The origin of the Slavic tribes. Origin of the Slavs. Orlova O. Yu. Songs of the bird Gamayun

Vitaly Ignatiev 13.10.2015

SLAVS

THEORIES OF ORIGIN AND SETTLEMENT

Different things are written about the origin of the Slavs, but it is generally accepted that it was the second half of the first millennium from the birth of Christ, while it is also believed that they appeared immediately and suddenly. At least, official history does not consider the version of the existence of Slavic tribes until that time. Science denies them the presence of ancestors, proto-language and ancestral home. There were all sorts of poorly studied, and not completely studied Pelasgians, Illyrians, Thracians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Dacians, Getae, Antes, Venets with Veneds, Etruscans, but the Slavs, we are told, were not.

Official science dates the origin of the Slavs to about the 6th century. In these years they are first mentioned by historians. Their habitat is outlined by scientists from the upper Elbe to the Dnieper, touching the Danube in the south and capturing the upper reaches of the Vistula.

The first who tried to answer the questions: where, how and when did the Slavs appear on the historical territory, was the oldest chronicler Nestor - author "Tales of Bygone Years". He determined the territory of the Slavs, including the lands along the lower Danube and Pannonia. It was from the Danube, according to the "Tale ...", that the process of resettlement of the Slavs began, that is, they were not the original inhabitants of their land, we are talking about migration. Consequently, the Kyiv chronicler was the ancestor of the so-called migration theory of the origin of the Slavs, known as the "Danubian" or "Balkan". It was popular in the writings of medieval authors: Polish and Czech chroniclers of the 13th-14th centuries. This opinion was shared for a long time by historians of the XVIII - early. XX centuries The Danubian "ancestral home" of the Slavs was recognized, in particular, by such historians as S. M. Solovyov, V. O. Klyuchevsky and others. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, the Slavs moved from the Danube to the Carpathians. Proceeding from this, the idea can be traced in his work that “the history of Russia began in the 6th century. in the northeastern foothills of the Carpathians. It was here, according to the historian, that an extensive military alliance of tribes was formed, led by the Duleb-Volhynian tribe. From here, the Eastern Slavs settled east and northeast to Ilmen Lake in VII- VIII centuries So, V. O. Klyuchevsky (and not he alone) sees the Eastern Slavs as relatively late newcomers to their land.

In the Middle Ages, another migration theory of the origin of the Slavs originates, which received the name "Scythian-Sarmatian". It was first recorded in the Bavarian Chronicle of the 13th century, and later adopted by many Western European authors of the 15th - 10th century. VIII centuries According to their ideas, the ancestors of the Slavs moved from Western Asia along the Black Sea coast to the north and settled under the ethnonyms "Scythians", "Sarmatians", "Alans" and "Roksolans". Gradually, the Slavs from the Northern Black Sea region settled to the west and southwest.

A different version of the migration theory was given by another major historian and linguist academician A. A. Shakhmatov . In his opinion, the basin of the Western Dvina and the Lower Neman in the Baltic region was the first ancestral home of the Slavs. From here, the Slavs, taking the name of the Wends (from the Celts), advanced to the Lower Vistula, from where only the Goths left in front of them in the Black Sea region (the turn of the 2nd - 3rd centuries). Consequently, here (Lower Vistula), according to A. A. Shakhmatov, was the second ancestral home of the Slavs. Finally, when the Goths left the Black Sea region, part of the Slavs, namely their eastern and southern branches, moved east and south in the Black Sea region and formed tribes of southern and eastern Slavs here. So, following this "Baltic" theory, the Slavs were newcomers to the land, on which they then created their states.

There were and are a number of other theories of the migratory nature of the origin of the Slavs and their "ancestral home" - this is the "Central European", according to which the Slavs and their ancestors turned out to be newcomers from Germany (Jutland and Scandinavia), settling from here across Europe and Asia, up to India. And the "Asian", which led the Slavs from the territory of Central Asia, where a common "ancestral home" for all Indo-Europeans was supposed, Alexander Nechvolodov put forward a similar theory. In his book "The Legend of the Russian Land" he writes:“Our origin is from the tribe of Japheth… THE HOLY WRITING tells us that after the Flood, from the three sons of Noah - Shem, Ham and Japheth, all the nations that now live on earth originated. One of the tribes of the tribe of Japheth settled in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which are now within the Russian Empire - in the Turkestan region. Here, this tribe gave rise, both to many tribes of Asia Minor, Persia and India, and to all the glorious and famous peoples inhabiting Europe: Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Swedes, Lithuanians and others, as well as all Slavic tribes: Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Serbs and everyone else" .

Many theories and fictions have been put forward by various authors, scientists and not so much, about the origin of the Slavic tribe. Someone bases his point of view on archaeological excavations, but even here there is no single point of view about the continuity of cultures - meaning Slavic and Proto-Slavic, so in the latter, without denying their contribution to the formation of the Slavs, researchers nevertheless notice the presence non-Slavic components: Thracians, Celts, Germans, Balts and Scythians. And someone is trying to trace the paths of migration using various annals. But here the problem is that all chronicles, one way or another reporting information about the origin of the Slavs and Russia, did not reach us in the original, but were rewritten much later and, due to political events that had an unconditional influence on them, cannot be reliable on one hundred%.

A. Nechvolodov - interpreted our history as the history of a people endowed with a divine calling, seeing its roots in distant biblical times and including all pre-Kiev antiquity in it. At the same time, the Scythians were ranked among the ancestors of the Slavs, Huns and other peoples.

Historian and ethnologist L. N. Gumilyov , who wrote a large number of works on the history of ancient peoples, had his own point of view on the question of the origin of the Slavs. He paid special attention to the problem of interethnic contacts, including in Russian history, arguing that the Russians are an ethnic group that has developed from three components: Slavs, Finno-Ugric peoples and Tatars.

The Soviet academician B. A. Rybakov, in the book “Kievan Rus and the Russian Principalities of the XII-XIII centuries”, attributed the beginning of Slavic / Russian history to the XV century BC, and at the same time suggested, on the basis of a number of documents, that the ancestors of the Slavs were separate Scythian peoples the times of Herodotus, especially since the similarity between the description of the Scythians by Herodotus and the later descriptions of the Slavs by Arab travelers, in particular ibn Fadlan, is quite obvious, and he also clearly describes the coexistence of tillers from forest villages and riders from cities.

M. V. Lomonosov, who began his struggle for Russian history at Moscow University, was then perceived by the official science of Russia (precisely due to German influence) as a dreamer and ignoramus, however, if not for Lomonosov’s persistence, then in Russia they would still be studied in schools myths about the complete inability of the Slavs to create a state. He argued that the history of the Slavs is much older and deeper than that which was determined for us by foreigners who settled in our academy of sciences.

You can argue for a long time, but science comes to the aid of historians.

To begin with, let's turn to anthropology - the science of man and his origin.The results of a large-scale experiment published in the scientific journal "The American Journal of Human Genetics" clearly say that"despite the popular opinion about the strong Tatar and Mongolian admixture in the blood of Russians, inherited by their ancestors during the time of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the haplogroups of the Turkic peoples and other Asian ethnic groups practically did not leave a mark on the population of the modern northwestern, central and southern regions."

In addition, studies of the structure of the skulls of the Eastern Slavs, ancient and modern, carried out by T. A. Trofimova, led to an unexpected conclusion about the autochonism of the formations (which arose and continue to exist in this area, essentially the same as the aborigines) of the tribes of the Eastern Slavs. That is, according to these data, there is no question of any resettlement of the Slavs from the western territories.

