It would seem that everyone knows this: Cyril and Methodius, whom Orthodox Church for this merit he calls them Equal-to-the-Apostles. But what kind of alphabet did Kirill come up with - Cyrillic or Glagolitic? (Methodius, it is known and proven, supported his brother in everything, but it was the monk Kirill who was the “brain of the operation” and an educated person who knew many languages). This is still debated in the scientific world. Some Slavic researchers say: “Cyrillic! It is named after the creator. Others object: “Glagolitsa! The first letter of this alphabet looks like a cross. Cyril is a monk. It's a sign". It is also alleged that before the work of Cyril, there was no written language in Rus'. Professor Nikolai Taranov categorically disagrees with this.
Modern scientists, historians and theologians of the Russian Orthodox Church argue that Rus' became Orthodox only thanks to the baptism of Rus' and the spread of Byzantine Christianity among the dark, wild Slavs, mired in paganism. This wording is very convenient for distorting history and belittling the significance of the most ancient culture of all Slavic peoples. What could Christian missionaries know about the culture and Faith of the Slavic peoples? How could they understand a culture alien to them?
A series of programs "Hour of Truth", dedicated to the ancient Slavs and the formation of Ancient Rus'. The issues of the origin of the ancient Slavs, the calling of the Varangians, the emergence of Novgorod, etc. are considered.
Russian barbarians broke into villages, camps and auls, leaving behind cities, theaters and libraries. They wore, don’t understand why, furs and walked in trousers, while cultural Europe wrapped itself in rags ...
For a long time same-sex marriages were forbidden and tolerance was despised, and European men loved to fuck each other. The Russians lived in mud and washed very rarely, and they did not go to the baths, which they borrowed from the Finns, out of laziness. And their cities were wrong, according to the European medieval custom, a gallows with a “torture chamber” was located in the center of the city, and special ditches went along the streets, where respectable citizens poured sewage in a civilized manner.
We need to remember our history and go our own way. Currently, we use the dating of the years from the birth of Christ and the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar, the so-called "old style", is not forgotten either. Every year in January we remember him when we celebrate the "old" New Year. Also, the media carefully reminds of the change of years according to the Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other calendars. It certainly broadens our horizons.
Christianity captured Rus' in 988 AD. e. during the reign of Prince Vladimir. How did it happen? The official version can be read from the official history of Russia, for example, from Ishimov "History of Russia", Novosibirsk, 1993 Briefly, the picture was supposedly like this. Before Prince Vladimir, paganism reigned, and Rus' flourished.
Neighboring peoples persuaded Vladimir to convert to their faith, and many ambassadors came to him from the Kama Bulgarians, from German Catholics, from Jews and from Greeks, and everyone praised their faith. Vladimir first evaluated these faiths by the beauty of what he invented. I consulted with the boyars. They told him: “Everyone praises his faith, but it’s better to send him to different lands to find out where faith is better.” Vladimir sent ten of the smartest boyars to the Bulgarians, Germans and Greeks. Among the Bulgarians they found poor churches, dull prayers, sad faces; the Germans have many rituals, but without beauty and grandeur. Finally they arrived in Tsargrad.
Grand Duke Svyatoslav is one of the brightest figures in rich Russian history, unfortunately practically forgotten by our official authority and historiography. If other personalities who made a huge contribution to the development of Russian civilization, such as Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin, are regularly poured with mud, then they decided to keep silent about Svyatoslav, they were forgotten. Apparently, in order not to stir up the affairs of the past, too many painful questions may come up about that critical era - about Khazar Khaganate, Judaism, rachdonites, the Christianization of Rus', its consequences, in Byzantium and Rome, the destroyed civilization of the Rus of Central Europe.
The history of the reduction and simplification of the alphabet of the ancient Slavs is the history of the loss by humanity of its rationality - from the full use of the brain to the modern 3-5 percent. Our modern language- only a shadow, a projection of the ancient multidimensional language. To slow down and stop the process of degradation, you need to return to your roots - learn to communicate with images. To do this, you just need to learn the language of your forefathers, to become their full heirs.
The question of the origin of the Slavs is quite controversial and today there is a large number of theories that approach the study of this issue from different points of view. Most historians agree that the search for the ancestors of the Slavs should be sought in the second millennium BC. It was then that the tribe of Slavs was born, who lived in a territory of a small size, in the Vistula region. In the future, the Slavs mastered more and more new lands, moving to the west, and, ultimately, reached the Oder River. In textbooks, one can often come across the assumption that the resettlement of our ancestors would have continued further west, but the ancestors of modern Germans did not let them through the Oder. At the same time, the Slavs migrated to the east. An absolutely proven fact is that they reached the banks of the Dnieper.
According to V. Sedov, the first historical and geographical information about the ancient Slavs is contained in the works of Greco-Roman authors who wrote at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. e. many historical sources the name of the ancient Slavs is recorded - Venedi (Veneti). About this, in particular, we read from the historian of the VI century. - Jordan. However, the Slavs themselves did not call themselves that. This ethnonym is used in relation to them only by foreign authors.
According to The Tale of Bygone Years, the birthplace of the ancient Slavs, and indeed of all mankind in general, was Western Asia. Following the annals, the history of the Slavs begins with the Babylonian pandemonium, when they stood out from 72 peoples scattered in different directions.
Life of the Eastern Slavs. Hood. S. V. Ivanov, 1909 Location unknown
Speaking of the ancient Slavs, they distinguish, with a certain degree of conventionality, the historical boundaries of the Proto-Slavs (the most distant ancestors) and the Proto-Slavs (the closest ancestors). But it's not just the blurring of timelines. Both linguistic and ethnic boundaries are blurred. In this regard, a fundamental question arises: who should be attributed to the ancestors of the Slavs? The fact is that the Slavs, as, indeed, for the most part, other peoples, in the process of ethno-territorial localization, were formed from many tribes and peoples.
Sometimes the idea is expressed that initially the ancestors of the Slavs lived in some small territory, from which they settled across the vast expanses of the planet. Disagreement with this position was expressed by Academician B. A. Rybakov and supported by other authors. At the same time, another, more productive position was formulated, which is expressed as follows: no "small" ancestral home of the Slavs existed, and could not exist according to the laws and features of the long ethnogenesis of large "arrays". Already at the dawn of their history, the ancestors of the Slavs were numerous related Indo-European tribes that inhabited vast territories from the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the south to the Baltic and the White Sea in the north, from northern Italy and the Elbe (Laba) basin in the west to Asia Minor and the Volga basin in east. And they called themselves by their tribal names. Therefore, their ancestors at some historical stage, perhaps, did not have a single collective name denoting the entire set of Proto-Slavic peoples, but there were several collective names that had dialect differences. Moreover, the ancestors of the Slavs could be representatives of various Indo-European and non-Indo-European ethnic groups. The same proto- and Proto-Slavic peoples took part in the territorial localization of various Indo-European peoples. There are many examples of this. For example, the Krivichi participated in the ethnogenesis of the Slavs in the territory of modern Belarus, Russia, the Baltic countries and even ... in northwestern India. The situation is similar with the Polyans, Severians and other Russian-Venetian peoples who took part in the formation of various branches of the current Slavic world.
The ancient Slavs settled in the settlements (analogue modern city). The settlements were built with great regard for security, since at any moment an invasion of nomads could be expected. That is why such villages were located on hills - on high hills, at the mouths of rivers. Settlements were built near rivers and lakes, which provided the population fresh water, which was also used for irrigation of arable land. The clan (family) in the settlements lived in huts. The huts were quite primitive and served mainly to protect against natural phenomena (rain, snow and wind). In the hut itself there were no partitions, no division into rooms. It contained only a hearth. Many of these huts were dugouts that were deepened by 1.5 meters, which made it possible to better retain heat in winter.
