Many peoples lived on the territory of Kievan Rus. Some left these lands, others dissolved among neighboring peoples, others became an integral part of the ethnic groups that formed later.

Ethnic uncertainty

According to the majority modern historians Initially, the population of the Kyiv lands was a tribal Slavic union under the command of the glades. During the 7th-9th centuries, the local population entered into close relations with the powerful neighboring state in the east - the Khazar Khaganate.
This fact is connected with the theory of the so-called Russian Khaganate, put forward by Stepan Gedeonov. According to her, in the territories of the alleged Kievan Rus, there lived mainly Russ, who are opposed to the Slavs. Proponents of this theory refer, in particular, to an Arabic source from the 9th century, which says: “They have a king called Khakan-Rus. They attack the Slavs, approach them on ships, land, take them prisoner, take them to Khazaran and Bulgar and sell them there.
According to one version, the Russian Khaganate owes its origin to a relative of the Khazar Khagan, who fled from Khazaria during the political unrest that broke out there. On the other hand, the Russian and Khazar Khaganates are one and the same. One way or another, the theory of the Khaganate assumes a predominantly non-Slavic population of the Kyiv lands. However, official historiography considers such assumptions groundless.
With the establishment of power by the Norman Rurik dynasty, the possessions of the new state centered in Kyiv spread over vast territories from the Wild Field in the south and east to Ladoga in the North and the Carpathians in the west. significantly diversified and ethnic composition the powers of the Rurikovich, which, in addition to the Slavs, included Finno-Ugric, Baltic and Turkic peoples.
In various sources in relation to residents Old Russian state the ethnonym "Rus" or "dew" appears. According to one version, the same Slavs could be called that. “Glades, even now called Rus,” we read from an ancient chronicler. According to another point of view, the Rus are the Norman conquerors who established dominance throughout the Dnieper region.
Historians, at least most of them, are unanimous in one thing: on the lands of Kievan Rus, until its collapse, the formation of ethnic groups, which we today know as the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples, was just taking place. At the beginning of the 17th century, the author of the Russian Chronicler thought of that era as a category of a single people: now all are called by the common name Rus'.

Brief History

From the second half of the 12th century, Kievan Rus gradually disintegrated into a number of small principalities. It all started with Polotsk and Novgorod, which refused to recognize the authority of Mstislav the Great, the son of Vladimir Monomakh. “The whole Russian land was torn apart,” the chronicler records under the year 1134.
During the XII-XIII centuries, the ongoing strife of the southern Russian principalities, the constant raids of nomads, and then the Tatar-Mongol conquest forced the population of the Kyiv lands to migrate north, to the calmer Rostov-Suzdal land. Some of them went to the lands of Veliky Novgorod, joining the ranks of the Slavs of the first, Krivitsko-Novgorod migration wave of the 10th century. Another part of the settlers went west, assimilating with the local Slavic peoples.
At the end of the 13th century, there was a rapid growth of the cities of northern Russia - Vladimir, Moscow, Yuryev-Polsky, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, Starodub-on-Klyazma, Dmitrov, Zvenigorod, Galich, Yaropolch-Zalessky rise. On December 6, 1240, Kyiv was ravaged by the Mongols, and three years later it was ruled by the Vladimir governors. By this time, the lands of the Dnieper region are noticeably empty. In 1299, the capital of the former Kievan Rus was deprived of the last attribute of power - the residence of the metropolitan. She was moved to Vladimir.

Ukrainians

Historians of Nezalezhnaya unanimously insist that Ukraine is the sole successor of the state of Kievan Rus, and Ukrainians are the natural heirs of the people who inhabited its lands. They, by definition, deny Russians any connection with the Kievan state, since those, in their opinion, are “descendants of the Finno-Ugric peoples, not Slavs.”
The terms "Rus" and "Russian" are considered by modern Ukrainian historiography to be usurped by the Moscow authorities, which rewrote the entire history of the Old Russian state. As evidence of succession modern Ukrainians These terms they call the ethnonym "Rusyn", which prevails in the famous "Russian Truth", princely charters and other sources.
“In the annals, a Rusyn or Rus is always a resident of the Dnieper region, and from the end of the 12th century, also of Western Ukraine. During the Kyiv medieval state Russia is the territory of modern Central and Northern, and from the end of the XII century, Western Ukraine, ”says Ukrainian historiography.
Among the most compelling arguments in favor of Ukraine-Rus, experts of Samostiynaya name one of the annalistic records under 1146: Russian land, to Kyiv."
According to many Russian historians, it is difficult to talk about any succession of Ukraine, when in 1240 the Kyiv land was literally scorched by the Tatar-Mongols, and the surviving people were driven into slavery. Russian historian Mikhail Pogodin, based on archaeological data, argued that Kyiv after the burning did not exist for a couple of centuries.
So, in the 1960s, a group of Soviet archaeologists found out that the cultural layers of ancient Kyiv almost completely break off when they reach the level of the 13th-15th centuries, and later resume again. Also, there are no chronicle sources that would confirm the political activity in the Kyiv lands of this period.
The mass disappearance of people from the territory of the Kiev region was confirmed by the Italian traveler Giovanni da Plano Carpini, who in 1245 went on a diplomatic mission to Karakoram.
“When we rode through their land, we found countless heads and bones of dead people lying on the field; for this city was very large and very crowded, and now it is reduced to almost nothing: there are hardly two hundred houses there, and they keep those people in the most difficult slavery. Moving from here, they devastated the whole of Russia with battles, ”we read in Carpini.
And who, then, again colonized these devastated lands? Here is what Ukrainian historian Lyudmila Litvinova writes on the basis of archaeological data on the population of the lower Dnieper region in the 12th - early 15th centuries: “Analysis of the craniological series of Mamai Surk, Blagovishchenko, Kamenka and Cairo showed a mixed anthropological composition and the presence of different morphological types. The formation of the settled population of the Lower Dnieper region took place on the basis of the Alanian, Slavic, Bulgarian, Sarmatian and nomadic components.

Russians

The most important proof of the ties of the modern Russian people with the population of Kievan Rus is the continuity of statehood. According to The Tale of Bygone Years, since 864, the first prince in Kyiv was Rurik's combatant Askold, who replaced the semi-legendary founder of the city of Kyi there. Until the collapse of Kievan Rus, the Rurikovichs did not let go of their power, they owned Kyiv even during the period of its desolation.
The largest Soviet anthropologist Valery Alekseev in the book "Human Races" wrote that the excavations of the ancient burial grounds of the meadows showed a strong dissimilarity of their skulls with the skulls modern inhabitants Kyiv region. “The skulls of the glades are more thin-walled, of medium size, like those of the northern Great Russians, and the skulls of modern central Ukrainians are massive, large, that is, the same as those of the inhabitants of the Carpathians, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic,” the scientist concluded.
Alekseev thus confirmed the version of some historians, in particular, Vasily Klyuchevsky, that part Kyiv Slavs, fleeing the Mongol invasion, fled to the Carpathians and Poland, settling as far as Krakow, and the other went north to Arkhangelsk.
Thus, the subsequent settlement of the Kyiv lands, in the first place, the Right-Bank Ukraine, was carried out by peoples who had not previously lived there. While the population of Novorossia, Crimea and Slobozhanshchina was replenished mainly by immigrants from Russia.

Belarusians

The entire southern part of White Russia was subordinate to Kyiv for a long time, for some time the Principality of Polotsk was also dependent on it. From the lands directly controlled by Kyiv in the first quarter of the 12th century, the Grodno principality was allocated for the secondary prince Vsevolod Davydovich, who lost his patrimony, and then remained at the disposal of his sons.
Who inhabited the Belarusian lands of Kievan Rus? First of all, they were Krivichi. In addition to them, the Belarusian historian Vaclav Lastovsky names the Drevlyans, Radimichi, Vyatichi and Dregovichi, noting that they were all “just branches of a single Kriv tribe”.
Krivichi, according to Lastovsky, became a key link in the education of the Belarusian people. All other influences - Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, according to the historian, only "eroded the purity of the ancient ethnos." According to this point of view, Belarusians, along with Ukrainians and Russians, may well claim to be called the descendants of the inhabitants of Kievan Rus.

Lithuanians

By 1285, Lithuania had become a strong centralized state that repeatedly encroached on the sovereignty of its eastern neighbors. Lithuanian raids, primarily on the Kyiv lands devastated by Batu, began already in the 30s of the XIII century.
In 1321, the Lithuanian prince Gediminas defeated the united army of the South Russian princes in the battle on the Irpen River, which led to the capture of Kyiv. Many neighboring cities, weakened by the Horde invasion, were forced to recognize the supreme power of the Lithuanian prince. In 1362 Kyiv was finally annexed to Lithuania.
Gediminas placed his governors and military garrisons here, later Lithuanian feudal lords rushed here in search of new estates. In droves, empty lands began to settle in and less well-born population from the outskirts of the Principality of Lithuania. Although not significant, but still an argument to consider the Lithuanians as one of the heirs of Kievan Rus.

Chudinov V.A.

Russians and Slavs to Kievan Rus
(results of epigraphic research)

For about a decade and a half, I have been conducting research on inscriptions on various objects that existed in remote historical times, obviously earlier than the time of the emergence of Kievan Rus, that is, before the 9th century AD. At the same time, I have not yet published the results of this study in historical terms, that is, as a general scheme of the historical process. Many of my acquaintances, including historians, insisted on the need for such a publication, despite the fact that the picture is just beginning to clear up and many of its details have so far been outlined only in general terms.

Naturally, only one science studies deep antiquity - archeology, which made its main achievements in the 19th century. Unfortunately, during the period of its formation, it followed those assumptions and recommendations established in historical science that seemed self-evident. Therefore, despite its seeming objectivity (the material found in the ground is always concrete and objective), the archaeologist is left with the interpretation of the data and dating. In addition, the archaeologist himself decides which objects he should excavate and which should not. All this leads to the fact that antiquities in Germany are considered Germanic, and in the Czech Republic - Celtic. I read the inscriptions on the figurines raised here and there, and I am convinced that before us are the cult objects of the Slavs. But since they were attributed as Germanic and Celtic back in the 19th century, when no one could read the runic or the very unusual Cyrillic alphabet on stone, my version is rejected as untenable. My result, on the other hand, is not needed at all by either the Germans or the Czechs. Finally, my result undermines the credibility of archeology in general, so that Russian archaeologists will also support their German colleagues in their rejection of the facts I have obtained.

Does not accept my results and philology. Again, in the 19th century, mainly through the efforts of the Germans, a new science was created - comparative linguistics. According to it, in antiquity, before the Bronze Age, there was an Indo-European language, from which all the others appeared, and, for example, Sanskrit or Lithuanian are closest to its middle, and, say, the Russian language is quite far away. From my point of view, there was no Indo-European ancestor language, but Russian was the common ancient language; Slavic languages ​​were its dialects, and the rest of the so-called "Indo-European" - Creole languages ​​based on it. In other words, many European peoples came to Russian lands with their Asian languages, absorbed Russian culture and the Russian language, and on their original maternal language base changed this Russian language so much that it became one of the "Indo-European".

Regarding the runica as an ancient sacred Slavic writing, the Russian Orthodox Church shows its dissatisfaction, because from its position, the first Slavic creators of the alphabet were Saints Cyril and Methodius. So in this regard, there can be no pre-Cyrillic Slavic writing by definition. From my point of view, Cyril took the already existing alphabet, the so-called "runes of the Sort", and brought them into line with the Greek letter, both by adding some Greek letters, and by switching to the Greek numerical values ​​of the letters, that is, to the Greek numeral. So the "runes of the Sort" became Christian. But by doing so, he accomplished a feat, allowing worship to be conducted in the Old Church Slavonic language.

AT time and place of origin of the Russian language. According to my research, the Russian language appears in the Middle Paleolithic - these are the most ancient Russian inscriptions. Let me remind you that this was approximately 200 thousand years before our days.

Here we are faced with the problem of the Middle Paleolithic. Until recently, it was believed that in the Middle Paleolithic, or in the Mousterian era, Neanderthals lived on the territory of Eurasia, who were later replaced by Cro-Magnons. However, excavations in the Shanidar cave (Iran) showed that the Cro-Magnons coexisted with the Neanderthals, and gradually knocked them out. It is natural to associate the appearance of the Russian language and Russian culture with the Cro-Magnons. However, both the Russian language and the temple culture of the Cro-Magnons show a very high degree of development, despite the sudden appearance of the Cro-Magnons in Eurasia. From this fact it follows that this culture did not take shape in Eurasia at all, but was transferred here from another continent.

America turned out to be such a different continent. Indeed, the oldest inscription in Russian is on a very small figurine from Idaho. But this discovery was accidental, made back in the 19th century, when US archeology was just getting started. It was found in sedimentary rocks (sand) at a very great depth (according to the calculations of the Americans - at a depth of 90 m) under about a five-meter layer of volcanic rocks. This suggests that in the era of the Mousterians, the Cro-Magnons lived there along the river valleys, but were forced to leave them when a massive volcanic eruption began. Lava flooded forests and river valleys, making them uninhabitable. I had to move to Eurasia along the then existing Bering Isthmus.

The Russian language of the text on the American figurine is very poor in terms of syntax, which reflects a lower stage of its development compared to the Eurasian one; however, the writing in the runes of the Sort had already developed by this point. Further research in this direction, which is the most interesting for us, runs into a very powerful obstacle: the need to drill a multi-meter layer of volcanic rocks before conducting archaeological research. But if underwater archeology has already taken shape, then subcortical archeology, which combines geological and archaeological methods of research, does not yet exist today. This is a matter of the distant future, requiring large material costs.

P natural zone of Russian settlement. Each nation occupies its own ecological niche, that is, its own natural habitat. In scientific words, this idea was expressed by the remarkable domestic ethnographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov: an ethnos is a product of a certain biogeocenosis. Speaking of Russians, this zone can be defined quite unambiguously: riverbeds in forests of temperate latitudes.

Each component of this formula needs an explanation. Riverbeds are meant in their middle course. It is not so much about the availability of channels of drinking and technical water in any quantities among residents, but about a wonderful vehicle. The word "water" comes from the verb "to drive", that is, to move any cargo and move yourself. In summer you can swim along the river, in winter you can move on the ice and climb into the most remote places. In this regard, nothing can compare with riverbeds.

But the upper reaches of the rivers flowing from springs are usually small streams in dense forests. But the impenetrable thickets were considered among the Russians (this is especially evident in Russian fairy tales) as a hostile environment, “the other world”, from which there is no return. Therefore, people did not settle at the sources. They did not settle in the river mouths, where the rivers overflow, making the area swampy and unhealthy. Moreover, they did not settle on the coast of the seas, where a different type of ethnic group was formed - the Pomors. It is possible that the words "channel" and "Russian" are close in meaning. In other words, Russia is local zones of river basins, zones of residence along riverbeds. And the word "Rus" we meet in all places of residence of the Cro-Magnons.

As for the forest, the mixed forest is a unique, inimitable environment. It is not only rich in plants and animals, which makes it possible to engage in gathering and hunting, but the air in it is unusually healing, and wood and animal bones provide wonderful building and craft material. The forest is also a defense against enemies, where you can hide behind the nearest tree. It is impossible to move in a straight line in the forest, the forest has limited visibility, you can get lost in the forest, and all its fragments are not alike. All this leaves its mark on the ethnic psychology of the forest inhabitants, who become quirky, flexible, quick-witted, but also impatient. And the combination of such heterogeneous factors as forest and river enhances the ingenuity of the inhabitants of these places.

