The Rus, also known as Russes,[1] [2] were a people in early medieval Eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD. In the 9th century, they formed the state of Kievan Rusʹ, where the ruling Norsemen along with local Finnic tribes gradually assimilated into the East Slavic population, with Old East Slavic becoming the common spoken language. Old Norse remained familiar to the elite until their complete assimilation by the second half of the 11th century, and in rural areas, vestiges of Norse culture persisted as late as the 14th and early 15th centuries, particularly in the north.[3]
The history of the Rus is central to 9th through 10th-century state formation, and thus national origins, in Eastern Europe. They ultimately gave their name to Russia, Ruthenia and Belarus, and they are relevant to the national histories of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Because of this importance, there is a set of alternative so-called "Anti-Normanist" views that are largely confined to a minor group of Eastern European scholars.
See main article: Names of Rusʹ, Russia and Ruthenia.
Note: The þ (thorn letter) represents the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ of th in English thing, whereas the ð (eth letter) represents the voiced dental fricative /ð/ of th in English the. When þ appears in intervocalic position or before a voiced consonant, it is pronounced like ð, so the pronunciation difference between rōþer and róðr is minute.
The name Rusʹ remains not only in names such as Russia and Belarus, but it is also preserved in many place names in the Novgorod and Pskov districts, and it is the origin of the Greek Rōs. Rus is generally considered to be a borrowing from Finnic Ruotsi ("Sweden").[4] There are two theories behind the origin of Rus/Ruotsi, which are not mutually exclusive. It is either derived more directly from OEN rōþer (OWN róðr), which referred to rowing, the fleet levy, etc., or it is derived from this term through Rōþin, an older name for the Swedish coastal region Roslagen.[5]
The Finnish and Russian forms of the name have a final -s revealing an original compound where the first element was - (preceding a voiceless consonant, þ is pronounced like th in English thing). The prefix form rōþs- is found not only in Ruotsi and Rusʹ, but also in Old Norse róþsmenn and róþskarlar, both meaning "rowers",[6] and in the modern Swedish name for the people of Roslagen – rospiggar which derives from ON *rōþsbyggiar ("inhabitants of Rōþin"). The name Roslagen itself is formed with this element and the plural definite form of the neuter noun lag, meaning "the teams", in reference to the teams of rowers in the Swedish kings' fleet levy.
There are at least two, probably three, instances of the root in Old Norse from two 11th c. runic inscriptions, fittingly located at two extremes of the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Two of them are roþ for rōþer /róðr, meaning "fleet levy", on the Håkan stone, and as i ruþi (translated as "dominion") on the lost Nibble stone, in the old Swedish heartland in the Mälaren Valley,[7] [8] and the possible third one was identified by Erik Brate in the most widely accepted reading as on the Piraeus Lion originally located in Athens, where a runic inscription was most likely carved by Swedish mercenaries serving in the Varangian Guard. Brate has reconstructed *Rōþsland, as an old name for Roslagen.
Between the two compatible theories represented by róðr or Róðinn, modern scholarship leans towards the former because at the time, the region covered by the latter term, Roslagen, remained sparsely populated and lacked the demographic strength necessary to stand out compared to the adjacent Swedish heartland of the Mälaren Valley. Consequently, an origin in word compounds such as róþs-menn and róþs-karlar is considered the most likely one. Moreover, the form róþs-, from which Ruotsi and Rusʹ originate, is not derived directly from ON róðr, but from its earlier Proto-Norse form roðz[9] (Uncoded languages: rothz).[10]
Other theories such as derivation from Rusa, a name for the Volga, are rejected or ignored by mainstream scholarship.[6]
Having settled Aldeigja (Ladoga) in the 750s, Scandinavian colonists played an important role in the early ethnogenesis of the Rus people,[11] and in the formation of the Rusʹ Khaganate. The Varangians (Varyags, in Old East Slavic) are first mentioned by the Primary Chronicle as having exacted tribute from the Slavic and Finnic tribes in 859.[12] [13] It was the time of rapid expansion of the Vikings' presence in Northern Europe; England began to pay Danegeld in 865,[14] and the Curonians faced an invasion by the Swedes around the same time.[15]
The Varangians being first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle suggests that the term Rus was used to denote Scandinavians until it became firmly associated with the now extensively Slavicised elite of Kievan Rus.[16] At that point, the new term Varangian was increasingly preferred to name the Scandinavians,[17] probably mostly from what is currently Sweden,[18] plying the river routes between the Baltic and the Black and Caspian Seas.[19] [20] [21] [22] Relatively few of the rune stones Varangians left in their native Sweden tell of their journeys abroad,[23] to such places as what is today Russia, Ukraine, Belarus,[24] Greece, and Italy.[25] Most of these rune stones can be seen today, and are a significant piece of historical evidence. The Varangian runestones tell of many notable Varangian expeditions, and even recount the fates of individual warriors and travelers.
