They numbered
eight hordes living separately, each probably having its own centre like
the Avars, who lived in their hrings.
eight hordes living separately, each probably having its own centre like
the Avars, who lived in their hrings.
Cambridge Medieval History - v4 - Eastern Roman Empire
Seven or, according to Ibn Fadlan, nine judges held courts to
administer justice; two of them were appointed for the Muslims, two
for the Jews, two for Christians, and one for the heathen. If the judges
of their own religion were unable to decide a complicated controversy, the
litigants appealed to the cadis of the Muslims, whose administration of
justice at that time was considered as the most perfect.
But in spite of religious tolerance, it was a great drawback to the
Chazar state that there existed within it so many different religions,
and, in all probability, it suffered much harm from the adoption of the
Mosaic faith by the rulers and their courtiers. The inhabitants of the
Chazar empire could not coalesce into one nation, and the Chazar realm
continued until its downfall to be a conglomerate of different ethnic and
religious elements. The state was upheld by artificial means, especially
by the foreign Musulman mercenaries. Although the downfall of the
empire did not begin in the ninth century, yet in the tenth it certainly
was in rapid decline.
That the Chazar civilisation attained a high development is apparent
from the flourishing commerce of a part of the inhabitants and from the
existence of several great towns in the empire. The authorities mention
principally the towns Iti), Balanjar, Samandar, and Sarkel. Balanjar
was a more ancient capital of the Chazars; some ancient authors wrongly
assert that it is identical with Itil or Atel.
The oriental historians give us a better knowledge of the later resi-
dence of the Chazar kbagans, the town Itil or Atel, than we have of
Balanjar. It was the greatest town of the Chazars, situated some miles
from the estuary of the river Volga (by the Turks named also Itil or
Atel), to the north of the present town of Astrakhan. The ancient Arab
authors call this town Al-Baidā (The White City), which corresponds
with the later name Sarygshar (Yellow City), as the western part of the
town of Itil was called. The Arabian geographers relate that the town
of Itil was composed of two (according to Masóūdī of three) parts
separated by the river Itil. The western part situated on the river was
the greater, where the supreme khagan resided. The ruler's palace was
the only building constructed of brick; the other houses were either
of timber or clay. The eastern part of the town was probably the business
centre of the Chazars. But according to Ibn Rusta the Chazar inhabi-
tants lived in this twin-town only in winter, moving in spring to the
steppes. This led Marquart to the opinion that Itil was the winter
Cf. infra, Chapter vii (B), pp. 219-20.
CE. VO.
## p. 192 (#234) ############################################
192
The Burdas
resort (kishlak) of the Chazars and Balanjar their summer dwelling
(yaylak). Later writers, beginning with the twelfth century, give the
name Saksin to the town of Itil.
On the river Don was an important town of the Chazars, Sarkel
(White Town, a name which the Greeks translated correctly "Aom povoot-
tlov, and the Russians Bélavêzha). According to Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, this town was built in the reign of the Greek Emperor Theophilus
(829-842) at the request of the Khagan of the Chazars. The Emperor
is said to have sent there Petronas, who built the city for the Chazars
about 835 and was at the same time made an imperial governor,
strategus of the city of Cherson, which had hitherto enjoyed full
autonomy, being governed by a proteuon elected by the citizens.
The Emperor Constantine does not say against whom Sarkel was
built, but according to Cedrenus (eleventh century) it was against the
Patzinaks. Uspenski tries to prove that the town of Sarkel was founded
at the initiative of the Greeks, to secure the Greek territory on the north
shores of the Black Sea and at the same time to protect the Chazars,
their allies.
To the Chazar empire belonged, according to Ibn Rusta, a people
called Burdas or Burtas by the orientals. Their territory extended
along the Volga at a distance of a fortnight's journey from the territory
of the Chazars proper. The Burdas disposed of an army of 10,000 horse.