And vice versa - living in the steppe, in open river valleys, in the open spaces of the sea, among endless sand dunes - adapts people to a certain monotony and patience. At the same time, the straightforwardness of movement affects their character, it becomes direct, uncompromising. Here they get used to obvious domination and submission. There is nowhere to run away in open areas - everything is visible and everything is achievable for those who have good means of transportation (horses, camels, boats).

By temperate latitudes is meant an area where it is not very hot in summer and not too cold in winter. With the onset of the glacier, temperate latitudes shift far south, and the Russians find themselves in the south of present-day France, in the region of Palestine, or even Yemen and Egypt. Conversely, when the subpolar zone is heated by warm sea currents, temperate latitudes end up in the territory of Hyperborea, which lies at the North Pole. The Russians are moving there. Thus, the migration of Russians across the territory of Eurasia is due to the climatic factor.

The foregoing does not mean that other natural areas were not available to the Russians (Cro-Magnons). Having created a highly developed civilization, they were able to master the forest-steppes, and in some cases the steppes, as well as the coast along the sea, becoming atypical steppes and atypical coast-dwellers.

X ram civilization. From the position of the Greeks and Romans, the Germans and Celts who attacked them were barbarians, the Slavs were servants and slaves, and all other peoples were savages. They considered themselves to be civilized peoples. Although in modern times the concept of barbarians had to be abandoned (for the Germans, French and British were precisely the descendants of those same barbarians), the division of peoples into civilized and uncivilized was preserved, but in a different form: into those with states and into tribes.

According to modern historiography, it is believed that all peoples initially had a tribal system. Thus, the starting conditions for all were, as it were, equal. Then city-states appeared, that is, the state did not exceed the size of the city and its nearest agricultural district (polis and chorus). For the first time this allegedly happened among the ancient Greeks. Then the cities unite, and thus the size of the state increases. Ancient Rome, starting with the size of the city, gradually subjugated all of Italy, and then Gaul and Hellas, and became the largest European state. Thus, Greece and Rome were the basis of Western civilization.

According to my concept, if the Russians had tribes, then at a very early stage of development, still on the American continent. They arrived in Eurasia already quite civilized, standing at a very high level of development. But they did not have a state as such. The system that they had, I called the temple.

I noted above that the concepts of domination and subordination, on which the state structure is based, are characteristic of the inhabitants of open spaces, for example, steppes. That is why the most striking state relations are characteristic of eastern despotisms, say, Persia. But they are alien to the inhabitants of mixed forests in river basins. Therefore, as I believe, the state system was imposed on the Russians by the Asiatic steppes who came to their lands.

It is possible to compare the temple system with the state one in at least several respects. So, in the temple system, the largest, most beautiful and symbolic building is the temple in which the deity lives. On the contrary, under the state system, the largest, most beautiful and iconic building is the palace, in which the ruler lives; the latter, due to the specifics state power, to some extent deified. Most important decisions in the temple system, a collegium of priests takes over, several times asking for the decision of the gods; under the state system, the decision is made by the ruler and his associates by virtue of their understanding. But the main difference lies in the psychology of the inhabitants. Under the temple system, each member of society lives according to divine plans; God's punishment keeps him from crimes. God sees all actions, even if none of the people knows about them. On the contrary, under the state system, people are punished for misconduct, but if they see them, or if they can record traces of the crime. But even in this case, punishment can be avoided if you hire a clever lawyer in court. Therefore, if you contrive to leave almost no traces, and in case of detention, put up a whole team of lawyers against the accusers, then you can commit any crimes. At the same time, conscience is silent - these are the features of the state structure.

For the last two centuries, the state system has gradually given way to the capitalist system, that is, the power of money. So far, however, billionaires are trying not to advertise their power and not to buy palaces, yachts and luxury cars (only short-sighted financiers do this), but to buy other people's enterprises.

Under the temple system, all social functions are concentrated in temples, and not in ministries. More details about them will be discussed below. I will only note one thing: we know Slavic churches only from the so-called “Ancient Russia” (a strange phrase denoting the first centuries of Russian statehood), when the princely power won and tried to do everything possible to eradicate the remnants of the temple system.

R religion of Russia. Modern Christians call all ancient religions "pagan", that is, "ethnic" (from the word "language" - "people") and prove that paganism was not only lower than Christianity, but also to a certain extent hostile to it. In fact, everything was just the opposite.

The first Russian deity was the goddess Makosh. It was true monotheism, that is, there was no divine trinity. She was the Great Mother, whose zoomorphic appearance was at first a mammoth. Later, a polar bear became her zoomorphic hypostasis, and she gradually began to transfer her divine functions to her priests and priestesses. But even at the same time, she was revered as the first, and in a sense, the only Russian goddess, so that monotheism was preserved, for all Russian gods were in a certain sense her children. Therefore, it is quite clear that it was she who turned out to be strange and incomprehensible among the first Russian princes. In modern mythological dictionaries, it is about Makosh that most of the tales are reported, and researchers do not know her sacred name.

Later, her priestesses and priests were deified. The first of the new gods were Mara - the goddess of disease and death, and then the underworld, and Rod - the god of craft, construction and the creator of human destiny, and then the entire visible world. From the temples of Mokosh, Rod Mary, a temple complex arose, where the inner part was the temple of Makoshi, the outer part was the temple of Rod, and the underground part was the temple of Mary.

Then the god Veles appears, associated with the cult of the Moon, and the god Svarog, associated with the cult of the Sun. They, too, are represented in the Makosh temple by their stones. But the cult of the god Yar develops quite independently, whose name is pronounced by the southern Slavs as Ar. Although he is not represented in the temple of Mokosh by a special stone, his descendants received the names "arias" in mythology.

Gradually, all the new priests and priestesses were deified, so that over time the number of Slavic deities reached about fifty. At the same time, it is curious to note that the virgin Mary, who then did not and could not have children, acted as the priestess of the temple of Mary. That is, Mariinism, as a step between paganism and Christianity, developed on the basis of the Russian religion, as it is written on the walls of the Roman catacombs and on a number of icons. And as the “Magi” who were present at the birth of Jesus Christ, the Slavic gods Makosh (Melchior), Rod (Caspar) and Perun (Balthazar) appeared. So say the stained glass windows of the Cologne Cathedral. In other words, Christianity was a branch of Russian paganism, and the upbringing of Christ was most of all done by his maternal grandmother, the goddess Zhiva, as it is written on a number of Christian icons. It is clear that it was the Russian version of Christianity, namely Orthodoxy, that turned out to be closest to the original Russian religion. It was later, after Nikon's reform, that Russian Orthodoxy began to fit in with the Byzantine one.

R ol temples. Under the temple system, temples played an enormous social role, far beyond the satisfaction of purely religious needs. So, the temple of Mokosh monitored the reproduction of the population, and provided an opportunity for unmarried men to have children, acting as a temple of love and having priestesses of love. The priestess who entered into communication transferred the man's donations for the needs of the temple, ceased to be a priestess, however, as a rule, she married very successfully. Thus, the priests and priestesses of the Mokosh temple monitored the demographic situation and contributed in various ways to population growth. Later, these functions were transferred to the priestess, and then to the goddess Kubele (in Phrygia she was called Cybele and was later borrowed by the Romans in their pantheon), and then to the god Kupala. Christians combined with the day of Kupala the feast of John the Baptist. On the night of Ivan Kupala, after being cleansed by fire (jumping over the fire) and water (mass bathing in the river), persons of both sexes who were not married, but who wanted to have children, had the opportunity to enter into an alliance, and this fleeting contact was not at all considered a sin .

Another function of the Mokosh temple was healing; patients were treated here. Mokosh stones, which have an even and pleasant biofield for a person, contributed to the healing of various diseases. The third function is the creation of works visual arts and the most striking anthropomorphic and zoomorphic hypostases of the gods. The fourth function is to be libraries and museums.

The temple of Mary also turned out to be very loaded with functions. Psychotherapy of the sick and dying took place here, since Mara was not only the goddess of illness and death, but also the goddess of the underworld, where all the dead were to receive a new body, their own, but young and healthy. Another function is the protection of natural resources; not a single shooting or catching of animals could be carried out without a corresponding permit. The temple of Mary gave it in the form of a wand, where a game animal was depicted. At the same time, the drawn number of animal heads corresponded to the allowed number of individuals. In some cases, reliefs or sculptural figures of animals were made.

For obtaining permission from the temple of Mary, the hunters were required to share with him part of the booty. From this follows the next function of the temple of Mary - the function of social security. The sick, old, crippled, poor inhabitants of Russia received tokens of various contents from the temple: for protection, or for food, and when they handed over this token with a hole in the middle to the temple, they received what was promised. The bone tokens themselves were very reminiscent of later metal money. As a matter of fact, they were money (or, rather, bills), but not for universal, but for specialized purposes.

The Temple of Rod was in charge of predicting the fate of a person by the location of the planets, which is why its territory turned first into an astrological, and then into an astronomical platform. It was here that the first maps of the starry sky arose and the corresponding constellations were named and marked on the stones. In other words, the Temple of the Family was a kind of forerunner of the Academy of Sciences.

But no less important is the purely industrial role of the temple of the Family. It was here, in his workshops, that all the tools of labor were made, from stone axes and hammers, and ending with metal tools of jewelers or peasants. The temple marked all its products with inscriptions: WORKSHOP OF THE TEMPLE OF THE KIND. In this sense, the temple of the Family was the first plants and factories.

The Temple of Rod was also in charge of construction. Temples were designed here by talented architects, rocks were processed here, supplying pillars and beams for the future construction site, superintendents and experienced craftsmen were grown here, inscriptions were applied on stones here. On all the remains of the Paleolithic and later buildings, you can find the same words: WORKSHOP OF THE TEMPLE OF THE KIND.

Temples of later deities played a less serious role. For example, in the temple of Svarog, observations of the Sun were carried out - it was a prototype of a solar observatory. It is clear that the temple civilization reached very significant heights in its development, which we can learn about only indirectly. So the maps of the Turkish admiral Piri Reis (1613) contained images not only of Europe (by the way, covered with ice), but also of Antarctica (and here, on the contrary, partially freed from ice), copied from some ancient original. Judging by the details of the map, modern researchers attribute the prototype of this document to the period before the melting of the glacier. In other words, the level of cartography of the Upper Paleolithic among Russians during the temple civilization did not differ from the modern one.

And history in the last phase of the Middle Paleolithic. At the end of the Middle Paleolithic, the Cro-Magnons, that is, the inhabitants of Russia, moved from the American continent to Eurasia, capturing the very south of the Mediterranean. On the territory of present-day Israel, a statuette of a very stout woman was found, from the Russian inscription on which it followed that between men and women of that time there was a gender division of labor and gender inequality. Namely: the men were engaged in hunting, but no matter how successful it was, fresh or relatively spoiled meat was enough for only five days, after which the meat became unfit for consumption. Therefore, the hunters could not stock up on food for a long time and often went hungry.

Women, on the contrary, collected cereals that could be stored for a long time. Therefore, they had food every day and in large quantities. A large consumption of flour led to obesity. Thus, women were "rich", men - "poor". Perhaps this circumstance makes it possible to understand the dominance of women in the families of that period, that is, matriarchy. – On the other hand, this period is the least studied.

And history in the Upper Paleolithic. In the Upper Paleolithic (30-10 thousand years BC), the Russians settled all of Eurasia, setting up a huge number of open temples containing earthen ramparts and stones. In the first ten millennium it was warm, people walked almost without clothes, and, of course, lived in temperate latitudes. In the second ten millennium, it got colder and the last, Würm (Valdai) glaciation began. Thanks to excellent construction techniques, the presence of magnificent models of fur clothes and a reasonable organization of life, it was possible to survive the severe frosts that lasted at least two thousand years. However, the Russians survived.

Temples had to be moved to caves. They have survived to this day in the south of France, in the Dordogne department, in the Weser river valley. The area itself was called Runova Rus; the more northern part (present-day Germany) - Porunova Rus, later - Perunova Rus. There are at least several thousand inscriptions of this time, not only in France, but also in Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia; I have read over a hundred. Each inscription reveals some new facet of the life of that time.

And history in the Mesolithic. After the melting of the glacier in the first two millennia, the center of Europe is not very suitable for habitation: it is still very cold and humid, and melt water stagnates all around. The Russians are mostly in the south, perhaps in Arabia and Egypt. Data for this period, unfortunately, is the least.

And history in the neolithic. As is known, in the Neolithic there was an economic revolution, a transition from an appropriating to a producing economy. At the same time, the emergence of agriculture, which grew out of gathering, again elevates women. During this period, the cult of a new priestess, later the goddess - the Virgin, takes shape.

The cult of the Virgin spreads along with those Asiatic tribes that come into contact with the Russians, but then go to the south of Asia - along with the Indians and Persians. However, with them it colors the entire pantheon of gods. The good gods of the Indians begin to be called "devas." Among the Persians, on the other hand, "devas" are evil gods. The veneration of the Virgin is celebrated in Scandinavia and the Balkans.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasic discovered the early Neolithic Vinca culture in the Balkans (18 km south of Belgrade). Most of all, the goddess Deva was revered there, whose name was transformed into the word Zhiva. The Balkans themselves became known as Zhivina Rus. Much later, in the Iron Age, when the Hellenes came to the Balkans, they made the Virgin their main god, but replaced the female hypostasis with a male one and began to pronounce it a little differently, Zeus (Zeus). The zone of Zhivina Rus also included the Apennines. There, in the Age of Iron, the goddess Virgo becomes the god Divas, the most revered god of antiquity. The same name is also understood as "God in general" (Deus). Among Christians, Div is already understood as the antipode of the Creator Jehovah, as the Devil. In Judea, the name of the Virgin is transformed into the name of the first woman, Eve. Thus, in the early Neolithic, the cult of the Virgin is formed and Zhivina Rus appears as its center.

After the economic revolution in the late Neolithic, a religious revolution took place, associated with the transition from the lunar calendar and moon gods to the solar calendar and sun gods. The sun god is the most revered lunar calendar Yar (Yarilo), who is revered as the son of Veles, the god of the moon. The falcon becomes its zoomorphic hypostasis. As the Egyptians, who entered the culture of Russia, believed, the falcon had the Moon with one eye, the Sun with the other. In other words, unlike pure moon worshipers, Yar's worshipers worshiped both the Moon and the Sun.

The cult of Yar is formed much to the south of the Balkans - in North Africa and Arabia. There, the name Yara is pronounced as Ar. In Egypt, this name is pronounced in reverse as Ra; Ra is, as one would expect, the god of the Sun. The peninsula to the east of Egypt begins to be called "Arova Rus", or, in the "aka" pronunciation, "Arava Rus", or simply "Arabia". The inhabitants of Arova Rus begin to be called "Arabs". The inhabitants of Egypt seem to the Russians "smoky", or, briefly, "Copts" (the Koptevo district also exists in modern Moscow). In other words, the Asian tribes that came to the Russian Arova lands and adopted Russian culture become Arabs and Copts.

To the east, in Persia and India, the worshipers of Ar begin to be called "Aryans". Thus, some peoples got their name from religion.

The same can be said about the Slavs. Admirers of the Moon (and the symbol of the Moon is a crescent moon) began to be called "sickles", or, in a voiced form, "Serbs". Admirers of the solar circle (“hora” or “bark”, the word “crown” is formed from the last root) received the name “Croats”. Admirers of both the Moon and the Sun began to call themselves according to the zoomorphic hypostasis of Yar - "Falconers". Later, this name began to be reduced due to the reduction of vowels, forming the words "Skolovians", "Slavs" and "Slavs".