In Central Europe, around 1700 BC. a single ethnic, cultural and economic environment began to form from among the related Pravenetian tribes. The stage of its development, which lasted approximately from the 13th to the 4th century BC. e., received the name of the Lusatian archaeological culture of the late Bronze and early Iron Ages. The name goes back to the Slavic region of Lusatia - Lausitz in Germany). The Polabian Slavs mastered the lands from the Odra River (the German name is "Oder") to the Laba (in German - "Elbe") and its tributary, the Saale. Settlements, villages, burial grounds with cremations have been excavated. The basis of the Lusatian economy was agriculture and cattle breeding.
The ancient Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. Cattle were used for work, as well as to feed the inhabitants of the tribe. Cultivated crops were dominated by cereals, the surplus of which was then sold. The ancient Slavs had an extensive network of trade routes and traded with the surrounding settled tribes. It is in the development of these trade relations that the main prerequisites for the rapid development of Slavic civilization lie. Economic ties made it possible to provide the population, in particular, with perfect weapons, as well as various items necessary in Everyday life, - fabrics, dishes and other utensils.
The disputes about the place and time of the origin of the Indo-Europeans, outlined in the previous chapter, already suggest that the conditions for the emergence of “historical” peoples also do not have unambiguous solutions. This fully applies to the Slavs. The problem of the origin of the Slavs has been discussed in science for more than two centuries. Archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers offer different concepts and hypotheses, and so far, basically everyone has their own opinion.
And the range of controversial issues is very wide. One contradiction lies on the surface: the Slavs under this name enter the historical arena only in the 6th century AD, and therefore there is a great temptation to consider them “young people”. But on the other hand, the Slavic languages are carriers of the archaic features of the Indo-European community. And this is a sign of their deep origins. Naturally, with such significant discrepancies in chronology and territory, the archaeological cultures that attract researchers will be different. It is impossible to name a single culture in which continuity from the 3rd millennium BC would be preserved. to the middle of the 1st millennium AD.
The damage to scientific study of the problem of the origin of the Slavs was also caused by local history hobbies. So, German historians in the 19th century declared all any noticeable archaeological cultures in Europe to be Germanic, and there was no place for the Slavs on the map of Europe at all, and they were placed in a narrow area of the Pinsk swamps. But the "local lore" approach will prevail in the literature of various Slavic countries and peoples. In Poland, Slavs will be sought as part of the Lusatian culture, and the “Vistula-Oder” concept of the origin of the Slavs will decisively prevail. In Belarus, attention will be paid to the same “Pinsk swamps”. In Ukraine, attention will focus on the Right Bank of the Dnieper (“Dnieper-Bug” version).
1. THE PROBLEM OF SLAVIC-GERMAN-BALTIC RELATIONS
For at least one and a half thousand years, the history of the Slavs proceeded in close interaction with the Germans and the Balts. The Germanic languages, in addition to German, currently include Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and, to a certain extent, English and Dutch. There are also monuments of one of the disappeared Germanic languages - Gothic. The Baltic languages are represented by Lithuanian and Latvian, and the Prussian language disappeared just a few centuries ago. The significant closeness of the Slavic and Baltic languages, as well as their well-known similarity with the Germanic ones, are indisputable. The only question is whether this similarity is primordial, ascending to a single community, or acquired in the course of a long interaction of different ethnic groups.
In classical comparative historical linguistics, the opinion about the existence of the Slavic-Germanic-Baltic community followed from the general idea of the division of the Indo-European language. This point of view was held in the middle of the last century by German linguists (K. Zeiss, J. Grimm, A. Schleicher). At the end of the last century, under the influence of the theory of two dialect groups Indo-European languages- western - centum, eastern - satem (the designation of the number "hundred" in eastern and western languages), the Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages \u200b\u200bwere identified in different groups.
At present, the number of opinions and ways of explaining the same facts has increased significantly. Disagreements are exacerbated by the tradition of specialists in different sciences to solve problems only on their own material: linguists on their own, archaeologists on their own, anthropologists on their own. Such an approach, obviously, must be rejected as methodologically unjustified, since historical questions cannot be resolved in isolation from history, and even more so against history. But in alliance with history and in the aggregate of all kinds of data, very reliable results can be obtained.
Were the Germans, Balts and Slavs united in antiquity? The Bulgarian linguist V.I. insisted on the existence of a common proto-language of the three Indo-European peoples. Georgiev. He pointed out a number of important correspondences in the Balto-Slavic and Gothic languages. However, these parallels are not enough to conclude about their initial unity. Linguists too unsubstantiated attribute the features of the Gothic language to the Proto-Germanic. The fact is that for a number of centuries the Gothic language existed separately from other Germanic languages, surrounded by foreign ones, including Balto-Slavic. The correspondences identified by the linguist may well be explained by just this centuries-old interaction.
Well-known Russian specialist in Germanic languages N.S. Chemodanov, on the contrary, separated the Germanic and Slavic languages. “Judging by the data of the language,” he concluded, “the direct contact of the Germans with the Slavs was established very late, maybe not earlier than our chronology.” This conclusion was fully shared by another prominent Russian linguist F.P. Owl, and any weighty arguments have not yet been opposed to him. The linguistic material, therefore, does not provide evidence even for the fact that the Balto-Slavs and Germans formed in the neighborhood.
In German historiography, the Proto-Germans were associated with the culture of Corded Ware and megaliths. Meanwhile, both of them have nothing to do with the Germans. Moreover, it turns out that on the territory of present-day Germany there is no original German place names at all, while non-German place names are quite abundant. Consequently, the Germans settled in this territory relatively late - shortly before the beginning of our era. The only question is whether the Germans came from the north or from the south.
In favor of the northern origin of the Germans, the toponymy of some southern Scandinavian territories is usually given. But it is unlikely that the Germans appeared in Scandinavia long before the turn of our era, and, for example, the Sueves move there from the continent only in the era of the Great Migration of Peoples (4th-5th centuries AD). The main body of Scandinavian toponymy approaches not German, but Celtic (or “Celto-Scythian”), as was shown in the works of the Swedish scientist G. Johanson and the American of Swedish origin K.Kh. Siholma.
In this regard, the genealogical traditions of the Normans are curious, reporting their arrival “from Asia”, with which the idea of an ever-blooming country, incomparably richer than the cold coast of the Atlantic, was associated. In the "Younger Edda", the geography of which is represented by three parts of the world - Africa, Europe or Aeneas and Asia, the latter is represented by Troy. “From north to east,” the saga writes, “and to the very south stretches a part called Asia. In this part of the world, everything is beautiful and magnificent, there are possessions of earthly fruits, gold and gems. And because the land itself is more beautiful and better there in everything, the people who inhabit it also stand out for all their talents: wisdom and strength, beauty and all kinds of knowledge.
Thror or Thor, who at the age of 12 killed his tutor, the Thracian Duke Loricus, is recognized in the saga as the ancestor of the settlers from near Troy and took possession of Thrace. In the twentieth generation of Thor's clan, Odin was born, to whom it was foretold that he would be glorified in the north. After gathering a lot of people, he went to the north. Saxony, Westphalia, the land of the Franks, Jutland - submit to Odin and his family, then he goes to Sweden. The Swedish king Gylvi, having learned that people called Ases came from Asia, offered Odin to rule over his land.
