Varangian
Varangian, also known as Rus, is the name given to the Vikings on the road performing in the East. The Rus were Danes and especially Swedes who traveled eastward from Scandinavia. Lifetime of the trade , the piracy and offering themselves as mercenaries , they stormed the river system which will later Russia , up to the Caspian Sea and Constantinople.
They created a series of forts and trading posts, laying the foundations for the future Russian state.
The Slavs and the Byzantines , however, does not distinguish Scandinavians and Saxons among the mercenaries. Moreover, the Varangian Guards of the Byzantine Empire were mostly Saxons (see below). In the first column the Russian term also includes angles from the island of Britain.
Summary |
Both terms describe the Vikings in the east.
Rus is a derivative of the Finnish Ruotsi (Sweden), which dates back to Old Norse rthr, meaning "row" or even the Swedish province of Roslagen. Rus is exclusively used to designate the Vikings established in Russia. Another hypothesis (Thomsen Vernardsky) argues that Scandinavians have borrowed the word to the tribe rus Alani Ruxs. Sderling closer to the origin of the word Goth , originating in Sweden , which reached the Black Sea to the third century. Slaves would have called Rus, "red people", then this term would have designated all of the Scandinavian people, including Rus of Novgorod and Kiev.
Vaeringr is derived from Norse varar, meaning "pledge" or "oath", and by extension "liege man". This term is used to distinguish Rus already Slavisa, mercenaries and merchants Scandinavian recently arrived.
The Rus ( , Russian) are mentioned by the first Russian chronicle as having arrived from beyond the Baltic Sea , to the ninth century , invited by the Finnish and Slavic tribes to pacify the region. They were led by Rurik (Rrek) and his two brothers and Sinious Trouvor, who settled around the city Slavic Novgorod. These first Varangians were perhaps legendary, but a real colonization Swedish Aldeigjuborg , was established around Lake Ladoga in the eighth century. The Slavic inhabitants called these Swedes , the Rus'.
Controversy
The role of Rus in the founding of Rus Kievan principality and was a major topic of controversy in Russian historiography in the nineteenth century.
- Justification of autocracy
Proponents of this theory Normans (comparable to the Franks under the Ancien Regime in France) on the Russian state - including Nikolai Karamzin and later Sergei Pogodin - thought that, after the first indications of chronic, Varangian had been invited by the Slavs to the east they govern and maintain order. This theory was not without political involvement. In the writings of Karamzin, the theory Normanists justify the domination of people by the aristocracy, and Pogodin used the theory to explain that the submission of the people was voluntary from the start - which was disputed by historians most liberal Russian society , and Polish historians.
- Nationalist challenge
The Soviet school has long claimed that the Rus were Slavs, yet the Scandinavian descent of the Rus is now clearly established, given the following documents.
Sources
The Annals of St. Bertin mention the arrival of an embassy to the Court of Varangian Louis the Pious at Ingelheim near Mainz and stated that "these strangers were saying called Rhos" ( 18 May 839 ). Later, the chronicle of the past indicate that "the Slavs and Russians are one people and it's Varangians the Russians took their name, whereas, originally, they were Slavs.
Some historians suggest that the Rus, traders and warriors Scandinavian locked themselves to defend themselves and protect their goods in areas-forts, which they call gardhr. Local people imitate and create larger shelters they call gorod. In these shelters, counters develops a kind of urban civilization that astonishes the Scandinavians, as among them, the cities do not exist, so Russia is called in Old Norse Gardhariki (the "country towns"). Slavs of these cities are the core of their tiny states (volosti). To defend them, they are mercenaries Scandinavian who exercises military power, would have seized political power after a series of small coups, as in Novgorod ( Riurik ) or Kiev.
A traveler Persian Istakhri , to 950 , three kinds of Rus: those of Kiev , the Slawijah (Slavs of Novgorod ) and Arthaniyah, which the king lives in Artha (the Erz'a, a Finnish tribe fastened to the Soura , west of Bolghar ).