Serbian archaeologist Lubomir Klyakic found a stone in the form of a bird in the village of Jovanitsa in the Balkans. Among many other inscriptions, I managed to read the ethnonym "Sokolovians" on it. Thus, the first name or protonym of the Slavs was documented. Later, believers in the Moon and the Sun of Russians formed Slavic ethnic groups with the name "Sklavins" and "Slovenes"; from the last name, Slovenes, Slovaks (who still call themselves “Slovenes”) and Novgorod Slovenes were formed. And the Slavs first settled in Greece, later they moved to the Baltic Sea, which in those days was called the “Jara Sea”. In honor of Yar (Ara), its capital, the city of Arkona (“kon Ara”), is laid on the island of Rügen in the Yar Sea.

And History in the Bronze Age. This period is characterized not so much by the appearance of bronze as by bringing the stone industry to gigantic forms, which have received the name of megaliths in science. The combined temples of Mokosh - Sort - Mary by this moment are growing in area and receive first wooden pillars, becoming Woodenhenges, and then stone pillars, turning into Stonenjis. In particular, such a stone henge was erected in Salisbury (Great Britain), as well as in a number of other places in Europe (about 20 temples). Unfortunately, since in the memory of the British and French the oldest known ethnic groups on their territory were Celtic, all Russian structures received the Celtic names of menhirs (pillars), cromlechs (vertical stone slabs in a circle) and dolmens (stone tombs). Later, for reasons that are not entirely clear, in the Late Bronze Age, Britain is overrun by wild Iberian tribes.

For the more southern regions, the reason for the migration of many tribes from Asia is quite understandable: the general warming of the climate, which affected Asia more than Europe. First of all, the Great Asian River dries up, flowing south of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, from which we today in some areas we see a dried-up channel (Uzboi), then the steppes once rich in grass become semi-desert and desert. Europe, Arabia and even the north of Africa are becoming the New World for the settlers. Semitic tribes invade Mesopotamia, Arabia and northern Africa, pushing the Russians north. When the forests retreat far to the north, the Russians rush after them. They leave Egypt, Palestine and Judea. Russian Yarova Rus ceases to exist.

In Crete, as I managed to read the inscriptions on the Cretan seals, made in Cretan hieroglyphic writing, there was Shchebetsk Rus, which can be understood as Ship Rus. In Greece lived "goraki" (highlanders); from this name arose first the word "Graci", and then "Greeks", and "Sklavins", probably inhabitants of the plains. They all spoke Russian. However, already in the Late Bronze Age, tribes of the Hellenes - Achaeans, Dorians, residents of Boeotia, etc. began to move here from Asia. They plunged into Russian culture and borrowed Russian writing.

AT late era bronze, the cult of the Slavic god of the Sun develops according to the solar calendar - the cult of the god Svarog. The religion of the Slavs is divided into lunar, Korovichi, and solar, Svarozhichi.

And history in antiquity. Antiquity turned out to be the most difficult period for Russia in relation to the invasion of alien tribes from Asia. The Celts, Hellenes, Latins, Germans invaded Western Europe, and gradually settled on the territory of Russia. To protect its territory in the West, Moscow decided to create a powerful defensive system by sending two groups of troops to Northern Italy. One group was sent from the southern Russian steppes, these are the Scythians. However, the steppes turned out to be not the best warriors, who, moreover, liked to drink beer and sometimes used drugs (coca juice). Another group was formed from the Krivichi (inhabitants of Smolensk) and Polochans (inhabitants of Polotsk); this expeditionary force, having retired from Russia, began to be called "and those Russians", or, "Etruscans". They passed through Misia (present-day Romania) and Thrace (present-day Bulgaria) and went to Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), where they fought very strong and bloody battles with the enemy. Having mastered Asia Minor, they gradually occupied Crete and Cyprus, and then the island of Corsica, from where they landed in Northern Italy.

Fortified on this part of the land, the inhabitants of the city of Cherveteri (Chervonny Etra) founded the city of Mir, as was usual with the Russians (later, the city of almost the same name Vladimir was founded in the north of Russia). However, when written from right to left, the city's name was read as Rome. For a while, the foundation of Rome as a Russian city justified itself. However, over time, the number of representatives of Latin and other tribes increased in this city, their percentage in relation to the Russians increased, and, in the end, Rome with its army left the subordination of the Etruscans. By this time, the Etruscans had already largely ceased to depend on Moscow, and overestimated their strength. Later, when Rome was strong, they became its easy prey.

In parallel, the Hellenes landed in the Balkans, who gradually conquered and Hellenized the Russian lands. However, in Moesia, Thrace, Phrygia (part of Asia Minor), Asia (this was the name of the part of Asia Minor conquered by the Etruscans) they spoke and wrote in Russian. At the same time, the farther from the original Russia, the more the repertoire of letters and their spelling differed from the proto-Cyrillic alphabet (runes of the Sort).

In northern Europe, Scandinavia, the Kola (Round) Peninsula, the island of Thule, lying to the north of it and now sunken, and the coast of the Yar Sea formed White Russia. The tribes of Turkic origin (turkir) who came here, nicknamed by the Slavs “lords-people” (Germans) and led by the leader Odin (later deified), occupied the Jutland peninsula. The local Russian population probably imposed a tribute on them, which is why they began to be called "dans" (Danes). Gradually, the Turks were given, moon worshipers, who wore the symbol of the moon, the moon sickle as horns on their helmets, that is, the Vikings, who switched to broken Russian, conquered large lands to the south from the Slavs; however, this whole process is not studied by modern ancient historiography. Only that stage falls into her field of vision, when Latinized Rome, having accepted all the achievements of the Russian civilization in the form of the Etruscans, begins to be subjected to raids by the barbarians "Gauls" (roosters) of the Celts and no less barbarians of the "people-masters" (Germans). As for the local population, the Sklavins (lunar and sun worshipers) and Serbs (moon worshipers), the Romans willingly took them prisoner, and the name of the former began to be understood as “slaves” (sclavi), and the name of the latter as “servants” (servi ). With regard to Russians and Slavs, the term "barbarians" was never used, for they were teachers of the Romans and Hellenes.

Thus, late antiquity, which came to the attention of historiography, appears as the conquest of the Russian and Slavic lands in southern Europe by the Latins and Greeks, and the Slavic lands in the north of Europe by the Germans and Celts. By this time, Arabia, Palestine and North Africa had been lost to the Russians (Semitic tribes ousted the Russians from there back in the Bronze Age), but the center of Europe was still occupied by the Veneti (who founded Vienna in the north and Venetia, that is, Venice, in the south), Rets, Illyricians, Sklavins, Slovaks and other Slavs, that is, Russians who became independent tribes in these provinces of Russia. Late antiquity and the early Middle Ages is the transition of Asian newcomers who spoke vulgar, distorted Russian (Latin, Greek, Celtic, Germanic - it was these dialects of the Russian language in the 19th century that became the basis for creating the myth of a single "Indo-European" language), from tribal to a state system based on violence and intimidation. The Russians and Slavs still had a temple system based on faith and moral values.

During the greatest conquests of the Romans, Gaius Julius Caesar banned writing in Slavic languages and Slavic script. Henceforth, the historiography of Europe became the historiography of the conquerors, the historiography of their struggle among themselves. The Slavs were gradually expelled not only from antiquity, but also from all previous history. Christianity that appeared as a branch of Slavic paganism was given to another conquerors - the Semites, who were included in the Roman Empire. All traces of the former history of the Slavs tried, as far as possible, to erase. However, in opposition to this order, Slavic creativity of an implicit form is developing - inscribing text in Russian into drawings, the so-called cryptopictography, which captured the whole of Europe.

And medieval history. The Germans were stronger than Rome; and although by this time the troops of the descendants of the newcomers were seriously reinforced by the Slavs, the Western Roman Empire fell. Numerous kingdoms of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" arose on its ruins. The Germanic tribes also took possession of “Holy Russia”, in the pronunciation of the Germans “Svenskaya Rus” or “Svenskaya” - this is how Sweden is now called. However, the German onslaught to the east (Drang nach Osten) was opposed by the Russians from Wagria, the Slavic lands of the Yar Sea; in a distorted Germanic pronunciation, the inhabitants of Vagria began to be called Varangians. The capital of Vagria was the city of Arkona on the island of Rügen, where the temple of Rod is located, as well as a pillar with four faces, on which four Slavic gods were depicted, Makosh, Rod, Veles and Perun. Such a sacred image among the Slavs was called a saint. Later, the Germans, not understanding Slavic mythology, began to call the temple of Rod the temple of Svyatovid (the Slavs never had such a god), and the pillar-svyatovid was presented as the god Svyatovid with one body and four heads. There was a temple of the Family in the city of Rets Retre, which the Germans began to consider the temple of the "spirit of the Family" - Radegast.

Vagria was considered Russia of the Varangian Sea (as the Yar Sea was now called), the area around it was called Porus (by analogy with the Dnieper, Hanging, etc.). If at first Porusie included Slavic lands, then over time, they were conquered one by one by the Germans (Franks, Saxons and others). Barbarian states (kingdoms) arose on the conquered Slavic lands. Russian word“crown” (solar prominences forming a large circle, cor-onu) in the barbarian Germanic languages ​​\u200b\u200bturned into the words Krone, Krunur, and the word “king” (“crowned”, “crowned”) began to be erected to the name Charles (the Great), although the name itself comes from the same Russian word. Wagria remained Russian until the 16th century, which later gave reason to consider this Rus or Ruthenia German or even Scandinavian, and, thanks to the Norman theory in historiography, they began to consider the first Russian Vagrian princes - Ivan Rurik, Akaki Truvor and their father Immanuel Sineus, princes Germanic. By this time, Wagria was waging an unequal struggle with the conquerors at sea, defending, thanks to her excellent fleet, dominance at sea and robbing alien ships; but from the point of view of the Germans, the Varangians were pirates and robbers.

The sacred city of the Sun of the Slavs, Thessalonica, where the Tsar Temple of the Slavs was located, was gradually conquered by the Hellenes and renamed Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki, and the country of the Goraks (highlanders) Greece itself, after Hellenization, and then joining the Roman state, became Byzantium. But the Byzantine emperors still remembered Russian origin not only the Tsar Temple and Tsar Grad (built up and renamed by the conquerors into the city of Constantine), but throughout Greece, so they paid tribute to the Russian princes, but inaccurately, so the Russians had to occasionally raid. But in front of Prince Svyatoslav, who was sitting in a boat in a simple shirt, the emperor of Byzantium stood at attention, which cannot be explained by any Russian raids, but solely by an understanding of who was the true owner southern Europe.

Nevertheless, Byzantium contributed to the struggle against Russia of the steppes surrounding Russia. Unfortunately, the displacement of Russia gradually began from the Caucasus, where the Colchians and other Kartvelian tribes began to occupy Mountain Russia (Gorusia or Georgia), as well as from Lozova Rus, which the Hellenes began to call Taurida or Taurica, and later Turks - Crimea. Zhivina Rus was renamed by the Turks into the Balkans.

In the conditions of the displacement of the Russians from their ancestral lands, Russia had to make several very big sacrifices: to move from the temple to state structure; make the leader of the army (voivode) the ruler (prince) and accept the Judaized and Hellenized version of Christianity, abandoning the traditional Russian religion. This saved Russia from the western invasion of the former Turks who became Germans, but did not save from the second wave of the Turkic invasion, the so-called Tatar-Mongols. And although the occupation of Russia by a new wave of Turks lasted for about three centuries (in Western Europe, the German Turks occupied Russia for at least a thousand years, after which they finally conquered it), it did not become the conquest of Russia. The third wave of the Turkic invasion, the Seljuk Turks and the Ottoman Turks, occupied the Slavs of Asia Minor, parts of the Caucasus, Crimea and the Danube regions.

And renaissance history. The very name "Renaissance" is a powerful Western myth that Western Europe allegedly restored the cultural dominance it had in the past. In fact, there was a second act of ousting Russia - this time from the history of world culture. The geniuses of this era worked on two fronts: they created part of their works on their own behalf, the other part was addressed to Latin Rome and Hellenic Greece that did not exist in Europe. Thus, the memory of Russian Rome and the Russian "Graco-Slavinian power" of Greece was completely lost. True, they did it as best they could, and traces of this falsification are visible to an unbiased researcher.

Between Western Europe and Russia, Rus-Lithuania is formed, which is gradually imbued with Western ideology, expanding the sphere of influence of the Catholic Church and even attacking Muscovy. Its unification with Poland into the Commonwealth created a real threat to the existence of Rus-Muscovy. As in the case of Rome, this Slavic state, unfortunately, began to pursue non-Slavic interests.

In Russia, this period corresponded to the strengthening of the Rurikovichs, who were engaged in the gradual destruction of the traces of previous Russia, in order to prove that their political system was much better than the priestly government under the temple system, and their modern version of Christianity, or, more precisely, dual faith, was better than both the previous Russian faith and contemporary Catholicism.

And history of modern times. Here, capitalist relations are gaining momentum, many German lands manage to merge into a single state of Germany. Germanization of the Venets, Rets and others Slavic peoples and the inclusion of some Slavic countries led to the formation of Austria-Hungary in the center of Europe, which in the twentieth century split into Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Western Europe managed to intervene in the affairs of Muscovy and establish the Romanov dynasty, dependent on Europe, where not only the relatives of Russian monarchs, but sometimes the Russian emperors themselves were purebred Germans. Another thing is that on the throne of Russia they were forced, to one degree or another, to be guided by the interests of the Russians.

In the 19th century, Germany began to lead in science, including historiography. The head of the German historical school, archaeologist Gustav Kossinna, declares that Europe belongs to those who came to it first, and according to his teachings, the Germans were the first to come here. The Germans also include the Celts, and the French believe that there could be no one in Europe before the Celts. The whole history of North Africa is reduced to the history of Egypt, the history of southern Europe to the Jews, Greeks and Latins, the history of northern Europe to the history of the Germans and Celts. Any information about the presence of Slavs in all periods except the Middle Ages is eliminated from historical sources.

Due to the predominance of the Slavic population in Germany, the anthropological features of the descendants of the Turks (with small and crooked legs, undersized, high cheekbones, with epicanthus of the upper eyelids, brown-eyed and black-haired) begin to be replaced by the features of the Slavs (long-legged, blue-eyed, with a European cut of eyes, fair-haired), which gives the German romantics the opportunity to create the German "cult of the blond beast", the mythical German warrior of the "Nordic race". In the 20th century, fascist racism arose on this basis.

However, Russia under the Romanovs, contrary to the German plan, is expanding territorially, and to XIX century already occupies a vast territory of Eurasia, including Alaska, that is, it approximately restores its Paleolithic territory (but without Western Europe and eastern North America). Over the 18th-19th centuries, it strengthens militarily so much that it defeats the most powerful country of that time, Turkey, and a little earlier - the country No. 2 militarily - Sweden, and becomes the "gendarme of Europe". She regains the Crimea, the Caucasus, and a number of European lands. Culturally, it is assimilating European science and art and creating music, painting and literature of such a level that it is now studied all over the world.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russia showed unprecedented rates of economic development, threatening to become a world leader in all respects in the first third of the 20th century. This is contrary to the historical aspirations of Germany, which has just united and was able to eliminate its semi-Slavic rival Austria-Hungary. Germany goes to war with Russia, and the German General Staff makes a brilliant move by funding the Bolsheviks in Russia. As a result of the agitation of the Bolsheviks, the Russian army was destroyed, a revolution took place in Russia, and Germany occupied Ukraine. The former colony of England, the United States of North America, little known in Europe, has taken the first place in the world.

