Black, White and Chervonnaya: why Russia was divided into colors

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

We all are familiar with the toponym "Rus", but not everyone knows that it was divided by color. On the territory of the ancient Russian state there were as many as three "colored" Rus: White, Black and Chervonnaya.

White Russia

Belaya Rus (Russia Alba) near Lake Ilmen (Lacus Irmen). Fragment of the Carta Marina map, 1539. Commons.wikimedia.org / Olaf Magnus

Between 1255 and 1260 an anonymous geographical treatise was compiled in Ireland, in which Alba Ruscia ("White Russia") was first mentioned. Scientists usually understand it as the possession of the lord of Veliky Novgorod. This certificate is recognized as the first color designation that was applied to Russia.

Later, European geographers mentioned White Russia more often, and what is important - until the 17th century they called North-Eastern Russia that way. However, already in the 16th century, the name Belaya Rus was gradually transferred to the West Russian (territory of modern Belarus) lands.

The discrepancy in the names of geographers is not accidental: white has many meanings. Some scholars assumed that it denotes independence (in the Persian chronicles the Russian tsars were called "White Princes" or "Ak-Padishakhs"), others saw in it the peculiarities of the appearance of the local population (blond hair, white clothes), and still others - the preservation of the Orthodox faith.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin believed that the name Belaya Rus means "great" or "ancient".

The active spread of book printing and the appearance in Europe of many geographical treatises gave rise to a large number of localizations of White Russia, the main of which were Moscow Russia and the lands of the upper Dnieper and Ponemania within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In Muscovy itself, the term Belaya Rus was rarely used. It was first used in May 1654: then, at the very beginning of the Russian-Polish war of 1654-1667, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, in a deed of gift to the boyar Buturlin, called himself “Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Duke of All Great and Little and White Russia, Autocrat”. This was done in connection with the preparation for the annexation of the Belarusian and Little Russian lands. Since that time, for North-Eastern Russia the designation "White" is everywhere replaced by "Great", and the territories of modern Belarus receive an official name.

Black Russia

Linguists have found that white, black and red are the three most important colors in the languages of the peoples of the earth. Designation words for them appear earlier than others. As opposed to white, black is usually used.

So, if the geographer called Moscow Russia "White", then the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were called "Black Russia" - just as an opposition.

In a narrow sense, Black Russia was called the territory in the upper reaches of the Neman (in modern Belarus). This area remained pagan for a very long time, and Christian geographers called it Black Russia, that is, pagan.

Samogitia (country between the lower reaches of the Nemunas and Vindava) and other regions on Carta Marina, 1539. Commons.wikimedia.org / UrusHyby

Chervonnaya Rus

Chervonny means "red". The name Chervonnaya Rus was assigned to the territories of western Ukraine and southeastern Poland, on which the Russian Voivodeship was later founded.

Its origin is not clear. This is probably due to the Cherven cities, for which, according to The Tale of Bygone Years, Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko fought successfully. Then Cherven cities - Lutsk, Kholm, Przemysl and others, went to the Commonwealth, but the name "Chervonnaya Rus" was preserved and was mentioned in later sources, starting from the 15th century. Whether it was a question of direct succession, or whether the rich and powerful cities were called "red", that is, beautiful, it is not known for certain.

Who besides Russia?

In addition to Rus, there was at least one more ethnonym on the map of Central and Eastern Europe, which also had “white, black and red names”. We are talking about the Croats. The Red Croats were the direct ancestors of the modern Croats, a South Slavic tribe that had lived in the Balkans since the early Middle Ages. At the same time, the White Croats, known for the same Tale of Bygone Years and the treatise of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus "On the management of the empire", is an East Slavic tribe. Their settlements were located on the southern slopes of the Carpathians and were partly part of Chervonnaya Rus. The Black Croats are considered the most mysterious. They lived in the north of Bohemia and belonged to the branch of the Western Slavs. Actually, only their eastern group was called Black Croats. Together with the western ones, they formed a large tribe of Czech Croats.

Finally, there is another tribe with a color marker that has left its mark on the ethnic history of Europe - the white Serbs. The area of their settlement was in northern Bohemia and they are considered the ancestors of modern Lusatian Serbs - the inhabitants of Germany and Poland.

Cardinal points and their color markers

Among some linguists, there is an opinion that among the Slavs (in particular, Croats and Serbs), the cardinal points had each its own color: white - west, black - north, red (red) - south. As we saw above, this is indeed supported by the sources. However, there is an opinion that in oriental languages the scheme of colors and cardinal points coincides almost completely.

Ivan Bilibin

It is impossible to say who is right here, and from what language this comparison of the cardinal points with certain colors came. However, it is likely that we are talking about a coincidence: the same linguists have proved that in human languages the words for white, black, red and blue appear earlier than for others.

The trinity division of Russia into White, Black and Chervonnaya was intended to convey the ethnos and the region (less often religion). At the same time, another reason for the confusion was that there was a geopolitical binary division. In the 15th - 18th centuries, the territories of Rus were divided between two states - Muscovy Rus and the Commonwealth, which greatly confused historians. The connection between the concepts of White Russia and Great Russia / Great Russia was relatively stable, only the Lithuanian lands were called Black Russia, and the term Little Russia / Little Russia correlated with both Black Russia and Red Russia.