Russian Khaganate: when it existed. Russian Khaganate

The problem of the origin of the ethnonym "Rus" is one of the most complex and confusing. And largely because this name is found in the Middle Ages in various areas of Europe, denoting clearly not the same thing. Russians are known by Arabs, Persians, Franks, and Byzantines. It is very difficult to determine when these peoples first became acquainted with the Rus. On the one hand, in many later writings, when Kievan Rus was already widely known, and then Muscovy, in stories about the events of the 4th-8th centuries. are called Russians.

To con. 8th century on the territory from the left bank of the Dnieper to the Middle and Lower Don, a single sociopolitical association was formed with a center outlined by the forest-steppe variant of the Saltov culture, which included settled tribes of northern Iranian (Rus and Alans) and Slavic origin, as well as nomads - Sarmato-Alans (Ases) and Proto-Bulgarians, originally occupied a subordinate position and began the process of settling. This political association had extensive trade relations and the most developed manufacturing economy in Eastern Europe at that time (in terms of the level of craft, some parallels can only be drawn with Staraya Ladoga of the archaeological layer E-2, also located on the Volga-Baltic route). The analysis of material culture and written sources shows that this association corresponds to the level of development of the early state (composite proto-state). Probably, the capital of this proto-state or state was located in the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets, as the oldest territory of the Rus with a rich and noble population. Perhaps it was the Verkhnesaltovskoye settlement, characterized by researchers as a proto-city, although along the course of the same river as early as the 17th century. they remembered the Kaganovo settlement, wiped off the face of the earth, next to which the toponymy knows the Kagan transport and the Kagan well.

The Russian tribal union was one of the priority trading partners of the states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Arab coins went to Eastern Europe VIII - early. IX century by two channels: the first - from Iran through the Caspian Sea to the Volga and further to the Baltic - to Gotland, the second - from the western limits of the Arab Caliphate through Syria and Transcaucasia to the Don and Seversky Donets, and from there - to the South-Eastern Baltic (perhaps, it is the description of the second way is in the Bavarian geographer, compiled no later than the 1st third of the 9th century). In the Russian Khaganate, these two streams merged, but in the 30s of the 9th century, the second stream, which passed along the “River Rus” - the Seversky Donets and the Middle Dnieper, ceased to exist. There are no finds of coins of that time on the territory between the Dnieper and the Danube. Moreover, the abundance of treasures on the territory of the Russian tribal union suggests that dirhams settled here, that for merchants who possessed these riches, the lands between the Don and Donets were native (treasures are usually not buried in a foreign land). The complete opposite in this regard is the Khazar Khaganate. The entire complex of finds of coins on the lower Volga and lower Donets, which could be associated with the trade movement directly in Khazaria, consists of two poor treasures and several coins. The Khazar elite were mainly engaged in transit trade, and neither money nor goods in large quantities settled there. Judging by the finds of archaeologists, the trade relations of the Saltov Rus were very extensive. Iranian fabrics, silk, goods from Khorezm, Syria - gold and silver utensils, expensive jewelry are found in the settlements. Goods from China and India also came to the Rus: the eastern borders of the Russian tribal union were at the intersection of various branches of the famous Silk Road - there was the Right-Bank Tsimlyansk settlement, an outpost of the Rus in the east. The Rus were also included in trade along the Volga-Baltic route, along which heavy traffic begins from the end of the 8th century. From the west, primarily Baltic Slavs go along it, from the east - Saltov merchants. At the very beginning of the 9th century, graffiti on the Kufic dirhams of the Peterhof treasure indicate the participation of the Rus in the Baltic trade. Ruses were engaged not only in trade in other people's goods. By the beginning of the 9th century, the development of handicrafts in the Don region reached the European level of that time, and in many cases, according to archaeologists, it surpassed Western Europe. Saltovskaya burnished ceramics, made using a potter's wheel, which was then the latest technology, enjoyed great popularity. Metalworking and weaponry were no less developed. Russian weapons, judging by the information of Hudud al-Alam, if they could not compete with Damascus steel, then they were very close to it.

Thus, at the beginning of the 9th century, the economy of the Russian tribal union was in the stage of growth, which usually precedes the transition of the ethnos from the last stage of the primitive communal system to the formation of the state. There was a need for their own monetary unit. And the Rus, who until recently adorned wives and concubines with gold and silver coins, began to mint their own coin. This conclusion can be drawn on the basis of the finds of the so-called "barbaric imitations" of dirhems found in the upper reaches of the Don and Donets.

And if we remember that at the same time there was also an advance of the Rus to the borders of Khazaria (built by P. G., then it was then that the Russian ethno-political union became a kaganate in the full sense of the word, which was invested in it in the early Middle Ages. That was already really the supreme suzerain, having grounds for claims to dominance in the region. And the head of the Rus took the title of kagan. But there could be only one kaganate in South-Eastern Europe: the title of kagan was equated in the steppe with the imperial one. The Rus became dangerous competitors of Khazaria not only in the economy, but also in politics. The "Russian" path from the Arab Caliphate through the Transcaucasus to the Don and Donets could compete somewhere with the Volga, the Caspian end of which was under the control of Khazaria. And the advancement of the Russian tribal union to the east, and the construction of a fortress in an extremely -strategic point of view of the place - in the lower reaches of the Don - made Khazaria seriously worried.

Around the same time, the Russian Khaganate began to build powerful fortifications in the northeast and southeast. Khazaria is building the Semikarakorsk fortress on the river. Sal, and everywhere to the east of these fortifications nomadic mounds appear, where a distinctive feature of the funeral rite is the presence in the grave of the skull and bones of a horse. These burials have their origins in the Karayakup culture (the course of the Ural and Belaya rivers). The Karayakup monuments are associated by researchers with the territory of "Great Hungary", and the mounds are attributed as Magyar.

The conflict between the Russian Khaganate and Khazaria began, apparently, with the defeat of the latter, the Right-bank Tsimlyansk settlement - the military and commercial outpost of the Rus on the Lower Don. This fortress, in terms of the complexity of planning, the development of the system of towers, the device of the gates and other indicators, had no equal in this territory either earlier or later. According to the results of archaeological excavations in 1987-1990, it was destroyed in the 2nd quarter of the 9th century, before the construction of Sarkel. The population was partly slaughtered, partly taken into captivity; others - the Proto-Bulgarians and the steppe aces - went over to the side of their kindred Khazars (this is evidenced by the craniological and archaeological material of Sarkel and the settlement based on the site of the TsG). The center of the Russian Khaganate was too far from the lower reaches of the Don to provide operational assistance, but the Khazar Semikarakora were destroyed by the forces of the border garrisons. After this successful raid against the enemy from the west, the Khazars, with the direct assistance of Byzantium, built the Sarkel fortress on the left bank of the Don in 834–837.