And recent history. Europe after the First World War was satisfied: in Russia, the red terror of the ultra-left dominates, in Germany the ultra-right came to power, in the USA, due to overproduction, an economic crisis erupted. Because of the “fight against the kulaks”, famine broke out in Russia, and then a period of repression began. Russia, contrary to the international ban, helped Germany train military personnel and test new military equipment. This made the task easier: Germany had to destroy Russia once and for all, so the rest of the Europeans helped Germany in military preparations. True, the Second World War began with the absorption of a number of European countries by Germany, but this, as they say, is a cost.

Although Germany attacked Russia, the result was unexpected. At the cost of colossal losses, Russia not only survived, but occupied Germany and a number of other countries in the course of their liberation from German troops. Almost half a century of diplomacy in Western Europe, subversive ideological centers and a lot of money were spent on eliminating the consequences of these conquests. This was helped by the incompetent Soviet leadership, which could not be otherwise, since Stalin, fearing assassination attempts, eliminated all thinking people from it. The least talented and responsible of them, N.S. Khrushchev, withdrew our troops from the key country of the West - Austria, where they were located for about ten years after the war, did not eliminate the consequences, but debunked the personality cult of I.V. Stalin, having quarreled with China, profaned the ideas of communism, setting a specific date for its construction in the complete absence of appropriate resources, gave Crimea to Ukraine, allowed the activities of the fifth column of the West - "dissidents" as a result of the "thaw". Thus, he missed the development of the situation in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the use of a military operation against them restored these friendly countries against Russia. For unclear reasons, he reduced the armed forces of Russia, put new planes and warships under the knife.

Khrushchev's successors further weakened Russia, leading in 1989 to the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Warsaw Pact, and then the USSR. The campaign of the West against Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was won at the end of the 20th century. In 1992-93, Russia not only lost all the so-called Union Republics - states created on the basis of Russian provinces during the years of Soviet power, but also stood on the verge of division into separate regions and civil war. However, the crisis years of 1992-1998 passed, and Russia began a slow movement towards eliminating the crisis associated with the collapse and building up its economic potential.

W conclusion. Russia is not a big northern bear that appeared on the world stage from nowhere, as the West is trying to present us. Russia is a country of ancient culture that could survive millennia of life among the volcanoes of America, and the period of exploration of northern Asia, and the conquest of Europe, and the fight against the Neanderthals, and the Würm glaciation, and the flood of the Mesolithic, and the Neolithic revolution, and the invasion of the Asian steppes, and transition to statehood, and Nikon's reform, and civil war, and losses in the fight against fascism, and a lost third world war, which ended with the collapse of the USSR and the entry of part of the former neighbors and even union republics into NATO. Despite everything, Russia is the largest country in the world, the richest not only in minerals, but also in history and culture. We survived the silence and falsification of our history, as we survived all the other trials that fell on us, with dignity and honor. But the time has come - and we will remember our history, as well as the history of the Europeans, our successors.

Chudinov V.A., Russians and Slavs before Kievan Rus (results of epigraphic research) // "Academy of Trinitarianism", M., El No. 77-6567, publ. 13146, 03/28/2006

States (Countries)" Kievan Rus"was not: Twenty years after the "calling of the Varangians" in Novgorod the Great, these Varangians, who called themselves "from the Russian family", came with an army to Kyiv, killed the princes who previously ruled in it (also newcomers) and settled in Kyiv. The only "documented" the purpose of their arrival, announced to the population, is a tribute.Kiev was given the status of a “table” (capital city) previously unknown in northern Russia and it was called “the mother of Russian cities,” as Nestor wrote.

“Kyiv is the mother” then sounded no less ridiculous than it is now, but Nestor simply had no right to write down Oleg’s direct speech taken from authoritative Greek sources in a different way, just as he could not, except literally, translate the political speech that was not used by his people a term, but well known to the Greeks, is “metropolis” (“mother cities”).

The Greeks appropriated these words to Oleg, since in this case they more or less understood what Oleg wanted from Kyiv, because the Greeks called their city-states on the territory of the colonies metropolises. The city-states that owned the colonies of the Greeks in Asia Minor were called the "Mother-Cities of the Greeks."

In the modern sense, the "metropolis" is the state that owns the colonies. The metropolis - the original "mother" land of one's people cannot be chosen or appointed, but one can claim the rights to a remote foreign territory as part of one's state, if one has the possibility of complete control over it, arrangement of order and cultural environment, identical to those on the original lands.

The term "metropolis/mother cities" when applied to city-states does not mean "main (capital) city". By declaring Kyiv the "mother-cities of Russians", that is, the "metropolis of Russians", Oleg did not encroach on the significance of the Slavic cities from which he came. Such a definition of Kyiv formally indicates only its national connection with its state as a Russian enclave in the Khazar lands.

In addition to the fact that Kyiv was called a “table”, all settlements, regardless of their size and significance, in which the younger princes sat and founded by them, were called capitals. For such a name, only their function mattered - the place of tribute.

A word that is over a thousand years old almost always changes its meaning. Naturally, the name of the residence of the princes - the "capital" received contemporary meaning when the social system established by the princes became nationwide. Other examples of the change in the meaning of a word over time are more illustrative: it is well known that, modern word"ass" tentatively in the same period meant "inheritance".

All the peoples of the world called their main city literally - “Main” or “Great”, “Big”, “Primary. And so the word "capital" is translated into Russian from all languages ​​until now. The Slavs were no exception and also did not invent how to name their main city, as evidenced by the additional word to the name of the city of Novgorod. The fact that the adjective “Great” was placed not before the word “Novgorod” according to the general rules of the language, but after it, only emphasizes that “Great” is a status, and not part of the name, i.e. Novgorod was and remained the capital of Russia, including during the historical period called "Kievan Rus" at the end of the 19th century.

Kyiv was not the main ("capital" in the modern sense) city of Russia, after Novgorod this status was assigned to Rostov.

Kyiv land was originally called not Rus, but "Russian land", in the sense that it belonged as property to the Russian princes (Rus), those who still saw the difference between Novgorodians, Krivichi, Pskovians, Russ and other Slavic communities - Slovenes. It is not by chance that historians are perplexed:

The fact that, according to the chronicles, Oleg died during his return from Kyiv to Russia

Why did Vladimir baptize his (?) people like cattle,

Could the ruler sacrifice people from his people to the pagan gods of the Slavs, in whom human sacrifices, even in the period under review, were perceived as legends of ancient times,

Why did Oleg prefer to look for a wife for Igor outside the annexed lands - in the Pskov land

Why was it possible to have concubines, who, like serfs, were not in northern Russia

Why is the whole so-called. ancient Russian history represents a series of princely wars for the capture of the great table - Kyiv and other capitals, the treatment of which, like the population, is not much different from the treatment of military booty,

Why does the word “prince” designate a title and is still preserved in this meaning among representatives of Russian emigration, and does not designate a post, like the words tsar or king, and only that one became king Grand Duke, in which Novgorod was completely subordinated

Why were the main beneficiaries of the peace treaties with Byzantium cities outside the so-called "Kievan Rus" today, primarily Novgorod

Why did the princes (at least, this applies to the grand dukes) send their children for training and education to Novgorod the Great,

Why did Svyatoslav want to make Bulgarian Pereyaslavets the capital?

Why was not found on the territory of present-day Ukraine not a single literary work relating to the period of Ancient Russia, Russian fairy tales, epic, chronicles, (with the exception of some architectural monuments during their construction in the Russian city-state of Kyiv)

The answer is quite simple for people familiar with the Theory of State and Law. According to this science, the most natural, although far from the most common, form of organizing the management of society after the social stratification of tribal communities and tribes is the ancient/medieval democratic republic.

In the period before the creation of the state, a society with such a form of government is no longer a single genus, but does not yet have that social class that could dominate the rest of the population of its former genus to such an extent that it would be possible to perform the function that makes the state a state - the use violence against fellow tribesmen to enforce the generally accepted rules.

A society without posadniks, courts, veche, without developed commodity relations, even if we add coercive organs (apparatus) to it, is also not a state, because, in this case, it is simply the military booty of these “organs” and exists to feed them. These "organs", while dining on the lands of the captured tribes, call their places of feeding - "tables" and "capitals".

Given the absolute power of the colonizing invaders, at least the first wave of which consists entirely of men, it is not surprising that their appetites extend to women as well. Accordingly, every man of the local tribe, by definition, is familyless, which in the local dialect sounds like “serf” / “x[o]lopets”.

The theory names three ways of the emergence of the state - when society has the opportunity to obtain the necessary signs of a state structure:

1. by gradually deepening the social stratification of classes and the growth of antagonism between them (the concept of internal violence)

2. by seizing the territory and subjugating the population, which already possesses the signs of civil society, by other tribes that are not lower in social development (the concept of external violence)

3. social contract (we are not talking about any document in writing)

History is silent about the existence of the facts of the "conclusion" of a social contract. More precisely, it does not just keep silent, but distorts, perhaps the only one of the “documented” in ancient and medieval history facts of a social contract on the creation of a state, interpreting this fact as evidence of the backwardness of the people who initiated this contract and its inability to independent statehood. This is the so-called "calling of the Varangians."

As a result of this "calling" in 862, the united lands of the Slavs, having received " strong structure"to perform military and police functions, became a state whose name historians have identified as "Rus" (although it was not specifically called that at that time).

Called to perform these functions, the Varangians-Rus did not replace the existing posadnik, posad courts, veche, but performed exclusively the functions assigned to them, additionally dividing the jurisdiction of cases with the posad courts, and received a fixed payment from Novgorod 300 hryvnia per year, while the princes were established a ban on land ownership in Novgorod.

The contribution of the Varangians to the new state was also their territory, which came under the direct control of Novgorod and remains within the administrative boundaries of the Novgorod region to this day. geographical name this territory, due to the exclusive role of its inhabitants in the affairs of the state and, mainly, in its expansion, gave the name to the whole state.

And since the expansion of the borders of the state was carried out by the Varangians-Rus, natives of historical Russia, in the conditions of the undivided domination of the Russian princes in relation to the new lands and its population, these lands were called "Russian" by the Novgorodians and other Slavs, as belonging to the Rus, but not Rus.

Even the words of Nestor that the Kievan lands became “now called Rus” (in the XII century) proves that they were not originally them. And Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, describing the most typical event of princely power in these lands - the collection of tribute from the population (polyudye), says that for this the princes go on a campaign from Kyiv "with all Russia", thus clearly dividing where the representatives of the Russian community are , and where is the native population.

It is incorrect to find out who was more important - Kyiv or Novgorod. The answer is that the southern colony, by definition, did not have the signs of an independent state and a state in general, at least for a century and a half from its foundation. The compromise of the relationship was based on the fact that the right military force on the management of the new territories captured by it was recognized unconditionally, but at the same time, this force (princes) recognized the responsibility for ensuring security and order in the original Slavic lands: providing squads, ensuring the protection of external borders, security of trade.

The great princes of Kyiv were, by default, the princes of Novgorod. Simply - "princes", and in the sense in which Novgorod understood and used them, - the heads of squads that ensure security and order. Recognizing for them the title of "great" in Kyiv, Novgorod supported the "great" princes in civil strife with other princes, providing them with refuge from too zealous applicants for this post, and with troops to restore the existing order of government. Prior to the period of feudal fragmentation, five times the Novgorodians with the retinues of the exiled princes "took" Kyiv in order to return the "great table", but not once - on the contrary.

From the above, the answers to the above questions are as follows:

Kyiv land was not considered and was not called Rus in the period before the creation of the state, as well as for several generations of colonists after its capture by the Varangians-Rus.

Kyiv was never the center of the Old Russian state - the capital, in the modern sense of the term, the city, and the princes - the rulers of the united state of the Eastern Slavs

On the territory of present-day Ukraine, before the arrival of the colonists, there was no population that constituted the cultural and ethnic core of not only the Russian, but also the Slavic peoples, which had reached a level of social development capable of organizing a state

- "Kievan Rus" - a historiographical term for the name historical period colonization by Russia of the southern lands located on the path of the traditional trade routes of the Slavs.

"Kyiv Rus" is not a state, not a country, and not even a territory. Behind the words "Kyiv Rus" there is nothing but an attempt by historians late XIX centuries to justify the bias in the volume of surviving historical evidence towards the more turbulent Kyiv events of that time, giving the name to this period of the development of Russia the name of the “hot spot”, despite the fact that this point is located outside its original boundaries.

The fact that Kyiv and its neighboring lands were not the main and primordial region of the Old Russian state puts on its feet all the well-known facts that historians explain only with the help of their imagination, such as: the fact of placing the "capital" on the border of the state, the requirements Novgorod to the princes by appointment of the heads of squads, trade in their own population (serfs) not only in Slavic cities, but also in Byzantium, as well as countless other facts, if you do not interpret them from the angle of the habit of seeing the state only where there is an autocratic ruler.

Who are the Rus, Slovenes, Varangians, where was Russia before the calling of the Varangians?

The Old Russian language, unlike the modern one, did not have the ability to borrow foreign words(This, among other things, is illustrated by Nestor, who translated the Greek term "metropolis" - "mother cities" into Russian). In the absence of an education system, language took over its function to a certain extent. From the word itself, it should be intuitively clear what it means. All terms of the period of the emergence of the Old Russian state are of Russian (Slavic) origin: state, capital, prince, squad, Slovenes, tribute, polyudie, etc.

The word "Varangians" has a Russian root and is formed according to the rules of word formation of the Russian language in such a way that the question "who are the Varangians, what do they do?" a seven-year-old Russian child will answer now. The whole idea of ​​borrowing this word is based only on the fact that “the Varangians came from across the sea” and that, in Byzantium, the Greeks called their military mercenaries “b (v) arangs”, and the Scandinavians “varangs”.

It is known that the Scandinavians called themselves Vikings, but what would they call the warriors of another people, in whose army they served as mercenaries, if such service was quite common among them? Obviously, just as those for whom they served called themselves. By the same principle, in the Russian language, for example, a non-Slavic term appeared, denoting a slave - “serf”. If we take the Greek "varang" / "barang" and the Scandinavian "varang", then it is more likely that they originated from another common word - "varangian" than from each other.

The explanation of the word "Varangians" with Russian roots is too simple, and therefore unscientific, so an abstruse-overseas version is required? After all, even a child will say that “Varangians are those who cook something.” The many salt springs, the development of which was the main occupation of this community, indicate that the "Varangians" is the name of the profession, modern name which are salt pans.

It is unnatural that the word "varega" is a piece of dense fabric worn on the hand to work with tools heated during cooking, preserved in modern language with the diminutive suffix "k" - "mittens", - does not raise doubts about its Slavic origin, and the word "Varangians", formed from the same root with a suffix, typically used in Russian to refer to people, - "yag" (hard workers, hard workers, vagrants, etc.), and in this case, the people who dealt with this “mitten”, according to historians, means ... “Vikings”.

Salt, the “white gold of the Middle Ages”, was, on the one hand, such a valuable and liquid commodity that it could act as a means of payment, and on the other hand, its own consumption is naturally limited and this required the organization of trade relations over quite considerable distances, most important in which is the provision of protection.

In addition to the fact that the production of salt itself required a division of labor, and, accordingly, the presence of a certain discipline of the members of the community, the salt trade objectively required the formation of armed detachments, originally formed from those who created this product and were interested in a profitable and safe exchange of the result of their labor. - salt-workers (Varangians).