Anthropology, a science quite young, but today a completely new trend is gaining strength- Genetic genealogy - the use of DNA tests in conjunction with traditional genealogical research methods.A Y-chromosome DNA test allows, for example, two males to determine whether they share a common ancestor in the male line or not.Y-chromosomal haplogroups are statistical markers to understand the origin of human populations.The peculiarity of the Y-chromosome is that it is transmitted from father to son almost unchanged and does not experience “mixing” and “dilution” by maternal heredity. This allows it to be used as a mathematically accurate tool for determining paternal descent. If the term "dynasty" has any biological meaning, then it is the inheritance of the Y chromosome.

Currently, DNA genealogy provides much more opportunities than before to restore the directions of past migrations. So, according to the works of Anatoly Klesov, the haplogroup R1a, which is especially characteristic of the Slavs (although not only for them), is also characteristic of Northern India, where from 15 to 30% (according to various estimates) of the population has this haplogroup, and in the higher castes this percentage grows to 72%.

R1a 1 - comes from a mutation of the haplogroup R1, which occurred in a man who lived about 15,000 years ago presumably. And the distribution of the descendants of the protochromosome carrier was probably carried out in several waves.

The most significant wave - about 3-5 thousand years ago from the Black Sea steppes, is probably associated with the spread of Indo-European languages and Kurgan culture. Most of all, this haplogroup is common among the Slavs, North Indians, Iranian peoples (Tajiks, Pashtuns) and Central Asian peoples (Altaians, Khotons, Kirghiz).

Ethnogeographic distribution of haplogroup R1a

Currently, high frequencies of haplogroup R1a are found in Poland (56% of the population), Ukraine (50 to 65%), European Russia (45 to 65%), Belarus (45%), Slovakia (40%), Latvia (40%), Lithuania (38%), Czech Republic (34%), Hungary (32%), Croatia (29%), Norway (28%), Austria (26%), Sweden (24%), northeast Germany (23%) and Romania (22%). It is most common in Eastern Europe: among Lusatians (63%), Poles (about 56%), Ukrainians (about 54%), Belarusians (52%), Russians (48%), Tatars 34%, Bashkirs (26% ) (in the Bashkirs of Saratov and Samara regions up to 48%); and in Central Asia: among the Khujand Tajiks (64%), Kirghiz (63%), Ishkashimi (68%).Haplogroup R1a is most characteristic of the Slavs. For example, the following haplogroups are common among Russians :

R1a - 51% (Slavs, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians);

N3 - 22% (Finno-Ugrians, Finns, Balts);

I1b - 12% (Normans - Germans);

R1b - 7% (Celts and Italics);

11a - 5% (also Scandinavians);

E3b1 - 3% (Mediterraneans).

These studies do not give a clear answer when and where the Slavs appeared. However, it is absolutely certain that the haplogroup R1a , inherent in a greater proportion of all peoples known as Slavic, arose at least 15,000 years ago, and, according to other researchers, 36,000 years ago, simultaneously with other main haplogroups.

Home country R 1 a disputes are ongoing, and there is no clear answer to this question. There are several theories of its origin. Here are three of them.

Eastern European theory

According to the theory of the origin of R1a in Eastern Europe, C. Wells, Director of the Genographic Project from National Geographic claims that R1a originated in Europe from 10,000 to 15,000 years ago in Ukraine or southern Russia, this region is called the "Ukrainian refuge" which he served for people during the last glacial maximum. Also, it is assumed that the mutation came from territories that lie a little further to the east - from the Black Sea-Caspian steppe. In any case, this happened as a result of migration, which is supported by the Kurgan hypothesis, according to which there is a connection between the spread of Indo-European languages and the development of the Kurgan culture. This theory is supported by a high frequency (over 50%) in Ukraine and southern Russia (Wells 2001) and a high percentage of R1a carriers in border areas.

It is likely that the domestication of the horse took place there, which made possible a wide cultural expansion that occurred more than 5000 years ago from the area of the Kurgan culture in Ukraine.

South Asian theory

The theory of the origin of R1a in South Asia, set forth by geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University, suggests the origin of this haplogroup in South Asia about 36 thousand years ago, and from there it began to spread. The hypothesis is based on the variety of subclades of the haplogroup and the large number of their carriers in Pakistan, Northern India and Eastern Iran.

West Asian theory

Kivisild (2003) supports the hypothesis of origin in Western Asia because of the belief that it was from there that the Indo-Aryan tribes invaded India. In addition, Semino (2000) speaks of the appearance of R1a in the Middle East, relying on the fact that together with the origin of the haplogroup, Indo-European languages arose here.

But let's digress from scientific discoveries and return to the history of the Slavs, which, even without DNA research, testifies to a glorious past.

The history of the Slavs has its roots in ancient times. As evidence for this, the ancient Slavic city of Arkaim, which was discovered in the summer of 1987 in the Chelyabinsk region, can act. The buildings in this city were erected in a circular manner and were connected to each other in the form of an amphitheater. In this arrangement, scientists saw the possibility of participation in the decision-making of a large circle of people. Simply put, in the history of the Slavs, one can find the origins of democracy, which originated here long before it appeared in the west.

The ancient history of the Slavs can also be confirmed by the oldest megaliths, which were discovered not far from the Ural Mountains in the Chelyabinsk region. They were located on an area of about 6 square kilometers, that is, they are more diverse and bright compared to the English Stonehenge. In addition, an ancient structure was also discovered on one of the islands, which very much resembled an observatory. The roof and walls of the structure are built of multi-ton stone slabs, the largest of which weighs about 17 tons. This building dates back to the 4th millennium BC, and it was erected by the ancestors of the Slavs.

The history of the Slavs can also include a more ancient structure: a metal processing plant, which was discovered in the same place, in the Urals. At this plant, the Slavs smelted copper. In 2011, a group of archaeologists discovered a gigantic geoglyph there, which was laid out in the form of an elk from stone slabs and reached a length of 265 meters.

In the same Chelyabinsk region, in the Kapova and Ignatievskaya caves, scientists managed to find rock paintings that were made more than 14 thousand years ago and depict the creation of life on earth as the ancestors of the Slavs saw it. Interestingly, fragments of similar drawings of a much later origin were found in Algerian and Australian caves.

Excavations in Trypillia (Ukraine). Cities of twenty thousand people approximately five thousand years BC. BUT Bones? (Near Voronezh). Forty-four thousand years BC , according to American archaeologists! That is, Kostenki is older than the Egyptian pyramids for forty thousand years!

It seems to me that today it can be absolutely firmly stated that the so-called "Norman" theory of the emergence of Slavic states, which asserted that the Slavs are the youngest people, is fundamentally wrong. The main basis of its apologists is that before the middle of the first millennium the words Slavs and Russians are not mentioned anywhere. However, these self-names are of a later origin, and before their occurrence, tribes and peoples had other names. It’s just that Russians in the distant past began to be called many kindred peoples, clans and tribes that were included in the state association called Rus. This is evidenced by the lines cited above, archaeological excavations, oral traditions and much more, which there is neither time nor need to write about in this article.

It's time to rewrite history. But this should be done not for the sake of political conjecture, but consciously, based on scientific research.

P . S . “Rus was created by the union of the Slavs, who went as far as possible to the east from the European wars and Euro-showdowns. It began long before Novgorod Rus. They left for a peaceful life: farming, creating families, procreating, sowing, harvesting, singing, dancing, dancing round dances on holidays ...

The call "For the Motherland!" was always only among the Slavs, because the Slavs always had to defend themselves!

With the name of Jesus, the Slavs never went on predatory campaigns, as the "politically correct" crusaders did in Europe.

Women in Russia were not burned at the stake! There was no terrifying / similar Western / Inquisition in Russia.

Our ancestors, the same Proto-Slavs, did not recognize slavery, while in Greece and Rome it flourished. For this, by the way, the Slavs were considered backward » .

Mikhail Zadornov

Reconstruction of the faces of a boy from the burial of the settlement of Sungir.