Relations between the Byzantine Empire and Khazaria have always been controversial and depended mainly on the interests of Byzantium. At the beginning of the 9th century, the Russian Khaganate had already defined its foreign policy goals: control over the Volga-Baltic trade route, Transcaucasia, and the Northern Black Sea region. By the way, since the time of the Hun invasion, a tribal union with the name “ros” remained near the Black Sea, which disturbed the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea and on the southern coast of the Black Sea, as reported by the lives of Stephen of Surozh and George of Amastrid, dating from the 1st half. 9th century The data of toponymy and archeology give grounds to talk about the kinship of the ethnos "ros" of the beginning of AD. e. Russians of the Don region. Written data of the 9th century. confirm this thesis. The author of the Life of George of Amastrid mentions the Ross as a people well known in the Black Sea region: "The invasion of barbarians, Rus, a people, as everyone knows, is extremely wild and rude." It also speaks of the "ancient Taurian beating of foreigners", which remains in force among the Black Sea dews. There are direct analogies to this custom in "Hudud al-Alam" and other Arab-Persian writings in the cycle about three cities or types of Rus: "Urtab is a city where any stranger is killed." This is another confirmation of the kinship of the inhabitants of the Russian Khaganate and the Northern Black Sea region. The "rough and wild people of the Ross" lived in the 9th century, according to the Byzantine chroniclers of the 11th-12th centuries, "near the northern Taurus", that is, near the Crimean mountains. It is possible that the Rus of the Don and the Black Sea region were not only connected by a common origin, but also coordinated their policy. The growing activity of the Rus in this region created the conditions for the creation in the 30s of the 9th century of the Byzantine-Khazar alliance in the field of defensive policy against the Rus. In order to attract a strong ally in the fight against the Russian Khaganate, Khazaria made a significant territorial concession to Byzantium - the Crimean Gothia and Chersonese were given to the empire. In sources, this is associated only with the payment for the construction of Sarkel. However, researchers have repeatedly drawn attention to the unequal value of such a deal, which makes it possible to assume a secret agreement on a military-political alliance, or at least a promise of neutrality benevolent towards Khazaria. In addition, Byzantium helped Khazaria also because it was an ardent enemy of the Arab Caliphate.

The activities of Khazaria and Byzantium against the Rus were not limited to the construction of Sarkel. The Khazar lands between the Volga and the Lower Don were full of nomadic tribes who were vassals of Khazaria, and Khazaria spent a lot of effort to keep these tribes in a subordinate state, that is, in this territory. The strongest, most numerous and active among these tribes were the Hungarians, who roamed in the Middle Volga region. Oral Magyar tradition kept the memory of the whole "Khazar" period in their history. Information about this stage in the history of the Hungarians is given by the Byzantine emperor of the 10th century Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The same emperor, showing amazing and not accidental awareness of events, tells about a military agreement between the Khazars and the Hungarians, sealed by the marriage of the Hungarian leader to a "noble Khazar woman", probably of the Jewish faith. And the Khazar rulers, in alliance with Byzantium, skillfully direct the energy of the Hungarian nomads to the steppes between the Don and the Dnieper and the Northern Black Sea region, that is, to the territory subject to the Rus. It is the Magyars who belong to the burials that appeared in many burial mounds with ditches on the eastern borders of the Russian Khaganate.

At this time, realizing that such contact with the allies-vassals of Khazaria, the tribes of the steppe civilization, brings with it, the leadership of the Russian Khaganate sends an embassy to Byzantium for help, hoping that the empire, which is constantly pursuing a dual policy, will find it more profitable to help the Rus. It was this embassy, sent around 837, that was received at the court of the German emperor Louis the Pious in 839, which was reflected in the famous Annals of Bertin by Bishop Prudentius in the message about the embassy of the people of Hros. If we understand the message of the annals in the overall picture of the events outlined above, taking into account the fact that these are the ambassadors of the Russian Khaganate with its center on the Seversky Donets, then many questions are clarified that are confused by representatives of the Norman-Khazar theory in Russian historical science. It becomes clear the very purpose of the trip to Byzantium, and the long roundabout way of the ambassadors, whose way back was cut off by the "barbarian tribes" of the Hungarians, who by that time had reached the Don and Donets. Constantinople really pursued a dual policy, pushing two kaganates together. Byzantium helped Khazaria, worrying about its possessions in the Black Sea region, but, of course, it was not interested in the appearance of the Khazar Saltovites in place. Therefore, the embassy of the "people grew" was received with honors, despite the obvious futility of the mission. For a long time - three years - the embassies of the Magyar Rus, having wandered between the Don and the Dnieper, passed through Kyiv. In the Tale of Bygone Years, they left only a brief recollection of themselves: “Idosha Ugri, past Kiev, now calls the Ougorsky mountain and has come to the Dnieper and stacked with vezhs ...” But Ibn Ruste and al-Marvazi, whose information goes back to ser. IX century, they mention that "they prevail over those who neighbor them from as-sakaliba and the Rus, take them prisoner, deliver the prisoners to ar-Rum and sell them there." We are talking about the Rus and Slavs of the south of the East European Plain, since the eastern author localizes the Magyars in the Northern Black Sea region. Obviously, the Hungarians did not leave this territory immediately: the “exploits” of the Hungarians on the Dnieper are described in detail, greatly embellished, by the “Acts of the Hungarians” - a source of the XII century. with a combination of folklore and book bases, where the geography of Slavic Russia from the time of feudal fragmentation was transferred to the events of the 830–840s, however, the path of the Magyars is described accurately - from Great Hungary in the interfluve of the Kama and Volga through the future territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality to the "region Russians". A long siege of the capital of the Rus is described (in the understanding of the chronicler of the XII century. - Kyiv, but in the story there is a stone fortress wall, which, of course, did not exist in Kyiv at that time.

After that, around the 850s. The Hungarians went further in search of their homeland, to Atelkuza - the interfluve of the Dnieper and Dniester. And if the Slavic lands of the Dnieper region, apparently, did not suffer much from uninvited guests, then the core of the Russian Khaganate was devastated. Khazaria achieved its main goal for a short time, but achieved it. First of all, the "Russian" trade route, which followed from Syria and Transcaucasia along the Seversky Donets, ceased to exist, the hoards of eastern coins along the "River Rus" disappeared. The Kufic dirham ceased to circulate in these territories. It was then that the "naidosha Kozare" imposed tribute on the Russian and Slavic lands, resubordinating to themselves those Slavic tribes that were under the influence of the Saltov Rus. This is where the actual history of the Russian Khaganate on the Seversky Donets ends, for it was no longer a Khaganate.

From the book: E.S. Galkina "Russian Khaganate. Without Khazars and Normans"

Kyiv Khaganate

Many modern researchers, pointing to the participation of non-Slavic tribes of Rossomons and Slavic Antes (Polyans) in the ethnogenesis of the ancient Rus, "do not notice" the Huns: “... The descendants of the Antes in the 4th century, who won together with the Rossomons and the Huns, are ready, by the beginning of the 9th century. have their own “Kaganate”, that is, a sovereign state with a center in Kyiv and a king named Dir”(30, p. 303).

Back in the 6th century, Jordan wrote about the "treacherous people of the Rossomons", who helped the Huns in the 4th century. ready to smash, nevertheless, in the formation of the ancient Russian state and even in the defeat of the ready, the main active forces are now called the Ants and their descendants. Which, to put it mildly, is not entirely true. The fact that the Goths, shortly before the arrival of the Turkic-speaking Huns in Eastern Europe, defeated the Antes, destroying dozens of their leaders, is known to history, but is overlooked by most researchers. The Rossomons were also not the main forces that put an end to the dominion of the Goths in the Black Sea region. The Huns became them, and their centuries-old presence could not but affect here, including the formation of new ethnic groups! Plus, after two hundred years of the Turkic Khaganate ...

There is also an opposite point of view, according to which the Turks are the founders of Kievan Rus (96). And D. I. Ilovaisky, as already noted, completely attributed the Huns and Rus to the Slavic tribes. Evgraf Savelyev also called the Huns Slavs (87). Such a discrepancy probably occurs due to the fact that the history of the 7th-9th centuries. of the southern Russian steppes is poorly covered not only in Byzantine historiography, where its peoples were called Scythians or Sarmatians, but also in other sources of that time. Only in the 9th century did “Rus” manifest itself, loudly declaring itself to be an attack on Constantinople.

