developed by the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. It is quite natural that they are quite conditional. Contact with neighboring peoples in the border areas led to significant displacements. This was reflected in the fact that in a number of cases there is an outflow of the East Slavic population to neighboring territories. Three directions can be noted in this settlement. One - to the lower Danube and the Balkans - had largely weakened by the time the Old Russian state was formed. The second is to the north and northeast. Already by the end of the IX - beginning of the X century. The Slavic population from the vicinity of Novgorod reaches the Onega and White lakes, the Svir and Sheksna rivers and settles in the territories occupied by the Finno-Ugric tribes. A similar situation developed in the Oka-Klyazma interfluve, where the Vyatichi and Krivichi penetrated. Third direction - southern regions. There were a number of difficulties in settling and developing fertile forest-steppe and steppe lands, among which protection from nomads seems to be one of the main ones. Slavic population it moved forward, then rolled back. However, individual streams of Slavs penetrated far enough. Some oriental authors of the 9th-10th centuries. fragmentary mention of the existence of the Slavic population on the territory of the Khazar Khaganate already in the VIII century. Slavs appear on the Don, where the center of colonization at the end of the tenth century. was the settlement of Belaya Vezha (on the site of the Khazar city of Sarkel), at the intersection of the overland route with the Don waterway. The Slavic population is also advancing on the coast of the Azov (Surozh) and Black (Russian) seas.

Geography of the non-Slavic population of Eastern Europe

Sources make it possible to map the main tribal groups that inhabited various territories of Eastern Europe at that time and coexisted with the East Slavic tribes. The territories from the Danube to the Vistula and the Western Bug were occupied by the tribes of the Western Slavs: Moravians, Vishlians, Mazovshans. In the southwest from the end of the 9th century. the neighbors of the Eastern Slavs were the Hungarians (Magyars), mixed here with the Slavic, Avar and other populations, the Romanesque tribes of the Wallachians (Volokhovs), and along the lower Danube - south slavs(Bulgarians).

The northwestern neighbors of the Eastern Slavs were the Letto-Lithuanian (Baltic) tribes. The area of ​​their settlement covered the Eastern Baltic from the lower reaches of the Vistula to Lake Pskov. These included the Prussians, who inhabited the coast of the Baltic Sea between the mouths of the Vistula and the Neman. The land on the right bank of the Western Dvina up to Lake Pskov was occupied by the Letgola (Latgals) tribe, and their neighbors in the south and southwest were the Zimegola (Semgals). The coast of the Baltic Sea (Western) was inhabited by Kors (Curonians). The settlement area of ​​the Yatvingians and Lithuanians covered the basin of the Viliya River between the Western Bug and the Neman, and between the mouth of the Neman and the Western Dvina lived the Zhmud (Zhemaiti) tribe, in the middle reaches of the Neman, the Aukshtaites coexisted with them. In the XI-XII centuries. in the basin of the Protva River, a tributary of the Moscow River, there lived a tribe of golyad, also belonging to a group of Baltic tribes. Once surrounded by the Slavs, it was very quickly assimilated by them.

The forest regions of the north and northeast of the East European Plain were occupied by Finno-Ugric tribes. Chud (Ests) inhabited the territory from Lake Peipsi to the Gulf of Finland and Riga. To the south, along the coast of the Gulf of Riga, at the mouth of the Western Dvina, the Liv (Liv) tribe lived. Later it gave the name of this territory (Livland, Livonia) and Livonian Order. The coast of the Gulf of Finland between the rivers Neva and Narova was inhabited by a tribe. Korela was located along the Neva and around Ladoga. A significant area between the Ladoga, Onega and White lakes, bounded from the north by the Svir, and from the east by the Sheksna, was inhabited by the whole (Vepsians). PVL calls the entire indigenous population of the city of Beloozero. To the north-east of the White Lake, in the basins of the Onega and the Northern Dvina, there lived tribes that received the name Zavolochskaya Chud in Russian sources. The tribes that lived in the Upper Kama region and the Vychegda basin are known as Perm. (approximately from Sheksna to Oka) and the shores of the lakes of Rostov and Kleshchina were inhabited by the Merya tribe. Rostov owes its appearance to the Meryans. Their neighbors were the Cheremis (Mari) who lived on the left bank of the Volga. The middle course of the Oka was occupied by the Meshchera, and the lower by the Muroma. The tribal center of the latter was the city of Murom. Mordovian tribes lived on the right bank of the middle Volga. Separate Mordovian settlements went far to the west along the Oka, Tsna and Khopr. To the south, along the Volga, there were lands inhabited by Burtases, ethnically close.

To the east and southeast of the Finno-Ugric peoples and the Eastern Slavs were Turkic-speaking tribes. These include the Volga-Kama Bulgars (Bulgarians), the area of ​​\u200b\u200bsettlement of which in the east began from the confluence of the Belaya River with the Kama, in the west it stretched to the middle Volga, and in the south it reached. The steppe territory, lying in a strip from the Yaik (Ural) basin, through the lower Volga and to the lower Dnieper, was the area of ​​​​settlement of nomadic tribes. During and after the Great Migration of Peoples, this zone was a very busy highway for the movement of various ethnic groups from Central Asia to Europe. Around the end of the ninth century the steppes between the Don and the Southern Bug were occupied by the Pechenegs, who were a conglomeration of tribes of Turkic and Finno-Ugric origin. However, by the middle of the XI century. Pecheneg tribes were replaced by the Polovtsians (Kipchaks), who coexisted with Eastern Slavs before the Tatar-Mongol invasion of the XIII century. Since that time, the Eastern written sources call the vast steppe territory from to the Northern Black Sea region Desht-i-Kipchak, and the Russians - the Polovtsian steppe.