In Russian historiography, two cities are used to describe the beginnings of the country: Kiev and Novgorod. In the first part of the 11th century the former was already a Slav metropolis, rich and powerful, a fast growing centre of civilisation adopted from Byzantium.[26] The latter town, Novgorod, was another centre of the same culture but founded in different surroundings, where some old local traditions moulded this commercial city into the capital of a powerful oligarchic trading republic of a kind otherwise unknown in this part of Europe. These towns have tended to overshadow the significance of other places that had existed long before Kiev and Novgorod were founded. The two original centres of Rus were Staraja Ladoga and Rurikovo Gorodishche, two points on the Volkhov, a river running for 200 km between Lake Ilmen in the south to Lake Ladoga in the north. This was the territory that most probably was originally called by the Norsemen Gardar, a name that long after the Viking Age acquired a much broader meaning and became Gardariki, a denomination for the entire Old Russian State. The area between the lakes was the original Rus, and it was from here that its name was transferred to the Slav territories on the middle Dnieper, which eventually became Rusʹ (Ruskaja zemlja).
The prehistory of the first territory of Rus has been sought in the developments around the early-8th century, when Staraja Ladoga was founded as a manufacturing centre and to conduct trade, serving the operations of Scandinavian hunters and dealers in furs obtained in the north-eastern forest zone of Eastern Europe.[27] In the early period (the second part of the 8th and first part of the 9th century), a Norse presence is only visible at Staraja Ladoga, and to a much lesser degree at a few other sites in the northern parts of Eastern Europe. The objects that represent Norse material culture of this period are rare outside Ladoga and mostly known as single finds. This rarity continues throughout the 9th century until the whole situation changes radically during the next century, when historians meet, at many places and in relatively large quantities, the material remains of a thriving Scandinavian culture. For a short period of time, some areas of Eastern Europe became as much part of the Norse world as were Danish and Norwegian territories in the West. The culture of the Rus contained Norse elements used as a manifestation of their Scandinavian background. These elements, which were current in 10th-century Scandinavia, appear at various places in the form of collections of many types of metal ornaments, mainly female but male also, such as weapons, decorated parts of horse bridles, and diverse objects embellished in contemporaneous Norse art styles.
The Swedish king Anund Jakob wanted to assist Yaroslav the Wise, Grand prince of Kiev, in his campaigns against the Pechenegs. The so-called Ingvar the Far-Travelled, a Swedish Viking who wanted to conquer Georgia, also assisted Yaroslav with 3000 men in the war against the Pechenegs; however, he later continued on to Georgia.[28] Yaroslav the Wise married the Swedish king's daughter, Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, who became the Russian saint, Anna, while Harald Hardrada, the Norwegian king who was a military commander of the Varangian guard, married Elisiv of Kiev. The two first uncontroversially historical Swedish kings Eric the Victorious and Olof Skötkonung both had Slavic wives. Danish kings and royals also frequently had Slavic wives. For example, Harald Bluetooth married Tove of the Obotrites. Vikings also made up the bulk of the bodyguards of early Kievan Rus rulers.