Official Russian history begins in the second half of the 9th century. D. I. Ilovaisky wrote about this at the end of the 19th century, complaining about the persistence of the “Varangian” legend of the origin of Russia, drawn from the initial chronicle of 862.

“... A number of respectable workers of science spent a lot of scholarship and talent to explain, frame this legend and approve it on historical grounds; Let us recall the respected names of Bayer, Strube, Miller, Tunman, Stritter, Schlozer, Lerberg, Krug, Fren, Butkov, Pogodin, Kunik. In vain did certain opponents appear to them, and with more or less wit, objected to their positions; what are: Lomonosov, Tatishchev, Evers, Neumann, Venelin, Kechenovsky, Moroshkin, Savelyev, Nadezhdin, Maksimovich and others. In the field of Russian historiography, the field has hitherto remained behind the system of Scandinavians; let's name the works of Karamzin, Polevoy, Ustryalov, Herman, Solovyov ... "(40, p. 8, 75).

But, abandoning the Norman hypothesis of the origin of Russia, he goes to the other extreme, placing the Huns and Rossomons in the Slavic ethnos. This point of view is no less doubtful.

It seems possible to consider the Kyiv Khaganate as one of the fragments of the Turkic Khaganate and “Great Bulgaria” that finally disintegrated in the middle of the 8th century. The term "Kievan Rus" is artificial, introduced by historians many centuries after the fall of Kyiv (88, p. 70).

During the first three thirds of the 9th century, the Russ dominated the Northern Black Sea region, as indicated by Byzantine sources, calling them nomads (27, p. 41). Things are more complicated with their origin. So far, it is only known that they were not Slavs.

Russia was fenced off from hundreds and thousands of years of history of the peoples who lived on earth from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, starting the history of the state from the era of the Middle Ages. But those who today are called the Russian people could not fall from heaven or leave swamps and forests only in the ninth century of the new era! And, of course, not only the Slavs participated in the ethnogenesis of the people, whose origin is still a task with many unknowns for scientists. Including the time of their settlement in Europe and the geography of the places they occupied in the first centuries of the Christian chronology are not determined. Numerous Slavs "arise" somehow immediately and suddenly after the collapse of the European Empire of the Huns. A. A. Shakhmatov (1864–1920) assumed that the Baltic ancestors of the Slavs, who moved to the Danube after the Goths, mattered (19, p. 8). In this case, the question arises: which Slavic Antes were defeated by the Goths in the southern Russian steppes?

Today, not a single specialist denies that several different ethnic groups participated in the formation of the Old Russian nationality and the name "Rus" has originally non-Slavic roots. There is an indisputable fact that in the tenth century. contemporaries described Russ and Slavs as two different ethnic groups! So, Constantine Porphyrogenitus separated Russia from the Slavs, because she herself distinguished herself from the Slavic tribes subordinate to them. The customs of the Rus also differed sharply from those of the Slavs. This is especially evident in the burial of the Rus described by the Arabs, who was buried according to the rite of burial in a “grave like a spacious house”, where the clothes and jewelry of the deceased, coins, ritual food and drinks, as well as one of the beloved women were placed (27, p. 16 –17). But it is known that the Turks buried like this!

The Rus shaved their heads, leaving a tuft of hair on the crown, the Slavs cut their hair in a circle. The Rus lived in military settlements and "feed" on military booty, some of which was sold to the Khazar Jews, while the Slavs were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding (6, pp. 289–295).

The hostile relations between the Rus and the Slavs are pointed out by Arab authors of the late VIII - early IX centuries. The Rus were excellent sailors. But since the Arabs never climbed the Volga-Baltic route above the Volga Bulgaria, some researchers conclude that the Ruses they describe could not be Varangians and live in the north-west of Eastern Europe.

E. S. Galkina believes that in education "Russian Khaganate" Russ, Alans, Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians took part. Moreover, the Rus were the social elite of the state. After the impact of the Magyar-Onoguro-Khazar union "Russian Khaganate" broke up into separate tribes, some of which migrated, others remained in place, but submitted to the Khazars (27, p. 309).

In our opinion, the most probable ancestors of the ancient Rus, to a much greater extent than the Slavs, should be called the Rossomons, about whom Jordan wrote. Only again the question arises: who are they - the Rossomons? Where did they appear in the Don and Dnieper regions in the 4th century?

As one of the possible answers, I would like to cite an excerpt from the poem of the modern Kyrgyz poet Choro Tukembaev "Rossomons and Dinlins":

“...First duty, Asgard is erected

on the navel of the earth

To trade in a valuable commodity,

So that ships sail from China along the Ob

Through the Arctic to the British.

There they were called Vikings,

or European Normans,

And in Eurasia - dinlins,

that is, the Kyrgyz of the Yenisei.

Those blue-eyed dinlins -

Powerful tall blondes -

Among the Asians, an article stood out

And eighty thousand men!

And the number of the same militia

Defended their possessions from enemies.

When the holy army galloped across the steppe

On white, black horses,

All Asia shook and trembled

From the roar in their homes

And meekly followed her gaze

Troops under the blue-red flag.

Their song is in an incomprehensible language,

Flying over the steppe in orderly rows,

Deafeningly ringing in my head

With their non-Asian ways.

So from Asia to the West striving

Blue and red banners flew ...

... First he conquered England with a sword,

She was then called Gardarika,

Therefore, the Viking became the lord,

And defeated the Saxon Country in the south,

And squeezed Europe in the palm of your hand

From the Arctic to Boulogne!

So says the "Saga of the Ynglins"

About the defeat of the Carolingians.

That's how the genes asked Kuzkin's mother,

They invested in the beginning, even under lock and key!

That's how their genes turned white!

What is reflected in the flesh, in the body.

That's why they are born into the world

Fashion models among the clumsy and bad ... "

So, according to the poet, tall blue-eyed blondes came from the center of Asia to Europe! Behind the romantic lines of the poem, one can see what is manifested today not only in legends, but in historical science, supported by the discoveries of geneticists. According to the results of those studies, the haplogroup R1a1, as a result of mutations in mankind, first appeared in Central Asia and was carried by descendants around the world - to the South to India and Persia (or rather, to where states later arose), to the West, to the North, including Scandinavia. Therefore, not donors lived in India, but recipients of R1a1 (47).

This does not contradict the code of the Bulgar chronicles of Gazi-Baradj, according to which the Rus and Bulgars are the descendants of the ancient "saklanov", who came thousands of years ago from the depths of Asia. Representatives of R1a1 in various percentages today make up a significant part of the population of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Scotland, Scandinavian countries, northern India, Iran and Pakistan. But most of all, this haplogroup is detected among the Altaians, Shors, Kyrgyz and Tajiks.

Based on the study of the DNA of the remains of ancient people from archaeological finds and the gene pool of modern people, an undoubted genetic connection between the population of the eastern area of the Andronovo culture (Sayan-Altai, Semirechye) and the territory of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and India is revealed (24, pp. 147–166). Apparently, it is no coincidence that in ancient Chinese sources the inhabitants of the Sayano-Altai were represented as tall blondes. And in some later sources, the Chinese call the immediate ancestors of the Russian Central Asian Usuns. That is why the poem by Choro Tukembaev, perhaps, reflects the ancient history of the great people closer to the truth in comparison with the one that the official historical science in Russia has been following since the time of Tsar Peter I.

In medieval literature, only fragmentary information about the Slavs has been preserved. From which we can conclude that they did not participate in significant historical events of the beginning of the millennium. But the Turks, after the collapse of the state of which the Kyiv Khaganate was formed, are not pampered with attention by modern researchers. Therefore, let's try to understand their participation in the formation and life of the Kyiv Kaganate.