Their limited political capacity prevented them from founding an inde-
pendent state. In fact Ibn Rusta narrates that they had no other chief-
tains than the elders of their communes. Their territory was rich in
forests. They reared cattle, were hunters, and practised a little agri-
culture and commerce. They raided the neighbouring Bulgars and
Patzinaks. They practised the vendetta in sanguinary feuds. The
ethnical affinity of the Burdas is still a matter of dispute; according to
Mas'udi they were a people of a Turkish race, settled along the banks
of a river called also Burdas (according to Marquart, the Samara). They
exported great quantities of black and brown fox-hides, generally called
burtasians.
To the north of the Burdas the Bulgars were settled. Their land
extended over the regions of the central Volga to the river Kama, and
was full of swamps and dense forests. They are the so-called Volga and
Kama Bulgars, White or Silver Bulgars, who remained in their original
homes when part of the nation emigrated to the Black Sea. They were
divided into three tribes, the Barsuls, the Esegels, and the Bulgars
proper. They also belonged to the most advanced Ural-Altaic peoples.
They very early began to till their lands, and were good hunters and
shrewd tradesmen as intermediaries of the commerce between the Swedes
(" Russians "), Slavs, and Chazars. The southern boundaries of their lands
were only a three days' journey distant from the territory of the Burdas. )
## p. 193 (#235) ############################################
The White Bulgars
193
The Volga Bulgars often made predatory invasions on their swift horses
into the lands of the Burdas and carried the inhabitants into captivity.
Among themselves they used fox-hides instead of money, although they
obtained silver coins (dirhem, i. e. drachma) from the Muslim countries.
These silver coins were used by the Bulgars as money when trading with
foreigners, the Swedes and Slavs, who did not exchange wares except for
money. The great number of foreign coins found in the present
government of Perm near the river Kama is the best proof of the brisk
trade the Bulgars already drove in the fifth century with foreign lands,
especially with the far Orient, the coins being Sasanian and Indo-Bactrian
of the fifth century.
To supply the increasing need for specie, the Bulgars began to coin
their own money in the tenth century. Three Bulgarian coins of native
origin, struck in Bulgary in the towns of Bulgar and Suvar under the
rulers Talib and Mumin, have been preserved from the years 950 and 976.
Trade drew members of very different nations to the Bulgarian
cities—Chazars, Swedes, Finns, Slavs, Greeks, Armenians, and Khwāraz-
mians. The principal commercial route of the Bulgars was the Volga;
by this river merchandise was carried to the west, and southwards to the
Caspian Sea, for several centuries called the Chazar Sea. Two waterways
led to the west, one to the Western Dvina and the Dnieper, the other
by the Oka upstream to its sources and thence by land to the river Desna
to reach Kiev downstream. Merchandise was also shipped southwards to
the Sea of Azov. The ships went down the Volga to the point opposite
to where the Don bends farthest eastward. From here the wares were
transported by land to the Don and then shipped to the Sea of Azov.
There was moreover another trade route by land to the south.
The centre of the Volga-Bulgarian realm was situated in the
country where the river Kama joins the Volga. North and south of the
confluence of the Kama and along its upper course were the principal
Bulgarian towns. The capital, called Bulgar by the Arabian writers,
was situated at a distance of about 20 miles to the south of the junc-
tion of the Kama, and about four miles from the Volga, between the present
towns of Spassk and Tetyushi. In the Russian annals of 1164 it appears
under the name of “the great town,” and not earlier than 1361 it is for
the first time called Bulgary. The advantageous situation near the Volga
was the cause of its rapid growth, and its extensive trade made it famous
all over the Orient. The best proof of the great size of the city is perhaps
the narrative of Ibn Haukal, an author of the second half of the tenth
century, who tells us that even after the devastation of the town by the
Russians it contained 10,000 inhabitants. It was only after the invasion
of the Mongols that the town of Bulgar declined; it decayed con-
siderably during the second half of the fourteenth century owing to the
ravages of Tamerlane, and was completely destroyed by the Golden
Horde.
C. MED. H. VOL. IV, CH. VII.
13
## p. 194 (#236) ############################################
194
The White Bulgars
The first beginnings of the political life of the Bulgars are unknown
to us. The history of the Volga-Bulgars becomes somewhat clearer when
the Russian annals and the Arabian writers give some notices of them in
the tenth century. The advantageous situation of the land was favour-
able to the formation of a state. The north and east were inhabited by
the inert Ugrian tribes of the Eastern Finns, who were no menace to their
neighbours. To the south lived the Chazars, powerful indeed but
remote, and separated by the territory of the Burdas from the Bulgars.
