Norman theory (Normanism) is a trend in historiography that develops the concept that the people-tribe of Rus comes from Scandinavia during the expansion of the Vikings, who were called Normans in Western Europe.
For the first time, the thesis about the origin of the Varangians from Sweden was put forward by King Johan III in diplomatic correspondence with Ivan the Terrible. In 1615, the Swedish diplomat Piotr Petreus de Yerlesunda tried to develop this idea in his book Regin Muschowitici Sciographia. His initiative was supported in 1671 by the royal historian Johan Widekind in Thet svenska i Ryssland tijo åhrs krijgs historie. Olaf Dalin's History of the Swedish State had a great influence on subsequent Normanists.
The Norman theory gained wide popularity in Russia in the first half of the 18th century thanks to the activities of German historians in Russian Academy Sciences Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer (1694-1738), later Gerard Friedrich Miller, Strube de Pyrmont and August Ludwig Schlözer.
Against the Norman theory, seeing in it the thesis of the backwardness of the Slavs and their unpreparedness for the formation of a state, M.V. Lomonosov actively spoke out, proposing a different, non-Scandinavian identification of the Varangians. Lomonosov, in particular, claimed that Rurik was from the Polabian Slavs, who had dynastic ties with the princes of the Ilmen Slovenes (this was the reason for his invitation to reign). One of the first Russian historians mid-eighteenth century V. N. Tatishchev, having studied the “Varangian question”, did not come to a definite conclusion regarding the ethnicity of the Varangians called to Rus', but made an attempt to unite opposing views. In his opinion, based on the "Joachim Chronicle", the Varangian Rurik descended from the Norman prince ruling in Finland, and the daughter of the Slavic elder Gostomysl.
The Norman version was accepted by N. M. Karamzin, and after him by almost all major Russian historians of the 19th century. The two most prominent representatives of the anti-Normanist trend were S. A. Gedeonov and D. I. Ilovaisky. The first considered the Rus to be Baltic Slavs - encouraged, the second, on the contrary, emphasized their southern origin.
Soviet historiography, after a break in the first years after the revolution, returned to the Norman problem at the state level. The main argument was the thesis of one of the founders of Marxism, Friedrich Engels, that the state cannot be imposed from outside, supplemented by the pseudoscientific autochthonic theory of the linguist N. Ya. Marr, officially promoted at that time, which denied migration and explained the evolution of language and ethnogenesis from a class point of view . The ideological setting for Soviet historians was to prove the thesis about the Slavic ethnicity of the Rus tribe. Characteristic excerpts from a public lecture by Doctor of Historical Sciences Mavrodin, delivered in 1949, reflect the state of affairs in Soviet historiography of the Stalin period:
“It is natural that the “scientists” servants of world capital strive at all costs to discredit, denigrate the historical past of the Russian people, to belittle the significance of Russian culture at all stages of its development. They “deny” the Russian people the initiative to create their own state...
These examples are quite enough to come to the conclusion that a thousand-year-old tradition about the “calling of the Varangians” by Rurik, Sineus and Truvor “from across the sea”, which should have been archived a long time ago along with the legend about Adam, Eve and the serpent, tempter global flood, Noah and his sons, is being revived by foreign bourgeois historians in order to serve as a tool in the struggle of reactionary circles with our worldview, our ideology ...
Soviet historical science, following the instructions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, based on the remarks of comrades Stalin, Kirov and Zhdanov on the “Summary of a textbook on the history of the USSR”, developed a theory about the pre-feudal period, as the period of the birth of feudalism, and about the barbarian state that arises at this time, and applied this theory to specific materials of the history of the Russian state. Thus already in theoretical constructions There are no founders of Marxism-Leninism and there can be no place for the Normans as the creators of the state among the "wild" East Slavic tribes.
Historian and archaeologist B. A. Rybakov represented Soviet anti-Normanism for many years. From the 1940s, he identified the Rus and the Slavs, placing the first ancient Slavic state, the predecessor of Kievan Rus, in the forest-steppe of the Middle Dnieper.
In the 1960s, the "Normanists" regained their positions, recognizing the existence of a Slavic proto-state headed by Rus before the arrival of Rurik. I. L. Tikhonov names one of the reasons why many became Normanists in the 1960s:
... the departure from scientific officialdom was also perceived as a kind of “scientific dissidence”, a fronde, and this could not but attract young people, whose political dissidence was limited to reading Gumilyov and Brodsky, singing songs of Galich, and anecdotes about Brezhnev ... Some opposition quite suited us and created a certain halo around the participants of the Varangian Seminar.
The subject of the discussion was the localization of the unification of the Rus with a kagan at the head, which received the conditional name Russian Khaganate. Orientalist A.P. Novoseltsev leaned towards the northern location of the Russian Khaganate, while archaeologists (M.I. Artamonov, V.V. Sedov) placed the Khaganate in the south, in the area from the Middle Dnieper to the Don. Without denying the influence of the Normans in the north, they still deduce the ethnonym Rus from Iranian roots.
In 862, in order to end the civil strife, the tribes of the Eastern Slavs (Krivichi and Ilmen Slovenes) and Finno-Ugric peoples (All and Chud) turned to the Varangians-Rus with a proposal to take the princely throne. Where the Varangians were called from, the chronicles do not report. It is possible to roughly localize the place of residence of Rus on the coast of the Baltic Sea (“from across the sea”, “the path to the Varangians along the Dvina”). In addition, the Varangians-Rus are put on a par with the Scandinavian peoples: Swedes, Normans (Norwegians), Angles (Danes) and Goths (the inhabitants of Gotland are modern Swedes):
And the Slovenians said to themselves: “Let's look for a prince who would rule over us and judge by right.” And they went across the sea to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, as others are called Swedes, and others are Normans and Angles, and still others are Gotlanders - like these.
Later chronicles replace the term Varangians with the pseudo-ethnonym "Germans", which unites the Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.
The chronicles left in the Old Russian transcription a list of the names of the Varangians-Rus (until 944), most of the distinct Old Germanic or Scandinavian etymology. The chronicle mentions the following princes and ambassadors to Byzantium in 912: Rurik (Rorik), Askold, Dir, Oleg (Helgi), Igor (Ingwar), Charles, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudy, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid. The names of Prince Igor and his wife Olga in Greek transcription according to synchronous Byzantine sources (compositions of Constantine Porphyrogenitus) are phonetically close to the Scandinavian sound (Ingor, Helga).
The first names with Slavic or other roots appear only in the list of the treaty of 944, although the leaders of the West Slavic tribes from the beginning of the 9th century are known under distinctly Slavic names.
Written testimonies of contemporaries about Rus' are listed in the article Rus (people). Western European and Byzantine authors of the 9th-10th centuries identify Rus as Swedes, Normans or Franks. With rare exceptions, Arab-Persian authors describe the Rus separately from the Slavs, placing the former near or among the Slavs.