There is no need to repeat that "Kievan Rus", as well as Khazaria, in almost all ancient sources was called a state headed by a kagan. And in order not to confuse Kievan Rus with Muscovite Rus, which is so disliked in modern Ukraine, it is proposed to call it the “Kyiv Kaganate”, which is also true from a historical point of view.

The ethnogenesis of any nation is a complex process in which different tribes invariably participate, including hostile and allied ones. Conqueror warriors may leave or die in the following battles, leaving children born to the women of the conquered peoples. This was also how the R1a1 genotype spread across the planet. After all, this trait is transmitted through the male Y-chromosome, which women do not have. Children are often raised by their mothers. They teach them to speak, instill knowledge and culture. This is how a people arises, whose ancestors on the maternal side in the past were not able to resist the conquerors, but the blood of those same conquerors already flows in it. In Eurasia, this process, with a certain periodicity, occurred more than once and not twice ...

Of course, it happened like this:

“... Let's say the king had children

From a Turkish, Mongolian and Jewish woman.

These mothers will teach children in the womb

hate each other, be at enmity

and live in malice

And tear apart the state

Using intrigue and deceit…”

Nevertheless, if strong children are born to many “mothers” of one defeated people from conquering warriors, they will be brought up in a mother culture. Perhaps that is why nomads from the east invariably dissolved in the numerous peoples they conquered in the west.

Someday scientists will explain the reasons for the desire of the inhabitants of the center of Asia to develop new lands, breaking away from the lifestyle of distant ancestors, not only by fleeing from cold weather, drought or stronger rivals. According to L.N. Gumilyov, less passionate people remained where they left from, preferring a calm, measured life to the unknowns of fate far from their homeland. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that the anthropological features of most of the modern inhabitants of the Sayano-Altai and the lands adjacent to China and Mongolia today have distinct Mongoloid features. They are dominant, intensified with each generation among the same Central Asian Kyrgyz, whose ancestors a thousand years ago were portrayed by Chinese historiographers as fair-haired and blue-eyed.

In the XI-XII centuries. Mongol-speaking tribes drove out or subjugated the few remaining Turks in the Ordos and Baikal region. The anthropological features of the inhabitants of the Sayano-Altai and the eastern Kazakh steppes changed. But in the era of the Turkic Khaganate, an ancient genetic drift spreading the trait to the outskirts of the population range. And steppe heroes on campaigns to the west rewarded local beauties with their favor, and the descendants that appeared inherited the passionarity of their fathers (32). Therefore, the attempts of modern historians and archaeologists to find Mongoloid signs, for example, among the Khazars, are untenable, only on the basis that one of the ancient chronicles describes an episode when in 627 the Khazars, together with the Byzantines, besieged Tbilisi, the Georgians brought a pumpkin to the city wall, drawing on it is the face of a Turkic kagan. You can hardly call it a scientific approach. Today, researchers do not have reliable facts pointing to Mongoloid signs among nomads in Eastern Europe during the period of the 6th-9th centuries, not to mention earlier newcomers from the east.

In the middle of the 10th century, Princess Olga (ruled from 945 to 962) assumed power in Kyiv and immediately concluded an agreement with Byzantium, breaking off relations with the Khazar Khaganate, to which Kyiv at that time paid tribute. In 957, she was baptized and, having received support in Constantinople, began a war against Khazaria. Already in 965, her son, the young prince Svyatoslav Igorevich (ruled from 945 to 972, but at first his mother was the regent), captured the Khazar cities of Itil, Semender and Sarkel on the Don with the Pechenegs and Oguzes (ibid.).

According to another version, the growing Oguzes in 965, in alliance with the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav, defeated Khazaria. The Ruses left after the victory, the Oguzes remained on her land (6). Later, as mentioned above, the Oguzes also left, having founded the Seljuk state.

The Scandinavian Vikings, who were once invited by the Khazar king, actually usurped power in the Russian principalities. But during the reign of Princess Olga, the ethnic affiliation of the ruling elite changes there. This is evidenced by the names of the members of her government. If the older generation still has Scandinavian names, then the younger one has Slavic ones. Thus, power is concentrated in the hands of either the Slavs or the Slavized Rus. The Slavic element triumphed over the Norman and Rossomon, retaining only the name itself from the latter: "meadows, even now recommended Russia"(30, pp. 326–327)

With the adoption in 988 by the Kyiv Kaganate of Orthodox Christianity as the state religion, the situation changes even more. The Church becomes a great unifying force, which later became even higher than princely power. The same nomads, accepting the Orthodox faith, became subjects of the Russian princes. A vivid example of this is the relationship with a new wave of nomads - the Polovtsy, who by the beginning of the 11th century had occupied a dominant position in the steppes of Eastern Europe.

Despite the colorful pictures of the antagonistic relations between Russia and the nomads accepted in Russian literature, by the 12th century the Polovtsians and Russians constituted a single ethno-social system. At the same time, the number of Russians reached 5.5 million, and the Polovtsy - several hundred thousand (82). The Russian princes knew how to negotiate with the Polovtsians even better than among themselves, and the people, like the princely offspring, married with great pleasure "Red Polovtsian girls". Their descendants became Zaporizhia Sloboda Cossacks.

According to Alexander Ludov (2014), the Cossacks in the Northern Black Sea region existed in all historical periods, including the kai-saki, that is, the royal Scythians, as described by Herodotus. Although the author deduces the ethnonym "Polovtsy" from their habitat - in the field, and not from the sexual color of their hair, he calls them direct descendants of the ancient Saks and Sako-Masagets. Linguistically, in the ethnonym "Kipchaks", assuming its two-root basis, in the second root "Chaki" Ludov sees a distorted traditional name for the Scythians - "Saki". The first root "kai", "ki", "kav" and "kiv" can carry the same semantic load, meaning belonging to the royal family. So, among the ancient Aryan tribes, the royal title was denoted by the words "kiv", "kav", "kavi". Thus, according to the author, “Greek Kasaks or Kivchaks of Georgian chronicles, Arab Kasaks and Kipchaks of Persian authors are none other than Cossacks, known in Russia under the nickname of Polovtsy and Kasogs” (65).

Including the baptized descendants of the Turko-Khazars in the 11th century. abandoned their ethnonym and began to call themselves, first in Slavonic roamers, and then in Turkic Cossacks. “Then the ethnonym “Khazar” was preserved by the descendants of the Jews, but only until the end of the 11th century, when the ethnos disappeared from the historical arena” (30, p. 292).

To better understand why Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy argued that Russia was created by the Cossacks, it is worth referring to the family relationship of the Polovtsy and Rurikovich. It turns out that almost all the Rurikovichs of the Kyiv Kaganate were related to the Polovtsian princes!

After the death of Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, the usual civil strife began associated with the death of a strong ruler, with the involvement of the Polovtsian cavalry. The son of Yaroslav the Wise marries Anna Polovtska. She bore him Rostislav and three daughters: Yanka, Irina and Evpraksia, the future Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1078, the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, the legendary prince of Tmutarakansky and Chernigov, Oleg Svyatoslavovich, cousin of Vladimir Monomakh, married the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Osoluk. From her he had four sons: Gleb, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod and Igor. In 1094, another grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince of Kyiv Svyatopolk Izyaslavovich, sealed a peace treaty with Tugor Khan by marrying his daughter Elena, who gave birth to four sons from him: Mstislav, Izyaslav, Yaroslav, Bryachislav - and two daughters: Predslava (future Queen of Hungary) and Sbyslav (future Queen of Poland).

