Posts Tagged ‘Russia’

The Vikings in the East : a Survey of Settlement, Trade and Military Activity c.700 – 1100

The Vikings in the East : a Survey of Settlement, Trade and Military Activity c.700 – 1100

By D.A.F.  Adams

MA Thesis, University of Canterbury, 1988

Abstract: This thesis surveys three principal Scandinavian activities during the period from 700 to 1100 – those of settlement, trade and military activity – in the regions east of the Baltic Sea. As secondary sources debate the origin and ethnicity of the people known as the Rus mentioned by the primary literary sources and identified with Swedish Vikings, the philological arguments for the derivation of the name and the source material supporting the Scandinavian identity of the Rus are initially discussed.

In examining colonising activities, much attention has been paid to the archaeological evidence (supported by literary sources) indicating Scandinavian settlement in the region of North Russia. This is essentially an examination of burial sites and Norse burial practices and rituals. The tradition of the foundation of the first Russian State by Varangian warriors centred initially at Novgorod and shifting to Kiev in the ninth century is also discussed. The development of commerce from the pre-Viking period deals with trade-routes, wares and modes of travel. There is a division along the lines of trade with the Muslims and that with the Byzantines. To some extent, this is divided by the source material, numismatic evidence for Muslim commerce and literary for trade with the Byzantines.

My final chapter examines the Norse warrior tradition, their weapons and tactics. A discussion of the great raids on Constantinople and in the Caspian region based primarily on the written accounts of Byzantine and Muslim authors forms the basis of the last chapter. A brief account of the development of the Varangian Guard and some of the personalities associated with it completes that chapter. My overall conclusions then follow.

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24 Feb 2010
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Grand Princess Olga: Pagan Vengeance and Sainthood in Kievan Rus

Grand Princess Olga: Pagan Vengeance and Sainthood in Kievan Rus

By Heidi Sherman

World History Connected, Vol. 7.1 (2010)

Introduction: It is a strange historical twist that the first “Russian” woman to be canonized in the Orthodox Church was a Viking warrior princess who spent much of her life as a pagan. Olga earned her sainthood by becoming the first member of the house of Riurik, the dynasty that ruled European Russia and parts of Ukraine and Belorus for more than seven centuries (860s – 1598), to convert to Christianity. But the role of this battle maid in the spread of Christendom to the eastern Slavs is only part of her remarkable contribution to the history of Eastern Europe.

Olga is the only woman for whom we possess significant biographical details in the written sources for the Kievan Rus period of Russian history (860s – 1240). In contrast with Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, medieval Russian women did not participate in literary culture aside from the occasional inscription or letter of the type found on birch bark in the excavations of medieval Novgorod. The laws of the period reveal that women enjoyed few legal protections compared with their male peers. Women could inherit property from their parents or husbands, but only in the absence of brothers and sons. If the sons were young, the widow managed the family’s estate until the sons reached their majority.

Olga is in this way typical of the free elite women of Kiev. For nearly two decades (945 to 962) Olga ruled the rapidly expanding kingdom of Kievan Rus, which received its name from its capital Kiev on the middle Dniepr River, as regent for her young son Sviatoslav. And she did so in stunning fashion despite significant obstacles. Olga assumed power at a time when the realm was shaken by tribal violence and administrative disorder. She bloodily pacified rebellious tribes and replaced tribute taking with a regular system of taxation. Olga’s decision to convert to eastern Christianity instead of Catholicism was also a fundamental step in the spiritual and political alliance of Kievan Rus with the Byzantine Orthodox world rather than with Latin Christendom. In short, it took the will and perspicacity of a barbarian widow to begin the transformation of the Rus lands from a loosely knit pagan chieftaincy into a more stable and centralized Christian kingdom.

