Rus' Khaganate

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Rus' Khaganate
c. 830
Old East Norse
Historical eraEarly Middle Ages
• Established
c. 830[a]
• Disestablished
c. 890s[2]
 Succeeded by
Kievan Rusʹ

Rusʹ Khaganate (Russian: Русский каганат, Russkiy kaganat,[3] Ukrainian: Руський каганат, Ruśkyj kahanat[4][5]), or kaganate of Rus[b] is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe between c. 830 and the 890s.[a][b][2][6]

The fact that a few sparse contemporaneous sources appear to refer to the leader or leaders of Rus' people at this time with the word chacanus, which might be derived from the title of khagan as used by groupings of Asiatic nomads, has led some scholars to suggest that his political organisation can be called a "k(h)aganate".[b] Other scholars have disputed this, as it would have been unlikely for an organisation of Germanic immigrants from the north to adopt such a foreign title.[b] Some historians have criticised the concept of a Rus' Khaganate, calling it a "historiographical phantom",[8] and said that the society of 9th-century Rusʹ cannot be characterised as a state.[9] Still other scholars identify these early mentions of a Rus' political entity headed by a chacanus with the Kievan Rus' state commonly attested in later sources,[c] whose princes such as Vladimir the Great,[11] (r. 980–1015) Yaroslav the Wise (r. 1019–1054),[12][13] and perhaps Sviatoslav II of Kiev (r. 1073–1076)[2][11] and Oleg I of Chernigov[2][11] (r. 1097–1115) were occasionally identified as kagans in Old East Slavic literature until the late 12th century.[14][15]

Mentions in documents

Overview

The word khagan for a leader of some groups of Rus' people is mentioned in several historical sources. According to Constantin Zuckerman (2000), these sources are divided into two chronological groups: three or four Latin and Arabic sources from c. 839 to c. 880 (which he labelled "1a, 1b, 1c"), while three Old East Slavic sources (labelled "2a, 2b, 2c") date from 200 years later in the 11th and 12th centuries, and are "fundamentally different".[2] The Perso-Arabic (Islamic) sources mentioning a khāqān rus or Khāqān-i Rus all appear to follow a single common chain of tradition tracing back to the "Anonymous Note".[16][2]

Annales Bertiniani sub anno 839

The earliest claimed reference related to Rus' people ruled by a "khagan" comes from the

Swedes (comperit eos gentis esse sueonum).[24][17]

Chronicon Salernitanum

Thirty years later, in spring 871, the eastern and

reges, while the imperial title properly applied 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 (Avari), Khazars (Gazari), and "Northmen" (Nortmanni). To that, Louis replied that he was aware only of the Avar khagans, and had never heard of the khagans of the Khazars and Normans.[25][26] The content of Basil's letter, now lost, is reconstructed from Louis's reply, quoted in full in the Chronicon Salernitanum ("Salerno Chronicle]").[27] According to Dolger, it indicates that at least one group of Scandinavians had a ruler who called himself "khagan",[28] but Ostrowski (2018) countered: 'The letter of Louis II to Basil I states specifically that the Northmen do not have a khagan. From that, the non-extant letter of Basil I has been thought to have stated that the Northmen had a khagan, but we do not know that. (...) Besides, even if Basil's letter did assert that the ruler of the Northmen was called a khagan, that testimony is negated by the statement of Louis II that their ruler is not called a khagan.'[23]

Arabic-Persian sources

Khazaria and Rus.[2]

Persian Muslim geographer, mentioned "khāqān-i rus" in his work Zayn al-Akhbār. Ibn Rustah, the Hudud al-Alam and Gardizi all copied their information from the same late 9th-century source.[23][2][32]

Zuckerman (2000) argued that

Book of Roads and Kingdoms does not mention the title of "khagan" for the ruler of Rus'.[18]