The discussion about the language of the Ases is curious: “The Ases took wives for themselves in that land, and some married their sons, and their offspring multiplied so much that they settled throughout the Saxon Country, and from there throughout the northern part of the world, so that the language of these people from Asia became the language of all those countries, and people believe that by the recorded names of their ancestors it can be judged that these names belonged to the same language that the Ases brought here to the north - to Norway and Sweden, to Denmark and the Country of the Saxons. And in England there are old names of lands and localities, which, apparently, do not come from this language, from another.
"Younger Edda" was written in the 20s of the XIII century. But there are two earlier versions associated with the Ases-Normans. This is the “Norman Chronicle” of the 12th century, which seems to justify the rights of the Norman Duke Rollon to master the north of France (“Normandy”) at the beginning of the 10th century, since it was there that the Normans from the Don came in the 2nd century. In the north of France, the burial grounds left by the Alans are still preserved. They are also scattered in other places of the north-west of Europe, the memory of which is also here the widespread name Alan or Aldan (in the Celtic vowel). Another source is the 12th-century chronicle of Annalist Saxo. It even mentions the exact date of the resettlement: 166 AD.
The Ynglinga Saga (recorded as the “Younger Edda” by Snorri Sturluson, apparently from the words of the 9th-century skald Tjodolf) speaks of Great Svitiod (usually interpreted as “Great Sweden”), which occupied vast areas near Tanais (that is, the Don). Here was the country of Ases - Asaland, whose leader was Odin, and the main city was Asgard. Following the prediction, Odin, leaving the brothers in Asgard, led most of them north, then west through Gardariki, after which he turned south to Saxony. The saga quite accurately represents the Volga-Baltic route, and Gardariki is the area from the Upper Volga to the Eastern Baltic, where the western direction is replaced by the southern one. After a series of movements, Odin settles in Staraya Sigtuna near Lake Melarn, and this area will be called Svitiod or Mannheim (the dwelling of people), and the Great Svitiod will be called Godheim (the dwelling of the gods). Upon his death, Odin returned to Asgard, taking with him the soldiers who died in battle. Thus, "Greater Sweden", which is given a very significant place in Swedish literature and in general in the constructions of the Normanists, has nothing to do with Kievan Rus, and the Pridonskaya Saltovskaya culture, both archaeologically and anthropologically, is linked precisely with the Alans, who were called “Rus” in many eastern sources of the 9th-12th centuries.
It is interesting that the appearance of the Scandinavians differs markedly from the Germans (due to the mixing of the descendants of the Corded Ware and megalith cultures, as well as the Ural elements). The language of the ancestors and descendants of Odin is also far from the continental Germans. The plot connected with the “aces” has one more meaning in the sagas: “aces”, “yases” were called the Alans of the Don region and North Caucasus(under this name they are also known to Russian chronicles).
It is also interesting that anthropologists note the proximity of the appearance of the continental Germans to the Thracians. It was the assimilation of the local Thracian population by the Slavs of the Danube region that created a seemingly paradoxical situation: of all the Slavs, the current Bulgarians, and not Germany's neighbors, are anthropologically closest to the Germans. The closeness of the appearance of the continental Germans to the Thracians gives direction to the search for their common origins: they were in the area of the band ceramics cultures and, within its framework, moved to the northwest, pushing or involving tribes of a different appearance in their movement.
The Germans are reliably visible on the Lower Elbe within the framework of the Jastorf culture from about the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. In the southern limits, Celtic influence is noticeable (Hallstatt and later La Tène cultures). As elsewhere in the buffer zones, on the border of the Celtic and Germanic tribes, there was a repeated interpenetration of cultures, and then one came, then another. But on the eve of e. as a result of the almost universal retreat of the Celtic cultures, the advantage is on the side of the Germans.
The decisive linguistic argument against the hypothesis that there was ever a unity of the Germans with the Balto-Slavs is the absence of any intermediate dialects. The three peoples are neighbors from the first mention of them in written sources, but it is obvious that by the time of their territorial rapprochement they were linguistically, culturally and socially developed societies.
Archaeologically, an early stage of Germanic and Balto-Slavic interaction may be an advance around the 3rd century BC. e. groups of the Jastorf population beyond the right bank of the Oder to the area of distribution at that time of the Pomeranian culture. There is an assumption that later these newcomers were pushed back by the tribes of the Oksyvian culture, but the solution may be different: in the course of a long interaction, groups of Jastorfians could have been influenced by the local population, although they retained their language. It was here, in all likelihood, that the Goths were formed and there may be some other tribes close to them, whose culture differed markedly from the Germans proper.
In general, the question of the existence of the original German-Balto-Slavic community is rather unanimously resolved in the negative.
2. THE PROBLEM OF SLAVIC-BALTIC RELATIONS
The problem of the Balto-Slavic community causes more controversy than the question of the German-Balto-Slavic unity. Differences appeared already in the 18th century, in the dispute between M.V. Lomonosov with the first Normanists, during which the Russian scientist drew attention to the facts of the linguistic and cultural proximity of the Balts and Slavs. The solution of the question of the Slavic ancestral homeland and, in general, the question of the conditions for the emergence of Slavdom depends to a large extent on the explanation of the causes and nature of this closeness. But at the same time, the following must be taken into account: since the Germans were not an autochthonous population of the Western Baltic territories, the question of the ancestral home of the Balts and Slavs should not be made dependent on the presence or absence of similarities with Germanic in their language.
The proximity of the Slavic and Balto-Lithuanian languages is obvious. The problem lies in determining the causes of this phenomenon: is it the result of a long residence in the neighborhood of two ethnic groups, or is it a gradual divergence of an initially single community. Related to this is the problem of establishing the time of convergence or, on the contrary, the divergence of both linguistic groups. In practice, this means clarifying the question of whether the Slavic language is autochthonous (i.e., indigenous) in the territory adjacent to the Balts, or whether it was introduced by some central or even southern European ethnic group. It is also necessary to clarify the original territory of the Proto-Balts.
In Russian linguistics at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the opinion about the original Balto-Slavic community prevailed. This view was strongly defended, in particular, by A.A. Chess. The opposite opinion was quite consistently held, perhaps, only by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, and the Latvian linguist J.M. Endzelin. In foreign linguistics, A. Meie recognized the initial proximity of these languages. Later, the idea of the existence of a common proto-language was almost unconditionally accepted by Polish linguists and rejected by Lithuanian ones. One of the most compelling arguments in favor of the existence of the original community is the fact of the morphological similarity of languages, which is emphasized by V.I. Georgiev. At present, both abroad and in Russia, there are supporters of both points of view.
Almost most of the discrepancies arise from different understandings of the source material. The thesis about the autochthonous nature of the Germans in Northern Europe taken for granted in many works. The absence of visible traces of the proximity of the Germanic languages with the Slavic ones prompts the search for a “separator”. So, the famous Polish scientist T. Ler-Splavinsky placed the Illyrians between the Slavs and the Germans, and moved the Balts to the northeast, believing that the Slavs were closer to the Germans. F.P. Owl, on the contrary, saw more common features among the Germans with the Balts, and on this basis he localized the ancestral home of the Slavs to the southeast of the Balts, in the region of Pripyat and the Middle Dnieper. B.V. Gornung also starts from the assumption of the autochthonous nature of the Germans in the North, and therefore determines the initial territory of the Slavs quite far in the southeast from their later habitats. But since the Germans were not an autochthonous population of the Western Baltic territories, the question of the ancestral home of the Balts and Slavs should not be made dependent on the presence or absence of similarities with Germanic in their language.
In itself, the question of the origin of the Balts seems simple, since the settlement of the Balts coincides entirely with the zone of distribution of the Corded Ware cultures. However, there are issues that need to be considered.
