According to the widespread version, the foundations of the state in Rus' were laid by the Varangian squad of Rurik, called by the Slavic tribes to reign. However, the Norman theory has always had many opponents.
Background
It is believed that the Norman theory was formulated in the 18th century by a German scientist at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Gottlieb Bayer. However, a century earlier it was first voiced by the Swedish historian Peter Petrei. Subsequently, many major Russian historians adhered to this theory, starting with Nikolai Karamzin.
The Norman theory was most convincingly and fully outlined by the Danish linguist and historian Wilhelm Thomsen in his work “The Beginning of the Russian State” (1891), after which the Scandinavian origins of Russian statehood were considered virtually proven.
In the first years of Soviet power, the Norman theory took hold in the wake of the growth of ideas of internationalism, but the war with Nazi Germany turned the vector of the theory of the origin of the Russian state from Normanism to the Slavic concept.
Today, the moderate Norman theory prevails, to which Soviet historiography returned in the 1960s. It recognizes the limited influence of the Varangian dynasty on the emergence of the Old Russian state and focuses on the role of the peoples living southeast of the Baltic Sea.
Two ethnonyms
The key terms used by the “Normanists” are “Varangians” and “Rus”. They are found in many chronicle sources, including in the Tale of Bygone Years:
“And they said to themselves [the Chud, Slovenes and Krivichi]: “Let’s look for a prince who would rule over us and judge us by right.” And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'.”
The word “Rus” for supporters of the Norman version is etymologically related to the Finnish term “ruotsi”, which traditionally denoted the Scandinavians. Thus, linguist Georgy Khaburgaev writes that from “Ruotsi” the name “Rus” can be formed purely philologically.
Norman philologists do not ignore other similar-sounding Scandinavian words - “Rhodes” (Swedish “rowers”) and “Roslagen” (the name of a Swedish province). In the Slavic vowel, in their opinion, “Rhodes” could well turn into “Russians”.
However, there are other opinions. For example, the historian Georgy Vernadsky disputed the Scandinavian etymology of the word "Rus", insisting that it comes from the word "Rukhs" - the name of one of the Sarmatian-Alan tribes, which is known as "Roksolans".
“Varyags” (other scan. “Væringjar”) “Normanists” also identified with the Scandinavian peoples, focusing either on the social or on the professional status of this word. According to Byzantine sources, the Varangians are, first of all, mercenary warriors without an exact localization of place of residence and specific ethnicity.
Sigismund Herberstein in “Notes on Muscovy” (1549) was one of the first to draw a parallel between the word “Varangian” and the name of the tribe of Baltic Slavs - “Vargs”, which, in his opinion, had a common language, customs and faith with the Russians. Mikhail Lomonosov argued that the Varangians “were from different tribes and languages.”
Chronicle evidence
One of the main sources that brought to us the idea of “calling the Varangians to reign” is “The Tale of Bygone Years.” But not all researchers are inclined to unconditionally trust the events described in it.
Thus, the historian Dmitry Ilovaisky established that the Legend of the Calling of the Varangians was a later insertion into the Tale.
Moreover, being a collection of different chronicles, “The Tale of Bygone Years” offers us three different references to the Varangians, and two versions of the origin of Rus'.
In the “Novgorod Chronicle,” which absorbed the “Initial Code” that preceded the Tale from the end of the 11th century, there is no longer a comparison of the Varangians with the Scandinavians. The chronicler points to Rurik’s participation in the founding of Novgorod, and then explains that “the essence of the people of Novgorod is from the Varangian family.”
In the “Joachim Chronicle” compiled by Vasily Tatishchev, new information appears, in particular, about the origin of Rurik. In it, the founder of the Russian state turned out to be the son of an unnamed Varangian prince and Umila, the daughter of the Slavic elder Gostomysl.
Linguistic evidence
It has now been precisely established that a number of words in the Old Russian language are of Scandinavian origin. These are both terms of trade and maritime vocabulary, and words found in everyday life - anchor, banner, whip, pud, yabednik, Varangian, tiun (princely steward). A number of names also passed from Old Scandinavian to Russian - Gleb, Olga, Rogneda, Igor.
An important argument in defense of the Norman theory is the work of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus “On the Administration of the Empire” (949), which gives the names of the Dnieper rapids in Slavic and “Russian” languages.
Each “Russian” name has a Scandinavian etymology: for example, “Varuforos” (“Big Pool”) clearly echoes the Old Icelandic “Barufors”.
Opponents of the Norman theory, although they agree with the presence of Scandinavian words in the Russian language, note their insignificant number.