The community, whose life depended on its trade, was forced to ensure the "collection" of "white gold" by militarizing their own way of life. The basis of such a way of life is necessarily unity of command, as opposed to the generic “quasi-democratic” relations typical for the development of society of this period.

Thus, by the time the salt lost its economic significance by the beginning of the 9th century, another “commodity” was formed in this community - armed formations, united on the basis of morality and traditions of their kind, motivated not only to fulfill the usual goals for that time - military robberies, but also on taking advantage of their superiority in strength and organization to realize the interests of their own community.

Patriarch Photius, a contemporary of the “calling of the Varangians” (although the very fact of the “calling” is unknown to him), speaking about the conversion of the Rus to Christianity in 866 (!) in his district message, described the Varangians of Russia as follows: “... the people often mentioned and glorified by many, surpassing all other peoples with its cruelty and bloodthirstiness ... ". But much closer than the Greeks, the militancy of the Varangians was known to neighboring communities, for which, along with the transformation of their main activity from salt production to military craft, the meaning of their name, “Varangians”, underwent a transformation.

Like some other terms denoting social groups, over time they began to be used as concepts characterizing other social phenomena (for example, “vandals”, “puritans”), and the name of the representatives of the craft, which were mainly members of a particular community, became designate another concept later, for naming members of the military detachments of this community. Moreover, in the ideas of that time, this transformation was absolutely natural and consistent, since the understanding of the initial meaning of the word and the reasons for its change was preserved.

Nestor clarifies that the “Varangians-Rus” participated in the “calling”, while there are references to the Novgorod and Pomeranian Varangians, as well as the corresponding salt mines in the Novgorod land and Pomorie. After the decrease in the importance of salt production, the reduction in the cost of the salt production process and the decrease in the number of people involved in this process, the word "Varangians" nevertheless retained its significance in the language, naming an important social group that played a large role in the life of the Slavic communities at that time, and the original the name of the craft he designated has replaced another, now modern word.

It was the neighboring Varangians of Russia that the communities had to experience the superiority in strength and organization of the Varangian squads, initially involuntarily accepting “paid services” from them to organize power and order on their territory (859). Although, apparently, the Novgorodians were not particularly afraid of their “cruelty and bloodthirstiness” described by Photius, simply driving them to their place “over the sea”, and most likely, without using force on their part, given that the Varangians, by definition, militarily were better organized.

Once we are talking about the calling of the Varangians of Russia to Novgorod, does this mean that Russia was a neighboring community for Novgorod? Too simple to be true for academic historians. Therefore, the version of the Russian (local for modern Russia) the origin of "Rus" and "Rus". If you voice it, it will turn out that all efforts to create works on the origin of Russia from "roslagen", "ruts", "rutens", "ruots" and other Swedes will look like absurdity and distortion of words, justified by far-fetched conclusions with a claim to scholarship .

"Varangians" is not the name of an ethnic group or tribe, and although the name of the ethnic group that gave the name to our state is the first and main question for historians of ancient Russia, they still have not decided whether they were from modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or some the Germanic tribes.

But as the name of a tribe, community or ethnos, the word “Rus” is still called from nowhere, and it is because of this “ignorance” that historians provide versions to connect Russia with some more famous people.

The word "Rus" can in no way be attributed to any of the Scandinavian or Germanic languages for at least one reason - none of them has a soft sign, and what is even more obvious - there is no change in the meaning of words when consonant sounds are softened.

In Russian, in addition to the usual softening of consonant sounds, soft sign can also perform a word-forming function, which is just used in the word "Rus" to describe the concept it expresses - the transformation of a set into a concept expressed in the singular - "those who are young are young", "what is old is old" , "those who are black - mob", "those who are Russians - Russia".

The last example is not an explanation of the origin of the meaning of the word "Rus" and "Rus", it only shows that the word "Rus" is formed according to the rules of the Russian language, moreover, so specific that it is not only absent in other non-Slavic languages, but also in modern Russian does not apply to borrowed words.

The fact that the Russian language has the word "rus" (a short form of the adjective "blond"), which has an independent meaning, only confirms that ignoring Slavic origin the word "Rus" is impossible. The language has preserved evidence that this word is Russian and cannot be attributed to any Scandinavian or Germanic languages.

In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, peoples did not invent nationalities for themselves. The most natural principle to name one's clans and communities is geographical. Even with all Nestor's fabulousness, concerning the times of which he was not a contemporary, his words about the principles of naming the tribes of the Slavs look quite scientific from a modern point of view: "the Slavs dispersed over the earth and called themselves by their names from the places where they sat down." It follows logically from this that in order to better identify your community, you need to use the names of geographical places that have neither analogues nor other names among other peoples, i.e. names of their cities (settlements) known to other communities. Even the names of rivers and lakes can be different for different communities.

But to decide how best to identify themselves, could, firstly, the communities that have their own city, well known among other communities; secondly, communities, the degree of participation of which in inter-communal life (military, trading activities) will make it possible to voice and preserve their name in history. Otherwise, the name of the community or tribe will remain in history, which was given to it by those whose efforts history will be written. In other words, the names of more developed clans and communities, as a rule, are self-names. To a lesser extent, this can be said about communities named after rivers and lakes.

It is all the more obvious that the tribes that have the names of the habitat, for example, those living “in the trees”, “in the fields”, “in the swamps” (drevlyans, glade, dregovichi), received them from representatives of another people. It is impossible to imagine that any people identified themselves by the type of locality. Such tribes could have some self-names, but unknown or devoid of meaning for the people in contact with them, and because of this, they were named by this people more understandably for themselves according to the predominant living conditions that differ from many other tribes with whom they dealt.

If we talk about “nationalities”, then it is worth remembering what nationality the ancient Romans were, it is obvious that they were “Romans”, that is, there is no doubt that the city gave its name not only to its inhabitants, but also to the inhabitants of the empire. In Russian history, it is mentioned that the inhabitants of Novgorod called themselves "Novgorodians", the cities of Pskov (Pleskov) - "Pskovians", the cities of Murom - "murom", respectively, the inhabitants of the city of Rusa - "Rus".

The city of Rusa (only in the 17th or 18th century, the second letter “s” and the word “old” - “Staraya Russa” were added to its name) a settlement on the southeastern shore of Lake Ilmen from the 7th century, at a distance of 93 km. along the modern highway from Veliky Novgorod, located in the basin of rivers, the names of which directly indicate the name of the geographical area through which they flow - the river Porusya and the river Porus.

The statement that the inhabitants of Rusa should be called "Rus" or "Rusich" looks like an axiom from the point of view of the traditions of vocabulary and the rules of word formation in the Russian language. Perhaps that is why, at the time of rewriting history, the second letter “s” appeared in the name of the city, and the inhabitants of the city received a name that has a clearly Germanic interpretation of the pronunciation of the double “s”, - “Rushan”. But the names of the rivers were invented by our ancestors in such a way that they leave no doubt that the land on which they flow is Rus.

Thus, the area of ​​residence of the Rus, pre-state Russia, geographically representing the region southeast of Lake Ilmen, is the territory that was part of Russia initially during the formation of the state and that remained invariably in it during the various redrawing of its borders. The Rus community, which gave the modern name to the people of Russia, is the indigenous people of Russia, who lived in Russia before the formation of the state for at least a century, is identical in its linguistic, religious and cultural roots to the neighboring Slavic communities.

Changing the name of the community (people) from "Rus" to "Ros" is unacceptable not only from the point of view of the rules of the language, but also has no historical basis. The form "ros" (from the word Russia) appeared late (not earlier than the 16th century) and became generally accepted only from the 18th century. "Russia" as a Greek transcription of the Russian word "Rus" came into use along with the idea of ​​"Russia - the successor of Byzantium" and, in this regard, the deliberate borrowing of Byzantine symbols and Greek terms.

In all European languages, in addition to Russian and Greek, the name of the country "Russia" retained the root "rus", and the word "Rossy" first appeared as a poetic form derived from "Russia" in the odes of Lomonosov, later the poems of Derzhavin and others. Probably, only the poetic form can justify the obvious dissonance for the Russian ear of changing the word in contradiction to the rules of the language.

There is a "fluent O" in Russian, which can become "A" when the accent changes, but changing "O" to "U", or vice versa, is completely unacceptable. If you try to change words similar in structure, for example, “beetle” to “zhok” or “louse” to “vush”, it is obvious that not a single Russian speaker will determine the meaning of the words “zhok” and “vush” even approximately.

Why did someone decide that our ancestors did not care how their name sounded and, in connection with which such metamorphoses with the name of the people are taken for granted?

The fact is that even with the official interpretation of the historical events associated with the emergence of the Old Russian state, the thesis that Kyiv and, in general, the territory of Ukraine, has something to do with this event, is rather difficult to assimilate even among people with quite acceptable to live in society with a lack of common sense. Therefore, here, too, the reinforced concrete principle of the origin of the names of peoples is put forward - geographical. It turns out that somewhere in the Cherkasy region of modern Ukraine there is the Ros River - a tributary of the Dnieper, and besides, it has its own tributary - Roska!

It does not matter that this river is located much to the south of the original colony of Russian princes in Kyiv - and first of all, after Kyiv, Oleg took up the subjugation of the communities located to the north in order to connect the new lands with the Slavic ones.

It does not matter that the assertion that the existence of the river Ros supposedly proves that the core of Russia is the middle Dnieper region, because glades lived on its banks, from which the newcomers Russ in Kyiv took tribute, has nothing to do with either elementary logic, or has at least indirect evidence (the naming of any lands on which there were Russian princes by Rus in two hundred years is no more valuable than modern statements about this).

But it turned out to be important that in Greek "rus" is written as "ros", which, probably, in itself is rich material for future works on the study of everyday literacy of the Slavs of the 9th century or the frequency and mass character of their visits to Byzantine beaches, which had a side effect in kind of amnesia for the name of a kind. But now - almost logically. That's just overlooked by other rivers with a similar name Ross - in Belarus, Roska - in the Tver region and a couple of rivers with the name "Rόsa" in western Brazil and eastern Peru.

The ancient name of the representative of the community, which gave the modern name of the indigenous nationality of Russia, is "rus" - in its original form, or the word "Rusich", grammatically formed in the form of an obsolete possessive form of the original word. Mention historical name“Rus” with doubled “s” - “Russ”, is not true, since the second “s” here is a fragment from “sky”, a suffix and ending that began to form in Russian no earlier than the 14th century, i.e. the spelling "Russ" is the result of a reverse transformation from the modern definition of "Russian", which now replaces the possessive form "Rusich" in the language.

On the territory of the Rus community to the south-east of Lake Ilmen, the number of salt springs and traces of salt production of the 6th-8th centuries. many times higher than the corresponding number of salt mines of that time in the lands of Novgorod, Pskov, Pomorie and Izborsk, due to the fact that there is an underground salt lake. Salt springs gushing out of the ground in large quantities, providing a more convenient organization of production than with evaporation sea ​​water, predetermined the initial occupation of the Rus community almost completely.

Old Russian texts also preserved other names of Ilmen, the Moyskoye Sea and the Russian Sea. The western and southwestern coast of Ilmen was called the Varangian coast in Russian written sources of the Middle Ages. Remembering the “glorious sea of ​​the sacred Baikal” and the fact that the Caspian Lake is even now officially called the “sea”, it can be unequivocally stated that a thousand years ago they were not guided by the modern geographical features of the seas and large lakes were called seas.

Ilmen is the sea over which the Varangians were driven out for the first time and over which they went later, after them. The city of Rusa is located just diametrically opposite to Novgorod - across the sea. And they “walked” - a word not from modern maritime jargon - the distance to Rusa could be covered on foot in an acceptable time - 1.5-2 days, on horseback - in less than a day.

Does anyone believe that the delegation from Novgorod traveled 3.5 thousand kilometers to the opposite shore of the Baltic Sea? And the Vikings were driven there three years earlier?

Someone believes that the people, who had sufficiently developed institutions of civil society and their own religious ideas, will call for rulers of a different faith, language and culture, who, moreover, did not have their own statehood, in order to break their own way of life for sure? They could do this, knowing exactly what order those whom they call had, what their religious and cultural values ​​were, i.e. neighbors with whom they had a huge number of contacts in all spheres of life.

The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" began and ended on the banks of the Ilmen. The Christian monk Nestor "paved" the way along the Dvina to the Baltic Sea to substantiate the fable about the journey of one of the apostles of Christ - Andrew to Rome through ... all of Russia with a mandatory visit to the place where Kyiv will be. At the same time, he was the only one who called the Baltic Sea "Varangian", being familiar with the legends about the waterway to the Varangians on the shores of the Varangian Sea, but no one except him called this sea that way. That was the name of Lake Ilmen.

The Ruses living in the southeast of Ilmen, or rather their armed detachments, were the Varangians from whom history made the founders of the Russian state, though silent that they were not the only ones in this capacity.

Conclusions from any evidence used to determine the ethnicity of the Rus - annalistic, geographical, linguistic, cultural, religious - unambiguously indicate that the Varangians-Rus are a native Slavic community, adjacent to Novgorod and related to it. Kyiv was originally a city-state (Greek “mother-cities”) of Russians, i.e. was an enclave of the united state of the Slavs, but was not its center.

Introduction

Established in the ninth century the ancient Russian feudal state (also called Kievan Rus by historians) arose as a result of a very long and gradual process of splitting society into antagonistic classes, which took place among the Slavs throughout the first millennium of our era. Russian feudal historiography of the XIV-XVII centuries. sought to artificially link the early history of Russia with the ancient peoples of Eastern Europe known to her - the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans; It was believed that the name Rus comes from the Sarmatian tribe of Roxalans.

In the XVIII century. some of the German scientists invited to Russia, who were arrogant about everything Russian, created a biased theory about the dependent development of Russian statehood. Based on an unreliable part of the Russian chronicle, which conveys the legend of the calling of a number of Slavic tribes as princes of the three brothers Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, Varangians, Normans by origin, these historians began to assert that the Normans (detachments of Scandinavians who robbed in the 9th century on the seas and rivers) were the creators of the Russian state. "Normanists", who poorly studied Russian sources, believed that the Slavs in the 9th-10th centuries. were wild people who allegedly did not know agriculture, crafts, settled settlements, military affairs, or legal norms. They attributed the entire culture of Kievan Rus to the Varangians, the very name Rus was associated only with the Varangians.

The history of culture is the most interesting section of the historical life of every nation. The Russian people have made a valuable contribution to world culture, having created hundreds of years ago works of literature, painting and architecture that have not faded over the centuries.