In Northern Europe and the Baltic States, from the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic eras, two anthropological types coexist, one of which is close to the population of the Dnieper Nadporozhye, and the other to the Laponoids. With the advent of the tribes of the culture of battle axes, the proportion of the Indo-European population here increases. It is very likely that both waves of Indo-Europeans were close in linguistic terms, although differences caused by a time gap were inevitable. It was a Proto-Baltic language, recorded in the toponymy of quite extensive areas of Eastern Europe. The Laponoid population apparently spoke one of the Uralic languages, which was also reflected in the onomastics of these territories. A significant part of this population was assimilated by the Indo-Europeans, but as the Finno-Ugric groups moved later from the Cis-Urals, the boundaries of the Indo-European languages again shifted to the southwest. In the II millennium BC. waves of movements from the east of the Srubna culture tribes reach the Baltic states, but they did not have a significant impact either because of their small number or due to linguistic and cultural proximity.
Greater originality was introduced by the tribes that advanced to the Baltic during the existence of the Unetice and Lusatian cultures (XIII-VI centuries BC). These, in all likelihood, are the same tribes that brought the ethnonym “Venedi” to the Baltic states, and the Baltic Sea itself was turned into the “Venedi Gulf”. At one time, A.A. Shakhmatov, recognizing the Baltic Venets as Celts, noted Romance-Italic elements in their language, which also affected the Baltic languages. In the very population of the coastal strip of the Baltic Sea, which was occupied by the Wends, in particular, on the territory of Estonia (and not only) there is a pronounced (and still preserved) admixture of the Pontic (or more widely Mediterranean) anthropological type, which could be brought here with the Venetian wave.
The previous chapter mentioned the toponymic "triangle" - Asia Minor-Adriatic-South-East Baltic. Actually, it does not seem to touch the main Baltic territory. But a certain proximity of the Veneti and Balts languages is still visible. In Bithynia, the Upios river is known. The Lithuanian “upe”, and the Prussian “ape”, and the ancient Indian “ap” - “water” can serve as a parallel. In connection with these parallels, the names of the rivers of the Southern Bug and Kuban (iranized in form) - Hypanis can also be put. In other words, with the Venets, a population comes to the Baltics, close to the Black Sea Indo-Aryans in language (the Aryans themselves went not only to the east, but also to the north-west).
IN AND. Georgiev sees indirect evidence of the existence of the Balto-Slavic proto-language in the history of the Indo-Iranian community. He recalls that such a commonality can be traced only in the most ancient written monuments, and not in modern languages.
Slavic languages are fixed at 2000, and Lithuanian 2500 years later than the Rigveda and Avesta, but the comparison is still not conclusive. "Rigveda" and "Avesta" appeared at a time when the Iranian and Indian tribes were in contact, while later they practically did not touch. The Slavs and the Balts interacted directly as neighbors at least since the time of the Rig Veda and the Avesta, and it is necessary to explain why there are no intermediate dialects between these, although related, but different languages.
But in the arguments of the opponents of the concept of the existence of the Balto-Slavic proto-language, weighty, in addition to those mentioned, we must recognize the existence of discrepancies in such areas that were important precisely in ancient era. This includes counting up to ten, and the designation of body parts, and the names of the closest relatives, as well as tools. Just in these areas there are practically no coincidences: coincidences begin only from the era of metal. Therefore, it is logical to assume that in the era preceding the Bronze Age, the Proto-Slavs still lived at some distance from the Balts. Therefore, it is hardly possible to speak of the existence of the original Balto-Slavic community.
3. WHERE AND HOW TO SEARCH FOR THE ancestral home of the Slavs?
The failure of the concept of the original Germano-Balto-Slavic and more local Balto-Slavic community narrows the circle of possible “candidates” for the role of Proto-Slavic archaeological cultures. The search for such among the “young” cultures (5th-6th centuries) practically disappears, since the proximity recognized by all goes back to the Bronze Age or the Early Iron Age. Therefore, the above-mentioned opinion of A.L. Mongait about the emergence of the Slavic ethnos itself only around the 6th century AD. There are no more grounds for the concept of I.P. Rusanova, leading the Slavs out of the Przeworsk culture - western limits Poland II century. BC e. - IV century. n. e., adjoining their northern limits to areas with a Baltic population. The version of one of the most thorough researchers of the early and medieval Slavs, V.V. Sedov, leading the Slavs out of the region of the western Balts, adjacent to the Lusatian culture of the last centuries of its existence - sub-klosh culture of the 5th-2nd centuries. BC e.
F.P. Owl, who did not connect the origin of the Slavs with the Balts, assigned the territory from the Dnieper to the Western Bug to the Slavs. The researcher warned that this territory was inhabited by the Slavs in the 1st millennium BC. e. Whether there were Slavs before and where exactly they were - he considered at this stage an unresolvable question.
Attention B.A. Rybakov and P.N. Tretyakov was attracted by Trzynec culture bronze age(c. 1450-1100 BC), occupying the territory from the Oder to the Dnieper. Neighborhood with the Baltic cultures in this era no longer raises questions from the point of view of linguistic patterns, but in the culture itself, a mixture of two different ethnic formations is clearly observed: a different burial rite (cremation and corpse laying), and burials with corpses are close to the Baltic type.
In other words, this culture may have been the first contact between the Slavs and the Balts. It really solves many questions that arose during the discussion of facts pointing to the Balto-Slavic affinity. But another problem arises: if these are the Slavs, mastering the originally non-Slavic territory, then where did they come from? The culture was originally identified by Polish scientists, and at first they did not even suspect that it was spreading to the Dnieper. On the Dnieper, more significant manifestations of this culture were revealed, and B.A. Rybakov suggested that the spread did not go from west to east, but from east to west. However, such a conclusion seems premature. In the east at that time, the Srubnaya culture dominated, within which there was no place for Slavs or Proto-Slavs. Therefore, it is advisable to take a closer look at the southwestern territories adjacent to this culture.
O.N. went exactly this way. Trubachev. Following A. Meie, he logically perceived the fact of the archaism of the Slavic language as a sign of its antiquity and came to the conclusion that archaism is a consequence of the coincidence of the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans and the ancestral home of the Slavs. It would probably be more careful to talk about the coincidence of the territory occupied by the Proto-Slavs with one of the large groups of Indo-Europeans. The scientist agreed with those German experts who generally placed the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans in Central Europe (north of the Alps), but within the framework of this concept, the chronological depth did not go beyond the Eneolithic, which, in the light of many other data, seems incredible. As for the search in this territory ancient Slavs, then the range of arguments can be expanded by attracting both linguistic and archaeological-anthropological material.
In our anthropological literature there are two different experiences of solving the problem of Slavic ethnogenesis. One of them belongs to T.A. Trofimova, the other - T.I. Alekseeva. These experiments differ significantly both in approaches and in conclusions. One of the significant differences in the conclusions of T.A. Trofimova and T.I. Alekseeva is to assess the place in the Slavic ethnogenesis of the population of the culture of band ceramics. At T.A. Trofimova, this population turns out to be one of the main components, and precisely, starting from her conclusion, V.P. Kobychev associates the original Slavic type with this culture. Meanwhile, as shown by T.I. Alekseeva and confirmed by a number of other anthropologists, the population of the Band Pottery cultures could be part of the Slavs either as a substrate or as a superstratum, but this element was decisive in the composition of the Germans.