Archaeological evidence
Numerous archaeological excavations carried out in Staraya Ladoga, Gnezdovo, at the Rurik settlement, as well as in other places in the north-east of Russia, indicate traces of the presence of the Scandinavians there.
In 2008, at the Zemlyanoy settlement of Staraya Ladoga, archaeologists discovered objects with the image of a falling falcon, which later became the coat of arms of the Rurikovichs.
Interestingly, a similar image of a falcon was minted on coins of the Danish king Anlaf Guthfritsson, dating back to the middle of the 10th century.
It is known that in 992, the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan described in detail the burial ceremony of a noble Rus with the burning of a boat and the construction of a mound. Russian archaeologists discovered graves of this type near Ladoga and in Gnezdovo. It is assumed that this method of burial was adopted from immigrants from Sweden and spread all the way to the territories of the future Kievan Rus.
However, the historian Artemy Artsikhovsky noted that, despite the Scandinavian objects in the funerary monuments of North-Eastern Rus', the burials were carried out not according to Scandinavian, but according to local rites.
Alternative view
Following the Norman theory, Vasily Tatishchev and Mikhail Lomonosov formulated another theory - about the Slavic origin of Russian statehood. In particular, Lomonosov believed that the state on the territory of Rus' existed long before the calling of the Varangians - in the form of tribal unions of the northern and southern Slavs.
Scientists build their hypothesis on another fragment of “The Tale of Bygone Years”: “after all, they were called Russia from the Varangians, and before there were Slavs; although they were called polyans, the speech was Slavic.” The Arab geographer Ibn Khordadbeh wrote about this, noting that the Rus are a Slavic people.
The Slavic theory was developed by 19th century historians Stepan Gedeonov and Dmitry Ilovaisky.
The first ranked the Russians among the Baltic Slavs - the Obodrites, and the second emphasized their southern origin, starting from the ethnonym “Russian”.
The Rus and Slavs were identified by the historian and archaeologist Boris Rybakov, placing the ancient Slavic state in the forest-steppe of the Middle Dnieper region.
A continuation of the criticism of Normanism was the theory of the “Russian Kaganate”, put forward by a number of researchers. But if Anatoly Novoseltsev was inclined to the northern location of the Kaganate, then Valentin Sedov insisted that the Russian state was located between the Dnieper and Don. The ethnonym “Rus”, according to this hypothesis, appeared long before Rurik and has Iranian roots.
What does genetics say?
Genetics could answer the question about the ethnicity of the founders of the Old Russian state. Such studies were carried out, but they gave rise to many contradictions.
In 2007, Newsweek published the results of studies of the genome of living representatives of the Rurikovich house. It was noted that the results of DNA analyzes of Shakhovsky, Gagarin and Lobanov-Rostovsky (the Monomashich family) rather indicate the Scandinavian origin of the dynasty. Boris Malyarchuk, head of the genetics laboratory at the Institute of Biological Problems of the North, notes that such a haplotype is often present in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Anatoly Klyosov, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Moscow and Harvard universities, disagrees with such conclusions, noting that “there are no Swedish haplotypes.” He defines his belonging to the Rurikovichs by two haplogroups - R1a and N1c1. The common ancestor of the carriers of these haplogroups, according to Klenov’s research, could indeed have lived in the 9th century, but its Scandinavian origin is questioned.
“The Rurikovichs are either carriers of haplogroup R1a, Slavs, or carriers of the South Baltic, Slavic branch of haplogroup N1c1,” the scientist concludes.
Elena Melnikova, a professor at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is trying to reconcile two polar opinions, arguing that even before the arrival of Rurik, the Scandinavians were well integrated into the Slavic community. According to the scientist, the situation can be clarified by analyzing DNA samples from Scandinavian burials, of which there are many in northern Russia.
At the present stage, quite a lot of attention is paid to the Norman problem in Russian historiography. Since the mid-90s, books have appeared that have not been published before or have not been published for a very long time. Such books include the works of S. Lesny, Arbman, S.L. Klein, D.I. Ilovaisky, S. Gedeonov. The most prominent supporters of Normanism of the period under review include V.Ya. Petrukhin, L.S. Klein, E.A. Melnikova, S.G. Skrynnikov, A.G. Gorsky, T. Jackson, R.G. Skrynnikov. The opposite historical direction is represented by such historians as A.G. Kuzmin, V.V. Fomin, M.Yu. Braichevsky, V.A. Moshin.