The most important argument of the Norman theory is the work of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus "On the management of the empire" (949), which gives the names of the Dnieper rapids in two languages: Russian and Slavic, and the interpretation of the names in Greek. At the same time, Konstantin reports that the Slavs are "tributaries" (paktiots - from the Latin pactio "agreement") of the Ross.
Ibn Fadlan described in detail the rite of burial of a noble Rus by burning in a boat, followed by the erection of a mound. This event dates back to 922, when, according to the ancient Russian chronicles, the Rus were still separated from the Slavs subject to them. Graves of this type were found near Ladoga and later in Gnezdovo. The method of burial probably originated among immigrants from Sweden on the Aland Islands and later, with the beginning of the Viking Age, spread to Sweden, Norway, the coast of Finland and penetrated into the territory of the future Kievan Rus.
In 2008, on the Zemlyanoy settlement of Staraya Ladoga, archaeologists discovered objects from the era of the first Rurikids with the image of a falcon, which later became a symbolic trident - the coat of arms of the Rurikids. A similar image of a falcon was minted on the English coins of the Danish king Anlaf Gutfritsson (939-941).
At archaeological research layers of the 9th-10th centuries in the Rurik settlement, a significant number of finds of military equipment and Viking clothing were found, Scandinavian-type items were found (iron hryvnias with Thor's hammers, bronze pendants with runic inscriptions, a silver figurine of a Valkyrie, etc.), which indicates the presence of immigrants from Scandinavia in the Novgorod lands at the time of the birth of Russian statehood.
A number of words in Russian are considered Germanisms, Scandinavianisms, and although there are relatively few of them in the Russian language, most of them belong to the ancient period. It is significant that not only words of trade vocabulary penetrated, but also maritime terms, everyday words and terms of power and control, proper names. So, according to a number of linguists, proper names appeared Igor, Oleg, Olga, Rogneda, Rurik, the words: tiun, pud, anchor (from the 11th century), sneak, whip (from the 13th century).
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direction in Russian and foreign historiography, whose supporters consider the Normans (Varangians) the founders of the state in Ancient Rus'. Formulated in the 2nd quarter of the 16th century. G. Bayer, G. Miller and others.
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NORMAN THEORY
direction in historiography, supporters of which consider the Normans (Varangians) the founders of the state in Dr. Rus'. N. t. was formulated by him. scientists working in St. Petersburg. AN in the 2nd quarter. 18th century, - G. Z. Bayer, G. F. Miller, and others. A. L. Shletser, who arrived in Russia, later became a supporter of N. t. The basis for the conclusion about the Norman origin of Dr.-Rus. The state-va was served by the story "The Tale of Bygone Years" about the calling to Rus' of the Varangian princes Rurik, Sineus and Truvor in 862, which, as established by the researchers of the annals, is a later interpolation. This news was brought, apparently, in the 12th century. with the aim of countering the desire of Byzantium to impose political politics on Rus'. dependence together with the dependence of the church on Byzantium. Already in the period of the formation of N. t., its politic was revealed. meaning, aimed at presenting dr. Rus' is an extremely backward country, the Slavs and their descendants are a people incapable of self-sufficiency. ist. development, and the Germans and Normans - by force, edges from the very beginning of Rus. History is called upon to guide Russia, its economy and culture. All R. 18th century N. t. was criticized by M. V. Lomonosov, who in connection with this study of the history of the East. Slavs. He pointed to the the inconsistency of N. t. and its political hostile to Russia. meaning. In the nobility-monarchy. historiography 18-19 centuries. the views of the "Normanists" acquired the character of an official. versions of the origin of Rus. state-va. H. M. Karamzin even saw the special virtues of the East. with the Lavians in that they allegedly themselves voluntarily elected a monarch. form of government and called foreign sovereigns to themselves. To a greater or lesser extent, most of the bourgeois were "Normanists". historians. S. M. Solovyov, without denying the vocation Varangian princes to Rus', refused to see this as evidence of the underdevelopment of the East. Slavs and transfer to the 9th century. concept of national dignity of modern times. The struggle between the "Normanists" and the "anti-Normanists" became especially acute in the 1960s. in connection with the celebration in 1862 of the millennium of Russia. Opponents of N. t. were made by certain nobles and bourgeois. historians - D. I. Ilovaisky, S. A. Gedeonov, V. G. Vasilevsky and others. They criticized the department. specific provisions of N. t., but could not reveal its anti-science. In the owls the historiography of N. t. was overcome in the 1930s and 1940s. as a result of the work of a number of owls based on the Marxist-Leninist methodology. historians and archaeologists. B. D. Grekov, B. A. Rybakov, M. N. Tikhomirov, S. V. Yushkov, V. V. Mavrodin and others established that the East Slavs. society reached in the 9th century. the degree of decomposition of the communal system, when ripe ext. prerequisites for the emergence of state-va. The presence of some other Russian. princes of Varangian origin (Oleg, Igor) and the Norman-Varangians in the princely squads does not contradict the fact that the state in Dr. Rus' was formed on the inside. social-economic basis. They left almost no traces in the rich material and spiritual culture of Dr. Rus'. The Normans-Varangians, who were in Rus', quickly merged with the indigenous population, became glorified. Starting from the 20s. 20th century the provisions of N. t. became an integral part of the bourgeois. Russian concept. history, which is followed by historians Zap. Europe and USA. The most prominent representatives of N. t. in the west are: in the USA, G. Vernadsky; in England, G. Pashkevich, A. A. Vasiliev, and N. Chadwick; in Denmark, the philologist A. Stender-Petersen; Arne, X. Arbman, in Finland - prof. V. Kiparsky. Normanist views are set forth in the general works and school textbooks of the countries of the West. Europe and USA. N. t. acquired a particularly acute political. sound in the environment cold war"against the USSR and other socialist countries after the end of World War II. The version of the historical "non-independence" of the Russian people served as an argument for substantiating aggressive plans against the USSR and spreading ideas hostile to the Russian people about its past and present. Many monographs and articles on certain issues of N. T. Modern Normanism is generally characterized by a defensive position in relation to the works of Soviet scientists. , about the origin of large landownership in Russia, about trade and trade routes of Old Russia, about archeological monuments of other Russian culture, etc., in each of which the Normanists consider the Norman element decisive, defining. "They also claim that the Norman colonization of Russia took place and that the Scandinavian colonies served as the basis for establishing the rule of the Normans. "Normanists" believe that Dr. Russia was politically dependent on Sweden. Regardless of subjective intentions scientists, supporters of N. t., and their relationship to the USSR and owls. people, N. t. is untenable in scientific. relation and used bourgeois. propaganda in politics. purposes hostile to the interests of the USSR. Lit .: Tikhomirov M. H., Rus. historiography of the 18th century, "VI", 1948, No 2; his own. Slavs in the "History of Russia" prof. G. Vernadsky, ibid., 1946, No 4; his, Chadwick's Revelations about the beginning of Rus. history, ibid., 1948, No 4; his own. The origin of the names "Rus" and "Russian Land", in Sat: SE, 1947, vol. 6-7; Grekov B. D., Kievan Rus, M., 1953; his own, On the role of the Varangians in the history of Rus', Izbr. works, vol. 2, M., 1959; his own, Antiscientific. fabrications of the Finnish "professor", ibid.; Rybakov B. A., Craft Dr. Rus, M., 1948; his own. Dr. Rus, M., 1963, p. 289-300; Yushkov S. V., Socio-political. system and law of the Kyiv state-va, M.-L., 1949; Mavrodin V. V., Education of Old Russian. state-va, L., 1945; his own. Essays on the history of the USSR. Old Russian. state-in, M., 1956; Shaskolsky IP, Norman theory in modern. bourgeois science, M.-L., 1965; Lowmlanski H., Zagadnienie roli norman?w w genezie panstw slowianskich, Warsz., 1957. Works of the Normanists: Thomsen V., Nachalo Rus. state-va, M., 1891; Vernadsky G., The origins of Russia, Oxf., 1959; Paszkiewicz H., The origin of Russia, L., 1954; his own. The making of the Russian nation, L., 1963; Stender-Petersen A., Varangica and Aarhus, 1953; his, Russian studies, Aarhus, 1956 ("Acta Jutlandica", t. 28, No 2); his own, Geschichte der russischen Literatur, Bd 1, M?nch., 1957; his own. Der ?lteste russische Staat, "HZ", M?nch., 1960, Bd 91, H. 1; Arne T. J., La Su?de et l'Orient, Uppsala. 1914; his, Die Varägerfrage und die sowjetrussische Forschung, "Acta archeologica", 1952, t. 23; Arbman H., Svear i?sterviking, Stockh., 1955. A. M. Sakharov. Moscow.