Writing, literacy, schools

Any ancient culture is writing. For a long time there was an opinion that the letter came to Russia along with Christianity. However, it is difficult to agree with this. There is evidence of the existence of Slavic writing long before the Christianization of Russia. This is evidenced by the "Life" of the Slavic enlightener Cyril. During his stay in Chersonese in the 60s. 9th century he got acquainted with the Gospel, written in Slavonic letters. Later Cyril and his brother Methodius became the founders of Slavic alphabet, which, apparently, was based in some part on the principles of Slavic writing that existed among the Eastern, Southern and Western Slavs before their Christianization. We must also remember that the agreements between Russia and Byzantium, relating to the first half of the 10th century, were also written in Greek and Russian. By this time, the existence of interpreters - translators and scribes, who wrote down the speeches of ambassadors on parchment. Nevertheless, the Christianization of Russia gave a powerful impetus to the further development of writing and literacy. Church scholars and translators from Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia began to come to Russia. There appeared, especially during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise and his sons, numerous translations of Greek and Bulgarian books, both ecclesiastical and secular. In particular, Byzantine historical works and biographies of saints were translated. Translations became the property of literate people: they were read with pleasure in the princely-boyar, merchant environment, in monasteries, churches, where Russian chronicle writing was born. In the XI century. popular translated works such as "Alexandria", containing legends and traditions about the life and exploits of Alexander the Great, "Devgeniev's deed", which was a translation of the Byzantine epic poem about the exploits of the warrior Digenis, are spreading. The cadres of the first Russian literates, scribes, translators were formed in schools that were opened at churches since the time of Vladimir Svyatoslavich and Yaroslav the Wise, and later at monasteries. There is a lot of evidence of the widespread development of literacy in Russia in the 11th-12th centuries, especially among wealthy citizens, the princely-boyar elite, merchants, and artisans. In rural areas, in remote, remote places, the population was almost entirely illiterate. From the 11th century in rich families began to teach literacy not only boys, but also girls. Vladimir Monomakh's sister Yanka, the founder of a convent in Kyiv, created a school for the education of girls in it. clear evidence widespread literacy in cities and suburbs are the so-called birch bark letters. In 1951 during archaeological sites in Novgorod, a birch bark with well-preserved letters was removed from the ground. Since then, hundreds of birch bark letters have been found, indicating that in Novgorod, Pskov, Vitebsk, Smolensk, and other cities of Russia, people loved and knew how to write to each other. Among the letters are business, including legal, documents, exchange of information, invitations to visit, and even love correspondence. There remains one more curious evidence of the development of literacy in Russia - the so-called graffiti inscriptions. They were scratched on the walls of churches by lovers to pour out their souls. Among these inscriptions are reflections on life, complaints, and prayers. So, Vladimir Monomakh, while still a young man, during a church service, lost in a crowd of the same young princes, scrawled on the wall of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv: “Oh, it’s hard for me” - and signed his Christian name Vasily.

urban culture. Education

Feudal culture was most fully manifested in the cities. But it should be remembered that the medieval city was not unified - its population consisted of feudal lords, rich merchants and clergy, on the one hand, ordinary townspeople - urban lower classes (craftsmen, small merchants, sailors of "ship landings", working people) - on the other. The everyday life of feudal culture was created by the hands of the townspeople, their mind and artistic taste: fortresses and palaces, white-stone carvings of temples, multi-color enamel on crowns and barm, ships with animal-like prows, silver bracelets depicting mermaid games.

Masters were proud of their products and signed them with their names.

The horizons of the townspeople were incomparably wider than those of rural plowmen tied to their narrow "world" in several villages. The townspeople communicated with foreign merchants, traveled to other lands, were literate and knew how to count. It was the townspeople-craftsmen and merchants, warriors and sailors who modified the ancient concept of a tiny rural world (in one day's journey!), pushing its boundaries to the concept of "the whole world".

It was here, in the cities, that the townspeople were fond of cheerful pagan games, encouraged buffoons, neglecting the prohibitions of the church. Here satirical poetry was created, a sharp weapon of social struggle was born freedom-loving ideas of heretics who raised their voice against the monasteries, the church, and sometimes even against God himself. Townsmen "black people" wrote in the XI-XII centuries. walls of Kyiv and Novgorod churches with cheerful, mocking inscriptions. These drawings and writings destroy the legend about the widespread spread of religiosity during the Middle Ages.

Of exceptional importance was the discovery in Novgorod of birch-bark writings of the 11th-15th centuries. Whole new world revealed to researchers in their study. Commercial transactions, private letters, notes sent by courier, reports on the performance of household work, reports on a campaign, invitations to a wake, riddles, poems, and much more reveal these valuable documents to us.

Architecture

They say that architecture is the soul of the people, embodied in stone. This applies to Russia with some amendment. Russia for many years was a country of wood, and its pagan chapels, fortresses, towers, huts were built of wood. In a tree, a Russian person, like the peoples who lived next to the Eastern Slavs, expressed their perception of building beauty, a sense of proportion, the fusion of architectural structures with the surrounding nature. If wooden architecture dates back mainly to pagan Russia, then stone architecture is associated with Christian Russia. Western Europe did not know such a transition, since ancient times it built both temples and stone dwellings. Russian wooden architecture was characterized by a multi-tiered structure, crowning them with turrets and towers, the presence of various kinds of outbuildings - cages, passages, canopies. Intricate artistic woodcarving was a traditional decoration of Russian wooden buildings. This tradition lives on to this day. The world of Byzantium, the world of Christianity brought new building experience and traditions to Russia. Russia adopted the construction of churches in the image of the cross-bathing temple of the Greeks. The square, divided by four pillars, forms its basis, the rectangular cells adjacent to the dome space form an architectural cross.

But the Greek craftsmen who arrived in Russia since the time of Vladimir, as well as the Russian craftsmen who worked with them, applied this pattern to the traditions of Russian wooden architecture, familiar to the Russian eye and dear to the heart. If the first Russian churches, including the Church of the Tithes of the end of the 10th century, were built by Greek masters in strict accordance with Byzantine traditions, then St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv reflected a combination of Slavic and Byzantine traditions. Thirteen domes of the new temple were placed on the basis of the cross-domed church. This stepped pyramid of St. Sophia Cathedral resurrected the style of Russian wooden architecture. In the 12th century, according to the figurative expression of one art historian, Russian single-domed temples-heroes marched throughout Russia, replacing the former pyramids. The dome rose up on a powerful, massive square. Such was the Dmitrovsky Cathedral in Vladimir-on-Klyazma, the Cathedral of St. George in Yuryev-Polsky. Architecture flourished during the reign of Andrei Bogolyubsky. His name is associated with the buildings of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, the white-stone palace beautifully located on the steep bank of the Klyazma in the village of Bogolyubovo, the Golden Gate in Vladimir - a powerful white-stone cube crowned with a golden-domed church. Under him, a miracle of Russian architecture was created - the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. The prince built a church not far from his chambers after the death of his beloved son Izyaslav. This small one-domed church has become a stone poem, which harmoniously combines modest beauty, quiet sadness, enlightened contemplation of architectural lines. Andrei's brother Vsevolod continued his construction activities. Its craftsmen left to posterity the wonderful Dmitrovsky Cathedral in Vladimir - majestic and at the same time modest. In the XII-beginning of the XIII century. temples were built in Novgorod and Smolensk, Chernigov and Galich, Pskov and Novgorod-Volynsky. A characteristic feature of Russian architecture was the stone carving decorating the buildings. We see this amazing art on the walls of cathedrals in Vladimir-Suzdal Russia, in Novgorod, and other Russian cities. Another feature that related all Russian architecture of that time was the organic combination of architectural structures with the natural landscape.

Art

Old Russian art- painting, sculpture, music - with the adoption of Christianity also experienced tangible changes. Pagan Russia knew all these types of art, but in a purely pagan, folk expression. Ancient wood carvers, stone cutters created wooden and stone sculptures of pagan gods and spirits. Painters painted the walls of pagan temples, made sketches of magical masks, which were then made by artisans; musicians, playing stringed and woodwind instruments, entertained the tribal leaders and entertained the common people. The Christian Church introduced a completely different content into these types of art. Church art is subordinated to the highest goal - the chanting of God, the deeds of the apostles, saints, church leaders. If in pagan art the flesh triumphed over the spirit and everything earthly, personifying nature, was affirmed, then church art sang the victory of the spirit over the flesh, affirmed the lofty feats of the human soul for the sake of the moral principles of Christianity. This found expression in the fact that painting, and music, and the art of sculpture were created mainly according to church canons, where everything that was contrary to the highest Christian principles was swept aside. Asceticism and rigor in painting (icon painting, mosaic, fresco), the sublimity of Greek church prayers and hymns, the temple itself, which becomes a place of prayerful communication of people, were characteristic of Byzantine art, which became a model for Russian Christian art.

Transferred to Russian soil, canonical in content, brilliant in its execution, the art of Byzantium collided with the pagan worldview of the Eastern Slavs, with their joyful cult of nature - the sun, spring, light, with their completely earthly ideas about good and evil, about sins and virtues. And from the very first years of the transfer of Byzantine church art to Russia, it experienced the full power of Russian folk culture and folk aesthetic ideas. It has already been said above that a single-domed Byzantine church in Russia in the 11th century. transformed into a multi-domed pyramid. The same thing happened with painting. Already in the XI century. the strict ascetic manner of Byzantine icon painting turned under the brush of Russian artists into portraits close to nature, although Russian icons carried all the features of a conventional icon-painting face. At this time, the Caves monk-painter Llimpiy became famous. Contemporaries said about him that he "was very cunning to paint icons." Iconography was Alimpiy's main means of subsistence, but he spent the money he earned in a very peculiar way: he bought everything that was necessary for his craft for one part, gave the other to the poor, and donated the third to the Caves Monastery. Along with icon painting, fresco painting and mosaics developed. The frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv show the manner of painting by Greek and Russian masters, their commitment to human warmth, integrity and simplicity. At the beginning of the XIII century. the Yaroslavl school of icon painting became famous. Many excellent icons were painted in the monasteries and churches of Yaroslavl. Especially famous among them is the so-called "Yaroslavl Oranta", depicting the Mother of God. Its prototype was the mosaic image of the Virgin in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, the work of Greek masters, depicting a stern, domineering woman stretching her arms over humanity. The Yaroslavl craftsmen made the image of the Mother of God warmer, more humane. First of all, she is a mother intercessor, bringing help and compassion to people. Over the course of many centuries of the history of Russia, the art of wood carving, and later stone carving, has constantly developed and improved there. Wood carvings have generally become feature dwellings of townspeople and peasants, wooden temples.

Elegant jewelry, genuine masterpieces were created by ancient Russian jewelers - gold and silver craftsmen. They made bracelets, earrings, pendants, buckles, diadems, medallions, decorated utensils, dishes, weapons with gold, silver, enamel, precious stones. With special diligence and love, they decorated the ok-lads of icons, as well as books. An example is the artfully finished leather and jewelry The gospel salary, created by order of the Kyiv mayor Ostromir during the time of Yaroslav the Wise, the so-called "Ostromir Gospel" is the oldest Russian book that has survived to this day. An integral part of the art of Russia was musical, singing art. The Tale of Igor's Campaign mentions the legendary storyteller-singer Boyan, who "put" his fingers on the live strings, and they "rumbled glory to the princes themselves." On the frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral, we see the image of musicians playing woodwind and stringed instruments - lute and harp. The talented singer Mitus in Galich is known from chronicles. It is known that at the courts of Russian princes during the feasts those present were entertained by singers, storytellers, and harpists.

Folklore

important integral part Old Russian culture was folklore - songs, legends, epics, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms, fairy tales. Many features of the life of people of that time were reflected in wedding, drinking, funeral songs. So, in ancient wedding songs, they also spoke about the time when brides were kidnapped, “kidnapped” (as a rule, with their consent) or ransomed, and in the songs of the Christian time, it was about the consent of both the bride and parents to marriage. A whole world of Russian life opens up in epics. Their main character is a hero, a defender of the people. The bogatyrs had a huge physical force. So, about the beloved Russian hero Ilya Muromets, it was said: “Wherever you wave, here the streets lie, where you turn away - with alleys.” At the same time, he was a very peaceful hero who took up arms only when there was no other way out. Folk heroes also possessed great magical power, wisdom, cunning. So, the hero Magus Vseslavovich could turn into a gray falcon, a gray wolf. In the epic images of enemies, real foreign policy opponents of Russia are also guessed, the struggle against which has deeply entered the consciousness of the people. Under the name of Tugarin Zmeevich, a generalized image of the Polovtsy with their Khan Tugorkan is visible. Under the name of Zhidovin, Khazaria is displayed, where Judaism was the state religion. Russian epic heroes faithfully served the epic prince Vladimir. They fulfilled his requests for the defense of the Fatherland, he turned to them at crucial hours. The relationship between the heroes and the prince was not easy. There were resentments and misunderstandings. But all of them - both the prince and the heroes - in the end solved one common cause - the cause of the people. Scientists have shown that under the name of Prince Vladimir, the generalized image of both Vladimir Svyatoslavich - a warrior against the Pechenegs, and Vladimir Monomakh - the defender of Russia from the Polovtsy, and the appearance of other princes - brave, wise, cunning, merged. And in some epics, the legendary times of the struggle of the ancestors of the Eastern Slavs with the Cimmerians, Sarmatians, and Scythians were reflected. Epics, telling about the ancient heroes of those times, are akin to the epic of Homer, the epic of others Indo-European peoples.

Life of the people

culture of the peopleinextricably linked with his life, everyday life, and the life of the people, determined by the level of development of the country's economy, is closely connected with cultural processes. People lived both in large cities for their time, numbering tens of thousands of people, and in villages with several dozen households, and villages in which two or three households were grouped. by the most big city Kyiv remained for a long time. In terms of its scale, many stone buildings - temples, palaces - it competed with other European capitals of that time. No wonder the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Anna Yaroslavna, who married in France and arrived in Paris in the 11th century, was surprised by the wretchedness of the French capital compared to Kyiv. Here golden-domed churches shone with their domes, the palaces of Vladimir, Yaroslav the Wise, Vsevolod Yaroslavich amazed with their grace, St. Sophia Cathedral surprised with its monumentality, wonderful frescoes, the Golden Gate - a symbol of the victory of Russian weapons.

And not far from the prince's palace were bronze horses taken by Vladimir from Chersonesos; in the old city of Yaroslavl there were courts of prominent boyars, here on the mountain were the houses of wealthy merchants, other prominent citizens, and the highest clergy. The houses were decorated with carpets, expensive Greek fabrics. In palaces, rich boyar mansions, a difficult life was going on - combatants, servants were located here, servants were crowded. From here came the administration of principalities, cities, villages, here they judged and ordered, tributes and taxes were brought here. Feasts often took place in the hallways, spacious gridirons, where overseas wine and their own, native “honey” flowed like a river, servants carried huge dishes with meat and game. The women sat at the table along with the men. Women generally took an active part in management, farming, and other affairs. Many women are known - activists of this kind: Princess Olga, sister of Monomakh Yanka, mother of Daniil Galitsky, wife of Andrei Bogolyubsky, etc. At the same time, food and small money were distributed on behalf of the owner to the poor. The favorite pastimes of rich people were falconry, dog hunting. Races, tournaments, various games were arranged for the common people. An integral part of Russian life, especially in the north, was a bathhouse. Below, on the banks of the Dnieper, a merry Kyiv market was noisy, where products and products were sold not only from all over Russia, but also from all over the world, including India and Baghdad. On the slopes of the mountains to the Podol descended diverse - from good wooden houses to wretched dugouts - the dwellings of artisans, working people. At the berths of the Dnieper and Pochaina, hundreds of large and small ships crowded. Temples, palaces, wooden houses and semi-dugouts stood on the outskirts in other Russian cities, there were noisy auctions, and on holidays smart residents filled the narrow streets. His life, full of work, worries, flowed in Russian villages and villages, in log huts, in semi-dugouts with stoves-heaters in the corner. There, people persistently fought for existence, plowed up new lands, raised cattle, beekeepers, hunted, defended themselves from "dashing" people, and in the south - from nomads, again and again rebuilt wooden dwellings burned down after enemy raids. Moreover, plowmen often went out into the field armed with spears, clubs, bows and arrows to fight off the Polovtsian patrol. On long winter evenings, by the light of torches, women spun yarn, men drank intoxicating drinks, honey, remembered the days gone by, composed and sang songs, listened to storytellers and storytellers of epics.