The Norman theory found its most vivid expression in the articles of R.G. Skrynnikov “Wars of Ancient Rus'” and “Ancient Rus'. Chronicle myths and reality." In the spirit of classical Normanism, the author proves the identity of Rus' and the Normans, citing the testimony of John the Deacon, Bishop Liutprand of Cremona, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, as well as Russian-Byzantine treaties of 911-944. Skrynnikov believes that dozens of Viking leaders participated in Rus' in the second half of the early 10th century. But historical documents brought to us only a few of them: Rurik, Askold, Dir, Oleg and Igor. Skrynnikov also proves that society in ancient Rus' was bilingual. For the Russians, the main language remained the Scandinavian language, and they needed Slavic only so that they could manage their Slavic tributaries. Skrynnikov suggests that in Rus' the Norman squad, as in Scandinavia, composed sagas about their heroes. Skrynnikov explains the absence of these sagas in Rus' by the lack of writing among the Scandinavians. But later the heroic epic of the Russians underwent changes: the squad of the Kyiv prince forgot their native language, and the sagas turned into Slavic ones.
Another historian V.Ya. Petrukhin also stands on the position of Normanism. He defends the northern origin of the name “Rus”, again from the word “ruotsi”. Petrukhin interprets the terms “Varangians” and “Rus” as socionyms, that is, as Norman warriors, and not the ethnic group itself.
But the most outstanding and most militant Normanist of our days is Lev Samuilovich Klein, who in Soviet times himself actively denounced the Norman theory, and then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, quickly changed his position on this issue to the opposite. Klein himself explained this by saying that his previous position was forced and was a tactical device due to the habitual odiousness of the term and the inevitability of the ideological struggle with the West. In 2009, Klein’s book “The Dispute about the Varangians” was published. The history of the confrontation and the arguments of the parties,” written by him back in 1960, but never published before.
“The Norman dynasty,” says Klein, “united the previously scattered Slavic tribes under the control of one Rurikovich family. The Normans managed to introduce some of their customs into government, law and culture.”
Andrei Nikolaevich Sakharov should be recognized as the leading representative of the anti-Normanists. Recognizing the reality of the fact that Rurik was called to rule in Novgorod, in his article “Rurik, the Varangians and the Fate of Russian Statehood,” Sakharov writes: “Russian statehood has gone through a centuries-old path of development. Its origins arose with the evolution of East Slavic society, the transition of tribal relations to the beginnings of early feudal development, the formation of the institution of private property, the formation of inequality, the emergence of a military organization, and the development of the power of tribal leaders into princely power.” The calling of Rurik and his squad, in whom the historian sees immigrants of Slavic origin from the southern coast of the Baltic, according to Sakharov, is only a certain stage in the formation of ancient Russian statehood, and not its beginning. Sakharov considers the very fact of vocation as an indicator of the social maturity of East Slavic society, moving towards centralization. At the same time, the historian emphasizes that the power of Rurik and his brothers overlapped with the already existing state tradition.
Another outstanding representative of anti-Normanism of the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was Apollo Grigorievich Kuzmin. He focused his attention on revising one of the most important postulates of the Norman theory about the German-speaking and Scandinavian origin of the Varangians. Based on Russian chronicles and evidence from Byzantine and Western European medieval authors, Kuzmin substantiated the position that the Varangians were not Scandinavians, but people from the southern coast of the Baltic Sea islands. According to the historian, the Scandinavian origin of the Varangians cannot be substantiated with the help of Russian chronicles and other written sources, which do not provide either direct or indirect data to identify them with the Scandinavians, and the chronicler understood the Varangians as the population of the Slavic seaside, as well as regions gravitating towards Novgorod .
One cannot ignore the article by M.Yu. Braichevsky “Russian names of the rapids of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus”, in which the author essentially completely refuted one of the most important arguments of the Normanists. Having carried out a linguistic analysis of all seven rapids, the author proved that the “Rus” of Constantine Porphyrogenitus is not Norman or Slavic, but Sarmatian, merging with the people of Ros, which ancient authors placed in the southeastern corner of the East European Plain. Braichevsky believes that it is a mistake to attribute the emergence of the nomenclature of the Dnieper rapids, given by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to the middle of the 10th century, since it is undoubtedly much older and was formed in the last centuries BC, when Sarmatian hordes dominated the southern Russian steppes. It was the Sarmatian nomenclature that was the first and acquired international significance, and the Slavic nomenclature was formed no earlier than the 3rd-4th centuries AD and represents translations of Sarmatian names.