The Norman theory is a complex of scientific ideas, according to which, it was the Scandinavians (i.e. "Varangians"), being called to rule Russia, who laid the first foundations of statehood on it. According to the Norman theory, some Western and Russian scholars raise the question not of the influence of the Varangians on the already formed tribes of the Slavs, but of the influence of the Varangians on the very origin of Rus' as a developed, strong and independent state.
The very term "Varangians" arose at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. The Varangians are first mentioned in the "Tale of Bygone Years" on its very first pages, and they also open the list of 13 peoples who continued the clan of Japheth after the flood. The first researchers involved in the analysis of Nestor's story about the calling of the Varangians almost generally recognized its authenticity, seeing in the Varangian-Russians people from Scandinavia (Petreius and other Swedish scientists, Bayer, G. F. Muller, Tunman, Schletser, etc. ). But as early as the 18th century, active opponents of this "Norman theory" began to appear (Tredyakovsky and Lomonosov).
However, until the sixties of the XIX century, the Norman school could be considered unconditionally dominant, since only a few objections were raised against it (Ewers in 1808). During this time, the most eminent representatives Normanism were Karamzin, Krug, Pogodin, Kunik, Shafarik and Mikloshich. However, since 1859 the opposition against Normanism has risen with a new, hitherto unprecedented force.
Normanists - adherents of the Norman theory, based on the story of the Nestor Chronicle about the calling of the Varangians-Russians from across the sea, find confirmation of this story in the evidence of Greek, Arabic, Scandinavian and Western European and in linguistic facts, everyone agrees that Russian state, as such, was indeed founded by the Scandinavians, that is, the Swedes.
Norman theory denies origin ancient Russian state as a result of internal socio-economic development. Normanists associate the beginning of statehood in Rus' with the moment of calling the Varangians to reign in Novgorod and their conquest of the Slavic tribes in the Dnieper basin. They believed that the Varangians themselves, “of which Rurik and his brothers were, were not a Slavic tribe and language ... they were Scandinavians, that is, Swedes.” Some pre-revolutionary and most Soviet historians, albeit from different methodological positions, disputed this theory.
So, Academician B.A. Rybakov argued that the Varangians appeared in Eastern Europe when the Kievan state (which allegedly arose in the 6th century) had already taken shape and was used only as a hired military force. He considered the chronicle information about the peaceful “calling of the Varangians” to be a late, fictional under the influence of the political conjuncture that developed in Kyiv during the reign of Vladimir Monomakh, an insert. “Rus”, in his opinion, is a derivative of the Ros River (the right tributary of the Dnieper south of Kyiv).
M. V. Lomonosov subjected to devastating criticism all the main provisions of this "anti-scientific concept of the genesis of Ancient Rus'." The ancient Russian state, according to Lomonosov, existed long before the calling of the Varangians-Russians in the form of disunited tribal unions and separate principalities. The tribal unions of the southern and northern Slavs, who “considered themselves free without a monarchy,” in his opinion, were clearly burdened by any kind of power.
Noting the role of the Slavs in the development world history and the fall of the Roman Empire, Lomonosov once again emphasizes the love of freedom of the Slavic tribes and their intolerant attitude towards any oppression. Thus Lomonosov indirectly indicates that princely power did not always exist, but was a product of the historical development of Ancient Rus'. He showed this especially vividly in the example of ancient Novgorod, where "the Novgorodians refused tribute to the Varangians and began to govern themselves." However, during that period, the class contradictions that torn apart the ancient Russian feudal society led to the fall of the rule of the people: the Novgorodians "fell into great strife and internecine wars, one clan rebelled against another to obtain a majority."
And it was at this moment of acute class contradictions that the Novgorodians (or rather, that part of the Novgorodians who won this struggle) turned to the Varangians with the following words: “our land is great and plentiful, but we have no outfit; come to us to reign and rule over us.”
Focusing on this fact, Lomonosov emphasizes that it was not the weakness and inability of the Russians to govern, as the supporters of the Norman theory stubbornly tried to assert, but class contradictions, which were suppressed by the strength of the Varangian squad, were the reason for calling the Varangians.
In addition to Lomonosov, other Russian historians, including S. M. Solovyov, also refute the Norman theory: “The Normans were not a dominant tribe, they only served the princes of native tribes; many served only temporarily; those who remained in Rus' forever, due to their numerical insignificance, quickly merged with the natives, especially since in their national life they did not find obstacles to this merger. Thus, at the beginning of Russian society, there can be no question of the domination of the Normans, of the Norman period ”(S.M. Solovyov, 1989; p. 26).
So, we can say that the Norman theory was defeated under the onslaught of Russian scientists. Consequently, before the arrival of the Varangians, Rus' was already a state, maybe still primitive, not fully formed. But it also cannot be denied that the Scandinavians sufficiently influenced Rus', including statehood. The first Russian princes, who were Scandinavians, nevertheless introduced a lot of new things into the management system (for example, the first truth in Rus' was Varangian).
However, without a doubt, the influence of the Scandinavians on Rus' was quite significant. It could occur not only as a result of close communication between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but simply because all the first princes in Rus', and therefore the legitimate power, were Varangians. Consequently, the first truth in Rus' was Varangian.