Sculptural reconstruction based on the skull of a man from the Filippovskiy barrows. Southern Urals. Sarmatians, 5-4 centuries BC

The word "Rus" can in no way be attributed to any of the Scandinavian or Germanic languages for at least one reason - none of them has a soft sign, and even more clearly, there is no change in the meaning of words when softening consonants.

In Russian, in addition to the usual softening of consonant sounds, a soft sign can also perform a word-forming function, which is just used in the word "Rus" to describe the concept it expresses - transforming a set into a concept expressed in the singular - "those who are young - juveniles", "what is old - old", "those who are black - mob", "those who are Russians - Russia".

The last example is not an explanation of the origin of the meaning of the word "Rus" and "Rus", it only shows that the word "Rus" is formed according to the rules of the Russian language, moreover, so specific that it is not only absent in other non-Slavic languages, but also in modern Russian does not apply to borrowed words. From the very pronunciation of "Rus" it is clear that this word is derived from another word, and the purpose of such pronunciation is to generalize another concept, in this case in the form of a common name for members of the community, or their place of residence.

The fact that the Russian language has the word "Rus" (a short form of the adjective "blond"), which has an independent meaning, only confirms that ignoring the Slavic origin of the word "Rus" is impossible. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter any connection between the semantic definition of “rus” as “fair-haired” and “rus” as the name of a representative of the community - whether the name of the tribe came from the color of the hair or, conversely, fair-haired people began to be called that because for the specificity of the appearance of members of a particular community. These metamorphoses of concepts could have taken place in such hopeless antiquity that any attempt to explain them would be “covered with a basin” of mental speculation, so we can assume that there is no such connection at all. It's not essential. The only important thing is that the language has preserved evidence that this word is Russian and cannot be attributed to any Scandinavian or Germanic languages.

In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, peoples did not invent nationalities for themselves. The most natural principle to name one's clans and communities is geographical. Even with all Nestor's fabulousness, concerning the times of which he was not a contemporary, his words about the principles of naming the tribes of the Slavs look quite scientific from a modern point of view: "the Slavs dispersed over the earth and called themselves by their names from the places where they sat down." It follows logically from this that in order to better identify your community, you need to use the names of geographical places that have neither analogues nor other names among other peoples, i.e. names of their cities (settlements) known to other communities. Even the names of rivers and lakes can be different for different communities.

But to decide how best to identify themselves, could, firstly, communities that have their own city, well known among other communities; secondly, communities whose degree of participation in inter-communal life (military, trade activities) will make it possible to voice and preserve their name in history. Otherwise, the name of the community or tribe will remain in history, which was given to it by those whose efforts history will be written. In other words, the names of more developed clans and communities, as a rule, are self-names. To a lesser extent, this can be said about communities named after rivers and lakes.

It is all the more obvious that the tribes that have the names of the habitat, for example, those living “in the trees”, “in the fields”, “in the swamps” (drevlyans, glade, dregovichi), received them from representatives of another people. It is impossible to imagine that any people identified themselves by the type of locality. Such tribes could have some self-names, but unknown or devoid of meaning for the people in contact with them, and because of this, they were named by this people more understandably for themselves according to the predominant living conditions that differ from many other tribes with whom they dealt.

If we talk about “nationalities”, then it is worth remembering what nationality the ancient Romans were, it is obvious that they were “Romans”, that is, there is no doubt that the city gave its name not only to its inhabitants, but also to the inhabitants of the empire. In Russian history, it is mentioned that the inhabitants of Novgorod called themselves "Novgorodians", the cities of Pskov (Pleskov) - "Pskovians", the cities of Murom - "murom", respectively, the inhabitants of the city of Rusa - "Rus".

The city of Rusa (only in the 17th or 18th century, the second letter “s” and the word “old” - “Staraya Russa” were added to its name) a settlement on the southeastern shore of Lake Ilmen from the 7th century, at a distance of 93 km. along the modern highway from Veliky Novgorod, located in the basin of rivers, the names of which directly indicate the name of the geographical area through which they flow - the river Porusya and the river Porus.

The statement that the inhabitants of Rusa should be called "Rus" or "Rusich" looks like an axiom from the point of view of the traditions of vocabulary and the rules of word formation in the Russian language. Perhaps that is why, at the time of rewriting history, the second letter “s” appeared in the name of the city, and the inhabitants of the city received a name that has a clearly Germanic interpretation of the pronunciation of the double “s”, - “Rushan”. But the names of the rivers were invented by our ancestors in such a way that they leave no doubt that the land on which they flow is Rus.

Thus, the area of residence of the Rus, pre-state Russia, geographically representing a region southeast of Lake Ilmen, is a territory that was part of Russia initially during the formation of the state and that invariably remained in it during various redrawing of its borders. The Rus community, which gave the modern name to the people of Russia, is the indigenous people of Russia, who lived in Russia before the formation of the state for at least a century, is identical in its linguistic, religious and cultural roots to the neighboring Slavic communities.

Changing the name of the community (people) from "Rus" to "Ros" is unacceptable not only from the point of view of the rules of the language, but also has no historical basis. The form "ros" (from the word Russia) appeared late (not earlier than the 16th century) and became generally accepted only from the 18th century. "Russia" as a Greek transcription of the Russian word "Rus" came into use along with the idea of "Russia - the successor of Byzantium" and, in this regard, the deliberate borrowing of Byzantine symbols and Greek terms not only in religious but also in political life.

In all European languages, except for Russian and Greek, the name of the country "Russia" retained the root "rus", and the word "Rossy" first appeared as a poetic form derived from "Russia" in the odes of Lomonosov, later the poems of Derzhavin and others. Probably, only the poetic form can justify the obvious dissonance for the Russian ear of changing the word in contradiction to the rules of the language.

There is a "fluent O" in Russian, which can become "A" when the accent changes, but changing "O" to "U", or vice versa, is completely unacceptable. If you try to change words similar in structure, for example, “beetle” to “zhok” or “louse” to “vush”, it is obvious that not a single Russian speaker will determine the meaning of the words “zhok” and “vush” even approximately. But we are not even talking about harmless insects, but about a people known for "its cruelty and bloodthirstiness."

The substitution of sounds in the name of the people in our time can sound offensive. Suffice it to recall modern attempts to pronounce the word “Russians” based on the transcription of the language that is the state language of the current “light of civilization”, that is, according to the rules for pronouncing this word in English. Why did someone decide that our ancestors did not care how their name sounded and, in connection with which such metamorphoses with the name of the people are taken for granted?

The fact is that even with the official interpretation of the historical events associated with the emergence of the Old Russian state, the thesis that Kyiv and, in general, the territory of Ukraine, has something to do with this event, is rather difficult to assimilate even among people with quite acceptable to live in society with a lack of common sense. Therefore, here, too, the reinforced concrete principle of the origin of the names of peoples is put forward - geographical. It turns out that somewhere in the Cherkasy region of modern Ukraine there is the Ros River - a tributary of the Dnieper, and besides, it has its own tributary - Roska!

It does not matter that this river is located much to the south of the original colony of Russian princes in Kyiv - and first of all, after Kyiv, Oleg took up the subjugation of the communities located to the north in order to connect the new lands with the Slavic ones. It does not matter that the assertion that the existence of the river Ros allegedly proves that the core of Russia is the middle Dnieper region, because on its banks there lived a glade from which the newcomers Russ in Kyiv took tribute, has nothing to do with either elementary logic, or has at least indirect evidence (the naming of any lands on which there were Russian princes by Rus in two hundred years is no more valuable than modern statements about this).

But it turned out to be important that in Greek "rus" is written as "ros", which, probably, in itself is rich material for future works on the study of everyday literacy of the Slavs of the 9th century or the frequency and mass character of their visits to Byzantine beaches, which had a side effect in the form of amnesia for the name of a kind. But now - almost logically. That's just overlooked by other rivers with a similar name Ross - in Belarus, Roska - in the Tver region and a couple of rivers with the name "Rόsa" in western Brazil and eastern Peru.

