Russian kaganate. Without Khazars and Normans

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The problem of the origin of the ethnonym "Rus" is one of the most complicated and confusing. And largely because this name is found in the Middle Ages in various regions of Europe, clearly denoting the same thing. The Arabs, the Persians, the Franks, and the Byzantines also know the Russes. It is very difficult to determine when these peoples first became acquainted with the Rus. On the one hand, in many later works, when Kievan Rus was already widely known, and then Muscovy, in stories about the events of the IV-VIII centuries. Rus are called.

To the end. VIII century on the territory from the left bank of the Dnieper to the Middle and Lower Don, a single sociopolitical union was formed with a center outlined by the forest-steppe variant of the Saltov culture, which included sedentary tribes of North Iranian (Rus and Alans) and Slavic origin, as well as nomads - Sarmatian-Alans (Ases) and Proto-Bulgarians, initially occupied a subordinate position and began the process of subsidence. This political association had extensive trade ties and the most developed manufacturing economy in Eastern Europe at that time (in terms of craftsmanship, some parallels can be drawn only with Staraya Ladoga of the archaeological layer E-2, also located on the Volga-Baltic route [1021 - See: Korzukhina G F. About the time of the appearance of a fortified settlement in Ladoga // SA. 1961. No. 3. P. 76–84.]). Analysis of material culture and written sources shows that this association in terms of development level corresponds to the early state (composite proto-state). Probably, the capital of this proto-state or state was located in the upper reaches of the Seversky Donets as the oldest territory of the Rus with a rich and noble population. Perhaps it was the Verkhnesaltovskoye settlement, characterized by researchers as a proto-city [1022 - Pletneva S. A. Possibilities of identifying socio-economic categories based on materials of burial rituals. S. 166-172.], Although along the course of the same river in the 17th century. they remembered the Kaganovo settlement, wiped off the face of the earth, next to which toponymy knows the Kagansky ferry and the Kagansky well [1023 - Vinnikov A. Z., Pletneva S. A. On the northern borders of the Khazar Kaganate. P.33.].

The Russian tribal union was one of the priority trading partners of the states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Arab coins went to Eastern Europe VIII - early. IX century by two channels: the first - from Iran through the Caspian to the Volga and further to the Baltic states - to Gotland, the second - from the western limits of the Arab Caliphate through Syria and the Transcaucasia to the Don and Seversky Donets, and from there - to the Southeastern Baltic (possibly the description of the second path is in the Bavarian geographer [1024 - The author of the Bavarian geographer, following in the exposition along the Slavic-Germanic watershed to the Prus region, that is, the Lower Vistula and the Neman, then very fluently describes the territory on which, among the unknown ethnonyms, are mentioned, Khazars and Russes The path, having made this circle, closes again on the Vistula (Nazarenko A. V. German Latin-speaking sources of the IX-XI centuries. M., 1993, p. 14).], compiled no later than the 1st third of the IX century.). In the Russian Kaganate, these two streams merged, but in the 30s of the 9th century the second stream, passing along the "Rus River" - the Seversky Donets and the Middle Dnieper, ceased to exist. There are no finds of coins of that time on the territory between the Dnieper and Danube. Moreover, the abundance of treasures on the territory of the Russian Tribal Union suggests that dirhams settled here, that for the merchants who possessed these riches, the lands between the Don and Donets were native (in a foreign land, treasures are usually not buried). The complete opposite in this respect is the Khazar Kaganate. The entire complex of finds of coins on the lower Volga and the lower Donets, which could be associated with the trade movement directly in Khazaria, consists of two modest hoards and several coins. The Khazar elite were mainly engaged in transit trade, and neither money nor goods in large quantities settled there. Judging by the finds of archaeologists, the trade relations of the Saltov Rus were very extensive. Iranian fabrics, silk, goods from Khorezm, Syria - gold and silver dishes, expensive jewelry are found in the settlements. Goods from China and India also fell to the Rus: the eastern borders of the Russian Tribal Union were at the intersection of various branches of the famous Silk Road - there was the Right-Bank Tsimlyansk settlement, an outpost of the Rus in the east. The Rus were also included in trade along the Volga-Baltic route, along which intensive traffic began from the end of the VIII century. From the west along it are primarily Baltic Slavs, from the east - Saltovsk merchants. At the very beginning of the 9th century, graffiti on the Kufic dirhams of the Peterhof hoard indicate the participation of the Rus in the Baltic trade. The Rus were not only engaged in trade in other people's goods. By the beginning of the 9th century, the development of handicrafts in the Don region reached the European level of that time, and in many cases, according to archaeologists, surpassed Western Europe. Saltovskaya polished ceramics made with the help of a potter's wheel, which was then the last word in technology, enjoyed great popularity. Metalworking and arms business were no less developed. Russian weapons, judging by the information of "Khudud al-alam", if they could not compete with Damascus steel, they were very close to it.