Conclusion

history culture ancient people

So, all the most important, most perfect monuments of art and literature were created in the era of feudal fragmentation, when its negative features did not manifest themselves even in full strength. The Tatar invasion interrupted this development and suspended it for one and a half to two centuries.

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How to explain well known fact that the Russian peoples assigns the most prominent place to their epic epic precisely Kyiv period of his ancient history?

This cannot be an accident. The people, who have experienced many difficult and joyful events throughout their history, perfectly remembered them, appreciated them and passed on the experience to the next generations. Epics are a story told by the people themselves. There may be inaccuracies in chronology, in terms, there may be factual errors, explained by the fact that poeticized legends were not written down, but stored in the memory of individuals and passed from mouth to mouth, but the assessment of events here is always correct and cannot be otherwise. since the people were not a mere witness to events, but a subject of history, directly creating these events, participating in them in the most direct way.

"Sometimes the historian is misleading,
But the song of the people resounds in the hearts of people.”

It sounds because it is truthful and sincere, because it is the voice of true life.

L. Maykov, in his special work “On the Epics of the Vladimir Cycle”, quite correctly noted that the Russian folk epic in its content corresponds to several gradually changing periods of historical life and reflects more or less fully the life and concepts of each period. The same author noted that only the Kievan period of its history was filled with heroes-bogatyrs.

V. O. Klyuchevsky in his course on Russian history also emphasized this specific relationship of the epic epic to the Kyiv period. He quite rightly remarked that the people remember and know the old Kyiv with his princes and heroes, loves and honors him, as he did not love and did not honor any of the capitals that replaced Kyiv.

Byron is also profoundly right in pointing out that the historian is more often misleading than the folk song. This position is easy to demonstrate, if only by the examples of the two historians just quoted.

L. Maikov thinks that the epics recall “the Kievan specific period of ancient Russia in the cycle that is grouped around Vladimir”, and “they are silent about civil strife between the princes”, while “according to the annals, it was the specific feuds that were the main reasons for princely relocations and wars."

Klyuchevsky says that “in the old Kyiv life there were many troubles, a lot of stupid hustle and bustle; "Senseless princely fights," in Karamzin's words, were a direct national disaster, "that is, Klyuchevsky, like Maikov, does not separate the period of existence Kyiv state from the period of feudal fragmentation.

There is no such mixture in the epics.

The people more accurately outlined the main milestones of the periodization of their history. He did not sing of stupid hustle and senseless fights in his epics. The time of uninterrupted feudal wars, the time of "general confusion" came later, and this period is not reflected in the epics: then there were no heroes-heroes. This period of our history found its assessment not in epics.

In the famous “Tale of Igor’s Campaign” we read the following truthful and vivid lines: “Then, under Olza Gorislavichi, they sow and stretch out strife, perish the life of Dazhdobozh’s grandson, in princely sedition, the vezi shrinks as a man. Then, across the Russian land, it’s rare for rataev to kick, but often lie to a fool, corpses are more efficient for themselves, and Galitsians say their speech, if they want to fly away to solitude. "And the abominations from all countries come with victories to the Russian land." The chronicler of the 12th century looked at the matter in the same way, comparing his present with the recent past: “... the ancient princes and their men .. I’ll take away Russian lands and other countries for myself,” and now, “for our lack of food, God brought us filthy, and our livestock and our villages and estates for those are.

Both the author of The Tale of Igor's Campaign and the chronicler equally condemn the period of disparate existence of parts of the until recently united, although, as it turned out, fragile Kyiv state. The people in their assessments of the events of the past singled out not this period of uninterrupted inter-princely wars and weakness in the face of an external enemy, but the time Kievan Rus as the time of its greatness and strength. Popular sympathies are attributed to the time when the Russian land, gathered under the rule of the first Kyiv princes from heterogeneous ethnographic elements into one political whole, really represented a force that was formidable for enemies and at the same time made it possible to develop peaceful people's labor - a guarantee of the future future of the country .

Under the Kyiv period of history, in no case can one understand the period of appanages with its disunity of individual principalities and princely strife, as L. Maikov and, to some extent, V. O. Klyuchevsky do. The time of appanages cannot be called Kievan, if only for the reason that Kyiv as a political center did not already exist then, it faded into the background and was decidedly lost among other local centers. In vain, V.O. Klyuchevsky thinks that it was a time when "the people of Kiev were increasingly thinking about Chernigov, and the Chernigov - about Novgorod, and all together - about the Russian land, about the common zemstvo cause." In fact, these relations between the destinies developed quite differently. Not at all such a picture is drawn to us by a deep connoisseur of contemporary political relations, our great poet, the author of The Tale of Igor's Campaign; chronicle facts also tell a completely different story. If one can speak at that time about the unity of the Russian people, then only in the ethnic sense. Political unity, at least in relative form Kyiv state, was no longer there at that time.

All the sympathies of the people, expressed by him in epics, refer specifically to Kievan Rus, by the time of its heyday, i.e. to the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavich.

To be convinced of this, one has only to pick up epics about the main Russian heroes - Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich and others. All of them are contemporaries of Prince Vladimir, they are all connected with him in one way or another, together with him they successfully fulfill the main task - protection of their native land from an external enemy. And why this is so, why the people reacted with obvious sympathy to this time, it will become clear to us if we take the trouble to compare the living conditions of the Russian people of the period before the formation of the Kyiv state with the time of the existence of this state.

“Slavs and Antes,” says Procopius, “are not controlled by a single representative of power, but have lived in democracy since ancient times, and therefore all sorts of things are decided together for them.” The Mauritius Strategist confirms the same. This latter is of particular interest to us because it studies the Slavs for a specific purpose: it is interested in their military force in order to draw from here a number of practical conclusions for the Byzantine Empire. He writes: “They have no government and live in enmity among themselves; they have many bosses who do not live in peace, so it is useful to win over some of them with promises or gifts, especially those neighboring to the border, and with their help attack others. Mauritius further advises to take measures to ensure that the Slavs do not unite under one authority, since such an unification will undoubtedly increase the power of the Slavs and make them not only capable of self-defense, but also dangerous for their neighbors, and above all for Byzantium itself.

The Kiev state just carried out what the Byzantine politician was so afraid of. under power Kyiv all East Slavic and many non-Slavic tribes were drawn in. Kievan Rus became fully defensive and formidable for its neighbors. The enmity of the tribal leaders ceased, conditions appeared for the further development of the country. This is undoubtedly an important achievement. It is no coincidence that the Russian people remember this period of their history so well.

It is very important to pay attention to one more circumstance: the epics of the Vladimir cycle, that is, epics about Kyiv and Kiev, the period of the history of our country, were preserved for us not by the Ukrainian, but by the Great Russian people. They are sung in the former Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Perm provinces, in Siberia, in the lower reaches of the Volga, on the Don, that is, where the Russian people lived easier, where the oppression of serfdom was weaker, or it did not exist at all. And this interest in their distant past among the Great Russian people, this merit of preserving the most valuable and ancient facts from the life of the people tells us that the history of Kyiv is not the history of only the Ukrainian people. This is the period of our history, when the Great Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples were formed, the period when the power of the Russian people was forged, the period, which, according to Klyuchevsky, became the "cradle of the Russian people." It is no coincidence that Ilya, a peasant son from the village of Karacharova near the city of Murom, goes through the "Vyaticheskie forests", overcoming all dangers, to the capital city of Kyiv to Prince. Vladimir. Despite the attempts in our literature to present the matter differently and to see the Chernigov city of Morovsk in Murom, and the Chernigov city of Karachev in the village of Karacharov, the epic truth remains unshaken and is confirmed by new considerations. The Nightingale the Robber, his friend Starling, the Dyatlov Mountains, on which the Mordovian city of Ibragimov or Abramov was built, destroyed at the beginning of the 13th century. and replaced by the Russian city of Nizhny (Gorky) - all this speaks of the Mordovian genera, which were named after the names of birds. In the Mordovian land, we very early see Slavic settlements and among them the city of Murom, one of the oldest cities. The connection of this region with Kyiv is undeniable. It is confirmed by chronicle data.

So, Kyiv- the center of a large state. Power of Kyiv extended to distant spaces up to the Oka and Volga basins. This is a whole period in the history of subsequent states, Eastern Europe.

History of Kievan Rus- this is not the history of Ukraine, He is the history of Belarus, not the history of Great Russia. This is the history of the state, which made it possible for Ukraine, Belarus, and Great Russia to mature and grow. In this position lies the whole enormous meaning of this period in the life of our country.

It goes without saying that the political successes of the peoples that became part of the Kievan state - and above all the Eastern Slavs, i.e., the Russian people, to whom the leading role undoubtedly belonged in this process - became possible only under certain conditions of their internal development. It would be very naive to think that the unification of the Eastern Slavs and non-Slavic peoples under the rule of Kyiv is the result of some external impulse.

Before this unification took place, the peoples of our country managed to go through a lot, managed to achieve significant results in the field of economy and social relations.

All these problems of economic, social and political development of the Eastern European peoples and, above all, the Eastern Slavs, complex and difficult, quite naturally, have always attracted the attention of all those interested in the history of our country, and now they are placed before us with even greater acuteness. Their relevance does not require proof: without solving these problems it is impossible to get a correct idea of ​​the Russian historical process as a whole.

The fact of serious disagreements between the researchers of these questions is primarily due to the fact that for a time so remote from our time, we have at our disposal either scarce or unclear and inaccurate information. On the other hand, all these questions, despite the fact that they relate to such a remote time from us, have and had not only purely academic significance, and therefore there was a sharp struggle around them, due to the national and political positions of the persons participating in it. Hence the inevitable different approaches to facts, the very choice of facts and their interpretation.

Since these questions have become the subject of scientific (even in the broadest and most vague sense of the term) research, they have been of great interest and received with great fervor. Work of acad. Muller "On the origin of the name and people of Russia" (where the author, undoubtedly, allowed himself to belittle the role of the Russian people in the formation of the state and its ancient history), Lomonosov met with a more than energetic rebuff. “This is so wonderful,” writes Lomonosov, “that if Mr. Muller knew how to portray a lively calm, then he would have made Russia only a poor people, which no one and the meanest people has ever been represented by any writer.”

The same, in fact, style of polemic we can meet later. In the 70s of the XIX century. Gedeonov, the author of the book "Varangians and Rus", far from calm phrases break out at the address of the Normanists: "The inexorable Norman veto," he writes, "gravitates over the explanation of any remnant of our native antiquity." “But who, what kind of Darwin will breathe life into this idol with a Norman head and a Slavic body?” Similar examples many can be cited.

It is not surprising that a lot of superfluous things were introduced into the polemics on the burning issues of the most ancient period of our history, capable of confusing and complicating an already obscure issue.

I do not console myself with the fact that I will be able to unravel this complex knot, I am little inclined to cut it. I just want to make an attempt to use a number of achievements in our science on this subject and to draw some conclusions from them. I would like to approach as critically as I can the various aspects of the social life of our distant past, verify the testimony of various sources, written and non-written, by comparing them crosswise and, in this way, try to find answers to the questions posed by the present.

Our modern science is trying to make up for the scarcity of written sources, quite understandable for the most ancient times of our history, by attracting new and most diverse materials to the solution of the problems facing it. These are monuments of material culture, given language, remnants of the Russian people themselves, as well as remnants and life of the peoples of our Union, who until recently stood at the lower levels of social development, etc. But even expanding the range of sources still does not give us the opportunity to fully resolve the issues before us are problems and penetrate into the distant past covered with darkness.

Archeology, with all its great successes, especially in recent times, nevertheless, due to the specificity of its material and methods of studying it, is often powerless to answer a number of questions that confront us; linguistics is not only limited in its possibilities, but by no means always gives us even what it can give. The combination of data from archeology and linguistics with the involvement of folklore, of course, greatly expands the boundaries of historical knowledge, but, nevertheless, this is not enough to turn controversial judgments into indisputable evidence.

Nor can we console ourselves with the fact that from the moment the written monuments appeared, the position of the historian becomes completely different, that written sources are capable of definitively leading us out of the realm of more or less well-founded assumptions. A written source has its own characteristics, requires a special approach and does not always guarantee the possibility of resolving controversial issues, excluding completely legitimate doubts.

And yet, despite all these difficulties, which make our historical conclusions largely arbitrary, not a single generation of historians refused to plunge into the jungle of complex nebulae and look for the sources of those social phenomena in them that never ceased and hardly ever cease to disturb human thought. This is not curiosity, but a need.

In these essays, the social and political relations of ancient Russia are considered mainly within the framework in which our written sources, first of all, allow it. Other types of sources are involved only partially and incidentally.

Writing appears in individual societies at rather late stages of their history. Writing among the Eastern Slavs appeared already in a class society, when the remnants of tribal relations existed in it only in the form of remnants of the past. The first written monuments known to us - treaties with the Greeks, Pravda, chronicles - are connected with the interests of a society that has already broken ties with the tribal system.

Agreement with the Greeks in 911. mentions written wills that Russians living in Byzantium could make. If it can be assumed here that Russians living in Byzantium could write their wills not in Russian, but in Greek, then in the treaty of 945 Russian writing is implied with much more categoricalness. The Russian prince undertakes to supply his ambassadors and merchants sent to Byzantium with letters “writing to the sitse: as if the ship was sent by a village”. Letters should serve as a guarantee that ambassadors and merchants come to the Greeks precisely from the Russian prince and for peaceful purposes.

S. P. Obnorsky's latest study of the language of contracts leads the author to a conclusion that is very important for history. Treaties of 911 and 945 differ from one another in terms of language. Treaty of 911 impregnated with Bulgarianisms, but it is still written in the Russian language; in the treaty of 945, the features of Russian origin make themselves felt quite widely. This implies the assumption that the translation of the treaty of 911 was made by a Bulgarian into Bulgarian, but this translation was corrected by a Russian translator; the translator of the treaty of 945 was to be a Russian scribe. S.P. Obnorsky comes to the conclusion that both translations were made at different times (911, 945), approximately coinciding with the time of the conclusion of the treaties themselves.

The ruling classes of society throughout the vast space occupied by the Eastern Slavs, at the time of compiling the written monuments I used, that is, in the 9th-11th centuries, spoke approximately the same language, the very one that we can see in these monuments - where he only slightly distorted by subsequent scribes - had general idea about their interests and ways to protect them, and quite early (the first information of the 9th century) managed to connect themselves with a common religious beliefs with neighboring Byzantium.

It goes without saying that those major facts with which written monuments acquaint us have their own and are often very long history about which these sources are silent. The very nature of some monuments, of course, excludes the possibility of demanding “historicity” from them, since they often aimed only at fixing a certain, sometimes very limited, complex of phenomena of a given moment, which, like any such complex, bears traces of dying and re-emerging elements, not always however, easily recognizable.

Only the author of The Tale of Bygone Years set himself a truly broad historical task, which, you must admit? remains unresolved to this day. He wanted to write no more, no less than the history of the Kievan state from ancient times: “Where did Russian land who in Kyiv began before the prince and from where the Russian land began to eat. The chronicler wrote his work with a specific purpose and in a specific political environment. He needed to show history of Kievan Rus the role of the princely family Rurikovich.

Hence his inclination towards Normanism is also understandable. A. A. Shakhmatov managed to show that on the first pages “ Tales of Bygone Years"We have a reworking of old legends about the beginning of the Russian land, illuminated through the prism of the first Russian historian-Normanist, a supporter of the Varyago-Rus theory.