The ancient name of the representative of the community, which gave the modern name of the indigenous nationality of Russia, is "rus" - in its original form, or the word "Rusich", grammatically formed in the form of an obsolete possessive form of the original word. The mention of the historical name "Rus" with a double "s" - "Russ" is not correct, since the second "s" here is a fragment from "sky" - a suffix and ending that began to form in the Russian language no earlier than the 14th century, t .e. the spelling "Russ" is the result of a reverse transformation from the modern definition of "Russian", which now replaces the possessive form "Rusich" in the language.

On the territory of the Rus community to the south-east of Lake Ilmen, the number of salt springs and traces of salt production of the 6th-8th centuries. many times higher than the corresponding number of salt mines of that time in the lands of Novgorod, Pskov, Pomorie and Izborsk, due to the fact that there is an underground salt lake. Salt springs gushing out of the ground in large quantities, providing a more convenient organization of production than when evaporating sea water, predetermined the initial occupation of the Rus community almost completely.

Old Russian texts also preserved other names of Ilmen, the Moyskoye Sea and the Russian Sea. The western and southwestern coast of Ilmen was called the Varangian coast in Russian written sources of the Middle Ages. Remembering the “glorious sea of the sacred Baikal” and the fact that the Caspian Lake is even now officially called the “sea”, it can be unequivocally stated that a thousand years ago they were not guided by the modern geographical features of the seas and large lakes were called seas.

Ilmen is the sea over which the Varangians were driven out for the first time and over which they went later, after them. The city of Rusa is located just diametrically opposite to Novgorod - across the sea. And “walked” - a word not from modern maritime jargon - the distance to Rusa could be covered on foot in an acceptable time - 1.5-2 days, on horseback - in less than a day.

Does anyone believe that the delegation from Novgorod traveled 3.5 thousand kilometers to the opposite shore of the Baltic Sea? And the Vikings were driven there three years earlier?

Someone believes that the people, who had sufficiently developed institutions of civil society and their own religious ideas, will call for rulers of a different faith, language and culture, who, moreover, did not have their own statehood, in order to break their own way of life for sure? They could do this, knowing exactly what order those whom they call had, what their religious and cultural values were, i.e. neighbors with whom they had a huge number of contacts in all spheres of life.

The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" began and ended on the banks of the Ilmen. The Christian monk Nestor "paved" the path along the Dvina to the Baltic Sea to substantiate the fable about the journey of one of the apostles of Christ - Andrew to Rome through ... all of Russia with a mandatory visit to the place where Kyiv will be, and a prophecy about the city, over which "grace will shine of God." At the same time, he was the only one who called the Baltic Sea "Varangian", obviously being familiar with the legends about the waterway to the Varangians on the shores of the Varangian Sea, although there was neither a route nor a Varangian about which he could write as a contemporary, by the time of his chronicle writing. If such geographical delights for Nestor are justified by the need to explain the involvement of Russia in Christian history, then the repetition of this path by historians, or laying it through Ladoga, bypassing the Baltic Sea to the Scandinavian shores, remains to be explained by geographical cretinism. Only people suffering from this rare disease can believe in using this route from the Scandinavians to Byzantium, if for them the way through Europe is much shorter, while being easier and safer.

The Ruses living in the south-east of Ilmen, or rather their armed detachments, were the Varangians from whom history made the founders of the Russian state, though silent that they were not the only ones in this capacity and did not have a "controlling stake". It remains to be seen whether the Vikings of Russia and those who called them to rule belonged to different ethnic groups.

It is known that Novgorodians were called Slovenes, like Pskovians - with the letter "o" in the first syllable and with an accent on it. This word is a short form of the adjective "verbal" (as mentioned above, full forms with the endings "ij / y" began to form in the language from the 14th century).

For the ancient Slavs, the formula "Sloven or German?" was the only criterion for determining belonging to one's people. “If someone is Slavic, - his words are understandable to me, then he was brought up in the same cultural environment as me, and, accordingly, professes the same values that my family adheres to. If someone addresses me with incomprehensible words, for me he is dumb, dumb, German.

Neither hair color, nor the shape of the eyes, nor the R1a1 gene was of great importance for the Slavs, who built their world according to the literal meaning of this word - “peace is peace and mutual understanding”, but a special word, which, for example, in English is designated as "world", they never came up with. (It does not matter that the word world in the geographical sense later differed in writing from “peace as mutual understanding” by a dot over i, - oral speech remains the primacy). The geographical "world" remained a tracing-paper from the world of mutual understanding, because for the ancient Slavs, both psychologically and geographically, the world was where there is mutual understanding, which, by definition, is possible only on the basis of a common language. Despite the fact that this argumentation is maximally idealized, it explains why the factor of common language formed the basis of the term, which today plays the role of a concept close to the term denoting nationality - “Sloven”.

The language is constantly trying to change in the adjective word its characterizing function into a naming one, making it a common noun, that is, from words that answer the questions “what?”, “whose?” into words answering the questions “who?”, “what?” (guard, canteen, brownie, cop, etc.). The principle of identifying “friend or foe” based on the definition of “Sloven [is this person?]” was formed long before the formation of Slavic communities, already known at the time of the emergence of the Old Russian state. By this time, the word simply names the representative of the people, and later its possessive form “Sloven”, answering the question of belonging to the community - “whose?” with the stress on the second syllable also becomes a noun by moving the stress to the last syllable.

In Russian, changing the letter “o” in a word when the stress changes is a natural transformation, therefore the origin of the word “Slav” is due to the “word”, and not to “glory”. A similar transformation occurred with the word "boat" when it began to be used with an accent on the last syllable, but it came from the same word as the modern "boat" - "boat".

From the point of view of the origin of the word "Slav", although the annals directly name only Novgorodians and Pskovians as Slovenes, the Slavs were members of all other communities using the same language with the Novgorodians. The Slavic community in this sense was definitely the Rus. They were not accompanied by specialists in simultaneous translation to communicate with the Slavs on their journeys across the sea and back. They perfectly knew the life and culture of the Slavic communities, shared their beliefs. The language must necessarily preserve those words by which they must call themselves, their army, their military residences in their native language. And they survived, this is the “prince”, “squad”, “capital”.

If the origin of the words "team" and "capital" does not require special proof of their Slavic origin, then the theory of the origin of the word "prince" due to ignorance of quite elementary information (or unwillingness to apply them) about the recording of the Old Russian words "horse" and "horse" some try to derive from other languages. But these words in the Old Russian language literally indicate the meaning of the word "prince", identical to the word "horse", - "knyaz" from the word "k'en" ("horse"). It was the size of the population of these odd-toed ungulates that determined the nobility in the Slavic communities. And the point is not so much in their economic value, but in the number of riders that a horse owner can put up and equip.

There are no Scandinavian or German terms in the Russian language, not only in relation to the concepts that foreign princes must voice in the way they are used to - in their native language, but in general - the influence of Scandinavian culture and language in Russian culture and the Russian language is almost zero . As for the names, it is worth finding out what names were in Russia two hundred years ago. Also, it can be assumed that researchers of the history of Russia in the 21st century, in a thousand years, can conclude that mainly the Greek and Jewish population lived here. How can one "demand" one's ancestors to prove their Slavic origin by assigning names that are understandable [to us]? How can we know the traditions of a pagan society thousands of years ago regarding how they called their children, when there are few among us who want to give a name to a child, the pronunciation of which until the end of his life will associate him with some thing, animal, feeling, phenomenon, and the like?

Conclusions from any evidence used to determine the ethnicity of the Rus - annalistic, geographical, linguistic, cultural, religious - unequivocally indicate that the Varangians-Rus are a native Slavic community, adjacent to Novgorod and related to it.

Thus, the so-called "calling of the Varangians" is a social contract of the Slavic population, which used the advantages in organizing the way of life of different communities of the same people to create a state.