Reconstructing Olga’s story is a complex matter because there was very little that was written down during her lifetime, when Kievan Rus was as yet a mainly pagan kingdom without a literary tradition. Chroniclers may have begun to record the actions of the dynasty after the official adoption of Christianity a generation after Olga’s death, but these early records unfortunately have not survived. The most important account of Olga’s life comes from a source written many generations after Olga’s lifetime, The Tale of Bygone Years, a chronicle that was completed by the monks Nestor and Silvester who lived at the Kievan Caves monastery, which was supported by the Riurikid princes of Kiev. As Riurikid dependants, the author-monks organized the narrative around the role of the ruling family’s ancestors in creating the Christian state. Because much of the chronicle covered events that took place many generations prior to its compilation, the authors appear to base the tale upon oral accounts, some clearly inspired by legend. The result is a rich and often dramatic history that is reflective of the multi-ethnic traditions, Eastern Slavic, Scandinavian, and Finnic, that made up the culture of Kievan Rus. Olga’s story as told in The Tale of Bygone Years is a product of this type of chronicle writing. We are fortunate that the chroniclers fashioned an exciting portrait of Olga, one that can be corroborated occasionally by contemporary sources from Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. An examination of Olga, therefore, is in effect an exercise in early medieval source criticism.

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18 Feb 2010
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The Medieval River Trade Network of Russia Revisited

The Medieval River Trade Network of Russia Revisited

By Forrest R. Pitts

Social Networks, Vol.1 (1978/79)

Abstract: Medieval trade and communication along the rivers of Russia are considered as a social network. Two measures are presented. An intermediate node occurrence rate (Shimbel’s stress index) provides a measure of centrality. The short-path distances to all other places are summed to provide a system effort measure of accessibility. Both measures show Moscow to have been most central and accessible with aggregate least effort.

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31 Jan 2010
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Motives for Donations to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, 1392-1605: Gender Matters

Motives for Donations to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, 1392-1605: Gender Matters

Miller, David B.

Abstract

In the 1350s Sergius of Radonezh founded a hermitage eighty kilometers northeast of Moscow. By the mid-1370s, having attracted many disciples, Sergius instituted a rule of common life and dedicated the monastery to the veneration of the Trinity. When he died in 1392, he was famous throughout Rus’. In 1422 Abbot Nikon and the monks of Trinity testified to the miraculous powers of Sergius’s relics and began to celebrate his sanctity. The earliest records of memorial donations by Muscovy’s landed elite to Trinity and other cult centers are coincident with these events. About 1448 the Russian Orthodox Church recognized Sergius as a saint, most notably because he was said to have solicited the intervention of the Mother of God to bring victory over the Mongols in 1380. In the 1400s the Trinity-Sergius Monastery became the foremost cult center in the expanding Muscovite state, and its monks figured prominently in the great wave of rural monastic foundings in Muscovy. In the 1500s Russia’s rulers and their wives made regular pilgrimages to Trinity, and monastic scribes recorded subsidies from important families to underwrite feasts and celebrations.

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23 Dec 2009
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Nikolai Gogol and the medieval orthodox Slavic world-view

Nikolai Gogol and the medieval orthodox Slavic world-view

By Philip Harttrup

PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1998

Abstract: This thesis examines Nikolai Gogol’ s creative and publicistic writings in the context of the medieval Orthodox Slavic literary and cultural tradition. Though Gogol wrote his entire corpus during the Romantic period and clearly shared a great deal with the Romantics in both Russia and the West, his thought and writings reveal his strong affinity for the heritage of Kievan Rust and Muscovite Russia. The particular aspects of the pre-Petrine tradition most prevalent in Gogol’s work include the following: the notion of the writerrs role as divinely inspired, the monastic vocation, eschatological thought, aesthetic values, the influence of the demonic, and the ethical matrix of the culture.

While it was once believed that Gogol had undergone a religious crisis, a close examination of his correspondence and creative output shows that his religious and moral views remained relatively constant throughout his life. Indeed, what he says in his early works reappears, only more overtly, in his final book, Selected Passages From Correspondence With Friends, As Gogol adapted and assimilated various aspects of the medieval tradition throughout his writings, Selected Passages may be viewed as the ultimate and most explicit testimony to his medieval world-view.

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4 Dec 2009
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Slavic Paganism in Kievan Russia and the Coming of Christianity

Slavic Paganism in Kievan Russia and the Coming of Christianity

By Yaroslav V. Riabinin

Published Online (2007)

Introduction: Orthodox Christianity is currently the dominant religion in parts of the world that are inhabited by Eastern Slavs, such as Russians and Ukrainians. However, this was not always the case. At the end of the first millennium C.E., the state of Kyivan Rus’ (Kievan Russia) had undergone significant changes – most notably, the acceptance of a new faith. Before that time, the Slavonic tribes held on to pagan beliefs about the world, such as polytheism and reverence of nature. Although there are very few historical traces of this ancient religion, the lack of information about the subject is in no way a reflection of its importance. On the contrary, the paganism of pre-Christian Slavs has been kept alive by its followers over the centuries and it continues to play a role in the cultural development of various peoples. In this paper, I intend to explore the pagan religion and mythology of the early Slavs, before their Christianization. Furthermore, I will examine the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Kievan Russia in greater detail. My main focus will be on the persistence of pagan elements in the religious and cultural life of the Slavs, despite the efforts of authorities to spread Orthodoxy in the region.