It was not until the ninth century that a dangerous neighbour arose on
their western borders in the Russian state. The expeditions of the
Russians against the Bulgars will be mentioned later. The Ugrian tribes,
settled to the north and east of the Bulgars, were partly under the
dominion of the Bulgars and partly retained their independence, such as
the Permyaks, Yugers, Votyaks, and Cheremises. All these peoples had
their own tribal princes, and their submission to the Bulgars consisted
only in the payment of a tribute chiefly of furs.
We get some information of the political organisation of the Bulgars
from Ibn Fadlan, who in June 921 was dispatched by the Caliph Muq-
tadir of Baghdad to the ruler of the Bulgars to instruct them at his
request in Islām; he built a mosque, and for the Bulgarian ruler a
castle where he could resist the attacks of hostile princes. Ibn Fadlan
arrived at Bulgar in the early summer of 922, and accomplished his task.
We learn from his description of the journey, preserved by the geographer
Yāqūt, that the throne of the Bulgarian rulers was hereditary and their
power limited by that of the princes and magnates. As a proof of this,
four princes, subject to the Bulgarian king, are mentioned, who went
with their brothers and children to meet the embassy led by Ibn Fadlan.
They were probably tribal chieftains, although we are informed by other
authors that there were only three Bulgarian tribes.
With the ninth century we get a clearer insight into the history of
the Magyars, another Ural-Altaic nation, which began to play its
part in history within the territory of the later Russian empire, on the
northern coasts of the Black Sea. There are but few nations of whose
origin and original settlements we know so little as we do of the Mag-
yars. The majority of writers contend that they are a nation of Finnish
origin, which only at a later period was under the influence of the Turks
and Slavs. The principal champion of this theory is Hunfalvy. Vámbéry
on the contrary thinks that the Magyars are a Turkish race, which
inhabited the northern and north-eastern border-lands of the Turco-
Tartar tribes and was in touch with the Ugrian tribes. To Vámbéry the
language is not of such decisive weight as the social life and civilisation.
The whole mode of living, the first appearance in history; the political
organisation of the Magyars, shew clearly that they belong in origin to
Turco-Tartar races. According to Vámbéry, even the names by which
## p. 195 (#237) ############################################
The Magyars
195
the Magyars are called by foreigners are of considerable moment. Not
only the Byzantines but also the Arabo-Persian writers called them
“ Turks. ” Vámbéry therefore is of the opinion that the Magyars
originally belonged to the Turco-Tartar peoples, and that they in course
of time adopted in their vocabulary Finno-Ugrian words. The ethnical
blending of the two races began in times so remote that it escapes
historical observation.
Winkler found in the Magyar language a yet greater mixture. The
Finnish foundation was influenced, as he thinks, by the Turkish, Mongol,
Dravidian, Iranian, and Caucasian languages.
By far the majority of scholars accept Hunfalvy's theory. But, although
Vámbéry's fundamental opinion may not be quite correct, it must be con-
ceded that the cultural influence of the Turks on the Finno-Ugrian
Magyars was so strong that they thoroughly changed their former mode
of life, and that from hunters they became a nomadic people, one of the
most warlike of nations.
The oriental authors give us the first mention of the Magyars.
Although they wrote in the tenth century and later, the first original
source from which they derived their information comes from the
second quarter of the ninth century. Ibn Rusta locates the territory of
the Magyars between the Patzinaks, who lived as nomads in the Ural-
Caspian steppes, and the Esegelian Bulgars, i. e. in the territory of the
Bashkirs, called by the Arabian authors Bashgurt and the like. It
seems that Ibn Rusta confounds the Bashkirs with the Magyars, which
can be easily explained by the kinship of the two nations. According
to Pauler they were one nation, of which the lesser part, the Bashkirs,
remained in their original territory, later on called Great Hungaria,
whereas the greater part, the Magyars, migrated about the beginning
of the ninth century in a south-westerly direction to the Black Sea.