This video lesson is devoted to the topic “The origin of the Slavs. Eastern Slavs in antiquity. During the lesson, the teacher introduces the culture of our ancestors, their occupations, talks about resettlement in the country. The concept of "ethnogenesis" is woven into the outline of the lesson, the main problem of the question of the origin of the Slavs is indicated. The teacher will talk about where the Slavs came from, who their ancestors were, and introduce some scientific theories.

Theme: Ancient Russia

Lesson: The origin of the Slavs. Eastern Slavs in antiquity

In this lesson, we will talk about the ethnogenesis of the Slavs and find out the main versions of their origin. What sources do we have now and what are the prospects for further research in the field of the early history of the Slavs.

1. Source classification

When studying the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, several main types of sources are of paramount importance: 1) written, 2) archaeological, 3) linguistic and 4) anthropological.

2. The first mention of the Slavs in written sources

The first reliable information about the Slavs, known to us under the name of the Sclavens, refers only to V1st century A.D. uh. It was then that this term was first encountered in the treatises of Procopius of Caesarea, Mauritius the Strategist, Jordanes and other Byzantine and European chroniclers. However, during this period, the Slavs were the largest people in Europe and inhabited a vast territory from the upper reaches of the Volga and Don to the banks of the Oder and Danube. This means that they settled in Europe much earlier than the famous Hun invasion of 375 AD. e.

Rice. 1. Procopius of Caesarea ()

3. When did the Slavic ethnic group arise

There are several different points of view on this matter: I. Rusanova argued that the Slavic ethnos originated in the 4th century AD. e. ( Przeworsk archaeological culture); V. Sedov attributed the origin of the Slavic ethnos to the 5th-2nd centuries BC. e. ( Lusatian archaeological culture); P. Tretyakov believed that the Slavs as an original ethnic group originated in the III BC. e. ( Zarubinets archaeological culture); A. Kuzmin and B. Rybakov believed that the origins of the Slavic ethnogenesis should be sought in Trzyniec archaeological culture of the XIV-II centuries BC. e. etc.

Rice. 2. Battle of the Slavs with the Scythians ()

4. Where was the ancestral home of the Slavs

Most historians consider the Slavs to be the autochthons of Eastern Europe. But many of them defined the historical ancestral home of the Slavs in different ways. I. Rusanova was a supporter of the Vistula-Oder theory; P. Safarik professed the Carpathian theory; L. Niederle was looking for the ancestral home of the Slavs in the interfluve of the Vistula and the Dnieper; A. Kuzmin defended the Danubian theory; V. Sedov - South Baltic, etc.

5. The collapse of a single Slavic ethnic group

At the turn of the 7th-8th centuries, the Slavic superethnos broke up into three large groups:

1) South Slavs (modern Bulgarians, Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrins and Croats);

2) Western Slavs (modern Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Lusatians);

3) Eastern Slavs (modern Russians, Little Russians (Ukrainians) and Belarusians).

6. Social system and religious beliefs of the Eastern Slavs

Until the beginning of the 7th century, the Eastern Slavs lived tribal system. Then it is replaced by a period "military democracy", when, within the framework of several related tribes, a military elite (team) is allocated, headed by a prince, and a tribal nobility appears - governors and elders (“zemstvo boyars”), who begin to control the territory of the tribal union-principality. It was precisely such tribal unions (superunions), where independent reigns were formed, that were mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years: Polyany, Northerners, Drevlyans, Tivertsy, Ulichians, Krivichi, Polochans, Radimichi, Dregovichi, Vyatichi, Ilmen Slovenes, etc.

Rice. 3. Beliefs of the Slavs

The Eastern Slavs were pagans who deified the forces of nature and deceased ancestors (ancestors). In its development, the paganism of the Slavs went through four stages:

1) fetishism;

2) totemism;

3) polydemonism;

4) polytheism.

At the final stage of this development, each tribal union had its own pantheon of gods, but the most revered deities of the Eastern Slavs were Rod, Horos, Perun, Veles, Mokosh and Stribog.

7. The economic structure of the Eastern Slavs

The basis of the economic life of the Eastern Slavs was slash-and-burn agriculture. According to natural and climatic conditions, their territory was divided into two zones: forest-steppe (in the south) and forest (in the north). In the forest-steppe, the dominant form of agriculture was fallow, or fallow land, and here they plowed with a plow. The slash-and-burn system of agriculture dominated in the forest zone, and the plow or ralo was used as the main tools of labor.

The main field crops of the Eastern Slavs were wheat, barley, buckwheat and millet; among garden crops - turnips, cabbage, beets and carrots. In addition to agriculture, cattle breeding was developed among the Eastern Slavs (pigs, horses, cattle and small cattle were bred), and river and forestry activities played a significant role, in particular beekeeping, fishing and hunting for large and fur-bearing animals.

Rice. 4. Slavs on the Dnieper (Roerich) ()

According to most historians, the era of "military democracy" became the time of the second social division of labor, that is, the separation of handicrafts from other types of economic activity, primarily agriculture. Based on numerous archaeological sources, we can quite definitely state that blacksmithing, foundry, pottery and jewelry crafts received the greatest development among the Eastern Slavs.

1. Alekseeva T. I. Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs according to anthropological data. M., 1973

2. Galkina E. S. Secrets of the Russian Khaganate. M., 2002

3. Gorsky A. A. Russia from the Slavic settlement to the Muscovite kingdom. M., 2004

4. Kobychev V.P. In search of the ancestral home of the Slavs. M., 1973

5. Kuzmin A. G. Beginning of Russia. M., 2003

6. Perevezentsev SV The meaning of Russian history. M., 2004

7. Sedov VV Origin and early history of the Slavs. M., 1979

8. Tretyakov P. N. In the footsteps of ancient Slavic tribes. L., 1982

9. Trubachev O. N. Ethnogenesis and culture of the ancient Slavs. M., 1991

2. Theories of the origin of the Slavs ().

Origin of the Slavs

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

The Slavs as a formed people were first recorded in the Byzantine written sources of the middle of the 6th century. Retrospectively, these sources mention Slavic tribes in the 4th century. Earlier information refers to peoples who could take part in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, but the degree of this participation varies in various historical reconstructions. The earliest written evidence of Byzantine authors of the 6th century deals with an already established people, divided into Slavs and Antes. Mentions of the Wends as the ancestors of the Slavs (or a separate Slavic tribe) are of a retrospective nature. The testimonies of the authors of the Roman era (I-II centuries) about the Wends do not allow us to connect them with any reliably Slavic archaeological culture.

Archaeologists identify as authentically Slavic a number of archaeological cultures dating back to the 5th century. In academic science, there is no single point of view on the ethnic origin of the bearers of earlier cultures and their continuity in relation to later Slavic ones. Linguists also do not have a consensus on the time of the appearance of a language that could be considered Slavic or Proto-Slavic. Existing scientific versions suggest the separation of the Proto-Slavic language from the Proto-Indo-European (or from a language family of a lower level) in a wide range from the 2nd millennium BC. e. until the turn of the eras or even the first centuries AD. e.

The origin, history of formation and habitat of the ancient Slavs are studied by methods and at the intersection of various sciences: linguistics, history, archeology, paleoanthropology, genetics.

Linguistics data

Indo-Europeans

In Central Europe in the Bronze Age there was an ethno-linguistic community of Indo-European tribes. The assignment of certain groups of languages to this community is controversial. The German scientist G. Krae came to the conclusion that while the Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek languages \u200b\u200bhad already separated and developed as independent ones, the Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Illyrian, Slavic and Baltic languages existed only in the form of dialects of a single Indo-European language. The ancient Europeans, who lived in central Europe north of the Alps, developed a common terminology in the field of agriculture, social relations and religion. The well-known Russian linguist, academician O. N. Trubachev, based on the analysis of the Slavic vocabulary of pottery, blacksmithing and other crafts, came to the conclusion that the speakers of the early Slavic dialects (or their ancestors) at the time when the corresponding terminology was being formed were in close contact with the future Germans and Italics, that is, the Indo-Europeans of Central Europe. Tentatively, the separation of the Germanic languages from the Baltic and Proto-Slavic occurred no later than the 7th century. BC e. (according to the estimates of a number of linguists - much earlier), but in linguistics itself there are practically no exact methods of chronological linking to historical processes.