In addition to legislation and statehood, the Scandinavians bring with them military science and shipbuilding. Could the Slavs on their boats sail to Constantinople and capture it, ply the Black Sea? Tsargrad is captured by Oleg, the Varangian king, with his retinue, but he is now a Russian prince, which means that his ships are now Russian ships, and for sure these are not only ships that came from the Varangian sea, but also cut down here in Rus'. The Vikings brought to Rus' the skills of navigation, sailing, orienteering by the stars, the science of handling weapons, and military science.
Of course, thanks to the Scandinavians, trade is developing in Rus'. At the beginning, Gardarik is just some settlements on the way of the Scandinavians to Byzantium, then the Varangians begin to trade with the natives, some just settle here - who will become a prince, who will be a combatant, who will remain a merchant. As a result, the Slavs and Varangians together continue their journey "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Thus, thanks to its Varangian princes, Rus' first appears on the world stage and takes part in world trade. And not only.
Already Princess Olga understands how important it is to declare Rus' among other states, and her grandson, Prince Vladimir, finishes what she started by carrying out the Baptism of Rus', thereby transferring Rus' from the era of barbarism, from which other states left long ago, into the Middle Ages.
And although the Norman theory did not receive absolute historical confirmation, with the advent of the Scandinavians in Rus' appeared:
Shipbuilding;
Sailing, navigation;
Star navigation;
Expansion of trade relations;
Warfare;
Jurisprudence, laws.
It was the Scandinavians who put Rus' on the same level of development as other developed states.
Modern researchers, overcoming the extremes of Normanism and anti-Normanism, came to the following conclusions: the process of folding the state began before the Varangians, the very fact of their invitation to reign indicates that this form of power was already known to the Slavs; Rurik - a real historical figure, being invited to Novgorod to play the role of an arbitrator and, perhaps, a defender from the "overseas Varangians" (Svei), seizes power. His appearance in Novgorod (peaceful or violent) is in no way connected with the birth of the state; the Norman squad, not burdened by local traditions, more actively uses the element of violence to collect tribute and unite Slavic tribal unions, which, to a certain extent, accelerates the process of folding the state.
Normanists rested on the fact that the term "Rus" denoted precisely the Scandinavians, and their opponents were ready to accept any version, if only not to give the Normanists a head start. Anti-Normanists were ready to talk about Lithuanians, Goths, Khazars and many other peoples. It is clear that with such an approach to solving the problem, anti-Normanists could not count on victory in this dispute. As a consequence, to late XIX century, a clearly protracted dispute led to a noticeable preponderance of the Normanists. The number of supporters of the Norman theory grew, and the controversy on the part of their opponents began to weaken. The Normanist Wilhelm Thomsen took the lead in considering this issue. After his work "The Beginning of the Russian State" was published in Russia in 1891, where the main arguments in favor of the Norman theory were formulated with the greatest completeness and clarity, many Russian historians came to the conclusion that the Norman origin of Rus' can be considered proven. And although the anti-Normanists (Ilovaisky, Gedeonov) continued their polemics, the majority of representatives of official science took Normanist positions. In the scientific community, an idea has been established about the victory of the Norman concept of the history of Ancient Rus' that occurred as a result of the publication of Thomsen's work. Direct polemics against Normanism almost ceased. So, A.E. Presnyakov believed that "the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state has firmly entered the inventory of scientific Russian history." Presnyakov A.E. Wilhelm Thomsen on the most ancient period of Russian history. Also, the main provisions of the Norman theory, i.e. the Norman conquest, the leading role of the Scandinavians in the creation of the Old Russian state was recognized by the vast majority of Soviet scientists, in particular M.N. Pokrovsky and I.A. Rozhkov. According to the latter, in Rus' "the state was formed through the conquests made by Rurik and especially Oleg." This statement perfectly illustrates the situation that prevailed in Russian science at that time - in fact, you can’t imagine worse.
Already by the forties, the positions of Russian scientists on the Norman survey were formulated by M.I. Artamonov: the Varangians penetrated Rus' early, but they were at the same stage of social and cultural development as East Slavs, and therefore could not bring to Rus' either a higher culture or statehood; they only joined the local process of state formation.
In the post-war years, the anti-Normanist trend developed. First of all, these are articles by B.D. Grekov with criticism of the Normanist works of T. Arne and the Finnish philologist V. Kiparsky: "On the role of the Varangians in the history of Russia" and "Anti-scientific fabrications of the Finnish "professor", the last of which was published in 1950. An even more detailed criticism of the Norman theory was contained in the works of S. V. Yushkova In general, what happened in science was what should have happened: the controversy between Soviet science and Normanism began to be restructured, from the struggle against the scientific constructions of the last century, they began to move on to a specific criticism of the current and developing Normanist concepts, to criticism of modern Normanism as one of the main currents of foreign science.
The Norman theory is a complex of scientific ideas, according to which it was the Scandinavians (i.e., the "Varangians"), being called to rule Russia, who laid the first foundations of statehood on it. According to the Norman theory, some Western and Russian scholars raise the question not of the influence of the Varangians on the already formed tribes of the Slavs, but of the influence of the Varangians on the very origin of Rus' as a developed, strong and independent state.
The very term "Varangians" arose at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries. The Varangians are first mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years on its very first pages, and they also open a list of 13 peoples who continued the clan of Japheth after the flood. The first researchers involved in the analysis of Nestor's story about the calling of the Varangians almost generally recognized its authenticity, seeing in the Varangian-Russians people from Scandinavia (Petreius and other Swedish scientists, Bayer, G. F. Muller, Tunman, Schletser, etc. ). But as early as the 18th century, opponents of this "Norman theory" began to appear (Tredyakovsky and Lomonosov).
However, until the sixties of the XIX century, the Norman school could be considered unconditionally dominant, since only a few objections were raised against it (Ewers in 1808). During this time, the most prominent representatives of Normanism were Karamzin, Krug, Pogodin, Kunik, Shafarik and Mikloshich. However, since 1859 the opposition against Normanism has risen with a new, hitherto unprecedented force.
Normanists - adherents of the Norman theory, based on the story of the Nestor Chronicle about the calling of the Varangians-Russians from across the sea, find confirmation of this story in the evidence of Greek, Arabic, Scandinavian and Western European and in linguistic facts, everyone agrees that the Russian state, as such, really founded by the Scandinavians, i.e. the Swedes.
The Norman theory denies the origin of the ancient Russian state as a result of internal socio-economic development. Normanists associate the beginning of statehood in Rus' with the moment of calling the Varangians to reign in Novgorod and their conquest of the Slavic tribes in the Dnieper basin. They believed that the Varangians themselves, "of which Rurik and his brothers were, were not a Slavic tribe and language ... they were Scandinavians, that is, Swedes."
M. V. Lomonosov subjected to devastating criticism all the main provisions of this "anti-scientific concept of the genesis of Ancient Rus'." The ancient Russian state, according to Lomonosov, existed long before the calling of the Varangians-Russians in the form of disunited tribal unions and separate principalities. The tribal unions of the southern and northern Slavs, who “considered themselves free without a monarchy,” in his opinion, were clearly burdened by any kind of power.