Vladimir Monomakh married his son Yuri (later Dolgoruky) to the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Aepa Osenevich. From her, Yuri had 11 sons: Rostislav, Andrei Bogolyubsky (whose second wife was a Polovtsian), Svyatoslav, Ivan, Boris, Gleb, Mstislav, Vasilko, Yaroslav, Mikhalko, Vsevolod (in-law of Khan Yuri Konchakovich) - and two daughters: Elena, wife Oleg Svyatoslavovich, the mother of Prince Svyatoslav (three-quarters of the Polovtsy), and Olga, the wife of Yaroslav of Galicia, from whom she had a son, Vladimir, and a daughter, Euphrosyne Yaroslavna, the wife of Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich of Novgorod Seversky. Etc. Already in 1223, Mstislav Mstislavovich Udaloy married the daughter of the famous Polovtsian Khan Kotyan. Their daughter was given in marriage to Daniil Galitsky, who, in turn, married one of his sons to the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan (65).

Seem to be, "the eternal struggle of Russia with the Steppe" proceeded mainly in princely beds and in the minds of historians, and by the time the Golden Horde was formed in the Northern Black Sea region, it was no longer easy to say who were Russians and who were Polovtsians. Why is it not worth inventing the reasons for the union of the Russian and Polovtsian princes, who jointly opposed the Mongol expeditionary force on the Kalka River in 1223?

It is appropriate to note that the internecine wars of nomads since the collapse of the Great Turkic Khaganate were no less bloody than those between the Russian princes. And when a force appeared that could unite everyone, there were its supporters and opponents. The wandering Cossacks then took the side of the new nomads from the east, who decided once again to unite the Great Steppe. The Polovtsy became one of those who did not want to recognize the "elder brother" of the khans of the empire of Genghis Khan.

Idea "the eternal struggle of Russia with the Steppe" obviously artificial, far-fetched origin (76, p. 39). There was no unity in the steppe at that time. When a unifying religion appeared in the Russian principalities, the processes of miscegenation of farmers and scattered steppe dwellers, deprived of such strength, intensified. The nomads of the southern Russian steppes adopted a coherent system of Christian views on life and its culture, settling on the earth. Even the son of Khan Konchak, Yuri, was baptized. In addition, almost until the middle of the XIII century. The Polovtsy were allies of the Russian princes and in opposition to the Catholic West, whose interests were represented by the Hungarians with the Poles, and later by Lithuania.

Finally, the love of the simple Russian people for the vast expanses of the steppe, horses, and the ease of development by the Cossacks in the 17th-18th centuries, sung for hundreds of years by writers and poets. terrestrial expanses of modern Russia from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean serve as a clear confirmation of the relationship of the Great Russians with the steppes. The recognition of this relationship has been fought for three hundred years in historical publications, in the media by Western-oriented representatives of the Russian intelligentsia and, unfortunately, by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church, in presenting the history of Ancient Russia, uncritically relies on the opinion of the chronicler Nestor, many of whose statements have long been recognized, to put it mildly, as erroneous. But official historians remain committed to the Eurocentric presentation of Russian history, written back in the 18th century by Western scholars, when the Cossacks - the creators of Russia - were called a rabble of peasants and serfs who fled from the boyars and landlords.

From the book Ancient Russia author Vernadsky Georgy Vladimirovich

Chapter VII. SCANDINAVIANS AND THE RUSSIAN KAGANATE, (737-839)

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Chapter XXVI. KAGANATE AND EMPIRE Super-effort. Year after year passed, and in Chang'an they understood more and more clearly that the Empire could not exist next to the Kaganate. The presence of the Kaganate killed the very idea of the Tang Empire. Instead of a pan-Asian empire, there was a Chinese one, only with

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Russian Khaganate. 9th century

Let us consider the problem of the Russian Khaganate mentioned in the Bertinsk Annals, a state formation headed by the Rus, which in its original form could exist until the second half or the end of the 9th century. Historians have long been arguing about the question of which Russians were in this kaganate: Slavs or some others, for example, Alans or Khazars, and where this khaganate was located. The insufficient study of this issue can also be explained by the fact that in Soviet times Scythology and Khazar studies were discriminated disciplines.

The earliest mention of the Kaganate is contained in the Bertinsky Annals - the annals of the Saint-Bertinsky monastery, covering the history of the state of the Franks from 830 to 882. The ruins of the monastery closed in 1791 are located within the French city of Saint-Omer. The information refers to the year 839, that is, to a period earlier than that described in the ancient Russian chronicles. In the story about the Byzantine embassy that arrived in Ingelheim at the court of Emperor Louis I the Pious on May 18, 839, it is written: “Theophilus, the emperor of Constantinople, also sent with them some who said that their name, that is, their people, was Ros, and whom, as they said, their king was called Khakan.”

Kagan is a Turkic title worn by the supreme rulers of nomadic empires. Most likely, the Rus could borrow it from the Khazars. It is usually believed that it reflected the great power claims of the Rus, firstly, for equality with the Khazars, and secondly, for rivalry with them in control over the Slavic tribes. According to a less common point of view, on the contrary, it testifies to the vassal dependence of the Rus on the Khazars.

At present, the territory of the Russian Kaganate cannot be unambiguously established.

Among the location options, it is called:

The Middle Dnieper - the territory of the meadows (B. Rybakov, L. Gumilyov, etc.)

Slavic North - Novgorod, St. Russa (A. Shakhmatov, K. Zukerman, D. Machinsky.) The area from the Dnieper to the Middle Don and the Upper Oka (V. V. Sedov, E. S. Galkina).

Sea of Azov - (G. Vernadsky).

The northern version in the 2003 article "Two Stages in the Formation of the Old Russian State" (http://iananu.kiev.ua/archaeology/2003-1/zukerman.htm) is substantiated in detail by K. Zuckerman ( genus. 1957 - French-Jewish historian), and also develops D. A. Machinsky(1937-2012 - Russian archaeologist and historian, specialist in Scythian-Sarmatian and Slavic antiquities and Novgorod Rus). According to Zuckerman, the center of the Kaganate was first in Ladoga, then in the Rurik Settlement (Holmgardr of the Scandinavian tradition - “island of the Russians”), and the main settlements were Kholopy Gorodok and Settlement on Syas. The same point of view is also held by J. Shepard, according to which the residence of the kagan was Rurikovo Settlement - the largest Russian settlement on the upper Volkhov in the middle of the 9th century, located on a hill and not subject to flooding even in high water. However, it is not at all easy for Zuckerman to combine all the data into one concept, built taking into account Greek sources and Russian chronicles. The devastating fire in Ladoga in 860 is considered in connection with the internecine wars that followed the expulsion of the Varangians. Thus, the traditional date of Rurik's arrival in 862 seemed to be confirmed. However, recent excavations have led to the conclusion that the fire occurred between 863 and 870, which made it possible to consider again the arrival of Rurik in 868. But then this does not fit with the campaign of the Varangians in 860 to Constantinople.

And in order to give an explanation of all events, taking into account their chronology, and to substantiate the northern version of the Russian Kaganate according to Shepard, K. Zuckerman creates and argues his author's reconstruction of history. At the same time, together with archaeologists, it was necessary to interpret the results of the excavations in a new way, adjusting them to this concept, which explains the massive conflagrations in Ladoga, Truvorov settlement (future Izborsk) and other settlements with a mixed Slavic-Finnish population and the disappearance of the Kaganate as a result of large-scale aggression of the Scandinavians. But attempts to impose annalistic chronology on archaeological finds lead only to a dead end.

