Part II: KIEVAN RUSSIA
I I I
They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes.
The problem of the origin of the first Russian state, that of Kiev, is exceedingly complex and controversial. No other chapter of Russian history presents the same number and variety of difficulties. Yet the modern student of the subject, although he can by no means produce all the answers, should at least be able to avoid the cruder mistakes and oversimplifications of the past.
The first comprehensive, scholarly effort to explain the appearance of the Kievan state was made in the eighteenth century in terms of the so-called Norman theory. As formulated by Bayer, Schlozer, and others, this view stressed the role of the vikings from Scandinavia - that is, Norsemen, or, to follow the established usage in Russian historiography, Normans - in giving Russia government, cohesion, and, in large part, even culture. The Norman period of Russian history was thus postulated as the foundation for its subsequent evolution. In the course of over two hundred years the Norman theory has been developed, modified, and changed by many prominent scholars. Other specialists, however, opposed it virtually from the very beginning, offering instead a dazzling variety of possibilities. More recently Soviet historians turned violently against it, and it remained largely out of bounds for Soviet scholarship until 1985 and glasnost.
In estimating the value of the Norman theory it is important to appreciate its drastic limitations in the field of culture. The original assertion of the Norman influence on Russia was made before the early history of southern Russia, outlined in the preceding chapter, had been discovered. With our present knowledge of that history there is no need to bring in the Norsemen to account for Kievan society and culture. What is more, Scandinavia itself, located in the far north, lay at that time much farther from cultural centers and crosscurrents than did the valley of the Dnieper. Not surprisingly, once the Kievan state emerged, its culture developed more richly and rapidly than that of its northern neighbor; whether we consider written literature and written law or coin stamping, we have to register their appearance in Kievan Russia a considerable time before their arrival in Scandinavian
Detailed investigations of Scandinavian elements in Russian culture serve to emphasize their relative insignificance. Norman words in the Russian language, formerly supposed to be numerous, number actually only six or seven. Old Russian terms pertaining to navigation were often Greek, those dealing with trade, Oriental or native Slavic, but not Scandinavian. Written literature in Kiev preceded written literature in Scandinavia, and it experienced clear Byzantine and Bulgarian rather than Nordic influences; under these circumstances, persistent efforts to link it to the Scandinavian epic fail to carry conviction. Claims of Norman contributions to Russian law have suffered a fiasco: while at one time scholars believed in the Scandinavian foundation of Russian jurisprudence, it has in fact proved impossible to trace elements of Kievan law back to Norman prototypes. Similarly, there is no sound evidence for Norman influence on Kievan paganism: Perun, the god of thunder and the chief deity of the East Slavic pantheon, far from being a copy of Thor, was described as the supreme divinity of the Antes by Procopius in the sixth century; a linguistic analysis of the names of East Slavic gods reveals a variety of cultural connections, but none of them with Scandinavia. Other assertions of Norman cultural influences, for instance, on the organization of the Kievan court or on Russian dress, tend to be vague and inconclusive, especially when compared to the massive impact of Byzantium and the tangible effects of some Oriental cultures on Russia.
But, while the importance of Scandinavian culture for Russian culture no longer represents a major historical issue, the role of the Normans in the establishment of the Kievan state itself remains highly controversial. The question of the origin of the Kievan state is very closely connected with a group, tribe, or people known as the Rus, and it is also from the Rus that we derive the later name of the Russians. Almost everything connected with the Rus has become a subject of major controversy in Russian historiography. Under the year a.D. 862 the Primary Chronicle tells briefly about the arrival of the Rus following an invitation from the quarreling Slavic tribes of the Sloveni and the Krivichi and some Finnish tribes:
They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, Angles, and Goths, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs and the Krivichians then said to the people of Rus, "Our whole land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us!" They thus selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them all the Russes and migrated. The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod; the second, Sineus, in Byeloozero; and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. On account of these Varangians, the district of Novgorod became known as the land of the Rus. The present inhabitants
of Novgorod are descended from the Varangian race, but aforetime they were Slavs.*
The proponents of the Norman theory accepted the Chronicle verbatim, with the understanding that the Rus were a Scandinavian tribe or group, and proceeded to identify the Rus-Ros-Rhos of other sources with the Scandinavians. However, before long grave complications arose. A group called Rus could not be found in Scandinavia itself and were utterly unknown in the West. Although the Chronicle referred to Novgorod, Rus became identified with the Kievan state, and the very name came to designate the southern Russian state as distinct from the north, Novgorod included. Still more important was the discovery that the Rus had been known to some Byzantine and Oriental writers before a.D. 862 and was evidently located in southern Russia. Finally, the Primary Chronicle itself came to be suspected and underwent a searching criticism.
As one of their first tasks, the supporters of the Norman view set out to find the Scandinavian origin of the name Rus. Their search, from the time of Schlozer to the present, has had mixed success at best. A number of derivations had to be abandoned. The deduction of Rus from the Finnish word for the Swedes, Ruotsi, developed by Thomsen and upheld by Stender-Petersen and others, seems linguistically acceptable, but it has been criticized as extremely complicated and unlikely on historical grounds.
Because they considered the Rus a Scandinavian group, the proponents of the Norman theory proceeded to interpret all references to the Rus in Norman terms. Under the year a.D. 839 a Western source, The Bertinian Annals, tells about the Rus ambassadors who came to Ingelheim through Constantinople and who were men of Khakan-Rus, but who turned out to be Swedes. Some scholars even concluded that the ambassadors must have come all the way from Sweden, and they read khakan to mean Haakon. But the Russian khakanate was probably located in southern Russia, and the title of khakan suggests Khazar rather than Norman influence. The early date made certain other scholars advance the hypothetical arrival of the Scandinavian Rus into Russia from a.D. 862 to "approximately a.D. 840." A slight change in the original chronology also enabled these specialists to regard as Scandinavian the Rus who staged an attack on Constantinople in a.D. 860 and who were described on that occasion by Patriarch Photius.