Noting the role of the Slavs in the development of world history and the fall of the Roman Empire, Lomonosov once again emphasizes the love of freedom of the Slavic tribes and their intolerant attitude towards any oppression. Thus, indirectly, Lomonosov indicates that the princely power did not always exist, but was a product of historical development Ancient Rus'. He showed this especially vividly in the example of ancient Novgorod, where "the Novgorodians refused tribute to the Varangians and began to govern themselves." But the class contradictions that torn apart the ancient Russian feudal society led to the fall of the rule of the people: the Novgorodians "fell into great strife and internecine wars, one clan rebelled against another to obtain a majority." And it was at this moment of acute class contradictions that the Novgorodians (or rather, that part of the Novgorodians who won this struggle) turned to the Varangians with the following words: “our land is great and plentiful, but we have no outfit; come to us to reign and rule over us.”
Focusing on this fact, Lomonosov emphasizes that it is not the weakness and inability of the Russians to public administration, as the supporters of the Norman theory stubbornly tried to assert, and the class contradictions that were suppressed by the power of the Varangian squad were the reason for the calling of the Varangians.
In addition to Lomonosov, other Russian historians, including S. M. Solovyov, also refute the Norman theory: “The Normans were not a dominant tribe, they only served the princes of native tribes; many served only temporarily; those who remained in Rus' forever, due to their numerical insignificance, quickly merged with the natives, especially since in their national life they did not find obstacles to this merger. Thus, at the beginning of Russian society, there can be no question of the domination of the Normans, of the Norman period ”(S.M. Solovyov, 1989; p. 26).
So, we can say that the Norman theory was defeated under the onslaught of Russian scientists. Consequently, before the arrival of the Varangians, Rus' was already a state, maybe still primitive, not fully formed. But it also cannot be denied that the Scandinavians sufficiently influenced Rus', including statehood. The first Russian princes, who were Scandinavians, nevertheless introduced a lot of new things into the management system (for example, the first truth in Rus' was Varangian).
However, without a doubt, the influence of the Scandinavians on Rus' was quite significant. It could occur not only as a result of close communication between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but simply because all the first princes in Rus', and therefore the legitimate power, were Varangians. Consequently, the first truth in Rus' was Varangian.
In addition to legislation and statehood, the Scandinavians bring with them military science and shipbuilding. Could the Slavs on their boats sail to Constantinople and capture it, ply the Black Sea? Tsargrad is captured by Oleg, the Varangian king, with his retinue, but he is now a Russian prince, which means that his ships are now Russian ships, and for sure these are not only ships that came from the Varangian sea, but also cut down here in Rus'. The Vikings brought to Rus' the skills of navigation, sailing, orienteering by the stars, the science of handling weapons, and military science.
Of course, thanks to the Scandinavians, trade is developing in Rus'. At the beginning, Gardarik is just some settlements on the way of the Scandinavians to Byzantium, then the Varangians begin to trade with the natives, some just settle here - who will become a prince, who will be a combatant, who will remain a merchant. As a result, the Slavs and Varangians together continue their journey "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Thus, thanks to its Varangian princes, Rus' first appears on the world stage and takes part in world trade. And not only.
Already Princess Olga understands how important it is to declare Rus' among other states, and her grandson, Prince Vladimir, finishes what she started by carrying out the Baptism of Rus', thereby transferring Rus' from the era of barbarism, from which other states had long gone, into the Middle Ages, putting Rus' on one stage of development with them.
And although the Norman theory has not received absolute historical confirmation, we can say that with the advent of the Scandinavians in Rus' appeared:
Shipbuilding, sailing, navigation, star navigation.
Expansion of trade relations.
Warfare.
Jurisprudence, laws.
The Scandinavians put Rus' on the same level of development as other developed states.
The essence of the Norman theory
According to the Norman theory, based not on a misinterpretation of the Russian chronicles, Kievan Rus was created by the Germanic Vikings, subjugating East Slavic tribes and made up the ruling class of ancient Russian society, headed by the Rurik princes.
This theory was based on the ancient East Slavic chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years", the source, it should be noted, is rather doubtful in the right to recognize it as an accurate interpretation of the events of those distant centuries. Here is what the chronicle tells us:
In the summer of 6370. Exiled the Varangians across the sea, and not giving tribute to them, and began to volunteer in themselves, and there was no truth in them, and the people of the people rose up, were in strife in them and often fought on themselves. And deciding in themselves: "Let's look for a prince, who would rule over us and judge by right." And went across the sea to the Varangians to Rus'; Boss, they call themselves Varyazi Rus, as if all friends are called Svie, the friends are Urman, Anglyane, friends Gyte, so and so. Yes, go and rule over us.” And they chose 3 brothers from their generations, and girded all of Rus' in their own way, and having come to Sloven the first, and cut down the city of Ladoga, and gray-haired old Rurik in Ladoza, and the other, Sineus, on Bela-lake, and the third Izbrst, Truvor. And from those Varangians, nicknamed the Russian land ... "This excerpt from an article in the PVL, taken for granted by a number of historians, laid the foundation for the construction of the Norman concept of the origin of the Russian state. The question of Rurik's nationality is a question of national self-consciousness. The Baltic Sea, inheriting the land by right, or was it the calling of a foreigner from the people who often attacked and plundered the Slavic lands, associated with the inability to organize their political system without outside help.
The emergence and formation of the Norman theory
Historical science does not know when the Norman theory originated. We only know that by the 1st half of the 16th century. she existed.
Herberstein, having familiarized himself with the content of the Norman theory, expressed (1549) the idea that it was not so, that the Russians invited not the Germans, but the Western Slavs. His common sense could not reconcile with the arguments of the supporters of Normanism. There were other foreigners who spoke out against the Normanists. But there were no Russian anti-Normanists, because Russian science did not exist before Peter I.
The founder of the scientific theory of Normanism should be considered academician G.S. Bayer (d. 839; pointed out the Scandinavian character of the "Russian" names of the Dnieper rapids; connected the Scandinavian "warings" with the "Varangians" of the Russian chronicles and the "barangs" of the Byzantine chronicles, etc.
Actually, the beginning of the dispute between Normanists and anti-Normanists should be considered the speech of Ak. G. F. Miller in 1749 “On the origin and name of the Russian people”, which provoked a sharp rebuff from Lomonosov. Summarizing Miller's thoughts, he wrote: "This is so wonderful that if Mr. Miller knew how to portray it in a lively style, he would make the Russians such a poor people, which is not represented by any other writer and even the meanest people." Lomonosov argued that there was no "great darkness of ignorance" in Rus', that Rus' had its own history even before it began to have "common sovereigns", and took its beginning to the ancestors of the Rus - to the Ants. He argued that Rus' as a state and Russian culture were created not by foreigners, the Varangians, but by the Slavs themselves. These Slavs were the indigenous population of the interfluve of the Danube and the Dniester up to the spurs of the Carpathians. Lomonosov's voice, however, was not heard, he was in a decisive minority, and the first battle was decided in favor of Normanism, for Lomonosov's arguments, although worthy of attention, had not yet been sufficiently developed.