K. Zuckerman gets out of this impasse, reconstructing in his own way the events tied to the northern version of the Russian Kaganate that he adopted as a basis, and comes to the following conclusions:

1. The basis for the creation of the Russian Kaganate shortly before its first mention in 839 was the expansion of the Scandinavian (Russian) detachments and their settlements to control trade between Scandinavia and the East. At the same time, the southern part of the trade route was controlled by the Khazar Kaganate. The aggressive policy of the Rus in relation to the local tribes of the Slavs, according to Arab sources, and the opposition of the Rus to the Slavs are reminiscent of the chronicle descriptions of the oppression of the Slavs by the Varangians.

2. The death of the Kaganate in the early 870s (and the chronicle “expulsion of the Varangians”) is associated with a strong wave of Slavic migration to the north under the pressure of the Hungarians, who were forced by the Khazars to leave Levedia. This created a stagnation on the trade route for 25 years.

3. The arrival of Rurik took place around 895 (A serious justification for a gap of 25 years is not given).

Zuckerman's reconstruction (not to mention following the Norman tradition and the need to adjust archaeological data and dating to the author's hypothesis) was created without taking into account Arabic sources and therefore does not stand up to criticism. And for the date of calling Rurik, as has already been shown, 870, and not 862, should be taken. Criticism of K. Zuckerman boils down to the following:

1. The definition of the Scandinavian units as "Russian" is not substantiated by anything. 2. The location of the kagan's residence on a hill does not fit the description of an island with marshy soil. Not to mention its size "in three days' journey". 3. The residence of the kagan in the area of the river. Volkhov was practically inaccessible to Arab merchants due to the great distance, and its description is found only in Arabic sources. 4. Findings of recent archeologists (including coins of the Kaganate) give the localization of its settlements between the Don and the middle Dnieper in the area of the Seversky Donets, where artifacts confirming this were found. (See works by E. S. Galkina). 5. And the residence of the kagan is reliably identified in the city of Malorosa in the swampy delta of the Kuban, where the nature of the soil and the size of the "island" fully correspond to the Arabic description.

In the 60s. In the 20th century, the Ukrainian archaeologist D.T. Berezovets proposed to identify with the Rus the Alanian population of the forest-steppe part of the Don region, which was formed as a result of the resettlement of Alanian tribes from the Kuban region to this region and is known from the monuments of the Saltovo-Mayak culture. Currently, this hypothesis is being developed by E. S. Galkina, who considers the Don region as the main territory of the Russian Khaganate, mentioned in Arabic, Byzantine and Western sources in the 9th century. She believes that after the defeat of this association by the nomadic tribes of the Hungarians at the end of the 9th century, the name "Rus" from the Rus-Alans (Roksolans or Rosomones) passed to the Slavic population of the Middle Dnieper region (glade, northerners). Galkina believes that at the turn of the 7th-8th centuries, the so-called Volintsevo culture of the descendants of the Ants appeared in the Dnieper forest-steppe left bank, adjacent to the Saltovo-Mayatsky one, and both of them may reflect the existence of the Russian Kaganate. Khaganate according to modern data for a couple of centuries was older than Novgorod Rus. As evidenced by the contents of the coin hoards, he even minted his coins at the mint in Moscow. And now it is already possible to read on the coin an inscription in Russian, stylized as Arabic script, made in runic: “ Altyn is a gold Russian coin. Russian Khaganate. Moscow».

And on the obverse of the coin, Russian words are read "Altyn se Vyshna Ruska coin", i.e. "Altyn is the highest Russian coin". (According to V. Chudinov)

Rice. 26. Coin of the Russian Khaganate

This inscription alone removes all questions: the Russians from the Kaganate spoke Russian, and their capital was the city Moscow, even if this city was located in a different place than today's Moscow. Thus, Russia in the form of the Russian Khaganate existed before Novgorod and Kievan Rus. This once again confirms the fact of the existence of Russia before Rurik. ( V. Chudinov. "Coin of the Russian Khaganate". http://www.trinitas.ru/rus/doc/0016/001a/00160087.htm

Arabic sources Ibn Ruste, Gardizi, Marvazi, Hudud al-alam and anonymous essay "Mojamal-at-tawarikh" report that the Rus (when reporting al-Rusiyi, see more details chapter "Alania. Tmutarakan. II-VIII century") live on the island, and their ruler is called khakan.

This is the only description Russian Khaganate as a political and territorial structure that possibly existed in the general political system of Khazaria. Linking this description to the Ilmen Slovenes or to Staraya Russa in the south of Lake Ilmen is, in my opinion, absolutely wrong. Firstly, the Arabs did not climb so far to the north and within their reach was really marshy swampy, overgrown with forests, the Kuban delta between the branches of the river. Secondly, the description and dimensions of this "boggy island" (" three days' journey") just corresponded to the natural conditions and the size of the triangular Kuban delta with a side of about 120 km. In Priilmenye, "islands" of this size cannot be found with all desire.

In this regard, we are primarily interested in the Azov region and the Ases, or rather the Aso-Slavs who lived in the Kuban and in the Seversky Donets region. Some of these Ases were Slavs who were influenced by the Iranians (?), while other groups of Ases were purely Iranian. There is evidence of a close relationship between the Upper Donetsk and Azov aces.

I personally like this option. I seriously doubt only the “Iranian” origin of aces, since I remember O. N. Trubachev’s warning about the established trend of unjustified general Iranianization tribes of this region. (See chapter "Black Sea region. VIII century").

Add to this evidence of Scandinavian traditions. In Ynglinga Saga, this territory was described as Great Sweden and it would be tempting to connect this data with Priilmenye, but Ynglinga Saga says: "Land in Asia east of Tanakwisla(Tanaisa, i.e. the Don River) called Asland or Asheim( i.e. Aces country),and the main city in this land was called Asgard(i.e. City of Ases). The ruler there was the one who was called Odin. Thus, in the saga we are talking about much earlier, one might say, mythological times of Odin, i.e., the time that in the “Book of Veles” is associated with the exodus of Odin from the Kuban at the head of the Germanic tribes of the ancestor Kisek to Scandinavia. This in no way denies the existence of the city of Asgard. This city was located, perhaps, at the mouth of the Kuban or near the city of Taman. Nearby should be Mount As-Dag ("Mountain of Ases"), which cannot be found, perhaps due to the fact that the old name was forgotten over time. Later, not far from the coast of the Baltic on the banks of the Western Dvina, a city with the same name Asgard appeared, known to the Zetas as the Prussian city of Asheraden (now Aizkraukle, Latvia). This name of the city can probably be explained by the nostalgic memories of its inhabitants about the fabulous country of their past exploits and adventures in their youth. For the same reasons, the name As (the female form of Asa) became a common personal name in Scandinavia. Several Norwegian princesses in the ninth and tenth centuries bore the name Asa. And the syllable "as" was also used in the formation of such male names as Asmund, Askold, etc.

Arab authors of the 9th-13th centuries distinguished between the Slavs and the Rus speaking the language of the Slavs. In confirmation of the real existence Russians in the Kuban, where the Arabs and Persians reached in the fight against the Khazars, I recall the words of the Persian historian of the XIII century. Fakhr al-Din Mubarakshah wrote: " The Khazars have such a letter that occurs from Russian; branch of the Rumians, which is close to them, uses this letter, and they call the Rumians Russians". Right here at Russian river» Don, in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and located Rus tribes(or their descendants after the ragrom by the Huns Kuban Ruskolani).