But this was not the first Magyar wave flowing from north to south.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who also gives us important information
regarding the Magyars, says that only a part of the new immigrants
remained near the Black Sea, whereas another branch called Eaßáptou
ão parou moved farther to the east into Persia, where these Eastern
Magyars lived even in his time in the tenth century.
At first the Magyars occupied the lands near the Black Sea between
the rivers Don and Dnieper. Ibn Rusta and Gurdizi very clearly mention
two great rivers to which they give different names. Constantine Porphy-
rogenitus calls this first territory of the Magyars near the Black Sea
Lebedia. Many writers have tried to explain this word, but without
success. Constantine speaks of a river Chidmas or Chingylus, which
watered the territory of the Magyars.
The lands between the rivers Don and Dnieper belonged to the Chazars
at the beginning of the ninth century. The Magyars therefore must
CH. VII.
13–2
## p. 196 (#238) ############################################
196
Admixture of races
have fought them to get possession of their new home. Constantine
Porphyrogenitus says indeed that the Magyars were the allies of the
Chazars, and that they were their neighbours during three years (which
some authors correct to 200 or 300 years or at least to 30 years), but
an alliance seems to have been impossible, at least at the beginning of
the settlement of the Magyars near the Black Sea. The existence of an
alliance between the two nations is further made improbable by another
report of Constantine that the Kabars (which means, according to
Vámbéry, insurgents), a part of the Chazars who were in revolt, joined
seven Magyar tribes, becoming thus the eighth tribe. Even if we do not
take into account that the Magyars occupied lands belonging to the
Chazar empire, they could not at the beginning have been the friends of
the Chazars, because they received among them the insurgent Kabars.
Besides a part of the Chazars a certain number also of Black Bulgars,
living near the Don, joined the Magyars, for all the nomadic hordes
absorbed the different foreign elements barring their way. And so the
Magyars, too, were a motley ethnical conglomerate when they settled
on the banks of the Black Sea.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus has preserved for us the names of the
seven tribes composing the Magyar people. The principal tribe, Meryepn,
in all probability gave its name at that time to the whole nation; the
Musulman writers at least know this name (Majghariyah, Majghariyan),
whereas the Byzantines called the Magyars for a longer period
“Turks,"
evidently considering them, just as the Musulman writers did, to be
a nation of Turkish origin.
At the head of the several Magyar tribes were chieftains, called after
the Slav fashion voivodes (army-leaders). According to the reports of
the Musulman authors, the Magyars like the Chazars had two rulers.
One of them was called kende (knda) and is said to have held the higher
rank, but the real government was in the hands of the jila (jele). Čon-
stantine Porphyrogenitus gives a different description of the political
organisation of the Magyars, saying that beside the ruling prince there
were two judges, one of whom was called gyla and the other karchas.
The dignity of the gyla (Magyar, gyula) may be identical with that of
the jila of the Musulman writers. The jila was both a judge and a
military commander according to Ibn Rusta; but as he was sometimes
unable on account of old age to perform the duties of a military chief-
tain, the Magyars elected besides him a deputy called kende. This
prominent dignity, combined with its outer splendour, could easily be
mistaken by foreigners for that of the chief ruler. Pauler thinks that
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who certainly used some Chazar writings,
meant by the word karchas the dignity of the kende. It seems, at any
rate, that the dignities of karchas and kende were copied by the Magyars
from the institutions of the Chazars. These words are Turkish, whereas
gyula is Magyar. The offices disappeared in the Christian period, but
## p. 197 (#239) ############################################
Magyar customs
197
during a heathen reaction the Magyars reinstated that of the karchas,
as appears from the decree (m. 2) of King Ladislas the Saint, dating
from the year 1092.
According to Ibn Rusta, the Magyars in their new homes lived during
the summer on the steppes, moving with their tents wherever they found
a better pasture for their horses and cattle. They even tilled some land.
But with the coming of winter they went to the river to live by fishing.
Besides that, they made predatory raids into countries inhabited by the
Russian Slavs. They led the captive Slavs to the town of Karkh, and
bartered them there to Greek merchants for Byzantine gold, brocade,
carpets, and other Greek merchandise.
