Rus' Khaganate
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The Rus' Khaganate flourished during a poorly-documented period in the history of Eastern Europe (roughly the late eighth and early to mid-ninth centuries CE). Predating the Rurikid period and the Kievan Rus', the Rus' Khaganate was a state (or a cluster of city-states) in northern Russia inhabited by a mixed Norse, Slavic and Finnic population and dominated by the Rus' tribe or tribes. This region was a center of operations for eastern Scandinavian (Varangian) adventurers, merchants and pirates.
According to contemporary sources their population centers, which may have included the proto-towns of Holmgard (Novgorod), Aldeigja (Ladoga), Lyubsha, Alaborg, Sarskoe Gorodishche, and Timerevo, were under the rule of a king or kings using the Old Turkic title Khagan.<ref name = "christian338">Christian 338.</ref><ref>Franklin and Shepard 33–36.</ref><ref>Dolukhanov 187.</ref> The Rus' Khaganate period marked the genesis of a distinct Rus' ethnos, and its successors would ultimately found the Kievan Rus' and its successors, the states from which modern Russia would evolve.
Many historians believe that this polity was based on a group of settlements along the Volkhov River.<ref name = "christian338" />
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[edit] Documentary evidence
The "Khaganate" of the Rus' is mentioned in six historical sources. Three of them are foreign texts dating from the 9th century. Three others are East Slavic sources from the 11th and 12th centuries.
The earliest European reference to the khaganate comes from the Annals of St. Bertin. The Annals refer to a group of Vikings, who called themselves Rhos (qi se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant) and visited Constantinople around the year 838. Fearful of returning home via the steppes, which would leave them vulnerable to attacks by the Magyars, these Rhos travelled through Germany accompanied by Greek ambassadors from the Byzantine emperor Theophilus. When questioned by the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious at Ingelheim, they informed the emperor that their leader was known as chacanus (the Latin for "Khagan")<ref>Håkan or Haakon was a name used among Scandinavians of the period, and it was once thought possible that the Rhos described by Bertin referred to a king by this name.</ref> and that they lived in the north of Russia, but that their ancestral homeland was in Sweden (comperit eos gentis esse sueonum).<ref>Bertin 19–20; Jones 249–250.</ref>
Thirty years later, in spring 871, the eastern and western emperors, Basil I and Louis II, quarreled over control of Bari, which had been conquered by their joint forces from the Arabs. The Byzantine emperor sent an angry letter to his western counterpart, reprimanding him for usurping the title of emperor. He argued that the Frankish rulers are simple reges, while the imperial title behooves only to the overlord of the Romans, that is, to Basil himself. He also pointed out that each nation has its own title for the supreme ruler: for instance, the title of chaganus is used by the overlords of the Avars, Khazars (Gazani), and Normanns (Nortmanno). To that, Louis replied that he was aware only about the Avar khagans, but never heard about the khagans of the Khazars and Normanns.<ref>Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae VII (Epistolae Karolini aevi V). Berlin: W. Henze, 1928. Pages 385-394.</ref> The content of Basil's letter, now lost, is reconstructed from Louis's reply, quoted in full in the Salerno Chronicle.<ref>Dolger F. Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des ostromischen Reiches. I. Berlin, 1924. T. 59, №487.</ref>
Ahmad ibn Rustah, a ninth-century Muslim geographer from Persia, wrote that the Rus' khagan lived on an island in the Volga River:<ref name = "christian338" /> Of their organization ibn Rustah wrote:
| They have a prince called Haqan-Rus.<ref>This is Brønsted's transliteration. Ibn Rustah wrote a خ, which in Anglophone scholarship is normally transliterated "kh".</ref> They sail their ships to ravage as-Saqaliba [the surrounding Slavs], and bring back captives whom they sell at Hazaran and Bulgar [both towns on the Volga].<ref>Khazaran was the mercantile center of the Khazar capital of Atil, while Bulgar was the center of Volga Bulgaria.</ref> They have no cultivated fields but depend for their supplies on what they can obtain from as-Saqaliba's land. When a son is born the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says; 'I shall not leave you any property: you have only what you can provide with this weapon!' They have no estates, villages, or fields; their only business is to trade in sable, squirrel, and other furs, and the money they take in these transactions they stow in their belts.<ref>Brøndsted (1965), pp. 267–268</ref> |
Constantine Zuckerman comments that Ibn Rustah, using the text of an anonymous note from the 870s, attempted to accurately convey the titles of all rulers described by its author, which makes his evidence all the more precious.<ref>Zuckerman C. Deux étapes de la formation de l’ancien état russe, dans Les centres proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient. Actes du Colloque International tenu au Collège de France en octobre 1997, éd. M. Kazanski, A. Nersessian et C. Zuckerman (Réalités byzantines 7), Paris 2000, p. 96.</ref> The Muslim geographer mentions only two khagans in his treatise - those of Khazaria and Rus. His statement is echoed by Al-Yakubi, who wrote in 889 or 890 that the Caucasus mountaineers, when besieged by the Arabs in 854, asked for help from the overlords (sahib) of al-Rum (Byzantium), Khazaria, and al-Saqaliba (Slavs).<ref>J. Laurent and M. Canard. L'Armenie entre Byzance et l'islam depuis la conquete arabe jusqu'en 886. Lisbonne, 1980. Page 490.</ref> According to Zuckerman, the Arab authors often confused the terms Rus and Saqaliba when describing their raids to the Caspian Sea in the 9th and 10th centuries. Finally, Hudud al-Alam, an anonymous Arabic geography text written in the late tenth century, refers to the Rus' king as "khaqan Rus".<ref>Minorsky 159.</ref> This may be a reference copied from earlier, pre-Rurikid texts; however, it is known that Rus' rulers continued to use the title "khagan" well into the Rurikid period. Metropolitan Ilarion of Kiev applied the title khagan to Vladimir I of Kiev and Yaroslav I the Wise in the earliest monument of Old Russian literature, Slovo o Zakone i Blagodati ("Sermon on Law and Grace"), written around 1050.<ref>Ilarion, "Sermon on Law and Grace" 3, 17, 18, 26; for discussion, see Brook 154. Ilarion referred to Vladimir as "the great khagan of our land" and Yaroslav as "our devout khagan."</ref> A graffito in the north gallery of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev invokes God's blessing on "our khagan", apparently in reference to Sviatoslav II (1073-1076).<ref>Noonan, "Khazar" 91-92.</ref> Perhaps most significantly, The Tale of Igor's Campaign refers in passing to a "khagan Oleg," whose identity is unknown.<ref>Zenkovsky 160. Historians have variously identified this figure with Oleg of Novgorod, Oleg Sviatoslavich, and Igor of Novgorod-Seversky.</ref>
[edit] Dating
Extant sources make it plausible that the title of "khagan" was applied to the rulers of the Rus' during a rather short period, roughly between 838 and 871. There is no evidence that the title was used in the tenth century. It is not mentioned in the Rus'-Byzantine treaties, or in De Ceremoniis, a record of court ceremonials meticulously representing the titles of foreign rulers, when it deals with Olga's reception at the court of Constantine VII in 945. All Byzantine sources after Basil I refer to the Rus' rulers as archons. Later Kievan sources revive the term as an archaic compliment to the ruling knyaz, rather than as a valid political term.