Before the coming of Christianity, the early Slavs were pagan, which means that they worshipped many deities, as well as various sylvan and household spirits. The culture was polytheistic, rather than monotheistic. Cross introduces these beliefs in the following manner: “The religion of the pagan Slavs was thus primarily animistic in its origins, and the animistic personification of powers of nature is further exemplified by abundant references to water and forest spirits (vily, beregynji, lesie)”. The religion was also ancestral and it placed an emphasis on unity and interconnectedness with nature. This is reminiscent of Hinduism and the concept of Ultimate Reality, where everything can be reduced to one basic property. An example of this is the pagan Goddess of the Earth – Mat’ Syra Zemlya (“Mother Moist Earth”) – who is the mother of all Russians and is not to be harmed (dug up) until her birth-giving time comes (at a holiday called “Maslenica”, which is also known as the Vernal Equinox).

However, it has also been argued that paganism is inherently dualistic. This is evident in the contrast between light and dark, male and female, life and death, and so on. For example, there is the Rod and the Rozhenitsa – the God and Goddess of Creation, who provide every human being with a soul at birth. Also, there is Dazhbog (also called “Belobog”, or “White-God”) who has dominion over the sky, and Chernobog (“Black-God”) who rules the underworld. Such opposites are quite common in Slavic paganism, thus supporting the claim that dualism is a vital part of the religion.

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19 Sep 2009
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The Shifting Present and Written Images of the Mongols

The Shifting Present and Written Images of the Mongols

By Donald Ostrowski

Paper given at Uses of the Past Slavic Symposium, University of Pennsylvania (2008) 

Introduction: The relationship of the Mongols with Rus’ is one of those controversial topics that finds no consensus among scholars. On every major point and most of the minor ones, there is ardent and passionate disagreement. Yet, one interpretive framework, for metahistorical reasons, has tended to dominate the historiography. In this paper, I discuss first what I consider to be the evidentiary basis of Mongol-Rus’ relations. Other historians with different views would no doubt emphasize different evidence and would dispute the importance of the evidence I present, but it would be incorrect to say that such evidence does not exist. Then I discuss eight main paradigms that I see as having been applied to explaining Mongol-Rus’ relations. Finally, I draw some conclusions that are applicable to the present and future of studying those relations. In the process, I hope to provide the reader an understanding of why such divergent opinions exist in the scholarly literature.

Historical Background: The Mongols first made their appearance in the western Eurasian steppe in 1222. Following the death of the defeated Khwarezmshah Muhammed on an island in the Caspian Sea, the pursuing Mongol expeditionary force continued on around the west coast of the Caspian, through the Caucasus Mountains, and into an area that is also known as the Qipchaq steppe (Desht-i- Qipchaq). After wintering near the Crimean peninsula, this expeditionary force, which was commanded by Jebe and Sübe’etei (two of the Mongols’ leading generals), captured Sudak in the Crimea. In 1223, they encountered and defeated a combined Rus’-Polovtsian army on the Kalka River, north of the Black Sea. Leaving the Qipchaq steppe eastward, they fought a battle against the Volga Bulgars and crossed the Volga River on their way back to their homeland in the eastern steppe.

Following two other campaigns against the Bulgars, one in 1229 (including Saksin and the Polovtsians), the other in 1232, the Mongols returned to the western steppe fourteen years after their first visit. An army commanded by Batu (the grandson of Chinggis Khan) and Sübe’etei during the winter of 1237–38 took Riazan’, Moscow, Vladimir, Suzdal’, and a number of other Rus’ towns, but turned back before reaching Novgorod, possibly because the Novgorodians agreed to pay tribute. In December 1240, the Mongols conquered Kiev before heading further west where, in April 1241, they defeated a combined Polish and Teutonic knight army at Liegnitz and a Magyar army at M´ohi.