Evidence for strong bloodline connections between the Kievan Rus and Scandinavia existed and a strong alliance between Vikings and early Kievan rulers is indicated in early texts of Scandinavian and East Slavic history. Several thousand Swedish Vikings died for the defence of Kievan Rus against the Pechenegs.
In Scandinavian sources, the area is called Austr (the "East"), Garðaríki (the "realm of cities"), or simply Garðar (the "cities"), and Svíþjóð hin mikla ("Great Sweden"). The last name appears in the 12th century geographical work Leiðarvísir ok Borgaskipan by the Icelandic abbot Nicolaus (d. 1161) and in Ynglinga saga by Snorri Sturluson, which indicates that the Icelanders considered Kievan Rus to have been founded by the Swedes. The name "Great Sweden" is introduced as a non-Icelandic name with the phrase "which we call Garðaríki" (sú er vér köllum Garðaríki), and it is possible that it is a folk etymological interpretation of Scythia magna. However, if this is the case, it can still be influenced by the tradition that Kievan Rus was of Swedish origin, which recalls Magna Graecia as a name for the Greek colonies in Italy.[29]
When the Norse sagas were put to text in the 13th century, the Norse colonisation of Eastern Europe, however, was a distant past, and little of historical value can be extracted. The oldest traditions were recorded in the Legendary sagas and there Garðaríki appears as a Norse kingdom where the rulers have Norse names, but where also dwelt the Dwarves Dvalin and Durin.[30] There is, however, more reliable information from the 11th and the 12th centuries, but at that time most of the Scandinavian population had already assimilated, and the term Rus referred to a largely Slavic-speaking population. Still, Eastern Europe is presented as the traditional Swedish sphere of interest.[31] The sagas preserve Old Norse names of several important Rus settlements, including Norse, Old: Hólmgarðr (Novgorod), and Norse, Old: Kønugarðr (Kyiv); Fjodor Uspenskij argues that the use of the element Norse, Old: garðr in these names, as well as in the names Norse, Old: Garðar and Norse, Old: Miklagarðr (Constantinople), shows the influence of Old East Slavic gorodǔ|italics=yes (city), as Norse, Old: garðr usually means farmstead in Old Norse. He further argues that the city names can be used to show that the Rus were also competent in Old East Slavic.[32] At this time the Rus borrowed some 15 Old East Slavic words,[33] such as the word for marketplace, tǔrgǔ, as torg, many of which spread to the other Old Norse-speaking regions as well.[33]
The most contemporary sources are the Varangian runestones, but just like the sagas, the vast majority of them arrive relatively late. The earliest runestone that tells of eastwards voyages is the Kälvesten runestone from the 9th century in Östergötland, but it does not specify where the expedition had gone. It was Harald Bluetooth's construction of the Jelling stones in the late 10th century that started the runestone fashion that resulted in the raising of thousands of runestones in Sweden during the 11th century; at that time the Swedes arrived as mercenaries and traders rather than settlers. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries runic memorials had consisted of runes on wooden poles that were erected in the ground, something which explains the lack of runic inscriptions from this period both in Scandinavia and in eastern Europe as wood is perishable. This tradition was described by Ibn Fadlan who met Scandinavians on the shores of the Volga.[34]
The Fagerlöt runestone gives a hint of the Old Norse spoken in Kievan Rus, as folksgrimʀ may have been the title that the commander had in the retinue of Yaroslav I the Wise in Novgorod. The suffix -Norse, Old: grimmr is a virtually unique word for "leader" which is otherwise only attested in the Swedish medieval poem Stolt Herr Alf, but in the later form grim. It is not attested as a noun in the sense "leader" in West Norse sources. In Old Norse, the basic meaning of the adjective Norse, Old: grimmr is "heartless, strict and wicked", and so Norse, Old: grimmr is comparable in semantics to Old Norse Norse, Old: gramr which meant both "wrath", "king" and "warrior".[35]
Other runestones explicitly mentioning warriors serving the ruler of Kievan Rus are one of the Skåäng runestones, the Smula runestone and most famously, the Turinge runestone which immortalizes the dead commander with a poem:
Brøðr vaʀu þæiʀ bæstra manna, a landi ok i liði uti, heldu sina huskarla ve[l]. Hann fioll i orrustu austr i Garðum, liðs forungi, landmanna bæstr. | These brothers were the best of men in the land and abroad in the retinue, held their housecarls well. He fell in battle in the east in Garðar (Russia), commander of the retinue, the best of landholders. |
The earliest Slavonic-language narrative account of Rus history is the Primary Chronicle, compiled and adapted from a wide range of sources in Kiev at the start of the 13th century. It has therefore been influential in modern history-writing, but it was also compiled much later than the time it describes, and historians agree it primarily reflects the political and religious politics of the time of Mstislav I of Kiev.