Old East Slavic sources

The three later Old East Slavic sources mentioning a kagan (Hilarion of Kiev's 11th-century Sermon on Law and Grace, and the 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv inscription) or kogan (the 12th-century The Tale of Igor's Campaign) have generally been understood to refer to the ruler of Kievan Rus'.[23][2] According to Halperin (1987), the title kagan in the Annales Bertiniani sub anno 839, Hilarion's Sermon, and in The Tale of Igor's Campaign all apply to "the ruler of Kiev".[14] He agreed with Peter B. Golden (1982) that this reflected Khazar influence on Kievan Rus', and argued that the use of a "steppe title" in Kiev 'may be the only case of the title's use by a non-nomadic people'.[14] Halperin also found it "highly anomalous" that a Christian prelate like Hilarion would 'laud his ruler with a shamanist title',[14] adding in 2022: "The Christian ethos of the sermon is marred by Ilarion's attribution to Vladimir of the Khazar title kagan, which was definitely not Christian."[15]

Hilarion's

Old East Slavic: каганъ, romanized: kaganŭ) throughout the text,[34] a total of five times.[12][35]

  1. и похвала каганоу нашемоу влодимероу, ѿ негоже крещени быхом[12] ("And: an encomium to our kagan Volodimer, by whom we were baptized."[34])
  2. великааго кагана нашеа земли Володимера, вънука старааго Игоря, сына же славнааго Святослава[12] ("the great kagan of our land Volodimer, the grandson of Igor' of old, and the son of the glorious Svjatoslav."[36])
  3. каганъ нашь Влодимеръ[12] ("Volodimer, our kagan"[37])
  4. Съвлѣче же ся убо каганъ нашь и съ ризами ветъхааго человѣка[12] ("So our kagan cast off his clothing"[37])
  5. Паче же помолися о сынѣ твоемь, благовѣрнѣмь каганѣ нашемь Георгии[12] ("And furthermore, pray for your son, our devout kagan, Georgij";[38]). Georgij was the baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise, who reigned in Kiev at the time and was Hilarion's patron.[39]

A colophon preserved in a 15th-century manuscript, at the end of a set of works usually attributed to Hilarion, adds one more mention: Быша же си въ лѣто 6559 (1051), владычествующу благовѣрьному кагану Ярославу, сыну Владимирю. Аминь.[12] ("These things came to pass in the year 6559 (1051), during the reign of the pious kagan Jaroslav, the son to Volodimer, Amen."[40])

Absence in other contemporary sources

The absence of any khagan in the following sources has been taken by several scholars as evidence indicating either that there had never been a Rus' khaganate (Tolochko 2015, Ostrowski 2018),[41] or that it must have disappeared by 911 (Zuckerman 2000), probably already before 900 (Golden 1982).[42][2]

  • The Book of Roads and Kingdoms (c. 870) written by Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh does mention the Rus' as important traders, but does not mention a title of a Rus' ruler in his chapter "Titles of the rulers of the Earth", where only the Turks, Tibetans and Khazars are said to be ruled by khaqans.[18][16][2] If the Rus' had a khaqan at the time, the author would have been expected to mention it, but he did not.[18] Ibn Khordadbeh's book is a notable exception amongst the Arabic-Persian sources in mentioning the Rus', but not a khaqan;[16][2] more generally, his information also does not appear to stem from the same source (possibly the now-lost book written by Jayhani) used by others such as Ibn Rusta and Gardizi.[32]
  • The Primary Chronicle (an anonymous Rus' chronicle completed c. 1110) does not mention the title of khagan anywhere, for example in the three Rus'-Byzantine treaties of 907, 911, and 944.[42][2]
  • The Risala of
    Kievan Rus' around 922) calls the monarch of the Rus' a malik (Arabic for "king"), not a qagan,[2] even though it does say that 'the king of the Khazars [is] called a Qagan'.[43]
  • De Ceremoniis (a Greek book on ceremonial protocol at the Byzantine court from the 950s) meticulously documents the titles of foreign rulers, but when it deals with Olga of Kiev's reception at the court Constantine VII in 945, it does not call her a khagan,[42] but an archon (Greek for "ruler").[2]

Dating

The dating of the Khaganate's existence has been the subject of debates among scholars and remains unclear.