All further works - Fresne, Strube de Pirmont, Stritter, Thuyman, Krug, etc. - were aimed at substantiating the Norman theory. Schlözer, with his classic Nestor, further established the authority of this theory. But (gradually) there were also foreigners - Storch (1800), Evers (1814) and others who objected to the Norman theory and collected solid material against it. In particular, the work of Evers gave a lot. He opposed the absurd assumption that the northern Slavs, having driven out the Varangians, again invited them. He refuted the arguments regarding the understanding of the name of Rus from roots like "ruotsi", "Roslagen", etc. He objected to the derivation of ancient Russian names only from Scandinavian roots. He insisted on the existence of the name Rus in the Black Sea region. And so on. Unfortunately, his positive data in favor of the Slavic theory were destroyed by the false assumptions of his own conception that the Kievan princes were from the Khazars, that Askold and Dir were Hungarians, that the “Volokhs” of the chronicle were Bulgarians, etc.
It should be noted that, rejecting the Norman theory, the anti-Normanists could not offer anything in return, and only by the middle of the 20th century was a serious and complete theory based on the latest archaeological and linguistic data developed.
Partly for this, the Norman school grew and flourished not only among German scientists, whom it greatly flattered, but also among Russian scientists. Even Klyuchevsky, stating that he is not a supporter of either side, citing facts, is not puzzled by the question of why the new Normans (as he claims, citing the names of ambassadors to the Byzantine king as an example) swear by Slavic gods, and not by Scandinavian ones. And he interprets this obvious question as it suits him.
Why the works of such prominent historians as Gideonov and Pogodin, and many others, could not overcome the wall of Normanism with their iron arguments, we will discuss in the fourth part of this work, but for now let's move on to the very proofs of the Norman theory.
The main arguments of the Norman theory
chronicle mention.
The first and fundamental argument of the Norman theory is a passage from the Tale of Bygone Years. But not only is the chronicle written by an alien Christian monk about pagan times, that is, subject to any humiliation, taken as a basis, it is also interpreted very freely.
In the annals there is not a word about the belonging of Prince Rurik and Rus' with which he came to reign from the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the chronicle clearly separates Rus', the Swedes, Norwegians, Englishmen and Danes.
It is excusable for the German Schlözer to pull the “ass by the ears”, but Pogodin, already a natural Russian historian, continues his work, attributing to the chronicler a hidden idea about the Normanism of all the Varangians, although he has no sufficient grounds for understanding the chronicle story.
These constructions were broken down in detail and thoroughly by Zabelin. Natalya Ilyina in her work "The Expulsion of the Normans" says:
That all the Varangians were Germans, namely, Normans, is a conviction quite independent of the Russian chronicles. The alienness of this judgment to the chronicle story is finally revealed with complete obviousness in the very founder of the Norman system. The German scientist Bayer, who endowed Russian science with the Norman theory and the main evidence of its fidelity, did not study the Russian chronicles at all.
Zabelin, regarding Bayer, says: “The great connoisseur of languages (not excluding Chinese), the great Latinist and Hellenist, did not learn during his 12 years in Russia, however, and never wanted to learn the Russian language”
Koyalovich in his "History of Russian Self-Consciousness" claims that Bayer read only excerpts from the chronicles in a bad translation.
Linguistic analysis of words
When the Normanists faced criticism and began to carefully study the annals, it was discovered that oldest chronology The Tale is not accurate, and the story of the beginning of Rus' is only the fruit of the considerations of its author. In this regard, the first Normanists began to look for other evidence for their theory. After critics of the story discovered the arbitrariness of some of its provisions, almost the entire burden of the "Norman system" fell on extra-chronic arguments.
The word "Varangian" began to be attributed to Norman roots, supposedly it comes from the Swedish word "wara" - a vow, an oath through the supposed form of waring - a warrior who has taken a vow. For some reason, this linguistic conjecture often takes the form of proven truth. It should be noted that in Scandinavian writing the word vaeringjar appears for the first time in connection with the year 1020 (the saga of Bol Bolenson) and is applied only to the Normans who entered the Varangian corps of Byzantium, and in our annals we find mention of the Varangians in records related to the 9th century.
Gideonov, on the other hand, finds among the Slavs of the Varangian Sea a living word of the Germanic root varag, warang - a swordsman from which can be produced, grammatically correct, Russian word"Varangian". The word "Varangian" in its meaning means a warrior or merchant-pirate, usually coming from overseas, and in itself does not indicate any particular tribe. The Eastern Slavs called all the Baltic pirates - Swedes, Norwegians, Obotrites, Markomans - Varigs.
“He argues unjustly, he ascribes a hundred Varangian names to one people,” says Lomonosov - “Many strong evidences assure that they consisted of various tribes and languages and were united by only one thing - then ordinary robbery across the seas.”
Linguistic considerations about the word "Varangian" are not sufficient to clarify the obscure sayings of the chronicle.
This ambiguity is not eliminated by the attempt of historians to determine the nationality of the Varangians by the names of the first princes, their boyars and ambassadors.
Following Bayer and Schlözer, Russian Norman historians recognize these names as Scandinavian, and find them in the Icelandic sagas and in the historical writings of the German north. Rurik, in their opinion, is not a Slavic name, but a Danish or Norwegian Hrorecur, Hraerek. Sineus comes from Snio or Sninnuitz etc. Which of the many Scandinavian names turned into one or another Slavic name, Normanists decide differently. For example, Bayer proposed for Rogvold - Roghwaltr, although the root "volod" (to own) is a frequent component of princely Russian names. Other scholars consider the names of both the governor and the servants of the prince (Pogodin) to be Norman, others recognize the names of Malusha, Malka, Dobrynia as Slavic (Kunik).
“The names of the first Russian princes - the Varangians and their combatants are almost all of Scandinavian origin,” writes Klyuchevsky and adds to this in another place: “The list of 25 ambassadors” - we are talking about Igor’s agreement with the Greeks - “there is not one Slavic name; out of 25 or 26 merchants, only one or two can be recognized as Slavs.
Gedeonov, on the other hand, establishes that the name Rurik is found among the Slavs: among the Poles - the governor Ririk (Pskov Chronicle, 1536); among the Czechs - Rerich, as the name of the genus; in Luzatsia - Peter Rerik. Among the Wends, the name Reriks - Reregi was the nickname of the Obotrite princes and can be compared with the Czech word Raroh or the Polish Rarag (meaning falcon). Since the transition "a" to "e", "o" to "and" is characteristic Slavic language.
The same careful study of the names of other princes, their governors, as well as the names of ambassadors, partly distorted by the Greeks who wrote the treaties, and by the Bulgarian translators, makes it possible following output: in all agreements with the Greeks, the names of princes and boyars are Slavic; Norman names are found only among ambassadors and guests, however, there are no more than 12-15 of them.