Another staunch anti-Normanist was Valery Nikitich Demin. In his article “The Varangians are the last passionaries of the North,” Demin says that it does not follow from “The Tale of Bygone Years” that the Varangians were Scandinavians. The famous legend about the calling of Rurik and his brothers only says that the Varangians were called Rus, in the sense of linguistic and ethnicity, but nothing is said about their Scandinavian roots, and the fact that the Varangians came from overseas can be interpreted in different ways . Demin draws attention to the words of the chronicler: “You are the people of Nougorod, whose ancestry comes from the Varangian clan, before the Slavs.” The scientist concludes that the Varangian clan was Slavic and the Varangians, together with the Novgorodians, spoke the Slavic language. For otherwise, it will turn out that the population of Veliky Novgorod used one of the Scandinavian languages before being called. Demin considers it absolutely obvious that the Varangians were not Swedes or Norwegians, but the same Russian people as the Novgorodians. After all, the conscripted princes and the population that conscripted them did not even need translators to communicate.
Regarding the question of the origin of Rurik, Demin recognizes the Slavic origin of his name, but not West Slavic, but East Slavic. The historian substantiates his opinion by referring to a legend recorded in the late seventies of the 19th century by the famous collector of Russian folklore Elpidifor Vasilyevich Barsovich. According to this legend, Rurik’s real name was Yurik, he was invited to Novgorod from the Dnieper region. The Novgorodians fell in love with the new prince for his intelligence and agreed for him to become the master of Novgorod.
History of development
For the first time, the thesis about the origin of the Varangians from Sweden was put forward by King Johan III in diplomatic correspondence with Ivan the Terrible. The Swedish diplomat Peter Petrei de Erlesund tried to develop this idea in 1615 in his book “Regin Muschowitici Sciographia”. His initiative was supported in 1671 by the royal historiographer Johan Widekind in “Thet svenska i Ryssland tijo åhrs krijgs historie”. Olaf Dahlin's History of the Swedish State had a great influence on subsequent Normanists.
The Norman theory became widely known in Russia in the 1st half of the 18th century thanks to the activities of German historians in the Russian Academy of Sciences Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), later Gerard Friedrich Miller, Strube de Pyrmont and August Ludwig Schlözer.
M.V. Lomonosov actively opposed the Norman theory, seeing in it the thesis about the backwardness of the Slavs and their unpreparedness to form a state, proposing a different, non-Scandinavian identification of the Varangians. Lomonosov, in particular, argued that Rurik was from the Polabian Slavs, who had dynastic ties with the princes of the Ilmen Slovenes (this was the reason for his invitation to reign). One of the first Russian historians of the mid-18th century, V.N. Tatishchev, having studied the “Varangian question”, did not come to a definite conclusion regarding the ethnicity of the Varangians called to Rus', but made an attempt to unite opposing views. In his opinion, based on the "Joachim Chronicle", the Varangian Rurik was descended from a Norman prince ruling in Finland and the daughter of the Slavic elder Gostomysl.
The subject of discussion was the localization of the unification of the Rus with the Kagan at its head, which received the code name Russian Kaganate. Orientalist A.P. Novoseltsev was inclined to the northern location of the Russian Kaganate, while archaeologists (M.I. Artamonov, V.V. Sedov) placed the Kaganate in the south, in the region from the Middle Dnieper to the Don. Without denying the influence of the Normans in the north, they still derive the ethnonym Rus from Iranian roots.
Normanist arguments
Old Russian chronicles
Later chronicles replace the term Varangians with the pseudo-ethnonym “Germans,” uniting the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.
The chronicles left in Old Russian transcription a list of the names of the Varangians of Rus' (before 944), most of them with a distinct Old Germanic or Scandinavian etymology. The chronicle mentions the following princes and ambassadors to Byzantium in 912: Rurik(Rorik) Askold, Dir, Oleg(Helgi) Igor(Ingwar), Karla, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Goods, Ruald, Karn, Frelove, Ruar, Aktev, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid. The names of Prince Igor and his wife Olga in Greek transcription according to synchronous Byzantine sources (the works of Constantine Porphyrogenitus) are phonetically close to the Scandinavian sound (Ingor, Helga).
The first names with Slavic or other roots appear only in the list of the treaty of 944, although the leaders of the West Slavic tribes have been known by distinctly Slavic names since the beginning of the 9th century.
Written evidence from contemporaries
Written evidence from contemporaries about Rus' is listed in the article Rus' (people). Western European and Byzantine authors of the 9th-10th centuries identify the Rus as Swedes, Normans or Franks. With rare exceptions, Arab-Persian authors describe the Rus separately from the Slavs, placing the former near or among the Slavs.