The name "Rus" is closely connected with the name "ace". The capital of the ancestors of the Scandinavians in the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, Asgard, was probably close to the "Swamp City" of the Rus Little Russians(Mal-o-dew - a swamp of the Rus). The Kuban Delta, where Malorosa was located, was called by Arab authors Russian Island. It is possible that the mixed Alanian-Slavic tribes who lived here eventually adopted the name of the Rus, so the state that they founded in the Azov region after escaping from the turmoil of the Arab invasion later became known as Russian Khaganate.

Summing up this analysis, the most likely location of the Russian Kaganate seems to me to be the area from the Dnieper to the Middle Don as the main territory where these artifacts were found in the layers of the Volyntsev culture, but the Kuban delta is the most competitive as the residence of the kagan. Finally, the issue can be resolved after the discovery of additional data.

In the article mentioned above, V. Chudinov also deciphers the inscriptions on ceramic pots found by archaeologists during excavations of the “Volyntsevo culture” in the Kiev region. Among the descriptions of several pots, pot No. 3 caught my attention, the inscription on which reads: STROITELN MASTR'SKIA MARK'VA KROPOTKIN, that is, " CONSTRUCTION WORKSHOP MARKOV, KROPOTKIN» This means that in the 7th-8th centuries, i.e. 1300-1400 years ago, some of my namesake, and possibly a distant ancestor, made pots in a pottery workshop in the city of Kropotkin on the territory of the Russian Kaganate and put a company inscription on his product (like "made in Russia") in ancient, but easily understandable Russian.

From the book Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe author Gumilyov Lev Nikolaevich

38. Russian Khaganate At the turn of the 8th and 9th centuries. Khazars stopped at the border of the land of the Rus, the center of which was in the Crimea. The Rus at that time showed considerable activity, making naval raids on the shores of the Black Sea. Around 790 they attacked the fortified city of Sourozh

From the book Ancient Russia author

Chapter VII. SCANDINAVIANS AND THE RUSSIAN KAGANATE, (737-839)

From the book Ancient Russia author Vernadsky Georgy Vladimirovich

5. The First Russian Khaganate The first Scandinavian army that appeared in the Sea of Azov in the middle of the eighth century was hardly numerous. In addition, part of it soon, apparently, moved to the Transcaucasus. However, when the road to the south was discovered, new search parties

From the book Great Empires of Ancient Russia author

RUSSIAN KAGANATE - THE THIRD EMPIRE The historical fate of Northern Russia, where at the end of the VI-VII centuries. the Krivichi, the Slovenes and the branch of the Rus that joined them moved, at first took shape differently than in the South. The aliens have established good relations with the local Finnish peoples - a miracle,

From the book of the War of Pagan Russia author Shambarov Valery Evgenievich

26. RUSSIAN KAGANATE The historical destinies of Northern Russia differed in many respects from those of Southern Russia. Sloven, the branch of Russ and Krivichi that joined them, was connected by the total share of immigrants, they did not quarrel among themselves. They were also friends with the neighboring Finnish peoples: the Narova, the Izhora, the whole, the Chud,

From the book Another History of Russia. From Europe to Mongolia [= Forgotten History of Russia] author

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From the book Forgotten History of Russia [= Another History of Russia. From Europe to Mongolia] author Kalyuzhny Dmitry Vitalievich

Russian Khaganate Historians suggest that by the end of the 8th century, the Rus managed to create not only armed forces, but also an organized state. By the middle of the 9th century, their ruler appropriated the Khazar title of kagan to himself. Ibn-Rusta says about it this way: “The Rus had a ruler,

From the book Prince Rurik and his time author Tsvetkov Sergey Vasilievich

From the book From Hyperborea to Russia. Non-traditional history of the Slavs author Markov German

Russian Khaganate. 9th century Let us consider the problem of the Russian Khaganate mentioned in the Bertinsk Annals, a state formation headed by the Rus, which in its original form could exist until the second half or the end of the 9th century. Historians have long debated

From the book Secrets of the Russian Khaganate author Galkina Elena Sergeevna

The first battles for the Russian Khaganate Information from the Bertin annals about the people of Rhos, headed by the Khagan, was already known at the time of the birth of the Norman theory. The corpus of eastern sources entered scientific circulation almost a century later - at the beginning of the 19th century, after a series of

Part IV Russian Khaganate

From the book In Search of Oleg Russia author Anisimov Konstantin Alexandrovich

The Russian Khaganate of the Bertinsky Annals and Ibn Ruste So, we see that at the beginning of the 10th century, Russia could launch its devastating raids on the Caspian from the shores of the modern. Romania. In the XI-XIII centuries. Danubian Rus as a maritime power was not noticed, which is not surprising, since it was

author Pleshanov-Ostoya A.V.

"Russian Khaganate" Writers Sergei Buntovsky and Maxim Kalashnikov express the idea that the ancestral home of the Russian ethnos was the so-called "Russian Khaganate", where representatives of different peoples assimilated. According to them, the archaeological evidence is

From the book What was before Rurik author Pleshanov-Ostoya A.V.

When did the Russian Khaganate exist? Most of our sources about the beginning of Russian history were written many years after the events. The same “Tale of Bygone Years” is a work of the 12th century (and its predecessor, which has not come down to us, was created around 997). The beginning of the story

The first appearances of Russia in the sources

So, we came to the point of view that Russia in its original meaning is the name by which the Norman squads are known among the Eastern Slavs. When did these squads appear in the south and to what time do their first attacks on Byzantium date, where they were called by the name Ρπς? Our chronicle relates the first attack on Byzantium - the so-called campaign of Askold and Dir - to the "14th year" of the reign of Michael III. Now we know that the campaign of 860 was not the first appearance of Russia on the Black Sea. Life of St. George of Amastrid, written, according to V. G. Vasilevsky, between 820 and 842, reports an attack by the people of Ρπς on Amastrida. “What follows is even more amazing. There was an invasion of barbarians, Russia, a people, as everyone knows, extremely wild and rude, not bearing any traces of philanthropy ”and then everything in the same spirit. This attack, the exact date of which we do not know, can be connected with the construction by the Greeks of a fortress on the Don for the Khazars and with the embassy of the Byzantine emperor Theophilus (829-842) to Louis the Pious.

Representatives of a people called Rhos (Latin transcription from Greek Ρπς) took part in the embassy. The following news about this was preserved in the Bertin annals under the year 839. “Greek ambassadors also came, sent by the emperor ... and brought along with gifts worthy of the emperor, a letter. The emperor received them with honor on May 18 at Ingelheim. The purpose of their embassy was to approve the treaty and peace ... He (Theophilus) also sent some (people) with them, who told (Theophilus) that they, that is, their people, are called Ros, and whom, as they said, their king is named Khakan (Chacanus) sent to him for the sake of friendship. In the letter mentioned, (Theophilus) asked that the emperor graciously give them the opportunity to return (to their country) and guard throughout their empire, since the paths by which they arrived to him in Constantinople went among barbarians, very inhuman and savage tribes, and he would not want them to be in danger as they returned. After carefully investigating the reason for their arrival, the emperor learned that they belonged to the Swedish people (eos gentes esse Sueonum); considering them rather as scouts for that kingdom and ours than as seekers of friendship, Louis decided to detain them in his place so that he could reliably find out whether they came there with good intentions or not. I want to draw attention to the fact that, as can be seen from the text, both the name of the people and the title of the ruler were communicated to the Franks in the cover letter of Emperor Theophilus, as already pointed out by Gideonov. Emperor Louis, as later Liutprand, discovered under the Greek name Ρπς (Rhos) the Swedes known to him. Who were these Swedes and how did they get to Louis?