We can say in advance that we will have to diverge very significantly from the annalistic concept of the formation of the Russian state, not only because we have different theoretical ideas about society, the state and the historical process as a whole, but also because, having a specific task in front of us , the chronicler made a corresponding selection of facts, full of meaning for him, often of secondary importance for us, and completely passed by his attention that which for us now would be of paramount value. In addition, all our chroniclers were bound by the will of the customers, which usually were the princes. The customer of the chronicle that we have at our disposal was Vladimir Monomakh.

The chronicler placed a note about himself at the end of his work: “Hegumen Sylvester of St. Michael wrote a kygy si“ summer-scribe ”, hoping to receive mercy from God, under princes Volodimer, who reigned over him Kiev, and at that time I was abbess at St. Michael in 6624 , index 9 years. And if you read these books, then be with us in prayers.

It is not difficult to guess what order Vladimir Monomakh could have made to his historiographer, if only we can correctly understand the political situation of the moment.

To do this, it is absolutely necessary for us to make a short digression into the field of political relations in the second half of the 11th and early 12th centuries. We need to get to know the people who made history then, the people who wrote and for whom the history of that time was written.

From the middle of the XI century. the features of the impending new stage in the history of the Kievan state were clearly defined. Separate parts of the "patchwork" empire of the Rurikovich during the IX-XI centuries. so matured and strengthened, their own tasks of domestic and foreign policy grew so much that the Kyiv center with the Kyiv prince at the head not only ceased to be for them a condition for the growth of their wealth and strength, but in some respects even became an obstacle to their further development and the fulfillment of their own political goals. The specter of the collapse of the Kievan state became quite obvious. Individual princes begin to show their centrifugal tendencies more and more often and, in their conflicting interests in relation to each other, collide with each other, thus making “strife” inevitable. But princely "strife" is not the only danger that threatened the feudal lords. This time is full of uprisings of the masses in different places. Kyiv state.

The chronicler, who is not inclined to pay much attention to mass actions, nevertheless notes the movements of 1068, 1071, 1091 and 1113. The latter, apparently, was especially strong, and the bewildered ruling classes of Kyiv society persistently call the most energetic and powerful of the princes, Vladimir Monomakh, to the Kyiv table. We partly know what the Kyiv delegation told Vladimir Monomakh: it intimidated him with the further growth of the popular movement.

So, the position of the ruling circles of Kyiv, Russian princes(by this time greatly multiplied), as well as boyars, representatives of the church, merchants and usurers, it turned out to be more difficult and dangerous than they imagined. “The summer of Yaroslavl has passed”, “arrows on the ground” have already been scattered. In Vladimir Monomakh, the bewildered leaders sought their salvation.

Vladimir arrived in Kyiv and began to act by various means: repressions, compromises, appeal to public opinion were launched. 12 years of Vladimir sitting on the Kiev table resurrected the times when Kyiv was at the head of the state and held power in its hands.

A few words about Kyiv, Vladimir Monomakh, his uncle and father. These few words are solely intended to create the correct perspective needed to assess the events and the people who participated in them.

About Kyiv of the late X - early XI centuries. Dietmar speaks of a big city, in which there were 400 churches and 8 markets and a myriad of people. Adam of Bremen in the second half of the 11th century calls Kyiv rival of Constantinople. Metropolitan of Kyiv Illarion in his famous “Word” calls Kyiv a city of “shining grandeur”, the Laurentian Chronicle under 1124 says that there was a grandiose fire in Kyiv, and “there were about 600 single churches”. It is very likely that something is exaggerated here, but no doubt, in any case, that Kyiv in the 11th century. - one of the largest cities in Europe. It is no coincidence that Western European chroniclers pay so much attention to him. The court of the Kyiv prince is well known throughout the world of that time, since the Kyiv prince had managed to occupy a very definite place in international relations by this time.

Yaroslav the Wise was related to the royal houses of England, France, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Hungary and Byzantium. His daughter Anna was married to the French king Henry L and actively participated in the political life of France (she was regent after the death of her husband). Her handwritten signature in Slavic letters (Ana rina, i.e. Anna regina) is on a Latin charter issued in 1063 on behalf of the infant French king Philip I. Roman Empire by Henry IV. At the court of Yaroslav lived an exile from his kingdom, Olaf of Norway, whose son, with Russian help, regained the Norwegian throne. At the same court lived another famous Viking Harald, who, after high-profile military campaigns in Sicily and Italy, became the king of Norway and laid down his life in England. He was married to the daughter of Yaroslav - Elizabeth. As can be seen from the English "Laws of Edward the Confessor", in Kyiv Yaroslav found shelter for the sons of the English king Edmund the Iron Side - Edwin and Edward, expelled from England by the Danish king Kanut.

It is not surprising that in this international environment, Yaroslav's children learned to speak many European languages. We are well aware that Vsevolod Yaroslavich, the father of Vladimir Monomakh, spoke 5 languages. Vsevolod was married to a Greek princess from the House of Monomakhs, his son Vladimir married the daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king, Gita Garaldovna, who was forced to flee England due to the Norman invasion.

I can not now give numerous facts of participation Kyiv in the European life of states and peoples. I think that the information I have given, although selected very one-sidedly, serves as a clear indicator of the position of Kyiv in Europe at that time.

Thus, Vladimir Monomakh, to whom we must now return again, lived in a very complex atmosphere, saturated with European politics.

He knew a lot about literature, as evidenced by his "Instruction", almost inspired by the corresponding English samples. He knew very well the political significance of the chronicle. Upon arrival in Kyiv, he already found here a chronicle compiled by a monk of the Kiev-Pechersk monastery, but Monomakh was not satisfied with this chronicle.

We do not know what actually Vladimir Monomakh did not like in this chronicle, why he considered it necessary to remake it and transfer the matter to other hands and even to another institution (from the Caves Monastery to the Vydubitsky Mikhailovsky Monastery), because this old chronicle has not reached us. , but we can guess what Vladimir Monomakh wanted from the abbot of the Vydubytsky monastery Sylvester.

It seems that Sylvester coped with his task, that is, he correctly understood the requirements of the moment. Vladimir Monomakh, in any case, was pleased with the new work and tried to show his disposition towards its author: two years later, he ordered him to be appointed bishop of his hereditary city of Pereyaslavl, where Sylvester died in 1123. Through his work, a red thread runs the struggle against separatist tendencies of the feudal nobility, the desire to strengthen the idea of ​​the unity of the Russian land, to introduce into the minds of the feudal lords the need to submit to Kyiv and Kyiv prince.

Sylvester used the works of his predecessors, where some schemes were already given, useful for the present moment, requiring only some alteration. Sylvester could read in the Novgorod Chronicle a story about how the Varangians once ruled in Novgorod and “violence against the Slovenes, Krivich and Merya and Chudi,”2 how these oppressed drove their rapists away and “started to rule in themselves and set up cities”, how sad the lack of strong power turned out to be for them, when, after the expulsion of the Varangians, they “stand up to fight on their own, and there was a great army between them and strife and hail to hail, and there was no truth in them.”

We, unfortunately, do not know what was written on this subject in an even older Kievan initial chronicle, which also has not come down to us. In any case, Sylvester in his work crossed out the phrase of the Novgorod chronicle about the violence of the enemies, he also did not place the story of the uprising of the Novgorodians against Rurik, but used from the works of his predecessors only what seemed to him necessary. The lack of firm power leads to strife and uprisings. The restoration of this power (voluntary vocation) saves society from all sorts of troubles. The saviors of society in the ninth century. Varangian princes appeared, in particular Rurik. Rurikovich carried out this mission for a long time and successfully, and only at the end of the XI century. the old times were repeated again, “get up on your own, be between them the army is great and strife.” Calling Monomakh to Kyiv as a chronicler is thus justified. From this followed a logically correct conclusion: the duty of the people of Kiev to obey the called authority, and not to rebel against it. The strife was too well known to Kievan society in the second half of the 11th century.

It is understandable why we should treat Sylvester's messages and reasoning very, very carefully. Even if he gave us the facts, as best he could, conscientiously, he used them for his own purposes, elucidating them accordingly.

We understand very well why the chronicler, who put the theme of the origin of the Kyiv princes in the title of his work, gives his main attention to Novgorod and the Varangian princes, and, in particular, to Prince Rurik and his successors.

Fascinated by his idea and directing all his attention to the north, the southern chronicler skimped on the facts of this period of his southern Polyana history, which has long been associated with the Khazars and Byzantium much more than with the Varangians - the Normans. The chronicler is the historian of the dynasty that reigned under him in Kyiv, first of all.

It is quite understandable that, in fulfilling his task, he tried to show the role not only of the Rurikovichs of his day, but also of their distant ancestors, undoubtedly trying to portray them in attractive features, sometimes arguing with more truthful and current ideas about the still relatively not so distant past, often disadvantageous for the ruling class in general and its supreme representative in particular. The position of the writer is quite understandable. Not one Russian Nestor or Sylvester was in a similar state. The English chronicler, too, apparently had the task of ennobling the origin of the power of his kings, and used the same techniques. The Britons address their legendary princes with a completely similar speech: "Terram latam et spatiosam et omnium rerum copia refertam vestrae mandant ditioni parere."

Having a central political task before him, the chronicler solved it with the help of the means available to him. And it must be said frankly that he used these means in his own way, not badly: he knows the value of the source, he knows how, although in a peculiar way, but critically to treat it, knows how to separate what seems to him the main thing from the secondary. But he, of course, is a man of his time, his milieu, and understands well the political significance of his work. He understands the political - in the sense of international relations - situation of the moment and quite clearly shows a tendency that can be characterized as a turn towards Byzantium with the ensuing consequence. - obscuring old ties with the now “(after the separation of the churches) heretical and accursed West.

At the disposal of the chronicler were written sources - Greek, Western European, Russian - as well as legends, personal observations both of his environment and of Slavic and non-Slavic tribes, often in their development standing below the society to which he himself belonged. He dealt with his topic so well that his schemes have largely dominated our science until recently, and some of them are not without significance even now.

It would, of course, be strange to demand from the chronicler an answer to the scientific problems facing us, but in order to solve them we cannot do without his work, this one-of-a-kind work. We are faced with the most difficult task - to decompose all this work of the chronicler into its constituent elements and use them for our own needs. A work of extraordinary complexity. A. A. Shakhmatov, his students and opponents tried to do this and, to do them justice, they achieved significant results, although far from sufficient. It can be hoped that their successors, by drawing on archaeological and linguistic materials, will advance the work even further.

Despite the fact that work in this direction has only just begun, we will nevertheless try to use it in order to imagine, as far as possible, the main stages in the development of the society that inhabited Eastern Europe in the 9th-12th centuries. in various parts of this vast territory.

It is necessary to make a reservation in advance that almost all of our written monuments relate primarily to the territory along the Volkhov - Dnieper, i.e., the territory in which the main events of this period took place, and almost do not affect the points more distant from this main highway. From this, of course, it does not follow at all that these other places, sometimes more provincial, did not have their own history at the same time: here, too, undoubtedly, a life of its own flowed, not only in its manifestations found on the pages of the annals, but nevertheless revealed by the systematic work of archeology. After the works of A. A. Spitsyn, A. V. Artsikhovsky, A. N. Lyavdansky, B. A. Rybakov, V. I. Ravdonikas, P. N. Tretyakov, M. I. Artamonov and others, we can safely talk about the state and nature of the economy in the most ancient period of our history, about the eradication of the tribal system, about the emergence of classes, about some features of class relations and religious ideas of the population both in the central interfluve and in areas lying to the west, north and southeast of the main water the road, so well known to us from the Russian chronicles from the work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Byzantine and Western European chronicles (the famous path " from Varangians to Greeks»).

Nevertheless, in view of the incompleteness and unsystematized archaeological data, our attention will still be most attracted not by the “backwoods”, but precisely by those places in Eastern Europe that are better and more fully illuminated than others, primarily by written sources that speak a more accessible language, than real ones.

This is absolutely inevitable, also because it is precisely at these points that social life reveals the most striking indicators of the main contours of the process of interest to us, it is here that we can first of all notice those most progressive phenomena in the history of the peoples who then inhabited Eastern Europe, which we with good reason can be considered leading.

What do we want to know? With what questions are we going to approach the pages of our chronicle, the most ancient monuments of material culture and other historical sources?

Before us is the same, still unresolved problem that our first historian, the author of The Tale of Bygone Years, set himself 900 years ago: where did the Russian land come from, how did it develop, through what stages of its growth did it reach the present? your state?

Without delving into the so-called "prehistoric" past of Eastern Europe and touching only partially on the history of those peoples of our country who were ahead of the Slavs in their development and were with them in the most diverse forms of communication, we intend to focus mainly on the formation and history of the Kievan state. in order to reveal the main moments of this history, the social forces that created it, the conditions under which it proceeded.

The state could be formed only when the tribal system collapsed, when the tribal relations were replaced by classes with their conflicting interests and complex mutual relations. This is well known to us. We just can not answer the question exactly when it happened.

However, if we are deprived of the opportunity to find the exact dates of these major facts (the historian of any country is inevitably in the same position), we have the opportunity to make a number of observations from which we can, although only approximately, but still outline the time of these major shifts in history. peoples who inhabited and inhabit our country. Both written and non-written sources are at our service. But the source, whatever it may be, can be useful only when the researcher himself knows well what he wants from him. Therefore, it is very important to clear the ground for solving the main problem, to firmly and clearly establish the main provisions, the prerequisites for further research. And this prerequisite, first of all, is the determination of the nature of the social environment that is subject to our study.

In this plane, the question of the system and methods of economy during the period of the collapse of tribal relations, the formation of a class society and the formation of the state, the predominance of certain branches of it cannot be of secondary importance for us. And since there are serious disagreements in our literature on this subject, I consider it necessary first of all to sort out these conflicting opinions.

More 18th century writers could not agree on how to start Ancient Russia. While the book Shcherbatov or Shletser were ready to paint our ancestors of the 10th century as “savages”, almost running on all fours, there were researchers to whom the same ancestors seemed to be enlightened Europeans in the style of the same 18th century. Shcherbatov declared the ancient inhabitants of Russia directly "nomadic people." “Although in Russia before her baptism,” he says, “there were cities, but they were like shelters, and in other words the people, and especially the most noble people, practiced war and raids, mostly in the fields, moving from place to place, lived." Of course, there were people here, - Schlozer reasoned, - “God knows, since when and from where, but people without government, who lived like animals and birds that filled the forests. . .". “It’s not true,” Boltin objected to Shcherbatov and Schletser: “the Russians lived in society, had cities, government, crafts, trade, communication with neighboring peoples, writing and laws.” This dispute in a slightly different form passed into the 19th century. and survived into the 20th century. V. O. Klyuchevsky, M. V. Dovnar-Zapolsky and N. A. Rozhkov, on the one hand, on the other - M. S. Grushevsky, M. K. Lyubavsky, Yu. V. Gotye and M. N. Pokrovsky in the XX century . they still continued to argue about what and how the Slavs did in the most ancient time known to us of their existence, which was the main economic basis of their existence. M. S. Grushevsky, Yu. V. Gotye, to a large extent M. K. Lyubavsky, and, finally, very decisively M. N. Pokrovsky insisted that agriculture was the basis of the ancient Slavic economy, while V. O. Klyuchevsky, M. V. Dovnar-Zapolsky and N. A. Rozhkov considered agriculture to be a completely secondary occupation and put forward hunting for fur-bearing animals in the first place.

Recently, S. V. Bakhrushin has taken a compromise position on this issue.

It is perfectly obvious that this is a problem of the greatest importance, on the correct solution of which the answer to the main question that is currently before us depends to a large extent.