Thus, at the beginning of the 9th century, the economy of the Russian Tribal Union was in a stage of recovery, which usually precedes the transition of an ethnic group from the last stage of the primitive communal system to the formation of a state. There was a need for its own monetary unit. And the Rus, who until recently adorned wives and concubines with gold and silver coins [1025 - Kitab al-a'lak an-nafisa VII auctore Abu Ali Ahmed ibn Omar Ibn Rosteh. P. 146.], began to mint their own coin. This conclusion can be made on the basis of the finds of the so-called "barbaric imitations" of dirhams found in the upper reaches of the Don and Donets.

And if we recall that at the same time the Rus moved to the borders of Khazaria (the construction of P. G. suzerain, having grounds for claims to dominance in the region. And the head of the Rus adopted the title of kagan. But there could be only one kaganate in Southeastern Europe: the title of kagan was equated in the steppe with the imperial one. The Rus became dangerous competitors of Khazaria not only in the economy, but also in politics. The "Russian" path from the Arab Caliphate through the Transcaucasus to the Don and Donets could somewhere compete with the Volga, the Caspian end of which was under the control of Khazaria. -strategic point of view, the location - in the lower reaches of the Don - made Khazaria worry seriously.

At about the same time, the Russian Kaganate began to build powerful fortifications in the northeast and southeast. Khazaria is building the Semikarakor fortress on the river. Sal, and everywhere to the east of these fortifications, nomadic kurgans appear, where a distinctive feature of the funeral rite is the presence of a skull and horse bones in the grave [1026 - Vinnikov A. Z., Pletneva S. A. On the northern borders of the Khazar Kaganate. P. 23; Mikheev V. K., Two early medieval finds in the Kharkiv region // SA. 1983. No. 3. S. 212–214.]. These burials have their origins in the Karayakup culture (the course of the Ural and Belaya rivers) [1027 - Ivanov V. A. Ural-Volga part of the Magyar route to the west // Cultures of the Eurasian steppes of the second half of the 1st millennium AD e. Samara, 1996. S. 192.]. Researchers associate Karayakup monuments with the territory of "Great Hungary", and the mounds are attributed as Magyar [1028 - Khalikova E. A. Magna Hungaria // VI. 1975. No. 7. P. 37–42; Ivanov V. A. Magna Hungaria. S. 53.].

The conflict between the Russian Kaganate and Khazaria began, apparently, with the defeat of the last Right-Bank Tsimlyansk settlement - a military and trading outpost of the Rus on the Lower Don. This fortress, in terms of the complexity of the layout, the development of the tower system, the arrangement of the gates and other indicators, had no equal on this territory either earlier or later. According to the results of archaeological excavations in 1987-1990, it was destroyed in the 2nd quarter of the 9th century, before the construction of Sarkel [1029 - VS Flerov. Right-bank Tsimlyanskaya fortress // RA. 1996. No. 1. P.110-113.]. The population was partly massacred, partly taken into captivity; others - the proto-Bulgarians and the steppe ases - went over to the side of their kindred Khazars (this is evidenced by the craniological and archaeological material of Sarkel and the settlement based on the site of the PCG [1030 - Pletneva S. A. History of one Khazar settlement // RA. 1993. No. 4. S. 56–57.]). The center of the Russian Kaganate was too far from the lower reaches of the Don to provide operational assistance, but the forces of the border garrisons destroyed the Khazar Semikarakory. After this successful raid against the enemy from the west by the Khazars with the direct help of Byzantium in 834–837, the Sarkel fortress was built on the left bank of the Don [1031 - Constantine Porphyrogenitus. On the management of the empire. S. 171-173.].