Early Slavic vocabulary and habitats of the Proto-Slavs

Attempts were made to establish the Slavic ancestral home by analyzing the early Slavic vocabulary. According to F. P. Filin, the Slavs as a people developed in a forest belt with an abundance of lakes and swamps, far from the sea, mountains and steppes:

“The abundance in the lexicon of the common Slavic language of names for varieties of lakes, swamps, forests speaks for itself. The presence in the common Slavic language of various names of animals and birds living in forests and swamps, trees and plants of the temperate forest-steppe zone, fish typical of the reservoirs of this zone, and at the same time the absence of common Slavic names for the specific features of mountains, steppes and the sea - all this gives unambiguous materials for a definite conclusion about the ancestral home of the Slavs ... The ancestral home of the Slavs, at least in the last centuries of their history as a single historical unit, was away from the seas, mountains and steppes, in the forest belt of the temperate zone, rich in lakes and swamps ... "

The Polish botanist Yu. Rostafinsky tried to localize the ancestral home of the Slavs more precisely in 1908: “ The Slavs transferred the common Indo-European name yew to willow, willow and did not know larch, fir and beech.» Beech- Borrowed from the Germanic language. In the modern era, the eastern border of the distribution of beech falls approximately on the Kaliningrad-Odessa line, however, the study of pollen in archaeological finds indicates a wider range of beech in antiquity. In the Bronze Age (corresponds to the Middle Holocene in botany), beech grew in almost the entire territory of Eastern Europe (except for the north), in the Iron Age (Late Holocene), when, according to most historians, the Slavic ethnos was formed, beech remains were found in most of Russia, the Black Sea region, Caucasus, Crimea, Carpathians. Thus, Belarus and the northern and central parts of Ukraine can be a likely place for the ethnogenesis of the Slavs. In the north-west of Russia (Novgorod lands), beech was found in the Middle Ages. Beech forests are currently common in Western and Northern Europe, in the Balkans, the Carpathians, and in Poland. In Russia, beech is found in the Kaliningrad region and the northern Caucasus. Fir in its natural habitat does not grow in the territory from the Carpathians and the eastern border of Poland to the Volga, which also makes it possible to localize the homeland of the Slavs somewhere in Ukraine and Belarus, if the assumptions of linguists about the botanical lexicon of the ancient Slavs are correct.

All Slavic languages (and Baltic) have the word Linden to designate the same tree, from which follows the assumption that the distribution range of linden overlaps with the homeland of the Slavic tribes, but due to the vast range of this plant, localization is blurred over most of Europe.

Baltic and Old Slavic languages

Map of the Baltic and Slavic archaeological cultures of the III-IV centuries.

It should be noted that the regions of Belarus and northern Ukraine belong to the zone of widespread Baltic toponymy. A special study by Russian philologists, academicians V. N. Toporov and O. N. Trubachev showed that in the Upper Dnieper region, Baltic hydronyms are often decorated with Slavic suffixes. This means that the Slavs appeared there later than the Balts. This contradiction is removed if we accept the point of view of some linguists on the separation of the Slavic language from the general Baltic.

From the point of view of linguists, in terms of grammatical structure and other indicators, the Old Slavic language was closest to the Baltic languages. In particular, many words not noted in other Indo-European languages are common, including: roka(hand), golva(head), lipa(Linden), gvEzda(star), balt(swamp), etc. (up to 1,600 words are close). The name itself Baltic are derived from the Indo-European root *balt- (stagnant water), which has a correspondence in Russian swamp. The wider spread of the late language (Slavic in relation to the Baltic) is considered by linguists to be a natural process. V. N. Toporov believed that the Baltic languages were closest to the original Indo-European language, while all other Indo-European languages departed from their original state in the process of development. In his opinion, the Proto-Slavic language was a Proto-Baltic southern peripheral dialect, which passed into Proto-Slavic approximately from the 5th century BC. BC e. and then developed on its own into the Old Slavic language.

Archaeological data

The study of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs with the help of archeology encounters the following problem: modern science fails to trace the change and continuity of archaeological cultures to the beginning of our era, the carriers of which could be confidently attributed to the Slavs or their ancestors. Some archaeologists take some archaeological cultures at the turn of our era as Slavic, a priori recognizing the autochthonous nature of the Slavs in this territory, even if it was inhabited in the corresponding era by other peoples according to synchronous historical evidence.

Slavic archaeological cultures of the 5th-6th centuries.

Map of the Baltic and Slavic archaeological cultures of the 5th-6th centuries.

The appearance of archaeological cultures recognized by most archaeologists as Slavic refers only to the -VI centuries, corresponding to the following close cultures, separated geographically:

Prague-Korchak archaeological culture: the range stretched as a strip from the upper Elbe to the middle Dnieper, touching the Danube in the south and capturing the upper reaches of the Vistula. The area of the early culture of the 5th century is limited by the southern basin of the Pripyat and the upper reaches of the Dniester, the Southern Bug and the Prut (Western Ukraine).

Corresponds to the habitats of the sklavins of Byzantine authors. Characteristic features: 1) dishes - hand-made pots without decorations, sometimes clay pans; 2) dwellings - square semi-dugouts with an area of up to 20 m² with stoves or hearths in the corner, or log houses with a stove in the center 4) lack of inventory in the burials, only random things are found; brooches and weapons are missing.

Penkovskaya archaeological culture: range from the middle Dniester to the Seversky Donets (western tributary of the Don), capturing the right bank and left bank of the middle part of the Dnieper (territory of Ukraine).

Corresponds to the probable habitats of the Antes of Byzantine authors. It is distinguished by the so-called Antian hoards, in which bronze cast figures of people and animals are found, painted with enamels in special recesses. The figurines are Alanian in style, although the technique of champlevé enamel probably came from the Baltic (the earliest finds) through the provincial-Roman art of the European West. According to another version, this technique developed on the spot within the framework of the previous Kievan culture. The Penkov culture differs from the Prague-Korchak culture, in addition to the characteristic shape of pots, by the relative wealth of material culture and the noticeable influence of the nomads of the Black Sea region. Archaeologists M. I. Artamonov and I. P. Rusanova recognized the Bulgars-farmers as the main bearers of culture, at least at its initial stage.

Kolochinsky archaeological culture: range in the basin of the Desna and the upper reaches of the Dnieper (Gomel region of Belarus and Bryansk region of Russia). It adjoins in the south to the Prague and Penkovsky cultures. Mixing zone of the Baltic and Slavic tribes. Despite the proximity to the Penkovo culture, V.V. Sedov attributed it to the Baltic based on the saturation of the area with Baltic hydronyms, but other archaeologists do not recognize this feature as ethno-determining for the archaeological culture.

In II-III centuries. Slavic tribes of the Przeworsk culture from the Vistula-Oder region migrate to the forest-steppe regions between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers, inhabited by Sarmatian and late Scythian tribes belonging to the Iranian language group. At the same time, the Germanic tribes of the Gepids and Goths move to the southeast, as a result of which, from the lower Danube to the Dnieper forest-steppe left bank, a polyethnic Chernyakhov culture is formed with a predominance of Slavs. In the process of Slavicization of the local Scythian-Sarmatians in the Dnieper region, a new ethnic group is formed, known in Byzantine sources as Antes.