The most important argument of the Norman theory is the essay of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus “On the Administration of the Empire” (), which gives the names of the Dnieper rapids in two languages: Russian and Slavic, and interpretation of names in Greek.
Table of threshold names:
| Slavic Name |
Translation in Greek |
Slavic etymology |
Rosskoe Name |
Scandinavian etymology |
Name in the 19th century |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essupi | Do not sleep | 1. Nessupi (don’t eat) 2. Yield(s) |
- | 1. - 2. other-Sw. Stupi: waterfall (dat.) |
Staro-Kaidatsky |
| Islanduniprakh | threshold island | Island Prague | Ulworthy | other sw. Holmfors : island threshold (date) |
Lokhansky and Sursky rapids |
| Gelandri | Threshold noise | - | - | other sw. Gaellandi : loud, ringing |
Zvonets, 5 km from Lokhansky |
| Neasit | Pelican nesting area | Gray owl (pelican) | Aifor | other sw. Aeidfors : waterfall on a portage |
Nenasytetsky |
| Wulniprah | Big backwater | Volny Prague | Varouforos | Other-Islamic Barufors : threshold with waves |
Volnissky |
| Verucci | Boiling water | Vruchii (boiling) |
Leandi | other sw. Le(i)andi : laughing |
Not localized |
| Naprezi | Small threshold | 1. On the thread (on the rod) 2. Empty, in vain |
Strukun | Other-Islamic Strukum : narrow part of the river bed (dat.) |
Extra or Free |
At the same time, Constantine reports that the Slavs are “tributaries” (Paktiots - from lat. pactio"agreement") Rosov.
Archaeological evidence
In 2008, at the Zemlyanoy settlement of Staraya Ladoga, archaeologists discovered objects from the era of the first Rurikovichs with the image of a falcon, which may later become a symbolic trident - the coat of arms of the Rurikovichs. A similar image of a falcon was minted on English coins of the Danish king Anlaf Guthfritsson (939-941).
During archaeological studies of the layers of the 9th-10th centuries in the Rurik settlement, a significant number of finds of military equipment and clothing of the Vikings were discovered, objects of the Scandinavian type were discovered (iron hryvnias with Thor hammers, bronze pendants with runic inscriptions, a silver figurine of a Valkyrie, etc.), which indicates the presence immigrants from Scandinavia in the Novgorod lands at the time of the birth of Russian statehood.
Possible linguistic evidence
A whole series of words in Russian are considered Germanisms, Scandinavianisms, and although there are relatively few of them in the Russian language, most of them belong specifically to the ancient period. It is significant that not only words of trade vocabulary penetrated, but also maritime terms, everyday words and terms of power and control, proper names. This is how, according to a number of linguists, proper names appeared Igor, Oleg, Olga, Rogneda, Rurik, words
Russian Economic University named after G.V. Plekhanov
Faculty of Management
Department of Russian and World History
in the discipline "History"
Norman theory
Completed by: Shashkina D.M.
1st year student, group 1130
Checked by: Sokolov M.V.
Moscow - 2013
Norman theory- a direction in historiography, whose supporters consider the Normans (Varangians) to be the founders of the Slavic state.
The concept of the Scandinavian origin of the state among the Slavs is associated with a fragment from The Tale of Bygone Years, which reported that in 862, in order to stop civil strife, the Slavs turned to the Varangians with a proposal to take the princely throne. The chronicles report that initially the Varangians took tribute from the Novgorodians, then they were expelled, but civil strife began between the tribes (according to the Novgorod Chronicle - between cities): “And they began to fight more and more on their own.” After which the Slovenes, Krivichi, Chud and Merya turned to the Varangians with the words: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no outfit in it. May you come and reign over us.” As a result, Rurik sat down to reign in Novgorod, Sineus in Beloozero and Truvor in Izborsk. The first researchers who analyzed Nestor's narrative about the calling of the Varangians almost all generally recognized its authenticity, seeing the Varangian-Russians as immigrants from Scandinavia. The "Norman theory" was put forward in the 18th century. German historians G. Bayer and G. Miller, invited by Peter I to work at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. They tried to scientifically prove that the Old Russian state was created by the Varangians. In the 19th century the Norman theory acquired in the official Russian historiography of the 18th-19th centuries. the nature of the main version of the origin of the Russian state. An extreme manifestation of this concept is the assertion that the Slavs, due to their unpreparedness, could not create a state, and then, without foreign leadership, were unable to govern it. In their opinion, statehood was brought to the Slavs from the outside.