An interesting and rich article by T.A. Trofimova started from the autochthonistic theories that prevailed in the 40s of the 20th century, and was aimed against Indo-European comparative studies. As a result, noting the presence of different components in the composition of the Slavs, the author did not consider it possible "to consider any one of these types as the original Proto-Slavic type." If we take into account that the same types were part of the Germans and some other peoples, then anthropology was practically excluded from the number of sciences capable of taking part in solving the problems of ethnogenesis.
Works by T.I. Alekseeva appeared in the 1960s-1970s, when the restrictive framework of autochthonism and stadiality was largely overcome. Taking into account the migrations of tribes and the indisputable provisions of comparative studies sharply raises the importance of anthropology in understanding the history of the emergence of peoples. Anthropology becomes not only a means of verifying the provisions of linguistics and archeology, but also an important supplier of original information that requires a certain theoretical understanding. With the accumulation of material, anthropology gives on an increasing scale answers to questions about when and in what proportions the ancient ethnic formations converged and diverged.
In quantitative terms, the most representative in the composition of the Slavs is the type of population of the Corded Ware cultures. It is the broad-faced, long-headed population typical of the Corded Ware cultures that brings the Slavs closer to the Balts, sometimes creating an insurmountable difficulty for their anthropological demarcation. The presence of this component in the composition of the Slavs, however, indicates a territory much larger than the area of the Baltic toponymy, since the related population occupied a significant part of the left-bank Ukraine, as well as the northwestern coast of Europe in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. This should also include the zone of distribution of the Dinaric anthropological type, which manifests itself in the modern population of Albania and Yugoslavia (especially among the Montenegrins, Serbs and Croats) and which is usually identified with the ancient Illyrians.
The tribes with burials in stone boxes and cultures of bell-shaped cups, which also buried the dead in cists (stone boxes), also took a noticeable part in the formation of the Slavs. Since the Slavs, according to T.I. Alekseeva, connect the types of “Northern European, dolichocephalic, light-pigmented race and South European brachycephalic, dark-pigmented”. The population of the culture of bell-shaped cups should attract special attention in solving the problem of the ancestral home of the Slavs.
Unfortunately, this culture is almost completely unexplored. It is usually noted that it spreads from North Africa to Spain. Here it replaces the culture of megaliths, and then around 1800 BC. rather quickly moves partly along the western coast of the Atlantic, being part of the future Celts, partly to Central Europe, where their burial grounds are recorded. The origins of this culture are seen somewhere in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, perhaps in Western or even Central Asia. Apparently, the Hittites and Pelasgians were related to this population (in any case, their migration proceeded within the same Indo-European wave). It is with this Indo-European wave that the Ligurians, who occupied northern Italy, are associated, which in some ancient reports are called the western branch of the Pelasgians. And it is very remarkable that the main deity of the Ligurians was Kupavon, whose functions coincided with the functions of the Slavic Kupala, and the corresponding cult in Northern Italy survived until the Middle Ages. It follows from this, by the way, that in the Alpine zone, along with the Proto-Slavs, there were also tribes close to them in language and, perhaps, beliefs, but independent tribes.
The chain of toponyms, running from Spanish Lusitania through northern Italy to the Baltic, belongs to the Indo-European population, moreover, to that branch in which the roots “meadow” and “wad-wand” denote valley and water. Strabo noted that the word “vada” among the Ligurians means shallow water, and in the Balkans, in the zone of settlement of the Pelasgians, in Roman sources, the rivers are called “Vada” with some definition. The ethnonym “Pelazgi” itself finds a satisfactory explanation precisely from the Slavic languages. This is a literal translation of the ethnos “people of the sea” known to ancient authors (in the literature there is a variant for “pelazgs” as “a flat surface”). Back in the 19th century, the Czech scientist P. Safarik pointed out the widespread use of the designation of the water surface in the Slavic languages as “pelso” (one of the ancient names of the same Slavic version is Balaton) or “pleso”. From the name of the lake comes the Russian city of Pleskov (Pskov), and the Bulgarian “Pliska”. This concept is also preserved in the modern designation of a wide water surface - “reach”. The verb “goit” - to live, is also known in not so ancient times (“outcast” means “outlived” from a community or some other social structure). A significant list of early Slavic place names in the Danube region was collected by P. Shafarik. Recently, it was revised and supplemented by V.P. Kobychev.
The Slavs differ from the Balts, first of all, in the presence in their composition of the Central European Alpine racial type and the population of the culture of bell-shaped cups. Ethnic waves from the south also penetrated the Baltic states, but these were different waves. The southern population came here, apparently, only as an admixture in the composition of the Veneti and Illyrians, maybe different waves of Cimmerians who passed through Asia Minor and the Balkans. Both the origin and the languages of these ethnic groups were quite close. A speech that they could understand, apparently, also sounded in the zone of the Thraco-Cimmerian culture in the Carpathian region, since it also arises in the course of settlement from the Black Sea region and the left bank of the Dnieper. The language of the Alpine population, as well as the language of the culture of bell-shaped cups, differed from the Baltic-Dnieper and Black Sea dialects.
The Alpine population was originally, probably, not Indo-European in its origins. But if the non-Indo-European substratum is clearly manifested in the Celtic languages, then this is not visible in the Slavic. Therefore, only Indo-European tribes had a real impact on the language of this population, among which the tribes of the culture of bell-shaped cups were the most significant.
At present, it is difficult to decide whether the Slavic language came in a “ready-made” form to Central Europe, or whether it is formed here as a result of a mixture of the population of the cultures of the bell-shaped cups and different variants of cultures that go back to the previous tribes of the Corded Ware culture. The long neighborhood undoubtedly contributed to the mutual influence of the Proto-Slavic language with the Illiro-Venetian and Celtic languages. As a result, there was a continuous process of mutual assimilation and the emergence of intermediate dialects within different tribal associations.
T.I. Alekseeva, who admits that the culture of bell-shaped cups is a possible initial Slavic anthropological type, points to the proximity of the ancient Russian and even the modern Dnieper population to the Alpine zone: Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Southern Germany, and the north of the Balkans. And in this case we are talking about the movement of the Proto-Slavs from west to east, and not vice versa. Historically, the distribution of this type can be traced first to Moravia and the Czech Republic, then to the future tribes of the streets, Tivertsy, Drevlyans. Anthropology cannot indicate the time when such a population moved from Central Europe to the east, because, like most of the tribes of Central Europe, cremation spreads among the Slavs, and for two and a half millennia anthropologists are deprived of the opportunity to follow the stages of tribal migrations. On the other hand, significant toponymic and other linguistic material has come down from this era. And here the most significant contribution belongs to O.N. Trubachev.
The scientist went to the conclusion about the coincidence of the area of \u200b\u200bthe origin of the Indo-Europeans and the Slavs for several decades. The most important stages were books on handicraft terminology (among the Slavs it was close to ancient Roman), then on the names of rivers and other toponyms in the region of the Right Bank of the Dnieper, where, along with Slavic, Illyrian ones are also found. And finally, the search for Slavic place names in the Danube region, from where Russian, Polish, and Czech chroniclers (sometimes in legendary form) brought Slavs and Russ.
In the works of O.N. Trubachev, as a rule, only a relative chronology is offered: what and where is ancient. The chronology in this case is brought in by archaeologists and historians. Ukrainian archaeologists, in particular, A.I. Terenozhkin, expressed an opinion about the Slavic culture of the Chernoles culture of the 10th-7th centuries BC, adjacent to the Cimmerians. It is noteworthy that in the border zone between the Cimmerians proper and the Chernolesians along the Tyasmin River in the 8th century BC. e. fortified settlements appeared, which testified to the intensified demarcation of the Chernolesians and Cimmerians. The most remarkable thing is that the identified O.N. Trubachev, Slavic toponymy was completely superimposed on the Chernolesskaya archaeological culture, up to the entry on the left bank of the Dnieper at the southeastern limits of the culture. Such a coincidence is an exceptionally rare case in ethnogenetic research.