Within the Slavic anthropological type, subtypes are classified associated with the participation in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs of tribes of various origins. The most general classification indicates the participation in the formation of the Slavic ethnos of two branches of the Caucasoid race: southern (relatively broad-faced mesocranial type, descendants: Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians) and northern (relatively broad-faced dolicocranial type, descendants: Belarusians and Russians). In the north, participation in the ethnogenesis of Finnish tribes was recorded (mainly through the assimilation of the Finno-Ugric peoples in the process of expansion of the Slavs to the east), which gave some Mongoloid admixture to East Slavic persons; in the south, there was a Scythian substratum noted in the craniometric data of the Polyan tribe. However, it was not the glades, but the Drevlyans, who determined the anthropological type of future Ukrainians.

genetic history

The genetic history of an individual and entire ethnic groups is reflected in the diversity of the male sex Y chromosome, namely its non-recombining part. Y-chromosome groups (outdated designation: HG - from English haplogroup) carry information about a common ancestor, but as a result of mutations they are modified, due to which by haplogroups, or, in other words, by the accumulation of one or another mutation in the chromosome, it is possible to trace the stages of development humanity. The human genotype, like the anthropological structure, does not coincide with his ethnic identification, but rather reflects the migration processes of large population groups in the Late Paleolithic, which allows us to make probable assumptions about the ethnogenesis of peoples at their earliest stage of education.

Written evidence

Slavic tribes first appear in the Byzantine written sources of the 6th century under the name of the Slavs and Antes. Retrospectively, in these sources, the antes are mentioned when describing the events of the 4th century. Presumably, the Slavs (or ancestors of the Slavs) include the Wends, who, without determining their ethnic characteristics, were reported by the authors of the late Roman time (-II centuries). Earlier tribes, noted by contemporaries in the supposed area of the formation of the Slavic ethnos (middle and upper Dnieper, southern Belarus), could contribute to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, but the extent of this contribution remains unknown due to lack of information on both the ethnicity of the tribes mentioned in the sources, and along the exact boundaries of the habitat of these tribes and the Proto-Slavs proper.

Archaeologists find a geographical and temporal correspondence to the neurons in the Milograd archaeological culture of the 7th-3rd centuries. BC e., whose range extends to Volyn and the Pripyat river basin (north-west Ukraine and southern Belarus). On the issue of the ethnicity of the Milograds (Herodotov neurons), the opinions of scientists were divided: V.V. Sedov attributed them to the Balts, B.A. Rybakov saw them as Proto-Slavs. There are also versions about the participation of Scythian farmers in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, based on the assumption that their name is not ethnic (belonging to Iranian-speaking tribes), but generalizing (belonging to barbarians) character.

While the expeditions of the Roman legions opened up to the civilized world Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe and the barbarian lands from the middle Danube to the Carpathians, Strabo, in describing Eastern Europe north of the Black Sea region, uses legends collected by Herodotus. Critically comprehending the available information, Strabo directly declared a white spot on the map of Europe east of the Elbe, between the Baltic and the Western Carpathian mountain range. However, he provided important ethnographic information related to the appearance of Bastarns in the western regions of Ukraine.

Whoever ethnically the bearers of the Zarubintsy culture were, their influence can be traced in the early monuments of the Kievan culture (first classified as late Zarubintsy), early Slavic in the opinion of most archaeologists. According to the assumption of the archaeologist M. B. Shchukin, it was the Bastarnas, assimilating with the local population, that could play a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, allowing the latter to stand out from the so-called Balto-Slavic community:

“A part [of the Bastarns] probably remained in place and, along with representatives of other “post-Zarubinets” groups, could then take part in the complex process of Slavic ethnogenesis, introducing certain “centum” elements into the formation of the “common Slavic” language, which separate the Slavs from their Baltic or Balto-Slavic ancestors.

“I really don’t know whether the Peukins, Wends and Fenns can be attributed to the Germans or Sarmatians […] The Wends adopted many of their customs, because for the sake of robbery they roam the forests and mountains, which only exist between Peukins [Bastarns] and Fenns. However, they are more likely to be reckoned among the Germans, because they build houses for themselves, carry shields and move on foot, and moreover with great speed; all this separates them from the Sarmatians, who spend their whole lives in a wagon and on a horse.”

Some historians are making hypothetical assumptions that perhaps Ptolemy mentioned among the tribes of Sarmatia and the Slavs under distorted stavan(south of the vessels) and sulons(on the right bank of the middle Vistula). The assumption is substantiated by the consonance of words and intersecting habitats.

Slavs and Huns. 5th century

L. A. Gindin and F. V. Shelov-Kovedyaev consider the Slavic etymology of the word to be the most reasonable strava, pointing to its meaning in Czech "pagan funerary feast" and Polish "funeral feast, commemoration", while allowing for the possibility of a Gothic and Hunnic etymology. German historians are trying to deduce the word strava from the Gothic sûtrava, meaning a pile of firewood and possibly a funeral pyre.

The manufacture of boats by gouging is not a method inherent exclusively to the Slavs. Term monoxyl found in Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Strabo. Strabo points to gouging as a way of making boats in antiquity.

Slavic tribes of the VI century

Noting the close relationship of the Sclavinians and Antes, Byzantine authors did not give any signs of their ethnic separation, except for different habitats:

“Both of these barbarian tribes have the same life and laws […] They both have the same language, quite barbaric. And in appearance they do not differ from each other [...] And once even the name of the Sklavens and Antes was the same. In ancient times, both of these tribes were called disputes [Greek. scattered], I think because they lived, occupying the country "sporaden", "scattered", in separate villages.
“Starting from the birthplace of the river Vistula [Vistula], a populous tribe of Veneti settled down in the boundless spaces. Although their names are now changing according to different clans and localities, they are still mainly called Sclavens and Antes.

The "Strategikon", the authorship of which is attributed to Emperor Mauritius (582-602), contains information about the habitats of the Slavs, consistent with the ideas of archaeologists on early Slavic archaeological cultures:

“They settle in forests or near rivers, swamps and lakes - generally in hard-to-reach places […] Their rivers flow into the Danube […] The possessions of the Slavs and Antes are located right now along the rivers and adjoin each other, so there is no sharp border between them. Due to the fact that they are covered with forests, or swamps, or places overgrown with reeds, it often happens that those who undertake expeditions against them are immediately forced to stop at the border of their possessions, because the entire space in front of them is impassable and covered with dense forests.

The war of the Goths with the Ants took place somewhere in the Northern Black Sea region at the end of the 4th century, if one is tied to the death of Germanaric in 376. The question of the Ants in the Black Sea region is complicated by the point of view of some historians who saw in these Ants the Caucasian Alans or the ancestors of the Adygs. However, Procopius expands the habitat of the Ants to places north of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, although without an exact geographic reference:

“The peoples who live here [Northern Azov] were called Cimmerians in ancient times, but now they are called Utigurs. Further, to the north of them, countless tribes of Ants occupy the lands.

Procopius reported the first known raid of the Antes on Byzantine Thrace in 527 (the first year of the reign of Emperor Justinian I).

In the ancient Germanic epic "Widsid" (the content of which dates back to the -5th centuries), the list of tribes of northern Europe mentions the Vineds (Winedum), but there are no other names for the Slavic peoples. The Germans knew the Slavs under the ethnonym veins, although it cannot be ruled out that the name of one of the Baltic Baltic tribes bordering the Germans was transferred by them in the era of the Great Migration of Peoples to the Slavic ethnos (as happened in Byzantium with the Rus and the ethnonym Scythians).

Written sources about the origin of the Slavs

The civilized world learned about the Slavs, cut off before by the warlike nomads of Eastern Europe, when they reached the borders of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines, who consistently fought off waves of barbarian invasions, may not have immediately identified the Slavs as a separate ethnic group and did not report legends about its origin. The historian of the 1st half of the 7th century Theophylact Simokatta called the Slavs Getae (" so in the old days they called these barbarians”), obviously mixing the Thracian tribe of the Getae with the Slavs who occupied their lands on the lower Danube.