The explanation for Prudentius' message, it seems to me, can be seen in the following. The attack on Amastrida and other possible Norman attacks on the southern shores of the Black Sea, which took place in the 30s of the 9th century, forced the Greeks to pay attention to the people of Ρπς. Petrona, who arrived in Khazaria in 838 to build a fortress, obviously tried to establish contact with this people through the Khazars, which he succeeded in, and soon the first Russian embassy arrived in Constantinople, possibly together with an embassy from the Khazars. It is possible that the Khazars translated the title of the Russian ruler "King" to the Greeks with their term "Kagan", which Theophilus reported in a letter to Louis. Having completed their mission, the Khazars could easily return home. For the Rus, it was not so easy - "very inhuman and wild tribes" lay on their way, which shows the remoteness of the "Russian Khaganate" from the Black Sea and refutes the hypothesis of "Priazovsky Rus". Apparently, the way through the Frankish Empire and the Baltic Sea was more convenient, and the Russians set off together with the embassy of Emperor Theophilus, headed by Metropolitan Theodosius of Chalcedon and Theophanes the Spafarius, to distant Ingelheim. There they were detained, as they turned out to be Swedes, although the Greek letter spoke of the mysterious people of Ros, and the Franks suspected them of Norman scouts. Indirect confirmation that they were Normans and that Chacanus was the title of their ruler can be seen in the lines of a letter from Louis the German (son of Louis the Pious) to Basil the Macedonian: “Chaganem vero non prelatum Avavrum, non Gasanorum aut Nordmannorum nuncupari reperimus, neque principem Vulgarum, set regem vel dominum Vulgarum.

Location of the "Russian Khaganate"

Where was the "Russian Khaganate"? You can only make guesses. In particular, one can resort to the help of Arab sources speaking about the "island of the Russ". Here is what Ibn Roste reports. First, he describes the Slavs, in whose country there is a terrible cold, so that one can think that we are talking about the northern group of Slavs. Russians live not far from them, who “fight with the Slavs, whom they approach on ships, take them prisoner, take them to Khazran or Bulgar and sell them there.” Here is a description of the territory and organization of these Russians. “The Russians live on an island, which is surrounded on all sides by the sea. This island stretches for 3 days and is full of forests and swamps. They are dangerous with swamp fever and are so boggy that their feet sink into the soil. They have a king called Khakan-Rus. This island serves them as a fortress against those who want to harm them with something. Their total number is estimated at 100,000 souls. This is very similar to the "Russian Khaganate", from which an attack was made on Amastris and an embassy was sent to the Greeks. Apparently, one should look for the “island of the Russes” in the north, the path of the Russes through Ingelgeim confirms this, reports of their trips to Bulgar and Khazaria indicate an area associated with the Volga basin. However, these are the most general considerations, which do not allow one to more or less accurately localize the "kaganate" and answer a number of questions, why, for example, Ibn Roste speaks of the "island of the Russ", while none of the islands of the Baltic or White Sea is even remotely meets other conditions. So far, two working hypotheses can be put forward.

It can be assumed that the first state formation of the Normans in Eastern Europe arose in the 20-30s of the 9th century in the upper reaches of the Volga and the region of Lake. Ilmen. Its territory can be extended north from Ilmen to Ladoga, which was apparently the first settlement of the Normans in the east. This "Kaganate" served as an operating base for the Scandinavian trade and military squads operating on the Volga and, possibly, the Dnieper routes, which, breaking away from their homeland, adopted the name "Rus" for themselves. It is unlikely that this primitive military-trade organization was headed by a “kagan”, most likely it was a “king” mediated by the Khazars.

As a second working hypothesis, another assumption can be made, namely that the Norman "Kaganate" was located in the lower reaches of the Kama and Vyatka, adjacent to the Volga Bulgaria. In my next work, I will try to argue this point of view, analyzing the information of other Arab authors about the "three cities of Russia" and the map of Idrisi.

The episodic nature of the "Kaganate of the Rus"

In all cases, this "Kaganate" was an episodic formation and did not leave behind any significant trace. The Normans were attracted by distant Byzantium, and gradually their center moved from north to south, to Kyiv, and a new Norman stream flows along the Western Dvina, bypassing Ladoga and Novgorod. This is not about the resettlement of the Normans, but only about the movement of the main center of robbery and trade, which apparently took place in the 50s and 60s of the 9th century. Here, on the territory with long-standing cultural traditions dating back to the Scythians, under the influence of Byzantium, Khazaria, the process of evolution of the Slavs went much faster than in the north. The Normans who settled in Kyiv took an active part in this process, but their merger with the emerging local nobility dragged on for many years and was complicated by the appearance of more and more Norman squads from the north.

The name Rus, which was transmitted in the Slavic environment from north to south as the name of the Norman squad and, moreover, was brought to Kyiv by the Normans of the “Kaganate”, took root there, so that in the 10th century the Normans from Scandinavia begin to be nicknamed Rus, getting to Kyiv , and finally became the name of the Russian state and people. The fact that the name of the ruling elite turned into a geographical and ethnic name was facilitated by the long-standing existence in the south of the root “ros”, which merged with the root “rus”, which was reflected in the words “Russia” and “Russian”.

The first campaign of Russia to Constantinople

The justification of the Normans in Kyiv was marked by a new major campaign against Byzantium in 860. The chronicler, who borrowed information about this campaign from the successor of Amartol, attributed it to Askold and Dir, the princes preserved in the people's memory. How right he was, we'll see further. After this campaign, as well as after the Amastris raid, interest in Russia again arises in Byzantium and the “flattering Greeks” are looking for a way to somehow get their hands on the formidable northern force, subordinate it to their influence, or at least neutralize it. The usual means for this was the spread of Christianity. Apparently, Byzantium made energetic attempts here. This can be judged, for example, from Patriarch Photius' circular letter to the Eastern churches (867), where he says about the Russians that "they changed the Hellenic and godless faith, in which they were primarily contained, to pure Christian teaching, having entered the number of those devoted to us and friends, although not long before they robbed us and showed unbridled insolence. And such a thirst for faith and zeal flared up in them that they accepted a shepherd and with great diligence perform Christian rites. Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, in the biography of his grandfather Basil the Macedonian, also reports on the baptism of Russia, citing the famous episode with the unburned Gospel, which then fell into the Nikon Chronicle under the year 876. It is not entirely clear when the “baptism of Russia” and the sending of the bishop took place - under Emperor Michael and Patriarch Photius or under Basil and Ignatius, however, there is no reason to doubt the very attempt of Christianization. Christianity was accepted, perhaps, by some part of Russia, but on the whole the mission was not successful.

It is interesting that after each major raid, Byzantium seeks to establish relations with the attackers that would guarantee its safety. So, after the attack on Amastrida, as we assumed, the Greek embassy to the Khazars established contact with the "Russian Khaganate"; after the attack on Constantinople in 860, an attempt was made to Christianize Russia, most likely Kievan Rus; the campaigns of Oleg and Igor ended with treaties, the initiative of which, I think, came from the Greeks; in the most general form, it can be said that Svyatoslav's campaigns in Bulgaria, provoked by the Greeks themselves, contributed to Byzantium's interest in Russia and the adoption - this time finally - of Christianity under Vladimir.

The problem of the origin of the ethnonym "Rus" is one of the most complex and confusing. And largely because this name is found in the Middle Ages in various areas of Europe, denoting clearly not the same thing. Russians are known by Arabs, Persians, Franks, and Byzantines. It is very difficult to determine when these peoples first became acquainted with the Rus. On the one hand, in many later writings, when Kievan Rus was already widely known, and then Muscovy, in stories about the events of the 4th-8th centuries. are called Russians.

From the book: E.S. Galkina "Russian Khaganate. Without Khazars and Normans"