It is difficult to say how long the Magyars lived in their original
territory (the so-called Lebedia) by the Black Sea. Pauler thinks that
they lived in the lands between the Don and the Dnieper for about sixty
years, starting thence for their predatory raids to even more distant
countries. In 862 they reached the kingdom of Louis the German, and
devastated it. They again penetrated into the lands along the Danube
about 884, during the lifetime of St Methodius. That the Magyars
lived for a considerable period in Lebedia may be inferred from their
changed relations with the Chazars; an alliance was by now concluded,
and that could not have been accomplished in a short time,
To the north-east of the Chazars, between the rivers Atel (Volga) and
Yaik (Ural), the Turkish nation of the Patzinaks led, according to
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a nomadic life. The Greeks called them
Patzinakitai, the Arabs Bajnak, the Latin medieval authors Pezineigi,
Picenati, Bisseni, or Bessi, and the Slavs Pechenêgs.
According to the statements of Oriental writers, the territory of the
Patzinaks in the middle of the ninth century seems to have been wider
than it was later when described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. It
comprised the lands between the rivers Yaik and Don, a distance of one
month's journey, reaching on the west to the Slavs, on the south or
south-west to the Chazars, and on the east and north to the Kipchaks
(Cumans, in Russian Polovtzi) and Guzes (in Russian Torki).
Like other Turco-Tartar hordes, the Patzinaks during a period of
several centuries troubled the various nations of south-eastern Europe,
until at last they disappeared among them, absorbed by or making room
for the Cumans,
Vámbéry is of the opinion that the Patzinaks and the Cumans were
one and the same nation, which under different names and at different
periods played its part in the history of the peoples of south-eastern
Europe. This opinion may not be quite correct, but nevertheless it can-
not be doubted that the Patzinaks were closely related to the Cumans.
The common original home of all these Turkish races was the boundless
steppes of central Asia. From these steppes whole groups of kindred
CA. VU.
## p. 198 (#240) ############################################
198
Patzinaks and Magyars
hordes poured into the steppes of southern Russia. The westernmost of
these hordes was that which in Europe was given the name of Patzinaks.
While they roamed as nomads in the steppes near the Aral and the
Caspian Seas the Chinese called them K'ang-li, in which name all the
other kindred hordes were comprised before they were perhaps differen-
tiated in Europe. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the hordes
of the Patzinaks were driven from their original seats in Europe between
the Volga and the Ural about 55 years before he wrote (c. 950–2)
Chapter 37 of the De administrando imperio. This would mean that
the Patzinaks crossed the Volga as late as the very end of the ninth
century. In conflict with this statement other evidence about the
Magyars and the Russians leads us to suppose that the Patzinaks expelled
the Magyars from the territory between the Don and the Dnieper as
early as the seventh or at the latest the eighth decade of the ninth
century.
Constantine also informs us of the reason why the Patzinaks left their
original seats in Europe. They were pressed on by the Guzes (or
Ghuzz). The majority of the Patzinaks therefore moved to the west
beyond the river Don, expelling the Magyars. Only a small part of
the Patzinaks remained in the east and blended with the Guzes. The
Magyars did not go far from their original seats. They occupied
territories hitherto inhabited by Slavs, especially the Tivertsy : this
territory comprised the lands to the northwest of the Black Sea and
was watered by the rivers Bug, Dniester, Pruth, and Seret. Constan-
tine calls it Atelkuzu, which was until recent times explained as
the Magyar Atelköz, i. e. the land between the rivers. Westberg,
however, sees in the Byzantine form Kuzu the oriental name of the river
Dnieper (Kotsho of Moses of Chorene). The new home of the Magyars
therefore consisted of the lands of south-western Russia, Bessarabia, and
Moldavia. Pauler puts their arrival in these lands in the year 889,
following Regino of Prüm, while the narrative of Constantine Porphyro-
genitus would date it 896-897.
From Atelkuzu the Magyars went on with their predatory raids into
the neighbouring countries, and certainly gained in a short time a good
acquaintance with their future home, Hungary. When the German King
Arnulf in 892 waged a war against Svatopluk, Prince of Great Moravia,
a Magyar horde, at that time in Hungary, joined with the Germans and
devastated Great Moravia. Two years later (894) the Magyars came
again in considerable numbers to the Danube, but this time they allied
themselves with the Moravians and with them invaded Pannonia and
the German march or borderland.