Khazaria among the Varangian traders in Rostov helped to raise the latter's prestige, with the consequence that by the 830s a new power center known as the Rus' Kaganate had come into existence."[a] Whatever the accuracy of such estimates may be, there are no primary sources mentioning the Rus' or its khagans prior to the 830s.[44] Omeljan Pritsak noted that the leader of those Kabars was Khan-Tuvan.[45]

Golden (1982) and Zuckerman (2000) concluded that if a Rus' khaganate had existed, it must have disappeared before 900, as references to a Rus' khagan are last recorded in the 880s, and do not return until the 11th century.

First Novgorod Chronicle, whose account of the events Shakhmatov considered more trustworthy, does not pinpoint the pre-Rurikid uprising to any specific date. The 16th-century Nikon Chronicle attributes the banishment of the Varangians from the country to Vadim the Bold. The Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Braychevskiy labelled Vadim's rebellion "a pagan reaction" against the Christianization of the Rus'.[46] A period of unrest and anarchy followed, dated by Zuckerman to c. 875–900.[2] The absence of coin hoards from the 880s and 890s suggests that the Volga trade route ceased functioning, precipitating "the first silver crisis in Europe".[47][48]

After this economic depression and period of political upheaval, the region experienced a resurgence beginning in around 900. Zuckerman associates this recovery with the arrival of Rurik and his men, who turned their attention from the Volga to the Dnieper, for reasons as yet uncertain. The Scandinavian settlements in Ladoga and Novgorod revived and started to grow rapidly. During the first decade of the 10th century, a large trade outpost was formed on the Dnieper in Gnezdovo, near modern Smolensk. Another Dnieper settlement, Kiev, developed into an important urban centre roughly in the same period.[49][50]

Possible locations

The location of the purported khaganate, more specifically the residence of the supposed khagan, has been actively disputed since the late 19th century.[51] Sites proposed by scholars have included the following:

Kiev

Magyars departed for the west in 889 did the middle Dnieper region start to progress economically.[71]

Volkhov river sites

A number of historians, the first of whom was

First Novgorod Chronicle describes unrest in Novgorod before Rurik was invited to come to rule the region in the 860s.[citation needed] This account prompted Johannes Brøndsted to assert that Holmgard-Novgorod was the khaganate's capital for several decades prior to the appearance of Rurik, including the time of the Byzantine embassy in 839.[75][i] Machinsky accepts this theory but notes that, before the rise of Holmgard-Novgorod, the chief political and economic centre of the area was located at Aldeigja-Ladoga.[76] However, Nosov (1990) stated that archaeological evidence recovered at Rurikovo Gorodische puts the terminus post quem for the hill-fort's establishment decades later: dendrochronological analysis showed that trees used in construction at the site were felled between the years 889 and 948, and radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples collected from a ditch at the site of "Holmgard" trace back to 880(±20).[77]

Islands in fringe theories

According to one fringe theory, the Rus' khagan resided somewhere in Scandinavia or even as far west as

archaeologists have uncovered no traces of a Slavic-Norse settlement in the Crimea region in the 9th century and there are no Norse sources documenting "khagans" in Scandinavia.[80]

Etymological issues

Rhos and Rus'

See also:
Names of Rusʹ, Russia and Ruthenia

The Russian

Hungarian and Norse peoples. The region was also a place of operations for Varangians, eastern Scandinavian adventurers, merchants, and pirates.[81][77][need quotation to verify
]

Although since the 19th century various writers (some expressing anti-Normanist views) have asserted the Rus' (Rhos) mentioned in the Annales Bertiniani and the other sources possibly mentioning a Rus' khagan were Slavic,[82] the modern scholarly consensus is that the Rus' people originated in Scandinavia, possibly Sweden.[83][84][85] According to the prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*Ruotsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden, as it was known in earlier times.[86][87] The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi.[87][88]