The Norman theory denies the origin of the Old Russian state as a result of internal socio-economic development. Normanists associate the beginning of statehood in Rus' with the moment the Varangians were called to reign in Novgorod and their conquest of the Slavic tribes in the Dnieper basin. They believed that the Varangians themselves of whom Rurik and his brothers were, were not of Slavic tribe or language... they were Scandinavians, that is, Swedes.
CM. Solovyov considers the Varangians to be a key element in the early state structures of Rus', and moreover, he considers them to be the founders of these structures. The historian writes: “...what is the significance of Rurik’s calling in our history? The calling of the first princes is of great importance in our history, it is an all-Russian event, and Russian history rightly begins with it. The main, initial phenomenon in the founding of a state is the unification of disparate tribes through the emergence among them of a concentrating principle, power. The northern tribes, Slavic and Finnish, united and called upon this concentrating principle, this power. Here, in the concentration of several northern tribes, the beginning of the concentration of all other tribes was laid, because the called principle uses the power of the first concentrated tribes, so that through them to concentrate other forces, united for the first time, begin to act.”
N.M. Karamzin considered the Varangians to be the founders of the “Russian monarchy,” the boundaries of which “reached to the East to the present Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod Provinces, and to the South to the Western Dvina; Already Merya, Murom and Polotsk depended on Rurik: for he, having accepted autocracy, gave control to his famous fellow citizens, except for Belaozer, Polotsk, Rostov and Murom, conquered by him or his brothers, as one might think. Thus, along with the supreme princely power, it seems that the Feudal, Local, or Appanage system was established in Russia, which was the basis of new civil societies in Scandinavia and throughout Europe, where the Germanic peoples dominated.”
N.M. Karamzin wrote: “The names of the three Varangian princes - Rurik, Sineus, Truvor - called by the Slavs and the Chud, are indisputably Norman: thus, in the Frankish chronicles around 850 - which is worthy of note - three Roriks are mentioned: one is called the Leader of the Danes, the other the King ( Rex) Norman, the third is simply Norman." V.N. Tatishchev believed that Rurik was from Finland, since only from there could the Varangians come to Rus' so often. Platonov and Klyuchevsky completely agree with their colleagues, in particular Klyuchevsky writes: “Finally, the names of the first Russian Varangian princes and their warriors are almost all of Scandinavian origin; we find the same names in the Scandinavian sagas: Rurik in the form of Hrorek, Truvor - Thorvardr, Oleg in the ancient Kiev accent on o - Helgi, Olga - Helga, in Constantine Porphyrogenitus - ????,Igor - Ingvarr, Oskold - Hoskuldr, Dir Dyri, Frelaf - Frilleifr, Svenald - Sveinaldr, etc.”
The origin of the ethnonym “Rus” is traced back to the Old Icelandic word Roþsmenn or Roþskarlar - “rowers, sailors” and to the word “ruotsi/rootsi” among the Finns and Estonians, meaning Sweden in their languages, and which, according to some linguists, should have turned into “Rus” when this word was borrowed into the Slavic languages.
The most important arguments of the Norman theory are the following:
· Byzantine and Western European written sources (in which contemporaries identified Rus' as Swedes or Normans.
· Scandinavian names of the founder of the Russian princely dynasty - Rurik, his “brothers” Sineus and Truvor, and all the first Russian princes before Svyatoslav. In foreign sources, their names are also given in a form close to the Scandinavian sound. Prince Oleg is called X-l-g (Khazar letter), Princess Olga - Helga, Prince Igor - Inger (Byzantine sources).
· Scandinavian names of most of the ambassadors of the “Russian family” listed in the Russian-Byzantine treaty of 912.
· The work of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus “On the Administration of the Empire” (c. 949), which gives the names of the Dnieper rapids in two languages: “Russian” and Slavic, where a Scandinavian etymology can be proposed for most “Russian” names.
Additional arguments are archaeological evidence documenting the presence of Scandinavians in the north of the East Slavic territory, including finds from the 9th-11th centuries at the excavations of the Rurik settlement, burials in Staraya Ladoga (from the mid-8th century) and Gnezdovo. In settlements founded before the 10th century, Scandinavian artifacts date specifically to the period of the “calling of the Varangians,” while in the most ancient cultural layers
Points of view on the origin of the Old Russian state. Norman theories:
Norman Scandinavian Old Russian state
Disputes around the Norman version at times took on an ideological character in the context of the question of whether the Slavs could have created a state on their own, without the Norman Varangians. During Stalin's time, Normanism in the USSR was rejected at the state level, but in the 1960s, Soviet historiography returned to the moderate Norman hypothesis while simultaneously studying alternative versions of the origins of Rus'.