Peter Benjamin Golden noticed that ibn Fadlan, in his detailed account of the Rus in 922, designated their supreme ruler as "malik". This argumentum ex silentio leads him to conclude that the khaganate collapsed at some point between 871 and 922.<ref>Golden P.B. The Question of the Rus' Qaganate. // Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 1982. Pages 87, 97.</ref> Zuckerman specifies that the khaganate collapsed even before 911, because the khagan is not mentioned in the text of the Rus'-Byzantine Treaty (911).<ref>Zuckerman 2000.</ref>
[edit] Location
The location of the khaganate has been actively disputed since the early twentieth century. According to one fringe theory, the Rus' khagan resided somewhere in Scandinavia or even as far west as Walkeren.<ref>Александров А.А. Остров руссов. St. Petersburg-Kishinev, 1997. Pages 222-224.</ref> George Vernadsky believed that the khagan had his headquarters in the eastern part of the Crimea or in the Taman Peninsula and that the island described by Ibn Rustah was most likely situated in the estuary of the Kuban River. However, archaeologists failed to find any traces of a Slavic-Norse settlement in the region in the ninth century and there are no Norse sources documenting "khagans" in Scandinavia.<ref>Franklin S., Shepard J. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London - New York, 1996. Pages 27-50.</ref>
The official Soviet historiography (as represented by Boris Rybakov and his disciples) postulated the residence of the khagan was Kiev, assuming that Askold and Dir were the khagans in question. Western historians traditionally polemicize with this theory. There is no evidence of an urban settlement on the site of Kiev prior to the 880s.<ref>Callmer J. The Archaeology of Kiev to the End of the Earliest Urban Phase. // Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 1987, №11. Pages 325-331.</ref> Archaeological finds from the period in the vicinity of Kiev are almost non-existent. What is particularly convinving, there are no hoards of coins to prove that the Dnieper trade route — the backbone of later Kievan Rus — was operated in the ninth century.<ref>Valentin Yanin. Денежно-весовые системы русского средневековья. Домонгольский период. Moscow, 1956. Pages 105-106; Noonan Th. The Monetary System of Kiev in the Pre-Mongol Period. // Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 1987, №11. Page 396.</ref> Based on his examination of archaeological evidence, Zuckerman concludes that Kiev originated as a fortress on the Khazar border with Levedia. Only after the Hungarians' departure for the west in 889, the middle Dnieper region started to progress economically.<ref>Zuckerman C. Les Hongrois au Pays de Lebedia: une nouvelle puissance aux confins de Byzance et de la Khazarie en 836-889. // Byzantium at War (9th-12th c.) Athens, 1997. Pages 65-66.</ref>
Dmitry Machinsky, Zuckerman, and most Western historians advocate a more northerly position of the khaganate.<ref>Новгородцев А.П. et al. Древнерусское государство и его международное значение. Moscow, 1965. Pages 397-408; Мачинский Д.А. О месте Северной Руси в процессе сложения Древнерусского государства и европейской культурной общности. // Археологическое исследование Новгородской земли/ Leningrad, 1984. Pages 5-25.</ref> They essentialize ibn Rustah's report as the only historical clue to the location of the khagan's residence. If the anonymous traveller quoted by ibn Rustah is to be believed, the Rus of the Khaganate period made extensive use of the Volga trade route to trade with the Middle East, possibly through Bulgar and Khazar intermediaries. His description of the Rus' island suggests that their center was at Holmgard, an early medieval precursor of Novgorod whose name translates from Old Norse as "the island castle".
[edit] Origin
The origins of the Rus' Khaganate are unclear. First Scandinavian settlers arrived to the lower basin of the Volkhov River in the mid-eighth century. The country comprising the present-day Leningrad Oblast, Novgorod Oblast, Tver Oblast, Yaroslavl Oblast, and Smolensk Oblast became known in Old Norse sources as "Gardarike", the country of forts. Norse warlords, known to the Turkic-speaking steppe peoples as "köl-beki" or "sea-kings," came to dominate some of these people, particularly along the Volga trade route linking the Baltic Sea with the Caspian Sea and Serkland.<ref>Brutzkus 120.</ref>