However, the chronicle does include the texts of a series of Rus–Byzantine Treaties from 911, 945, and 971. The Rus–Byzantine Treaties give a valuable insight into the names of the Rus. Of the fourteen Rus signatories to the Rus–Byzantine Treaty in 907, all had Norse names. By the Rusʹ–Byzantine Treaty (945) in 945, some signatories of the Rus had Slavic names while the vast majority had Norse names.
The Chronicle presents the following origin myth for the arrival of Rus in the region of Novgorod: the Rus/Varangians 'imposed tribute upon the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians, the Ves', and the Krivichians' (a variety of Slavic and Finnic peoples).
From among Rurik's entourage it also introduces two Swedish merchants Askold and Dir (in the chronicle they are called "boyars", probably because of their noble class). The names Askold (Haskuldr) and Dir (Dyri) are Swedish;[37] the chronicle says that these two merchants were not from the family of Rurik, but simply belonged to his retinue.[38] Later, the Primary Chronicle claims, they conquered Kiev and created the state of Kievan Rusʹ (which may have been preceded by the Rusʹ Khaganate).[39]
Arabic-language sources for the Rus people are relatively numerous, with over 30 relevant passages in roughly contemporaneous sources. It can be difficult to be sure that when Arabic sources talk about Rus they mean the same thing as modern scholars.[40] [41] Sometimes it seems to be a general term for Scandinavians: when Al-Yaqūbi recorded Rūs attacking Seville in 844, he was almost certainly talking about Vikings based in Frankia.[42] At other times, it might denote people other than or alongside Scandinavians: thus the Mujmal al-Tawarikh calls the Khazars and Rus 'brothers'; later, Muhammad al-Idrisi, Al-Qazwini, and Ibn Khaldun all identified the Rus as a sub-group of the Turks. These uncertainties have fed into debates about the origins of the Rus.
Arabic sources for the Rus had been collected, edited and translated for Western scholars by the mid-20th century.[43] However, relatively little use was made of the Arabic sources in studies of the Rus before the 21st century.[40] [41] [44] [45] [46] This is partly because they mostly concern the region between the Black and the Caspian Seas, and from there north along the lower Volga and the Don. This made them less relevant than the Primary Chronicle to understanding European state formation further west. Imperialist ideologies, in Russia and more widely, discouraged research emphasising an ancient or distinctive history for Inner Eurasian peoples. Arabic sources portray Rus people fairly clearly as a raiding and trading diaspora, or as mercenaries, under the Volga Bulghars or the Khazars, rather than taking a role in state formation.[40]
The most extensive Arabic account of the Rus is by the Muslim diplomat and traveller Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who visited Volga Bulgaria in 922, and described people under the label Rūs/Rūsiyyah at length, beginning thus:
Apart from Ibn Fadlan's account, scholars draw heavily on the evidence of the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah who, it is postulated, visited Novgorod (or Tmutarakan, according to George Vernadsky) and described how the Rus exploited the Slavs.