Foreign historians for the most part consider the Norman version as the main one.
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Norman theory (Normanism) is a direction in historiography that develops the concept that the people-tribe of Rus' comes from Scandinavia during the period of expansion of the Vikings, who were called Normans in Western Europe.
For the first time, the thesis about the origin of the Varangians from Sweden was put forward by King Johan III in diplomatic correspondence with Ivan the Terrible. The Swedish diplomat Peter Petrei de Erlesund tried to develop this idea in 1615 in his book “Regin Muschowitici Sciographia”. His initiative was supported in 1671 by the royal historiographer Johan Widekind in “Thet svenska i Ryssland tijo åhrs krijgs historie”. Olaf Dahlin's History of the Swedish State had a great influence on subsequent Normanists.
The Norman theory became widely known in Russia in the 1st half of the 18th century thanks to the activities of German historians in the Russian Academy of Sciences Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), later Gerard Friedrich Miller, Strube de Pyrmont and August Ludwig Schlözer.
M.V. Lomonosov actively opposed the Norman theory, seeing in it a thesis about the backwardness of the Slavs and their unpreparedness to form a state, proposing a different, non-Scandinavian identification of the Varangians. Lomonosov, in particular, argued that Rurik was from the Polabian Slavs, who had dynastic ties with the princes of the Ilmen Slovenes (this was the reason for his invitation to reign). One of the first Russian historians of the mid-18th century, V.N. Tatishchev, having studied the “Varangian question”, did not come to a definite conclusion regarding the ethnicity of the Varangians called to Rus', but made an attempt to unite opposing views. In his opinion, based on the “Joachim Chronicle,” the Varangian Rurik was descended from a Norman prince ruling in Finland and the daughter of the Slavic elder Gostomysl.
The Norman version was accepted by N.M. Karamzin, followed by almost all major Russian historians of the 19th century. The two most prominent representatives of the anti-Normanist movement were S. A. Gedeonov and D. I. Ilovaisky. The first considered the Rus to be Baltic Slavs - obodrites, the second, on the contrary, emphasized their southern origin.
Soviet historiography, after a short break in the first years after the revolution, returned to the Norman problem at the state level. The main argument was recognized as the thesis of one of the founders of Marxism, Friedrich Engels, that the state cannot be imposed from the outside, supplemented by the pseudoscientific autochthonist theory of the linguist N. Ya. Marr, officially promoted at that time, which denied migration and explained the evolution of language and ethnogenesis from a class point of view . The ideological setting for Soviet historians was the proof of the thesis about the Slavic ethnicity of the “Rus” tribe. Typical excerpts from a public lecture by Doctor of Historical Sciences Mavrodin, given in 1949, reflect the state of affairs in Soviet historiography of the Stalin period:
“It is natural that the “scientific” servants of world capital strive at all costs to discredit and denigrate the historical past of the Russian people, to belittle the importance of Russian culture at all stages of its development. They “deny” the Russian people the initiative to create their own state...
These examples are quite enough to come to the conclusion that the thousand-year-old legend about the “calling of the Varangians” Rurik, Sineus and Truvor “from beyond the sea,” which long ago should have been archived along with the legend about Adam, Eve and the serpent, the tempter, the global flood, Noah and his sons, is being revived by foreign bourgeois historians in order to serve as a weapon in the struggle of reactionary circles with our worldview, our ideology...
Soviet historical science, following the instructions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, based on the comments of comrades Stalin, Kirov and Zhdanov on the “Synopsis of a textbook on the History of the USSR”, developed a theory about the pre-feudal period, as the period of the birth of feudalism, and about the barbarian state emerging at this time, and applied this theory to specific materials from the history of the Russian state. Thus, in the theoretical constructions of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, there is and cannot be a place for the Normans as the creators of the state among the “wild” East Slavic tribes.”
The historian and archaeologist B. A. Rybakov represented Soviet anti-Normanism for many years. Since the 1940s, he identified the Rus and the Slavs, placing the first Old Slavic state, the predecessor of Kievan Rus, in the forest-steppe of the Middle Dnieper region.
In the 1960s, the “Normanists” regained their position, recognizing the existence of a Slavic proto-state led by Russia before the arrival of Rurik. I. L. Tikhonov names one of the reasons why in the 1960s many became Normanists:
...the departure from scientific officialdom was also perceived as a kind of “scientific dissidence,” Frond, and this could not help but attract young people, whose political dissidence was limited to reading Gumilyov and Brodsky, singing Galich’s songs, and anecdotes about Brezhnev... Some oppositionism suited us well and created a certain halo around the participants of the “Varangian Seminar”.