Relations between the Byzantine Empire and Khazaria have always been contradictory and depended mainly on the interests of Byzantium [1032 - Obolensky P. The Byzantine Commonwealth. Eastern Europe, 500-1453. N. Y., 1971. P. 170-177.]. At the beginning of the 9th century, the Russian Kaganate had already defined its foreign policy goals: control over the Volga-Baltic trade route, Transcaucasia, and the Northern Black Sea region. At the Black Sea, by the way, even from the time of the Hunnic invasion, there was a tribal union with the name "Ros", which disturbed the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea and on the southern coast of the Black Sea, as reported by the lives of Stephen of Sourozh and George of Amastrid, dating from the 1st half. IX century The data of toponymy and archeology give reason to speak about the kinship of the ethnos "grew" in the beginning of the century. e. to the Rus of the Don region. Written data of the IX century. confirm this thesis [1033 - Radomsky Ya. L. Ethnic composition of the Black Sea Russia. Abstract of the thesis. diss. … Cand. ist. sciences. M., 2004.]. The author of the Life of Georgy of Amastridsky mentions the dews as a people well known in the Black Sea region: "The invasion of the barbarians, Rus, the people, as everyone knows, extremely wild and rude" [1034 - Life of Georgy Amastridsky // Vasilievsky V. G. Proceedings. In 4 vols. T. III. Pg., 1915. S. 64.]. It also speaks of "the ancient Tauride massacre of foreigners", which remains in force in the Black Sea dews. Direct analogies to this custom are found in "Hudud al-alam" and other Arab-Persian writings in a cycle about three cities or types of Rus: "Urtab is a city where any foreigner is killed" [1035 - Hudud al-‘Alam. P. 159.]. This is another confirmation of the kinship of the inhabitants of the Russian Kaganate and the Northern Black Sea region. Lived "the rough and wild people of the Ross" in the 9th century. … Issue 5. L., 1927. S. 226.]. Perhaps the Russes of the Don region and the Black Sea region were not only linked by a common origin, but also coordinated their policies. The growing activity of the Russians in this region created the conditions for the creation in the 30s of the 9th century of the Byzantine-Khazar alliance in the field of defensive policy against the Russians. In order to attract a strong ally in the struggle against the Russian Kaganate, Khazaria made a significant territorial concession to Byzantium - the Crimean Gothia and Chersonesos were given to the empire [1037 - Constantine Porphyrogenitus. On the management of the empire. S. 173.]. Sources associate this only with the payment for the construction of Sarkel. However, researchers have repeatedly drawn attention to the inequality of such a deal [1038 - Obolensky P. The Byzantine Commonwealth. P. 176; Sedov V. V. Russian Kaganate of the 9th century. WITH.5.], which makes it possible to assume a secret agreement on a military-political alliance or, at least, on the promise of favorable neutrality towards Khazaria. In addition, Byzantium helped Khazaria and because she was an ardent enemy of the Arab Caliphate [1039 - Obolensky P. The Byzantine Commonwealth. P. 172.].

The actions of Khazaria and Byzantium against the Rus were not limited to the construction of Sarkel. The Khazar lands between the Volga and the Lower Don were full of tribes who roamed there, who were vassals of the Khazars, and Khazaria spent a lot of effort to keep these tribes in a subordinate state, that is, on this territory [1040 - Artamonov MI History of the Khazars. S. 318.]. The strongest, most numerous and active among these tribes were the Hungarians who roamed the Middle Volga region. Oral Magyar tradition preserved the memory of the whole "Khazar" period in their history [1041 - V. P. Shusharin. Early stage of the ethnic history of the Hungarians. Pp. 154-155.]. Information about this stage in the history of the Hungarians is given by the Byzantine emperor of the X century Constantine Porphyrogenitus [1042 - Constantine Porphyrogenitus. On the management of the empire. S. 443.]. The same emperor, showing amazing and non-random awareness of the events [1043 - This proves the direct participation of Byzantium in the intrigues of the Khazars around the Russian Kaganate.], Talks about the military agreement between the Khazars and the Hungarians, sealed by the marriage of the Hungarian leader to a "noble Khazark", probably of the Jewish religion. And the Khazar rulers in alliance with Byzantium skillfully direct the energy of the Hungarian nomads to the steppes between the Don and the Dnieper and the Northern Black Sea region [1044 - D'erffy D. The time of the compilation of the "Acts of the Hungarians" by the anonymous author and the degree of reliability of this work // Chronicles and Chronicles. 1973. M., 1974. C. 116; Shusharin V. P. The early stage of the ethnic history of the Hungarians. P.157.], That is, to the territory subject to the Rus. It is the Magyars who own the burials on the eastern borders of the Russian Kaganate, which have appeared in abundance, under the mounds with ditches.