Returning to the area north of the Black Sea, Batu established the Jochid Ulus, which lasted until 1502 when the last remnant of it was conquered by the Crimean Tatars. It survived the longest of any of the four original ulus (khanates) distributed by Chinggis Khan to his sons. Among the successors to the Jochid Ulus, the Kazan’ Khanate lasted until 1552; the Astrakhan’, until 1556; the Sibir’, until 1587; the Kasimov, until 1681; and the Crimean, until 1783.

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19 Sep 2009
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The Scourge of God: The (in)Visibility of Mongols in Russian History and Memory

The Scourge of God: The (in)Visibility of Mongols in Russian History and Memory

By Katherine A. Maximick

Preteritus, Vol 1 (2009)

Abstract: Despite having a long and fascinating national history, there is a two-hundred year period that is regarded by the Russian people as a horrendous and humiliating black mark upon their nation’s past. This was consequently titled (by Russians) as the Mongol Yoke. Why is it that Russians continue to carry an eight-hundred year old grudge, rather than accept that the Mongol conquest directly contributed to the rise of the powerful Russian Empire? It is this question that this paper will attempt to answer.

Introduction: The role of the Mongol conquest of Russia in the thirteenth century is an interesting one in Russian history and collective memory. The degrees of brutality and swiftness adapted to form this vast, pagan and ‘infidel’ Mongol Empire resulted in the negative exaggeration of this experience in Russian national history. The stereotypes and myths surrounding Chingis (or Genghis) Khan and his Mongol army are the theme of this paper, and I will examine the perceptions and acceptance of the Mongols in Russian history and collective memory. What makes Russia’s experience unique from that of China, India, and Central Asia is its geopolitical positioning between Europe and Asia. As a Eurasian nation, Russia has struggled throughout the centuries to be a “civilized” and “progressive” Western nation despite its empire being three-quarters Asian. As such, Russian sentiment towards their Asian past has been rife with contempt and humiliation. The memory of the Mongol invasion inspires feelings similar to those evoked by remembrance of Russia’s embarrassing loss to Japan in 1905. Given these sentiments, the Russians have dismissed and downplayed the two-hundred year Mongol conquest of their country. Whenever they could not avoid admitting to this defeat, they over-emphasized the severity of the invasions, and savagery of the Mongols. I will not, by any means, attempt to deemphasize the horrible atrocities committed by the Mongols across their empire. However I wish to remind the reader that the use of extreme violence in warfare was not a uniquely Mongol characteristic. In fact, some of history’s most disturbing atrocities were carried out by so-called Western, Christian crusaders.

Around the year 1197, a nomadic warrior by the name of Chingis Khan became the leader of a small confederation called Mongols. By favouring the promotion of humble war chiefs of other various tribes, Chingis garnered loyalty and authority from Central Asian tribes and united them under the single designation of Mongols. By establishing a highly regimented military organization as well as a system of customary Mongol laws called The Great Yasa, Chingis created one of the most efficient and effective war machines of the middle ages. The Great Yasa gave structure and diplomacy to the Mongols, encouraging them to embrace and respect various religions, to respect innocent people, to grant envoys diplomatic immunity and punish those of their own people who did not abide by these rules. Although this may come as a surprise to those accustomed to tales of Mongol savagery, the Mongols invaded Russia and the rest of the Mongol Empire under these guidelines and followed them closely for hundreds of years.

Following a concept similar to the United States’ Manifest Destiny, the Mongols expanded their empire, believing that they were preordained to establish order on earth. By 1223, the Mongols reached the steppes of Hungary – it was here that the Mongols entered the Russian historical record. By this time, Chingis Khan had died, leaving his vast empire to his sons to divide amongst themselves. One of them, Batu, had been granted lands to the farthest west of the empire’s edges, and was told that whatever land he conquered would be his new kingdom, or khanate. In this Western campaign, the Mongols were originally warring with the nomadic Polovtsy, and sent envoys to Kiev requesting that the prince remain neutral. The Kievan prince slaughtered the Mongol envoys which went against steppe custom and was an immediate declaration of war. A brief but bloody battle ensued between the Rus’ and the Mongols ending, predictably, in the defeat of the Rus’; however, as suddenly as they arrived the Mongol army disappeared East again. As much as the Rus’ preferred to claim that their military prowess forced their flight, the Mongol’s sudden departure was due to the poisoning of Greath Khan Ugedei, Batu’s older brother, who supposedly died at the hands of an aunt. The Mongols would never attempt to invade Europe after this withdrawal, thus, as one historian pointed out, “This woman, whoever she was, must be considered the saviour of Western Europe.”