But Balkan Bulgaria was far nearer to the Magyars than Hungary,
the distance between the two nations being not greater than half a day's
journey. The Bulgars in 894 were at war with the Greeks. The Emperor
Leo allied himself at that time with the Magyars. While the patrician
## p. 199 (#241) ############################################
The Magyars migrate to Hungary
199
Nicephorus Phocas (895) led an army from the south against the Bulgars,
the patrician Eustathius sailed with a fleet to bring the Magyar forces. But
the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon hired the Patzinaks against the Magyars. The
Magyar army was led by one of the sons of the supreme ruler Árpád.
As soon as they had crossed the Danube they ravaged the land terribly
and vanquished Simeon in two consecutive battles. It was not until the
third conflict that Simeon gained a victory and destroyed the greater
part of their army. Only a few Magyars saved themselves by flight, to
find their land absolutely ruined and depopulated, as the Patzinaks had
killed all the inhabitants who remained in Atelkuzu. This national
catastrophe induced the Magyars to migrate under the leadership of
Árpád into Hungary about the year 895-896.
Their territory near the Black Sea was henceforward completely
occupied by the Patzinaks, who now wandered as nomads on the great
plains between the Don and the estuary of the Danube.
They numbered
eight hordes living separately, each probably having its own centre like
the Avars, who lived in their hrings.
The relations of the Patzinaks to their heighbours and to surround-
ing nations are interesting. The Greeks, endeavouring to restrain them
from invading their colonies in the Crimea, sent them valuable gifts,
and bought their assistance against their enemies, such as the Magyars,
Danubian Bulgars, Russians, and Chazars. In times of peace the
Patzinaks furthered the commercial intercourse between the Russians
and Cherson (Korsun) by transporting their merchandise. In times of
war they not only robbed the Russian merchants but penetrated with
their predatory expeditions even as far as the dominions of Kiev. The
princes of Kiev preferred therefore to be on friendly terms with the
Patzinaks, and when they had a war with other Russian lands they often
won them over to be their allies.
As yet our attention has been engaged with the history of the steppes
of southern Russia. Now we must turn to the history of the Slav
tribes, who laid the foundations of the later Russian Empire. Even to
recent times there prevailed in Russian literature the opinion, defended
by the German scholar A. Schlözer, that the Russian empire was
founded as late as the middle of the ninth century by Northman
(Swedish) immigrants, who united under their dominion numerous Slav
and Finnish tribes, losing in course of time their own nationality, and
finally becoming blended with the Slav elements. This is the theory of
the Varangian origin of the Russian Empire, which was accepted even by
the foremost Russian historians, Karamzin, Pogodin, and Solov'ëv. The
Russian scholars were misled by the report of their own native annalist,
that the first Russian princes were called to the throne from foreign
lands and not earlier than the latter half of the ninth century. Just
a few scholars tried to prove that the Russian Empire originated by its
CA. VII.
## p. 200 (#242) ############################################
200
Russia. The “Varangian” theory
own innate vitality, without any external assistance. The historical truth
lies between the two extreme theories. It was expounded by the late
Professor V. Klyuchevski. While the name Rus no doubt belongs to the
Swedes and the dynasty which ruled till Fëdor Ivanovich descended from
Rurik', the legend that in 862 three Swedish brothers Rurik, Sineus,
and Truvor were called by the Slav and Finnish tribes to rule over them,
only recounts a single incident in the forniation of a great state in what
is now Russia.
By the authors of the sixth century a southern division of the
eastern group of Slavonic tribes is sometimes mentioned, which they call
the Antae? . These are the tribes which we now call Little Russians
or Ukrainians. The Avars tried to subdue the Antae, who in 602 were
allied with the Byzantines, but without success. From the seventh century
onwards we have no information at all of this branch of the Eastern Slavs.