The Old Russian chronicle of the beginning of the 12th century "The Tale of Bygone Years" finds the homeland of the Slavs on the Danube, where they were first recorded by Byzantine written sources:

“A lot of time [after the biblical Babylonian pandemonium] the Slavs settled along the Danube, where now the land is Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs, the Slavs dispersed throughout the earth and were called by their names from the places where they sat down. So some, having come, sat down on the river by the name of Morava and were called Morava, while others were called Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volokhi attacked the Danubian Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came Poles, other Poles - Lutichi, others - Mazovshan, others - Pomeranians. In the same way, these Slavs came and sat down along the Dnieper and called themselves glades, and others - Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, while others sat down between Pripyat and Dvina and called themselves Dregovichi, others sat down along the Dvina and were called Polochans, along the river flowing into the Dvina , called Polota, from which the Polotsk people were called. The same Slavs who sat down near Lake Ilmen were called by their name - Slavs.

Independently of this scheme, the Polish chronicle "Great Poland Chronicle" also follows, reporting on Pannonia (a Roman province adjacent to the middle Danube) as the homeland of the Slavs. Before the development of archeology and linguistics, historians agreed with the Danubian lands as the place of origin of the Slavic ethnos, but now they recognize the legendary nature of this version.

Review and synthesis of data

In the past (Soviet era), two main versions of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs were widespread: 1) the so-called Polish, deducing the ancestral home of the Slavs in the interfluve of the Vistula and Oder; 2) autochthonous, under the influence of the theoretical views of the Soviet academician Marr. Both reconstructions recognized a priori the Slavic nature of the early archaeological cultures in the territories inhabited by the Slavs in the early Middle Ages, and some initial antiquity of the Slavic language, which independently developed from Proto-Indo-European. The accumulation of data in archeology and the departure from patriotic motivation in research led to the development of new versions based on the isolation of a relatively localized core of the formation of the Slavic ethnos and its spread through migrations to neighboring lands. Academic science has not developed a unified point of view on exactly where and when the ethnogenesis of the Slavs took place.

Genetic studies also confirm the ancestral home of the Slavs in Ukraine.

How the expansion of the early Slavs from the region of ethnogenesis took place, the directions of migration and settlement in central Europe can be traced by the chronological development of archaeological cultures. Usually, the beginning of the expansion is associated with the advancement of the Huns to the west and the resettlement of the Germanic peoples towards the south, associated, among other things, with climate change in the 5th century and agricultural conditions. By the beginning of the 6th century, the Slavs reached the Danube, where their further history is described in written sources of the 6th century.

The contribution of other tribes to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs

The Scythian-Sarmatians had some influence on the formation of the Slavs due to the long geographical proximity, but their influence, according to archeology, anthropology, genetics and linguistics, was mainly limited to vocabulary borrowings and the use of horses in the household. According to genetic data, common distant ancestors of some nomadic peoples, referred to by the common name Sarmatians, and Slavs within the framework of the Indo-European community, but in historical time these peoples evolved independently of each other.

The contribution of the Germans to the ethnogenesis of the Slavs, according to anthropology, archeology and genetics, is insignificant. At the turn of the eras, the region of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs (Sarmatia) was separated from the places of residence of the Germans by a certain zone of "mutual fear" according to Tacitus. The existence of an uninhabited area between the Germans and the Proto-Slavs of Eastern Europe is confirmed by the absence of noticeable archaeological sites from the Western Bug to the Neman in the first centuries AD. e. The presence of similar words in both languages is explained by a common origin from the Indo-European community of the Bronze Age and close contacts in the 4th century after the start of the migration of the Goths from the Vistula to the south and east.

Notes

From the report of V. V. Sedov "Ethnogenesis of the early Slavs" (2002)
Trubachev O. N. Craft terminology in Slavic languages. M., 1966.
F. P. Filin (1962). From the report of M. B. Schukin "The Birth of the Slavs"
Rostafinski (1908). From the report of M. B. Schukin "The Birth of the Slavs"
Turubanova S.A., Ecological scenario of the history of the formation of the living cover of European Russia, dissertation for the degree of candidate of biological sciences, 2002:
Toporov V. N., Trubachev O. N. Linguistic analysis of the hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper region. M., 1962.

Briefly and interestingly, it is quite difficult to reliably tell about the origin of the Slavs, because there is no written confirmation. Where did they come from? The very first mention according to the version of the chronicle comes after the Flood, when the sons of Japheth took the west and north. It was from them, the sons of Japhetov, that the Slavic people or another name came from - Noriki.

So Slavs.

There are several versions even about how the word Slavs originated. Maybe from the Indo-European ancient language, in which they denoted rumor and fame, glorious people. Or, people who could be easily understood, speaking our language. Basically, there is a version in which the Slavic peoples are designated as Slovenes or Sclaves (Eastern Venets), among many peoples of Scandinavia, such names have been preserved in the language to this day. The name Russian Slavs appeared in the 12th century.

Motherland, where is she?

It is believed that it was from Central and Eastern Europe that the origin, and later the settlement of Slavic peoples in the 6-7 centuries of our era, began. Valleys of the Vistula, Oder, Elbe and Danube rivers. Fortunately, numerous excavations of household items confirm this.

Resettlement.

As a rule, settlement took place in all directions, but was more noticeable towards the Baltic and the Black Sea. Historical military-tribal alliances could help people, took care of their safety and survival. The suitability of a place for living attracted people, good pastures for livestock and meadows for sowing. In the same period, as a result of the displacement and mixing of tribes, religious movements appear that replace paganism. In the west - vagry, drevane. In the north - Pomeranians, slezhane, bohemia. In the northwest - Polish, Silesian, Lusatian. Eastern and southeastern - Buzhan, Volhynians. The names were given according to the place of residence.

Slavic settlements.

Settlements were built, as a rule, on the high banks of rivers, they were surrounded by high bulk earthen ramparts, deep ditches filled with water and log palisades. It was protection from wild animals, which were then very numerous, from militant neighbors from different parts of the world, and simply from robbers. Housing - dugouts, was poor, damp and dark. There was a square in the center of the settlements. In the squares, everyone was usually gathered for general meetings or courts. From here merchants and warriors were escorted on their way.

Culture.

The basis of the culture of the Slavs is called Prague. Burial grounds of that time were found, they contain burials of cremated people, adornments of women - temporal rings, molded ceramics, frying pans and bowls. Gods - idols had understandable names. Perun is a warrior, Veles is a protector of livestock, Mokosh is in charge of weaving, Stribog is guarding the sky, Dazhdbog is the sun. The common language was Proto-Slavic, then Slavic and Old Church Slavonic. The initial writing was in the form of the Glagolitic alphabet, later, in the form of Cyrillic and Latin. The counting system and calendars were developed. They are associated with the rites of that time and occupations - solar and lunar, wedding, sowing, hunting. When Christianity came to the Slavs, from the 6th to the 10th centuries, calendars appeared with fasts and meat-eaters. Eastern and South-Eastern Slavs became Christians according to the Byzantine rite, and Western and South-Western according to the Roman rite. The Balkan settlements of the Slavs, occupied by the Ottoman Empire, converted to Islam. In our time, rituals from the pagan past have been preserved, such as Shrovetide, Ivan Kupala, Krasnaya Gorka. And a lot of superstitions about brownies and ghosts.

Basic lessons.

Hunting and gathering of berries and mushrooms could not feed large tribes. The found tools of agricultural implements made of iron indicate that the ancient settled Slavs were engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry and handicrafts. And the surplus products were exchanged or sold to neighboring tribes. This is how trade routes were born, leading to all directions of the world, and with them the settlement of the Slavs continued.

Modern Slavs.

If in past centuries all groups were united by a common tribal way of life, now the similarity is observed only in language. There is no common race, no common religion, no common culture.