In De imperio administrando, written in 950, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus notes a trade route Grobina (near modern Riga ) to Gnezdovo by the Dvina and the Dnieper to Kiev and Berezany in Tauris future Crimea. It describes the perilous descent of the seven rapid Dnieper which will enable them to Rhos and mentions the names of five of them in Slavic languages, Greek and rhos. He noted that the Rhos receive tributes from various tribes Slavic (coins, furs and slaves).
The Persian diplomat Ibn Rustah describes the manners of the Rus to 950 : they are primarily hunting for slaves and the fur trade. They continue to travel and make war boat. They are hardworking and very treacherous. Moreover, beautiful, clean and well dressed. They are hospitable, but quarrelsome and brought to the duel and never separated from their weapons. They have priests (?) And practiced human sacrifice and animals, which are by hanging.
The Arab Muslim scholar Ibn Fadlan also left them a very detailed description of the funeral boat of one of their chieftains, including a human sacrifice.
See also article Kievan Rus.
From identity to identity Scandinavian Slavic
The Rus were gradually assimilated by the populations they governed it.
In the treaty concluded in 911 between Oleg the Wise and Byzantium, all signatories have names Scandinavian Varangian. However, in 944, a similar treaty was signed after a missed attack rus, and many of them are Slavic names.
Igor , which is the form of slavise Ingvarr, Varangian prince will be the last to be named North. He named his son Sviatoslav.
The lexico-cultural contribution was limited, the language Russia has not borrowed more than seven words to the lexicon Norse. The Scandinavian influence is also lacking in the first Slavic legal concepts. The community was Varangian it seems nonexistent in the countryside.
The main contribution of the Vikings was therefore the development of towns and trade, and the foundation of the future Russian state.
The Varangian Guard
The Rus appeared in the Byzantine world in 839 when Emperor Theophilus negotiated with them for mercenaries for his army. Although the Rus' had the most peaceful relations with the Byzantines , Varangian raids from the north were not uncommon. These attacks took place in 860 , 907 , 911 , 941 , 945 , 971 , and finally in 1043. The raids had no other success that a renegotiation of trade agreements; militarily, the Rus were always defeated by the fleet of Constantinople , which used Greek fire.
The governing class of the two powerful city-states of Novgorod and Kyiv eventually became Varangian, and soon the Byzantines could buy the services of an official mercenary force that became the Varangian guard. This happened in 988 , when Prince of Kiev, Vladimir I converted to Orthodoxy. In exchange for the hand of the sister of Basil II , Anne, gave Vladimir six miles Varangians as bodyguard. She was one of the most effective and most loyal of the Byzantine army, as reported in the chronicle of Anne Comnenus during the reign of her father Alexius I Comnenus. Their main weapon was a long ax , but they also used the sword and bow. These were the only ones to successfully defend part of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade , but was apparently disbanded after the capture of the city in 1204. At that time, the term "Varangian" referred to any mercenary from northern Europe and the guard was no longer composed of Britons and Normans than Russians or Scandinavians.
One of the most famous members of the Varangian Guard was the one who would become the future king Harald III of Norway , the "Last of the Vikings, a giant with more than two meters, a great warrior also known under the name of Harald Hardrada (the "Severe"), who arrived in Constantinople in 1035. He competed in less than 18 battles, until Sicily ( 1038 / 40 ), and became (acolythos), commander of the guard, before returning home in 1043.
Bibliography
- Rgis Boyer , The Vikings, Robert Laffont , 2008
See also
Internal Links
- Rurik , List of monarchs of Russia
- Roslagen , Svealand , svear
- Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy
- Gotland (Island) Sweden
- The monk Nestor , editor of the chronicle of the past.
External Links
- (In) Who Were the Varangians (Who were the Rus)
- The time Varangues Illustrated, from Uppland in Sweden to Constantinople and religious integration in the Roman Orthodox.
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