The subject of discussion was the localization of the unification of the Rus with the Kagan at its head, which received the code name Russian Kaganate. Orientalist A.P. Novoseltsev was inclined to the northern location of the Russian Kaganate, while archaeologists (M.I. Artamonov, V.V. Sedov) placed the Kaganate in the south, in the area from the Middle Dnieper to the Don. Without denying the influence of the Normans in the north, they still derive the ethnonym Rus' from Iranian roots.
In 862, to stop civil strife, the tribes of the Eastern Slavs (Krivichi and Ilmen Slovenes) and Finno-Ugrians (Ves and Chud) turned to the Varangians-Rus with a proposal to take the princely throne. The chronicles do not say where the Varangians were called from. It is possible to roughly localize the place of residence of Rus' on the coast of the Baltic Sea (“from beyond the sea”, “the path to the Varangians along the Dvina”). In addition, the Varangians-Rus are placed on a par with the Scandinavian peoples: Swedes, Normans (Norwegians), Angles (Danes) and Goths (residents of the island of Gotland - modern Swedes):
“And the Slovenians said to themselves: “Let’s look for a prince who would rule over us and judge us by right.” And they went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and some Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, so are these.”
Later chronicles replace the term Varangians with the pseudo-ethnonym “Germans,” uniting the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.
The chronicles left in Old Russian transcription a list of the names of the Varangians of Rus' (before 944), most of them with a distinct Old Germanic or Scandinavian etymology. The chronicle mentions the following princes and ambassadors to Byzantium in 912: Rurik (Rorik), Askold, Dir, Oleg (Helgi), Igor (Ingwar), Karla, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudy, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid. The names of Prince Igor and his wife Olga in Greek transcription according to synchronous Byzantine sources (the works of Constantine Porphyrogenitus) are phonetically close to the Scandinavian sound (Ingor, Helga).
The first names with Slavic or other roots appear only in the list of the treaty of 944, although the leaders of the West Slavic tribes from the beginning of the 9th century are known under distinctly Slavic names.
Written evidence from contemporaries about Rus' is listed in the article Rus' (people). Western European and Byzantine authors of the 9th-10th centuries identify Rus' as Swedes, Normans or Franks. With rare exceptions, Arab-Persian authors describe the Rus separately from the Slavs, placing the former near or among the Slavs.
The most important argument of the Norman theory is the essay of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus “On the Administration of the Empire” (949), which gives the names of the Dnieper rapids in two languages: Russian and Slavic, and an interpretation of the names in Greek. At the same time, Konstantin reports that the Slavs are “tributaries” (pactiots - from the Latin pactio “agreement”) of the Ros.
Ibn Fadlan described in detail the ritual of burying a noble Rus by burning in a boat, followed by the construction of a mound. This event dates back to 922, when, according to ancient Russian chronicles, the Rus were still separated from the Slavs under their control. Graves of this type were discovered near Ladoga and later ones in Gnezdovo. The burial method probably originated among immigrants from Sweden on the Åland Islands and later, with the beginning of the Viking Age, spread to Sweden, Norway, the coast of Finland and penetrated into the territory of the future Kievan Rus.
In 2008, at the Zemlyanoy settlement of Staraya Ladoga, archaeologists discovered objects from the era of the first Rurikovichs with the image of a falcon, which may later become a symbolic trident - the coat of arms of the Rurikovichs. A similar image of a falcon was minted on English coins of the Danish king Anlaf Guthfritsson (939-941).
During archaeological studies of the layers of the 9th-10th centuries in the Rurik settlement, a significant number of finds of military equipment and clothing of the Vikings were discovered, objects of the Scandinavian type were discovered (iron hryvnias with Thor hammers, bronze pendants with runic inscriptions, a silver figurine of a Valkyrie, etc.), which indicates the presence immigrants from Scandinavia in the Novgorod lands at the time of the birth of Russian statehood.
A whole series of words in Russian are considered Germanisms, Scandinavianisms, and although there are relatively few of them in the Russian language, most of them belong specifically to the ancient period. It is significant that not only words of trade vocabulary penetrated, but also maritime terms, everyday words and terms of power and control, proper names. So, according to a number of linguists, the proper names Igor, Oleg, Olga, Rogneda, Rurik, the words: tiun, pud, anchor (from the 11th century), sneak, whip (from the 13th century) appeared.
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