Around 860, a group of Rus'

George the Monk, which does not identify a point of departure.[92]

Chacanus

Since the 18th century, the debate on the word chacanus / Chacanus in the Annales Bertiniani has had two sides: it must either be understood as the title of the rex, namely khagan (first proposed by Siegfried Bayer in 1736), or that it was a Scandinavian proper name, namely Håkon (first suggested by Stroube de Piermont in 1785).[93] In 2004, Duczko stated: 'At present there is almost total unity of opinion that the title of the ruler of Rus is of Khazarian origin and that the word chacanus is a Latin form of the Turk word khagan, a title of a prime ruler in the nomadic societies in Eurasia.'[94] He claimed that the Old Norse personal name interpretation 'was abandoned (though its supporters still appear from time to time).'[95] Garipzanov (2006) challenged the khagan interpretation again, arguing that one cannot just turn the c in the middle of chacanus into a g, adding that 'many Germanic names starting with phonetic h- were transcribed in Frankish sources with ch-', and concluding that the word most likely was the Swedish name Håkan,[65] an explanation accepted by Ostrowski (2018).[16]

Assuming it reflects the Khazar-derived title khagan, there is considerable dispute over the circumstances of this borrowing.

High King" adopted the title "khagan" to give him legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects and neighboring states.[99] According to this theory, the title was a sign that the bearers ruled under a divine mandate.[100][101]

Rurikid rulers, if any, is unknown at this time.[k]

See also

Notes

  1. ^
    Magyars, who formerly had been loyal vassals of the Khazars. The presence of Kabar political refugees from Khazaria among the Varangian traders in Rostov helped to raise the latter's prestige, with the consequence that by the 830s a new power center known as the Rusʹ Kaganate had come into existence. The acceptance of the Kabar rebels by the Magyars, however, turned the latter into the enemies of the new rulers of Khazaria."[1]
  2. ^ a b c d "The use of the title chacanus by the ruler of the Rus has led scholars to call the organization he headed the "kaganate of Rus". The correctness of such a designation may be disputed. The term kaganate is organically connected with the political organizations of Asiatic people, the nomads, and to give the same name to an organization of immigrant Germanic people from the North seems hardly suitable."[7]
  3. ^ Duczko (2004): "The word Rhos-Ros [in the Annales Bertiniani] is equal to the term ar-Rus of the Arab sources, and the name of the first state of the eastern Slavs, the Kievan State."[10]
  4. ^ '...the Arabic description of Eastern Europe used by some Eastern geographers. This source, called the "Anonymous Note" by the Polish orientalist Tadeusz Lewicki, dates back to 870–880.'[2]
  5. ^ A minority of scholars believe that the reference was to a king bearing the Old Norse name Håkan or Haakon, including Garipzanov (2006)[22] and Ostrowski (2018).[23]
  6. ^ Rybakov believed that the title "kagan" was borrowed by the Slavs as early as the sixth century from the Avar Khanate.
  7. ^ '[Tolochko] expressed skepticism about the existence of a Rus' khaganate at all, remarking that its location has been a "moving target" in the historiography, one that is "elusive and inconstant." To the question "Where was the Rus' khaganate located," his somewhat sardonic answer was only "in the pages of learned treatises."'[66]
  8. ^ Ostrowski summarised that Chacanus was the Swedish personal name Håkan and thus that the Annales Bertiniani cannot support the existence of a Rus' khagan or khaganate in 839, that the letter of Louis II the German of 871 is ambiguous and does not point clearly in favour or against Northmen khagan, that the earliest Arabic-Persian source (Ibn Khordadbeh) does not mention a Rus' khaqan and does not consider the Rus' to be an ethnos/tribe but merchants, and that the later Rus' sources from the 10th to the 12th centuries are too late and 'should not be used as evidence for a Rus' khagan or khaganate in the 830s.' He concluded: '[N]one of our sources testifies to (...) the existence of [a Rus' khaganate] in the first half of the ninth century'.[23]
  9. ^ For a detailed analysis of recent archaeological investigations at Holmgard, see Duczko 2004 102–104.
  10. ^ Archaeologists did not find traces of a settlement in Rostov prior to the 970s. Furthermore, the placename "Rostov" has a transparent Slavic etymology.[citation needed]
  11. ^ But see, e.g., Duczko 31–32, outlining theories that Rurik held the title of Khagan Rus'.[citation needed]