As a result, the Chernoles culture becomes a reliable link both for moving deeper and for finding subsequent successors. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that new settlers will follow the old tracks from Central Europe, and the border of the steppe and forest-steppe for many centuries will be the scene of most often bloody clashes between steppe nomads and settled farmers. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that with the beginning of social stratification, kindred tribes are included in the struggle among themselves.
Solving the question of the ethnicity of the Chornolis culture helps to understand the nature of the earlier Trzynec culture as well. It just marks the path of the most ancient Slavs from the Alpine regions to the Dnieper. At the same time, the rite of cremation, apparently, reveals the Slavs themselves, while in the rite of cremation the Slavic anthropological type is not represented in its pure form. This, in all likelihood, was predominantly the Baltic population. In all likelihood, it was here that the first contact of the Slavs with the Balts took place, which fully explains both the convergence and divergence of both in the language. It was here, within the framework of this culture, that the southern dark-pigmented brachycephalic intersected with light dolichocranes and assimilated them.
4. MIDDLE DNEVER REGION IN THE SCYTHO-SARMATIAN TIME
For all the importance of the ethnic history of the Middle Dnieper region for understanding many aspects of the later history of the Slavs and the formation of the Old Russian state, there are still a lot of white spots here. The Belogrudovskaya (XII-X centuries BC) and Chernolesskaya cultures have been poorly studied, in particular, their relationship with the Tshinetskaya culture, although it is pointed out - important in this case - connection with Central Europe. Transitions to subsequent cultures have not been traced either. There are objective reasons for this: one of the main indicators of culture (material and spiritual) - the funeral rite - among the tribes with cremation is very simplified and leaves archaeologists with almost only ceramics. HE. Trubachev, arguing with archaeologists who perceive changes in material culture as a change of ethnic groups, notes, not without irony, that a change in the ornament on vessels in general may mean nothing but fashion, which, of course, captured different tribes and peoples in antiquity.
Changes in the appearance of culture on the Middle Dnieper could also occur due to a change in the population in the steppe regions, as well as due to constant migrations from the west or northwest to the east and southeast. Just at the beginning of the 7th century BC. the Cimmerians leave the Black Sea region, and after about a few decades the Scythians appear in the steppe. Did the former agricultural population survive on the spot? B.A. Rybakov in the book "Herodot's Scythia" proves that a certain independence has been preserved and preserved. He draws attention, in particular, to the fact that at the junction of the steppe and forest-steppe belts, where there were fortified settlements in the Cimmerian time, the border strip was strengthened to an even greater extent. This is convincing evidence of the heterogeneity of the territory designated by Herodotus as “Scythia”. And the very indication of the existence in the north of “Scythia” of “Scythian plowmen” with their cults and ethnological traditions is important. It is curious that these tribes had a legend about their living in the same place for a millennium. In this case, the legend coincides with reality: a thousand years before Herodotus passed from the beginning of the Srubnaya culture in the Black Sea region, and a thousand years separated the “Scythian plowmen” from the emergence of the Trzynec culture.
According to the legend, “gold objects fell from the sky onto the Scythian land: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl.” Archaeologists find cult bowls in Scythian burials, but they are based on forms common in pre-Scythian times in the forest-steppe cultures - Belogrudovskaya and Chernolesskaya (XII-VIII centuries).
Herodotus also encountered different versions regarding the number of Scythians: “According to some reports, the Scythians are very numerous, and according to others, the native Scythians ... are very few.” In the heyday of the Scythian unification, a fairly uniform culture spread to many non-Scythian territories. Approximately the same thing is happening as in Central Europe in connection with the rise of the Celts: in almost all cultures, a La Tène influence is noticed. When, in the last centuries BC, the Scythians mysteriously disappeared (according to the pseudo-Hippocrates, they degenerated), old traditions and, apparently, old languages are reborn on the territory of Scythia. The invasion of the Sarmatians from the east contributed to the decline of the Scythians, but the influence of the Sarmatians on the local tribes turned out to be less than their predecessors.
In the VI century BC. on the territory of Ukrainian and Belarusian Polissya, a new culture appears, called Milogradskaya. The southwestern features noted in it suggest a shift of part of the population from the foothills of the Carpathians to the wooded areas of the Pripyat basin. According to researchers, we are talking about the neurons mentioned by Herodotus, which, shortly before his trip to the Black Sea region, left the original territory due to the invasion of snakes. It is usually noted that the Thracians had a snake totem and Herodotus simply took literally the story of the invasion of a tribe with such a totem. The culture lasted until the 1st-2nd century AD. e. and was destroyed or blocked by the tribes of the Zarubintsy culture, which arose in the 2nd century BC. e.
The intersection and interweaving of the Milograd and Zarubinets cultures gave rise to a discussion: which of them should be considered Slavic? At the same time, the disputes were mainly about the Zarubinets culture, and many researchers participated in them to one degree or another. Most archaeologists in Ukraine and Belarus recognized the Slavic culture. Consistently, on a large material, this conclusion was substantiated by P.N. Tretyakov. Authoritative archaeologists I.I. Lyapushkin and M.I. Artamonov, and V.V. Sedov recognized the Baltic culture.
The Zarubinets culture was born simultaneously with the Przeworsk culture in the south of Poland. The latter included part of the territory that was previously part of the Lusatian culture, and some archaeologists saw in it the original Slavs. But their Slavism is proved both by the traditions of material culture and by the logic of the historical-genetic process. B.A. Rybakov considered it no coincidence that both cultures seem to repeat the borders of the Tshinec culture, and the Zarubinets also the intermediate Chornolis culture. The Zarubintsy were connected with the Celts who settled down to the Carpathians and had to constantly defend themselves from the Sarmatian tribes that appeared at the borders of the forest-steppe almost at the same time.
Until now, along the border of the forest-steppe, rows of ramparts have been stretching for hundreds of kilometers, called for a long time “Serpent” or “Troyan”. They were dated differently - from the 7th century BC. until the era of St. Vladimir (X century). But the ramparts were clearly erected to protect the territory of the Zarubinets culture, and it is natural that the Kiev enthusiast A.S. Bugai found material evidence that they were poured around the turn of our era.
It is noteworthy that the settlements of the Zarubinets culture were not fortified. Obviously, the Zarubins lived peacefully with their northern and western neighbors. From the steppe, where the Sarmatians roamed at that time, they fenced themselves off with ramparts inaccessible to the cavalry. Shafts still impress. And a logical question arises: how organized should a society be in order to erect such structures? And this society, judging by the dwellings, did not yet know inequality: it was the work of free community members in many settlements.
The Zarubinets culture, securely covered from the south, fell in the 2nd century AD. as a result of a new invasion from the northwest. P.N. Tretyakov found evidence that the Zarubins moved northeast and east to the left bank of the Dnieper, where they later merge with a new wave of Slavic settlers from Central Europe.
Being a consistent adherent of the concept of the Slavic belonging of the Zarubintsy culture, P.N. Tretyakov did not define his attitude towards the Milogradovites, repeatedly leaning to one side or the other (namely, the Baltic) side. Weighty arguments against their Baltic speaking were brought by O.N. Melnikovskaya. The main among these arguments is the fact that the culture was localized much further south than previously thought: precisely at the headwaters of the Desna and the Southern Bug. The earliest monuments of the Milogradovites are located here, and their movement to the northeast, traced by archaeological data, chronologically coincides with the resettlement of the Herodotus neurons.