Gedeonov notes that “a linguistic question cannot be separated from a historical one, a philologist from a historian. In the absence of other positive traces of the Norman influence on the internal life of Rus', Normanism until the 11th century of all historical Russian names is in itself not a feasible business. Zabelin also supports a similar point of view. In his book The History of Russian Life, he warns against being carried away by philology as a method historical research. “Linguistics in other cases greatly contributes to the emergence and wide development of various phantosmogorias. This danger is especially great when the subject of study is only proper names,” writes Zabelin.
Rus is a Norwegian tribe
The Scandinavianism of the Rus, explaining the Scandinavianism of the recognized Varangians - there is a stone on which the Norman theory. The judgment that the Normans created the Russian state presupposes at its core the judgment that Rus' is a Scandinavian people.
Known in the history of the Norman doctrine, the Ruotsi argument is based on consonance or, more precisely, on sound similarity in the owls Ruotsi and Rus. The Finns call the Swedes ruotsi and this name, as the Normanists say, is in the form of Rus, just as the Finnish "Suomi" turned into the Russian "Sumi". Ruotsi itself arose from the name of the Upland coast of Sweden Roslagen, or from the Ross tribe in Roslagen (Schlözer). To this, Academician Lamansky replies that “there is no reason to consider the form Rus as alien to our and the Slavic language in general, the forms “silver”, “Volyn” and many others are similar to it.
Gedeonov in the book "Varangians and Rus" also breaks this construction, moreover, he notes that the considerations about Roslagen turned out to be little convincing even for the Normanists. This name began to be called only in the 13th century, the coastal region of southern Sweden, inhabited by communities of Rhodes, that is, rowers who had nothing to do with either the name or the Rus tribe.
Little convincing evidence, denoted by the word "Ruotsi", continues, however, to live in historical science. According to Shakhmatov, the main and decisive argument (in favor of the Norman theory) is that Western Finns still call Scandinavia "Rus".
Lomonosov dismisses "Ruotsey's" proof in his critique of Miller's dissertation. He argues as follows: “Didn’t he clearly show here a predilection for his unfounded conjectures, assuming such fictions as the basis for them, which can hardly be imagined in a dream? An example from the English and Franks, added here from him, does not serve to confirm his fiction, but to refute it, for there the defeated from the winners received a name for themselves, but here it is not the winners from the defeated, nor the defeated from the winners, but all from the Chukhons.
Rapids of the Dnieper
The second of the three main pieces of evidence for the Norman theory is based on a Greek source. In the "Book of State Administration", written in the middle of the 10th century (948 - 952), the Byzantine emperor Konstantin Porphyrogenitus tells about the trading campaign of Russian merchants from Novgorod to Tsargrad. Having reached the description of the crossing through the Dnieper rapids, the author of the book gives their name, and it turns out that all the rapids, except for two, have two names; one of them is always Slavic, and the other seems to refer to another language, foreign; but it is difficult to decide to which name, since the name is written in a distorted form. Naming the rapids, the emperor adds: “in Slavic” before the Slavic name, “in Russian” before the foreign one.
| rapids | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| in Russian | Nesupi | Ulvorsi | Ayfar | Varouforos | Leanti | Strukun | |
| in Slavonic | Nesupi | Islanduniprah | Gelandri | Neasit | Vulniprah | Verutzi | Directly |
The distortion of the "Russian" names of the thresholds in the Greek transmission does not make it possible to reliably determine from which dictionary they are taken and vice versa, makes the most contradictory opinions possible. From a historical point of view, it doesn’t matter if all or not all rapids have Scandinavian names, the assimilation of foreign geographical names is a common thing, and now the first threshold has a Tatar name – Kaydaksin (Gedeonov “Varangians and Rus”).
However, one should not forget that in the book of the Greek emperor the words "in Russian" are not always associated with the "Norman" name; after all, the first threshold, both in Russian and in Slavonic, is called “Nesupi” - do not sleep, which, of course, contradicts the guess about the Normanism of the Russian language. The same Constantine Porphyrogenitus once calls the Kievan Slavs Russians. The Russian chronicle identifies the Russian and Slavic languages: “The teacher of the same Slovene language is Paul, from his language we are Rus: the same teacher of Rus' is Paul the Apostle, according to which he taught the Slovene language and appointed a bishop and viceroy in his own right Andronnik Slavenescu language. And the Slovene language and Russian are one, from the Varangians, more nicknamed Rus, and the first was Slovene; more and Glade matchmaker, on Slavensky speech be. The glade is nicknamed for sitting in the field, the language of Slovenska is one for them ”(Rodzilovskaya chronicle).
Contrasting the Russian language as a foreign language with the local Slavic already in view of these evidence becomes impossible, and the difference that the Byzantine emperor makes is much easier to explain by everyday differences between the Russians of the Kiev region and the Slovenes of the Novgorod region. The difference between the Russian and Slavic languages is thus a difference between two dialects, a tribal difference, not a folk one. In addition, it is strange to look for the Swedish language in Rus' in the middle of the 10th century, if the Normans were already “glorified” under Oleg and worshiped the Slavic gods.
But the main flaw of the Dnieper Proof is rooted in the uniqueness of the fact to which it refers: double names occur only in this case, this duality, according to Gedeonov, is only a linguistic oddity. It is unacceptable to draw a general historical conclusion from this phenomenon.
Bertin Chronicle
In one of the monasteries Western Europe, in Bertinsky, ancient chronicles have been preserved - a source of information that, according to historians, deserves full trust. Under the year 839, the Bertin Chronicle tells of one mysterious incident, which, due to the low convincingness of the linguistic evidence of the Norman theory, received great importance in it.
In the city of Ingelheim on the Rhine, where the emperor of the Franks, Louis the Pious, was then, an embassy arrived from the Byzantine emperor Theophilus. With this embassy, Theophilus sent some people and a letter explaining that these people “called themselves Rus (Rhos)”, and that “their king sent them to him (Theophilus), with the name “Khakan” for the sake of friendship, as they claimed ". In the letter mentioned, Theophilus asked Louis to give these people the opportunity to safely return to themselves through his power and to help them, since the path by which they came to Constantinople passes through barbarian tribes, wild and therefore fierce, and he does not want to send those people away down this dangerous path. Louis, diligently examining the "reason" for their arrival, found out that they belonged to a tribe of Swedes, established that they were rather scouts sent to the Frankish and Greek powers than petitioners for friendship, and ordered to detain them until it was possible to find out for sure, they came to him with honest or dishonest intentions. Louis explained to Theophilus through his legates, and also in a letter, that out of love for him, he would willingly agree to send those people and give them benefits and protection, unless they turned out to be deceivers, otherwise they should be sent with ambassadors to him, Theophilus for for him to decide what to do with them.
The chronicle does not tell how the inquiry ended and what is the fate of unknown people.
In the story of the Bertin Chronicle, the Normans consider the following news to be the most significant: the people who came to Constantinople and declared that they were from the Rus tribe turned out to be Swedes, according to the Franks. If the ambassadors of Rus' are Swedes, then Rus' is a Swedish tribe.