References

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  15. ^ a b c Halperin 2022, p. 19.
  16. ^ a b c d Ostrowski 2018, p. 311.
  17. ^ a b c Jones 2001, p. 249–250.
  18. ^ a b c d e Duczko 2004, p. 25.
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  26. ^ cagano veram non praelatum Avarum, non Gazanorum aut Nortmannorum nuncipari reperimus. Duczko 25.
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  28. ^ Dolger T. 59, No. 487.
  29. ^ Brøndsted 1965, p. 267–268.
  30. ^ Zuckerman 2000, p. 96.
  31. ^ Minorsky 1937, p. vii.
  32. ^ a b c Minorsky 1937, p. xiv–xix.
  33. ^ Laurent and Canard 490.
  34. ^ a b Franklin 1991, p. 3.
  35. ^ Franklin 1991, p. 3–30.
  36. ^ Franklin 1991, p. 17.
  37. ^ a b Franklin 1991, p. 18.
  38. ^ Franklin 1991, p. 26.
  39. ^ Franklin 1991, p. 23.
  40. ^ Franklin 1991, p. xvii.
  41. ^ Ostrowski 2018, p. 297–298, 310–311.
  42. ^ a b c Golden 1982, p. 87, 97.
  43. ^ Duczko 2004, p. 27.
  44. ^ a b Pritsak, Origin of Rus', passim.
  45. ^ a b Pritsak, Origins of Rus' 1:28, 171, 182.
  46. ^ Braychevskiy 1989, p. 54–55.
  47. ^ Noonan, "Silver Crisis" 1985 41–50
  48. ^ Noonan, "Fluctuations in Islamic Trade" 1992 passim
  49. ^ Franklin & Shepard 2014, p. 91–111.
  50. ^ Duczko 2004, p. 81.
  51. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ostrowski 2018, p. 292.
  52. ^ Ostrowski 2018, p. 293.
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  67. ^ Artamonov 271–290.
  68. ^ From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in Medieval Archaeology (One World Archaeology, 18) by David Austin Publisher: Routledge; New edition (June 27, 1997).pp. 285–286; Э. Мюле. К вопросу о начале Киева// Вопросы истории. – № 4 – 1989 – с. 118 – 127.
  69. ^ Yanin 105–106.
  70. ^ Noonan, The Monetary System of Kiev 1987, p. 396.
  71. ^ Zuckerman 1997, p. 65–66.
  72. ^ Новосельцев 397–408.
  73. ^ Мачинский 5–25.
  74. ^ A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures 266.
  75. ^ Brøndsted 1965, p. 67–68.
  76. ^ Мачинский 5–25; see also Duczko 31–32.
  77. ^ a b Dolukhanov 1996, p. 187.
  78. ^ Александров 1997, p. 222–224.
  79. ^ Vernadsky VII-4.
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  81. ^ Franklin & Shepard 2014, p. 33–36.
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  83. ^ "Kievan Rus". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19 February 2023. (...) the Rus, a Scandinavian people. (...) The annals claim they were Swedes, and this is possible, but their ethnicity has never been firmly established.
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  94. ^ Duczko 2004, p. 24–25.
  95. ^ Duczko 2004, p. 24.
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  97. ^ Golden 77–99; Duczko 30.
  98. ^ Новосельцев (Novoselʹcev)
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Bibliography

External links

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