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10 Sep 2009
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Varangians in Europe’s Eastern and Northern Periphery The Christianization of Northand Eastern Europe c. 950-1050 – A Plea for a Comparative Study

Varangians in Europe’s Eastern and Northern Periphery The Christianization of Northand Eastern Europe c. 950-1050 – A Plea for a Comparative Study

By John H. Lind

Ennen Ja Nyt, Vol.4 (2004)

Introduction: The original stimulus for this paper was the almost simultaneous reading of three project proposals that all had as a central theme the Christianization of one or more countries in what in the 10th-11th century could be labelled as the periphery of Christian Europe. However, let us start by taking a longer and, perhaps, simplified view of the Christianization of Europe. Basically we may operate with at least three methods or ways in which Christianity spread:

1) by diffusion, either intentionally by missionary work or, less intentionally, from individual to individual in something we could call cultural mission. This method was operative from the very beginning of Christianity;

2) the “caesaropapistic” spread of Christianity, which was introduced when Constantine the Great in 325 made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. A method that was later operative at several stages, both before and after the Reformation;

3) later came mission by the sword, where conquest was accompanied by forced baptism. Here the wish to spread the Christian faith could be the moving factor or the forced conversion could primarily be intended as a mean to secure conquest.

At the beginning of the Middle Ages Christian Europe consisted of the countries and peoples that had formed part of the Roman Empire. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, almost all peoples of what we geographically consider Europe had become Christian. This period in the Christianization of Europe may be divided into a number of distinct stages. Relevant for the process of Christianization, as far as it concerns Europe’s northern and eastern periphery, are three such stages, in which one or another of the abovementioned methods dominated,

1) the more or less forced Christianization from the end of the 8th century to the end of the 9th century of the immediate neighbours of the Carolingian Empire by the Empire, involving both Germanic and Slavonic tribes/nations;

2) the more or less voluntary Christianization from the second half of the 10th to the beginning of the 11th century of almost all tribes/nations in the periphery surrounding what now constituted Christian Europe: (Kievan) Rus’, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden;

3) the third stage was to a large extent shaped by the appearance of the crusading movement and its implementation in the periphery. This led either to the conquest and forced Christianization of the remaining nations by existing Christian states, turned crusader states, and by newly founded military order state(s), or, in the case of Lithuania, to the rise of a pagan-led empire.

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25 Jul 2009
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A Reconstruction of the Flora and Vegetation in the Central Area of Early Medieval Kiev, Ukraine, Based on the Results of Palynological Investigations

A Reconstruction of the Flora and Vegetation in the Central Area of Early Medieval Kiev, Ukraine, Based on the Results of Palynological Investigations

By Lyudmila G. Bezusko, Timur V. Bezusko, and Sergei L. Mosyakin

Urban Habitats, Vol.1:1 (2003)

Abstract: This paper provides a partial reconstruction of the main features of the flora and vegetation of the central area of the city of Kiev (Kyiv in the Ukrainian-based transliteration), Ukraine, in early medieval times. The reconstruction is based on fossil spore and pollen samples. Samples for the spore pollen analysis were selected in 1998 and 1999 during archaeological investigations on the grounds of St. Michael’s Gold-Domed Cathedral and in three adjacent areas in the hilly central part of Kiev. According to archaeological data, the samples were dated to between the 10th and 12th centuries A.D. Analysis of the fossil palynoflora yielded a general list of 102 taxa of different ranks (identified by species, genus, family, or order), 72 of which were herbaceous (62.9% to 82.1% for the four sites). Analysis of the herbaceous pollen on the species level turned up a significant number of weedy flora. The data was used to supplement prior lists of weedy and cultivated plants. A comparison of our species list with diagnostic species of modern syntaxa of ruderal vegetation gives evidence that some synanthropic plant species achieved their community forming role only during the last millennium. The data collected and analyzed in his paper provide only a fragmentary view of the natural (nonsynanthropic) vegetation that surrounded the ancient city of Kiev. However, it includes new details and paleobotanical information on the anthropic factors influencing the formation of the urban flora and vegetation of ancient Kiev.

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23 Jun 2009
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