The Bertin Chronicles do not rank Rus' among the Scandinavians, historians do this on the basis of the Scandinavian origin of the ambassadors, but if the Franks, who are little acquainted with the Swedes and do not know Rus' at all, decide that the ambassadors of Rus' are Swedes, does this mean that they really were Swedes ? If, in fact, these ambassadors are Swedes, does this mean that Rus' is a Swedish people?
A number of historians believe that the ambassadors of Rus' might not have been Swedes, and that there was a mistake on the part of the Franks who investigated this case. “The representatives of Rus' were recognized by the Swedes,” writes Academician Vasilevsky, “neither the procedure of inquiry, nor the grounds for such a conclusion are indicated to us.” Zabelin considers it possible that the ambassadors were not the Swedes, but the Kyiv Ross or the Baltic Vikings-Slavs who served in the squad of the Kyiv prince; the chronicle does not indicate on what basis they were recognized as Swedes. “It could happen that they are Slavs and live next door to the Sveons, that one of these two names seemed more suitable and more familiar to the officials of Louis - Sveons. Such a mixture of names is allowed by Ilovaisky, who indicates that there was a Slavic tribe Svenyane on the Baltic Sea.
The first Normanists realized, of course, that the Swedish nationality of the ambassadors did not yet provide sufficient grounds for Norman Rus' and made up for this lack by the conjecture that the “Hakan” of the Bertin Chronicles is none other than Gakon, a certain unknown Swedish Konung, who conceived, be it to establish diplomatic relations with Byzantium (Schlözer). But Gedeonov completely smashed and refuted these allegations, showing that "Khakan" is not a name, but a royal (princely) title that existed at that time in Rus'. The Slavism of Rus', from which the ambassadors, according to them, came to Greece, is indicated, among other things, by the following detail of the text of the chronicle of 839: it gives a Latin translation of the letter of Emperor Theophilus and the name Rus retains in this translation the Greek indeclinable form (Rhos), which can only correspond to the Slavic form Rus; in the Scandinavian languages, a vernacular name cannot take the same form for singular and plural.
The randomness of facts is inherent in all the main arguments of the Norman theory and shows the arbitrariness of its judgments. Its judgments do not follow naturally and logically, from actual events, from their organic development, but are imposed on the past by groundless assumptions, therefore they can only be confirmed by whims. historical life: an accidental consonance in the words "Urotsi" and "Rus", double names of several thresholds, a dark episode in the stories of the Bertin Chronicles. The Norman theory, as a result of studying its main provisions, turns out to be an artificial superstructure on real life.
The most interesting thing is that the same Bertinskaya Chronicle completely refutes the Norman theory. Chronicle gives summary about the people "Rus", who, under the control of the khakan, live somewhere in the south of our country. The anti-Normanists took advantage of this news to very clearly pose the Norman problem. If “Rus” was already known on our plains in 839, that is, before the calling of the Varangians in 862, then it could not be called into being by these “Varangians-Rus”, and the question of its Normanism disappears by itself, regardless of the nationality of those called princes and squads.
One could go on citing innumerable examples that refute the Norman theory, but I think the above is quite enough. Let's move on to a more interesting question for research. How can such a theory, fabricated by visiting foreigners, not only take place, but, despite its non-scientific nature, continues to hold the place of the main theory of the origin of Russian statehood in historical science.
The phenomenon of vitality of the Norman theory
From childhood, we learn in history lessons that our ancestors, not having their own thoughts, invited strangers to reign from overseas, and the family of Russian princes went from these strangers. Yes, and literacy was brought to us by the Greeks, and before that we were like wild animals. I, unlike Academician Klyuchevsky, do not divide the Russian people into people living now and natives who lived in the 9th century. In one of the historical encyclopedias, I read that - "The Slavs lived in the forests, when the enemy approached, they buried all things in the ground and ran into the forests", then in the same encyclopedia it is written: "Since the Slavs often had to fight, it was a strong and a mighty people”, in my opinion, these two statements contradict each other. Here is an example, one of the many chimeras generated by the Norman theory. It should be noted. that the majority of "Russians" are satisfied with this state of affairs, we are used to living without a past.
By the arrival of German scientists who scientifically substantiated the Norman theory, some of its rudiments had already taken place, because. Herberstein already in 1549. refuted it. Where did she come from?
With the advent of a new religion in Rus', the struggle of the new system with the old beliefs began, the priests were destroyed, the old customs were destroyed, and in place with them the memory of the people.
- “Not everyone who then accepted the holy faith with us accepted it out of love, some only out of fear of the one who commanded” (Archbishop Macarius, History of the Russian Church, St. Petersburg, 1868, p. 27).
- “Paganism was still strong, it had not yet outlived its time in Rus', it resisted the introduction of Christianity; therefore, the government takes violent measures in the spread of Christianity, resorting to fire and sword in order to introduce the gospel teaching into the hearts of the pagans. And the servants of Christ do not arm themselves against such means, on the contrary, they justify them and erect the cross of Christ on the corpses. (church magazine "Ringer", No. 8, 1907)
The Iakimov chronicle testifies to the burning of rebellious Novgorod by Dobrynya, which refused to accept the new faith, this information is confirmed by archaeological excavations by the Soviet archaeologist V. L. Yanin.
Also, archaeological excavations in Novgorod show universal literacy in the 9th-10th centuries. Found a large number birch bark letters containing notes of everyday life.
Under the influence of the struggle of Christianity with paganism, and the subsequent Mongol-Tatar yoke, literacy and historical chronicles became the prerogative of the church, which interpreted history as it was beneficial to it. The strong and enlightened state of pagan Rus' did not fit into the ideological theory of Christianity in any way. This is where the Norman theory comes from.
With the advent of the first university in Russia, Norman theory was rapidly developed with the help of German professors, who were very flattered by this state of affairs. Important for the Norman theory is its convenience for the power-holding circles, both for the clergy and for the royal dynasty. Firstly, this theory justifies constant marriages with foreign women, and secondly, it reports that the ancestors called for the rule of princes from abroad, confirms the cultural and other reforms of Peter I. Thus, in Tsarist Russia, the Norman theory remained a political necessity.
With the advent of Soviet power, the situation did not change much. Many historians who fled abroad and smashed the Norman theory to smithereens in their homeland still remain little known (Natalya Ilyina, Sergey Lesnoy, etc.). Soviet historians Grekov, Tikhomirov, Nasonov, Tretyakov and many others did a lot of work, but did not introduce anything fundamentally new. All of them brilliantly proved (especially archaeologists) that the roots of Russian culture are completely original, that it is not at all necessary to talk about the influence of the Normans. However, they still recognized the princely dynasty as Norman. Here, the anti-Norman theory again faces a political problem, in an era of universal equality and the brotherhood of the proletariat, national history becomes irrelevant, the existing system is interested in the struggle of the people against the royal power. And it seems that science, freed from church pressure, falls under the pressure of the Soviet political worldview.
Currently, the political system goes hand in hand with the ROC. For the existing totalitarian system, which is fighting against any manifestations of national self-consciousness, the Norman theory remains the only true one.