As with the Rus' generally, there is much debate as to the identity and ancestry of the Rus' Khagans. They may have been Scandinavians, native Slavs or Finns, or (most probably) of mixed ancestry.<ref>E.g., Pritsak, Origins of Rus' 1:28, 171, 182.</ref> Omeljan Pritsak, among others, hypothesized that a Khazar khagan named Khan-Tuvan Dyggvi, exiled after losing a civil war (see Kabars), settled with his followers in the Norse-Slavic settlement of Rostofa, married into the local Scandinavian nobility, and fathered the dynasty of the Rus' khagans.<ref>Pritsak, Origins of Rus' 1:28, 171, 182.</ref> The possible Khazar connection to early Rus' monarchs is supported by the use of a stylized trident tamga, or seal, by later Rus' rulers such as Sviatoslav I of Kiev.<ref>Brook 154; Franklin and Shepard 120-121; Pritsak, Weights 78-79. It should be noted, however, that the genealogical connection between the ninth-century Khagans of Rus' and the later Rurikid rulers, if any, is unknown at this time.</ref> Thomas Noonan asserted that the Rus' leaders were loosely unified under the rule of one of the "sea-kings" in the early ninth century, and that this "High King" adopted the title khagan to give him legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects and neighboring states.<ref>Noonan 87-89, 94.</ref> The title of khagan was, according to this theory, a sign that the bearers ruled under a divine mandate.<ref>Brook 154; Noonan 87-94.</ref>
[edit] History and economy
The Volga trade route was most likely the mainstay of the khaganate's economy. Early ninth-century coin hordes unearthed in Scandinavia frequently contain large quantities of dirhem coins minted in the Abbasid Caliphate and other Muslim polities, sometimes split in smaller pieces and inscribed with Runic signs.<ref>Noonan, "Rus" 213-219.</ref> All in all, more than 228,000 Arabic coins have been recovered from over a thousand hoards in European Russia and the Baltic region. Almost 90% of these arrived to Scandinavia by way of the Volga trade route. Unsurprizingly, the dirhem was the basis for the monetary system of Kievan Rus.<ref>Yanin 1956. 91-100.</ref>
With the exception of the Rus' expedition to Amastris in the 830s, whose records are susceptible to contradictory interpretations, the only events in the history of the Rus' khaganate attested by contemporary sources are the Rus'-Byzantine War (860) and the following First Christianization of the Rus' (860s).<ref>Zuckerman 2000.</ref> Soon after Patriarch Photius informed other Orthodox bishops about the Christianization of the Rus all the centres of the khaganate in the North-Western Russia were destroyed by fire. Archaeologists found convincing evidence that Holmgard, Aldeigja, Alaborg, Izborsk and other local centres were destroyed by fire in the 860s or 870s. Some of these settlements were abandoned after the conflagration for good.
The Primary Chronicle describes the uprising of the pagan Slavs and Finns against the Varangians, who had to withdraw overseas, in 862. The First Novgorod Chronicle, whose account of the events Aleksey Shakhmatov considered more trustworthy, does not pinpoint the uprising to any specific date. The 16th-century Nikon Chronicle attributes the banishment of the Varangians from the country to Vadim the Bold. A period of unrest and anarchy followed, dated by Zuckerman to ca. 875-900. Lack of hoards from the 880s and 890s indicates that the Volga trade route stopped to function, precipitating "the first silver crisis in Europe".<ref>Noonan Th.S. The First Major Silver Crisis in Russia and the Baltic, ca. 875-900. Pages 875-900 // Hikuin, 11 (1985): 41-50; Noonan Th.S. Fluctuations in Islamic Trade with Eastern Europe during the Viking Age. // Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 1992, №16.</ref>
After this economical and political crisis, there was a renaissance, starting from ca. 900. Zuckerman associates the new period with the arrival of Rurik and Varangians, who turned their attention to the Dnieper. The Scandinavian settlements in Ladoga and Novgorod revived and started to grow rapidly. During the first decade of the tenth century, a large trade centre was formed on the Dnieper in Gnezdovo, near modern Smolensk. Kiev developed into an important urban centre roughly in the same period.