HE. Melnikovskaya does not define the ethnicity of the Milogradov Nevri people, however, giving preference to the Slavs and finding among the Milogradovites those signs that P.N. Tretyakov proved the Slavic nature of the Zarubins. Belarusian archaeologist L.D. Pobol was inclined to see in the Milogradovites the predecessors of the Zarubins. V.P. Kobychev, without linking the Milogradovites with the neurons, suggested their Celtic origin. But the connection here, apparently, is indirect, mediated. Tribes that retreated from the Carpathians to the northeast could take part in the formation of the Milogradovites. These are either the Illiro-Venets, or the Slavs or related tribes. The Illyrian presence is recorded just at the upper reaches of the Desna and the Bug, although in general the toponymy of the area occupied by the Milogradovites is Slavic. And the Celts were there. Archaeological research in Romania made it possible to discover, next to the Milograd culture, Celtic burials of the 4th century BC. e.
Obviously not the Baltic origin of the Milograd culture solves the problem in the same direction and with respect to the Zarubinets culture. This culture could be recognized as Baltic only if it were possible to allow the arrival of Zarubins from one of the Baltic regions named above. But in all these areas, even after the emergence of Zarubinets culture, a measured (and stagnant) life continued.
But, being both Slavic, the cultures clearly did not mix and differed from each other. Even when they were in the same territory, they did not mix. This gives grounds to believe that Zarubintsy came to this territory from the outside. Their appearance on the territory of the Milograd culture deepened the difference with the Baltic tribes. And they could only come from the west, northwest or southwest. L.D. Pobol notes that in the culture "there are very few elements of Western cultures and incomparably more southwestern, Celtic." The types of vessels that are considered Pomeranian are found by the author in Hallstatt burials near Radomsk, as well as in Bronze Age burials in this area.
Thus, in the Middle Dnieper region, the constant presence of the Slavic population can be traced from the 15th century BC. to the 2nd century AD But this territory is not the ancestral home. The ancestral home remained in Central Europe.
In II-IV centuries. AD The Slavs were part of the Chernyakhov culture, the territory of which scientists identify with the Gothic state of Germanarich. In the 5th century Slavs made up the majority of the population of the Hunnic state of Attila. Unlike the warlike Huns and Germans, the Slavs did not take part in the battles. Therefore, they are not mentioned in written sources, but Slavic features are clearly traced in the archaeological culture of that time. After the collapse of the state of Attila, the Slavs enter the historical arena.
In the VI-VII centuries. Slavs settled in the Baltics, the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Dnieper, reach Spain and North Africa. Approximately three-quarters of the Balkan Peninsula was conquered by the Slavs in a century. The whole region of Macedonia adjoining Thessalonica was called "Sklavenia". By the turn of the VI-VII centuries. include information about powerful Slavic fleets that sailed around Thessaly, Achaia, Epirus and even reached southern Italy and Crete. Almost everywhere the Slavs assimilate the local population. In the Baltics - Wends and northern Illyrians, as a result, the Baltic Slavs are formed. In the Balkans - the Thracians, as a result, the southern branch of the Slavs arises.
Byzantine and German medieval authors called the Slavs "Sklavins" (the southern branch of the Slavs) and "Antes" (the eastern Slavic branch). The Slavs who lived along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea were sometimes called "Venedi" or "Veneti".
Archaeologists have discovered monuments of the material culture of the Slavs and Antes. The territory of the Prague-Korchak archaeological culture, which spread southwest of the Dniester, corresponds to the Sklavins. To the east of this river there was another Slavic culture - Penkovskaya. These were the Ants.
In the VI - early VII centuries. the territory of their current residence was settled by East Slavic tribes - from the Carpathian Mountains in the west to the Dnieper and Don in the east and to Lake Ilmen in the north. The tribal unions of the Eastern Slavs - the northerners, the Drevlyans, the Krivichi, the Vyatichi, the Radimichi, the Polyana, the Dregovichi, the Polochans, and others - were also in fact states in which there was a princely power that was isolated from society, but controlled by it. On the territory of the future Old Russian state the Slavs assimilated many other peoples - the Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Iranian and other tribes. Thus, the ancient Russian nationality was formed.
By the 9th century Slavic tribes, lands, reigns occupied vast territories that exceeded the area of many states of Western Europe.
Literature:
Alekseeva T.I. Ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs according to anthropological data. M., 1973.
Alekseev V.P. Origin of the peoples of Eastern Europe. M., 1969.
Denisova R.Ya. Anthropology of the ancient Balts. Riga, 1975.
Derzhavin N.S. Slavs in antiquity. M., 1945.
Ilyinsky G.A. The problem of the Proto-Slavic ancestral home in the scientific coverage of A.A. Shakhmatova. // Proceedings of the Department of the Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences. Pgr., 1922. T.25.
Kobychev V.P. In search of the ancestral home of the Slavs. M., 1973.
Letseevich L. Baltic Slavs and Northern Rus' in the Early Middle Ages. A few discussion notes. // Slavic archeology. Ethnogenesis, resettlement and spiritual culture of the Slavs. M., 1993.
Melnikovskaya O.N. Tribes of Southern Belorussia in the Early Iron Age. M., 1967.
Niederle L. Slavic Antiquities. T.1. Kyiv. 1904.
Niederle L. Slavic Antiquities. M., 1956.
Pobol L.D. Slavic antiquities of Belarus. Minsk, 1973.
Problems of the ethnogenesis of the Slavs. Kyiv, 1978.
Rybakov B.A. Herodotov "Scythia". M., 1979.
Sedov V.V. Origin and early history of the Slavs. M., 1979.
Sedov V.V. Slavs in the Early Middle Ages. M., 1995.
Slavs and Rus'. Problems and ideas. A three-century dispute in a textbook presentation. // Comp. A.G. Kuzmin. M., 1998.
Slavic antiquities. Kyiv, 1980.
Tretyakov P.N. East Slavic tribes. M., 1953.
Tretyakov P.N. In the footsteps of the ancient Slavic tribes. L., 1982.
Trubachev O.N. Linguistics and ethnogenesis of the Slavs. Ancient Slavs according to etymology and onomastics. // Questions of linguistics, 1982, No. 4 - 5.
Trubachev O.N. Ethnogenesis and culture of the ancient Slavs. M., 1991.
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Apollon Kuzmin
The history of the ancient Slavs is extremely interesting. The first recorded data on the ancient Slavs belong only to the sixth century AD. Then Antes and Sclaveni were mentioned. In fact, the history of the Slavs begins in the second or third millennium BC. However, today historians do not yet give definitive and specific data on the exact place and time of the appearance of the first Slavs. There is a theory that the Slavs are a branch of the Indo-European tribe that separated in the fifth century of the last era. The Celts, Germans, Balts and other peoples also came out of the latter.
Historians and scientists believe that the Proto-Slavs originally lived in a forest area rich in lakes and swamps, far from the mountains and the sea. There were suggestions that this was the territory of modern Poland.
We learn historical data about the ancient Slavs from written sources left by Byzantine chroniclers, as well as Kyiv Nestor. In addition, some data were obtained during excavations.
Movement and resettlement of the ancient Slavs
The resettlement of the Slavs also causes a lot of controversy among archaeologists, historians and ethnographers. One theory says that the ancient Slavic tribes began their movement from the banks of the Danube. According to another hypothesis, the Slavs made their way from Asia to the north, bypassing the Black Sea. Since then, they began to call themselves Scythians, or Sarmatians. The third assumption is that the Slavs settled in the territory of the Baltic states. It is possible that the spread of the ancient Slavs went in several directions. In any case, according to these theories, migration and resettlement took place. Moreover, during the resettlement, the Slavs "mixed" with other ethnic groups.