At this time, realizing that such contact with the allies-vassals of Khazaria - the tribes of the steppe civilization - brings with it, the leadership of the Russian Kaganate sends an embassy to Byzantium for help, hoping that the empire, which is constantly pursuing a dual policy, will find it more profitable to help the Russians. It was this embassy, sent around 837, that was received at the court of the German emperor Louis the Pious in 839, which was reflected in the famous Bertine annals of Bishop Prudentius in the message about the embassy of the people of Hros [1045 - Annales Bertiniani: Annales de Saint-Bertin. Paris, 1964. S. 30-31.]. If we understand the message of the annals in the aggregate picture of the events set out above, taking into account the fact that these are the ambassadors of the Russian Kaganate centered on the Seversky Donets, then many questions confused by representatives of the Norman-Khazar theory in domestic historical science are explained. It becomes clear both the purpose of the trip to Byzantium and the long roundabout route of the ambassadors, whose return journey was cut off by the "barbarian tribes" of the Hungarians, who had reached the Don and Donets by that time. Constantinople did indeed pursue a dual policy, pushing the two kaganates against each other. Byzantium helped the Khazars, worrying about their possessions in the Black Sea region, but she, of course, was not interested in the appearance of the Khazars in the place of the Saltovites. Therefore, the embassy of the "people grew" was, despite the obvious futility of the mission, received with honors. For a long time - three years - the embassies of the Magyars, having spent the night between the Don and the Dnieper, passed through Kiev. In the Tale of Bygone Years, they left only a short recollection of themselves: “Idosh Eels past Kiev, call now Ougorskoe as a mountain hedgehog and come to the Dnieper and stasha vezha…” [1046 - Laurentian Chronicle. Stb. 25.] But Ibn Rust and al-Marwazi, whose information goes back to ser. IX century, mention that "they prevail over those who are neighboring with them from al-Sakaliba and Rus, take them prisoner, deliver prisoners to ar-Rum and sell there."We are talking about the Rus and Slavs of the south of the East European Plain, since the author locates the Magyar in the Northern Black Sea region [1047 - Al-Marvazi. Taba'i 'al-hayavan. S. * 22; Kitab al-a'lak an-nafisa VII auctore Abu Ali Ahmed ibn Omar Ibn Rosteh. P. 144.]. Obviously, the Hungarians did not leave this territory at once: the "Deeds of the Hungarians" - a source of the 12th century, narrate in detail, greatly embellishing the "exploits" of the Hungarians on the Dnieper. with a combination of folklore and book basis [1048 - D'erffy D. The time of the compilation of the "Acts of the Hungarians" by the anonymous author and the degree of reliability of this work. P. 121.], Where the geography of Slavic Russia during the times of feudal fragmentation was transferred to the events of the 830s – 840s [1049 - V. Shusharin. Russian-Hungarian relations in the 9th century. // International relations of Russia until the 17th century. M., 1961. S. 137-138, 150.]., However, the path of the Magyars is described exactly - from Great Hungary in the interfluve of the Kama and Volga through the future territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality to the “region of the Rus”. The long siege of the capital of the Rus is described (in the understanding of the chronicler of the 12th century - Kiev, but a stone fortress wall appears in the story, which, of course, was not in Kiev at that time.

After that, around the 850s. the Hungarians went further in search of their homeland, to Atelkuza - between the Dnieper and Dniester rivers. And if the Slavic lands of the Dnieper, apparently, did not suffer much from uninvited guests, then the core of the Russian Kaganate was devastated. Khazaria did not achieve its main goal for long, but it achieved it. First of all, the "Russian" trade route that followed from Syria and the Transcaucasia along the Seversky Donets ceased to exist, and the treasures of eastern coins along the "Rus River" disappeared. The Kufic dirham ceased to circulate in these territories. It was then that "naidosha Kozare" imposed a tribute on the Russian and Slavic lands, re-subordinating those Slavic tribes that were under the influence of the Saltov Rus. This is where the actual history of the Russian Kaganate on the Seversky Donets ends, for he was no longer a Kaganate [1050 - The fate of "Saltovskaya Rus" after the Russian Kaganate is a separate problem that was partially considered by me: E. Galkina. Secrets of the Russian Kaganate. M., 2002. S. 353-399.].