[edit] Khazar influence
The early Rus' traded extensively with Khazaria. Ibn Khordadbeh wrote in the Book of Roads and Kingdoms that "they go via the Slavic River (the Don) to Khamlidj, a city of the Khazars, where the latter's ruler collects the tithe from them."<ref>Cited in Vernadsky 1:9</ref> They likely were influenced by the culture and government of that empire.<ref>E.g., Jones 164 (summarizing evidence from al-Masudi and al-Muqaddasi); Franklin and Shepard 67-8; Christian 340.</ref> Ahmed ibn Fadlan described the Rus' khagan (like the Khazar khagan), as having little real authority. Instead, political and military power was wielded by a deputy, who "commands the troops, attacks [the khagan's] enemies, and acts as his representative before his subjects."<ref name = "fadlan">Ibn Fadlan, as translated in Jones 425–430.</ref> The Khagan, on the other hand, "has no duties other than to make love to his slave girls, drink, and give himself up to pleasure."<ref name = "fadlan" /> This dichotomy reflects the structure of Khazar government, with secular authority in the hands of a Khagan Bek only theoretically subordinate to the khagan. This sharply contrasts with the traditional Germanic system, where kingship was held by military prowess and not necessarily by blood. Moreover, some scholars have noted similarities between this dual kingship and the relationship between Igor and Oleg of Kiev in the early tenth century.<ref>Christian 341.</ref> Burial sites from locations connected to the Rus Khaganate period contain many features common with those of neighboring Eurasian nomad populations.<ref>Christian 340, citing, inter alia, Jones 256.</ref>
As noted above, the institution of separate sacral ruler and military commander may be observed in the relationship between Oleg and Igor, but whether this is part of the Rus' Khaganate's legacy to its successor-state is unknown. The early Kievan Rus' principalities exhibited certain distinctive characteristics in their government, military organization, and jurisprudence that were very similar to those in force among the Khazars and other steppe peoples; some historians believe that these elements came to the Kievan Rus' from the Khazars by way of the earlier Rus' Khagans.<ref>Brutzkus 111.</ref>
[edit] Legacy
The fate of the Rus' Khaganate, and the process by which it either evolved into or was consumed by the Rurikid Kievan Rus', is unclear. The Kievans seem to have had a very vague notion about the existence of the khaganate. Slavonic sources do not mention either the Christianization of the Rus in the 860s or the Paphalgonian expedition of the 830s. The account of the Rus' expedition against Constantinople in the 860s was borrowed by the authors of the Primary Chronicle from Greek sources.
[edit] External links
- Britannica Concise on the Origins of Russia
- Pritsak on the Origins of the Rus'
- Rus' in the Hudud al-Alam
- Waugh, Daniel C. "Suggested Chronology of Events in the Pre-Kievan and Early Kievan Periods".
[edit] Notes
<references />
[edit] References
- Ahmed ibn Fadlan. "The Risala."
- Bertin. The Annals of St. Bertin. Ed. Waitz, Hanover, 1883.
- Brøndsted, Johannes (1965). The Vikings. (transl. by Kalle Skov). Penguin Books.
- Brook, Kevin Alan. The Jews of Khazaria. 2d ed. Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.
- Burtzkus, Julius. "The Khazar Origin of Ancient Kiev." Slavonic and East European Review, 22 (1944).
- Christian, David. A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. Blackwell, 1999.
- Dolukhanov, P.M. The Early Slavs: Eastern Europe and the Initial Settlement to Kievan Rus'. London: Longman, 1996.
- Franklin, Simon and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London: Longman, 1996. ISBN 058249091X.
- Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Univ. of Indiana Press, 1987. ISBN 0253204453.
- Ilarion of Kiev. "Sermon on Law and Grace". Sermons and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus'. Simon Franklin, transl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1991.
- Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. 2nd ed. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984.
- Minorsky, Vladimir. Hudud al-'Alam (The Regions of the World). London: Luzac & Co., 1937.
- Noonan, Thomas. "The Khazar Qaghanate and Its Impact Oo the Early Rus' State: The translatio imperii from Itil to Kiev." Nomads in the Sedentary World, Anatoly Mikhailovich Khazanov and Andre Wink, eds. p. 76-102. Richmond, England: Curzon, 2001. ISBN 0700713700.
- Noonan, Thomas. "When Did Rus/Rus' Merchants First Visit Khazaria and Baghdad?" Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 7 (1987-1991): 213-219.
- Pritsak, Omeljan. The Origin of Rus'. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991.
- Pritsak, Omeljan. The Origins of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998.
- Vernadsky, G.V., ed. A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917, Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1972.
- Zenkovsky, Serge A., ed. Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. New York: Meridian, 1974. ISBN 0452010861.
| Garðaríki | |
|---|---|
| Volkhov-Volga trade route: Lyubsha | Aldeigja | Álaborg | Hólmgarðr | Sarskoe | Timerevo | |
| Dvina-Dnieper trade route: Pallteskja | Gnezdovo | Chernigov | Kænugarðr | |
| Other locations: Bjarmaland | Khortitsa | White Shores | Miklagarðr | Særkland | |
| Varangians | Rus' | Slavs | Merya | Bulgars | Khazars |