However, in Lately more and more often opinions are expressed that the Slavs did not move anywhere. Allegedly, they lived in the territories of modern Slavic states.
The territory inhabited by the ancient Slavs was between the Dnieper, the Baltic states, and the Carpathians. Then there was a gradual resettlement of them on the territory of modern Russia and Europe. Like many of the first tribes, the ancient Slavs first had a primitive communal system, and then a tribal one.
Western Slavs were the very first of this group. Their appearance dates back to the first centuries of our era. After five or six centuries, the southern branch of the Slavs was formed. The eastern branch was the most numerous. It is interesting that the life and way of life of different branches of the Slavs differed. This is due to the difference in climate, as well as established traditions.
Already about two thousand years ago, Greek and Roman scientists knew that in the east of Europe, between the Carpathian Mountains and the Baltic Sea, numerous tribes of Wends live. These were the ancestors of modern Slavic peoples. By their name, the Baltic Sea was then called the Venedian Gulf of the Northern Ocean. According to archaeologists, the Wends were the original inhabitants of Europe, the descendants of the tribes that lived here in the Stone and Bronze Ages.The ancient name of the Slavs - Wends - was preserved in the language of the Germanic peoples until the late Middle Ages, and in Finnish Russia is still called Venice. The name "Slavs" began to spread only one and a half thousand years ago - in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. At first, only Western Slavs were called that way. Their eastern counterparts were called Antes. Then the Slavs began to call all the tribes speaking Slavic languages.
At the beginning of our era, throughout Europe there were large movements of tribes and peoples who entered into a struggle with the slave-owning Roman Empire. At this time, the Slavic tribes already occupied a large territory. Some of them penetrated to the west, to the banks of the Odra and Laba (Elbe) rivers. Together with the population living along the banks of the Vistula River, they became
ancestors of modern West Slavic peoples - Polish, Czech and Slovak.
Especially grandiose was the movement of the Slavs to the south - to the banks of the Danube and to the Balkan Peninsula. These territories were occupied by the Slavs in the VI-VII centuries. after long wars with the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, which lasted over a century.
The ancestors of the modern South Slavic peoples - the Bulgarians and the peoples of Yugoslavia - were Slavic tribes who settled on the Balkan Peninsula. They mixed with the local Thracian and Illyrian population, which had previously been oppressed by Byzantine slave owners and feudal lords.
At the time when the Slavs settled in the Balkan Peninsula, Byzantine geographers and historians became closely acquainted with them. They pointed to the large number of Slavs and the vastness of their territory, reported that the Slavs were well acquainted with agriculture and cattle breeding. Of particular interest is the information of Byzantine authors that the Slavs in the VI and VII centuries. did not yet have a state. They lived in independent tribes. At the head
these numerous tribes were war leaders. We know the names of leaders who lived more than a thousand years ago: Mezhimir, Dobrita, Pirogost,
Khvilibud and others.
The Byzantines wrote that the Slavs were very brave, skilled in military affairs and well armed; they are freedom-loving, do not recognize slavery and submission.
The ancestors of the Slavic peoples of Russia in ancient times lived in the forest-steppe and forest regions between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers. Then they began to move north, up the Dnieper. It was a slow, centuries-old movement of agricultural communities and individual families who were looking for new convenient places for settlement and areas rich in animals and fish. The settlers cut down virgin forests for their fields.
At the beginning of our era, the Slavs penetrated the upper Dnieper region, where tribes lived, related to modern Lithuanians and Latvians. Further north, the Slavs settled areas in which, in some places, ancient Finno-Ugric tribes lived, related to modern Maris, Mordovians, as well as Finns, Karelians and Estonians. The local population in terms of their culture was significantly inferior to the Slavs. A few centuries later, it mixed
with aliens, learned their language and culture. In different areas, the East Slavic tribes were called differently, which is known to us from the oldest Russian chronicle: Vyatichi, Krivichi, Drevlyans, Polyana, Radimichi and others.
Until now, on the high banks of rivers and lakes, the remains of ancient Slavic settlements have been preserved, which are now being studied by archaeologists. In that restless time, when wars not only between different tribes, but also between neighboring communities were a constant occurrence, people often settled in hard-to-reach places, surrounded by high slopes, deep ravines or water. They erected earthen ramparts around their settlements, dug deep ditches and surrounded their dwellings with a wooden fence.
The remains of such small fortresses are called settlements. Dwellings were built in the form of dugouts, inside there were adobe or stone ovens. In each village, relatives usually lived, who often ran their households as a community.
The agricultural economy of that time was very little like the modern one. People worked hard to earn their living. To prepare the land for sowing, it was first necessary to cut down a plot in the forest.
The winter month, during which the forest was cut down, was called the section (from the word "cut" - to cut). This was followed by dry and birch months, during which the forest was dried and burned. They sowed directly into the ashes, slightly loosened with a wooden plow, or ral. Such agriculture is called fire or slash. More often sowed
millet, but other cereals were also known: wheat, barley and rye. From vegetables, turnips were common.
The month of harvest was called serpen, and the month of threshing was called vresen (from the word "vreshchi" - thresh). The fact that the names of the months among the ancient Slavs are associated with agricultural work indicates the paramount importance of agriculture in their economy. But they also raised livestock, beat the beast and fished, were engaged in beekeeping - collecting honey from wild bees.
Each family or group of relatives made everything they needed for themselves. Iron was smelted from local ores in small clay furnaces - domnitsa - or pits. The blacksmith forged from it knives, axes, openers, arrowheads and spears, swords. Women sculpted pottery, wove canvases and sewed clothes. Wooden utensils and utensils, as well as items made from birch bark and bast were in great use. They bought only what could not be obtained or made locally. Salt has long been the most common commodity - after all, its deposits were not found everywhere.
They also traded in copper and precious metals, from which jewelry was made. For all this they paid with salable and valuable goods that played the role of money: furs, honey, wax, grain, cattle.
Near the ancient Slavic settlements, one can often find round or elongated earthen mounds - barrows. During excavations, they find the remains of burnt human bones and utensils burned in the fire.
The ancient Slavs burned the dead on a funeral pyre and buried the remains in burial mounds.
The Slavs waged a constant struggle with the nomads who lived in the Black Sea steppes and often plundered the Slavic lands. The most dangerous enemy was the Khazar nomads, who created in the 7th-8th centuries. a large strong state in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don rivers.
In this period East Slavs began to be called Russ or Ross, as is believed, from the name of one of the tribes - the Rus, who lived on the border with Khazaria, between the Dnieper and the Don. This is how the names "Russia" and "Russians" came about.
Soon, great changes took place in the life of the Slavs. With the development of metallurgy and other crafts, the tools of labor improved significantly. The farmer now had a plow or plow with an iron share. His work became more productive. There were rich and poor among the community members.
The ancient community disintegrated and was replaced by a small peasant economy. Leaders and rich community members oppressed the poor, took away their land, enslaved them and forced them to work for themselves. Trade developed. The country was cut through by trade routes, going mainly along the rivers. At the end of the 1st millennium, trade and craft cities began to appear: Kyiv, Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk, Novgorod, Ladoga and many others. Foreigners called Rus' a country of cities.
To preserve and strengthen its power, the ruling elite created its own organization and army. So the tribal order was replaced by a class society and a state that protected the interests of the rich.
At first, in Ancient Rus' there were several separate tribal principalities, in the place of which in the 9th century. a mighty Russian state arose with its center in Kyiv. The era of feudalism, or the era of the Middle Ages, began.