This is explained by the circumstance that Byzantine historiography in
these times had considerably declined. But nevertheless we can propound
a probable supposition as to the history of the Antae from the latter half
of the seventh to the ninth century. As early as the second quarter of the
seventh century the dominion of the Avars was on the decline, and when
in 679 the principal part of the Bulgars departed from the lands near
the Black Sea to the Balkan peninsula, a favourable time opened for the
Antae. They were free from the hostile nomadic hordes, who marred any
peaceful existence, until the ninth century, when the Magyars appeared
near the Black Sea. We must suppose that the Antae spread very far to
the east during this period of peace. We learn from Procopius that Slav
colonisation had already approached the Sea of Azov in the first half of
the sixth century. The Antae were at this time settled to the north of
the Utigurs. Afterwards, up to the tenth century, they probably occupied
the whole northern borderland of the steppes of southern Russia as far
eastward as the river Don, but were driven out of these countries by the
later arrival of new nomadic hordes.
We have no reports of the names of the several tribes of the Eastern
Slavs of that period. The Russian annals enumerate them only according
to their position in the eleventh century. But at that time the Russian
peoples had already a history of several centuries; they began at the end
of the sixth or at the beginning of the seventh century to spread over
Russian territory from the south-west, especially from the south-eastern
slopes and spurs of the Carpathian mountains. At that time the Russian
Slavs already had a nucleus of political organisation. Masóūdi mentions
a once powerful Slavonic race, the Walinana, who lived on the western
banks of the Bug and were once oppressed by the Avars. The Walinana
were probably the first East Slavonic tribe to become the centre of some
state organisation; they founded a small federation of Slavs.
i Cf. Vol. 111. chapter XIII, pp. 327-8.
? See supra, p. 186.
## p. 201 (#243) ############################################
The Eastern Slavs
201
From this south-western corner of modern Russia the Slavonic coloni-
sation spread in an eastern and north-eastern direction. In the wild and
-boundless forests of Russia the Slavonic immigrants hunted wild animals,
kept bees, and soon tilled the land in clearings, founding there small
solitary homesteads not only surrounded by the forest but also secured on
every side by ditches and mounds. In course of time these settlements
of single farms developed into hamlets or villages of several farms! .
Besides the villages there soon arose along the Dnieper, the greatest
river in western Russia, several commercial centres, the kernels of future
commercial towns. The Greek colonies on the Black Sea had given the
impulse to these commercial relations with the more distant Russian
countries long before the Christian era. This connexion did not cease
even when some Greek cities on the Black Sea were destroyed during the
migrations of the nations. The Slavonic colonists thus found a market
for various products of their forest industry. Furs, honey, and wax were
the principal wares exported from Russia. The development of the
Russian trade was also favoured by the circumstance that, just at the
time when the Eastern Slavs began to occupy the wooded plains of Russia,
the dominion of the Chazars was organised in the southern steppes
between the Caspian and the Black Sea, a dominion which performed a
rather important cultural mission in the territories of the later south-
eastern Russia. Through the Chazar lands passed important commercial
routes, partly by land, partly by the rivers connecting Mesopotamia and
Central Asia with Eastern Europe, and vice versa. In the second half of
the seventh or in the first half of the eighth century the Chazars
further extended their empire over the lands of the central Dnieper,
subduing and making tributary the Slavonic tribe settled around Kiev
and subsequently called Polyans. The subjection of the Polyans to the
Chazars was not a hard one, and indeed brought eminent advantages to
the Polyans. The Slavs along the Dnieper were guarded against the
iproads of the nomadic hordes of Asia and had therefore free com-
mercial relations with the Black Sea, while new roads to the East through
the dominion of the Chazars were opened to them.
The Arabian author Ibn Khurdādhbih, in the first half of the ninth
century, gives us good information on the early and great development
of the Russian trade with the Byzantine Empire and the Orient. Russian
merchants not only sailed on the Black and Caspian Seas but brought
their wares even to Baghdad, to which in the middle of the eighth century
the centre of the Arabian Caliphate was transferred. The frequent finds
of Arabian coins in the territories of Russia are an important proof
of the development of this trade. Most of these coins date from the
pinth and tenth centuries, when the trade with the Orient flourished
best, but some of them belong to the beginning of the eighth century.
The Dnieper connected the Slavonic colonies of western Russia not
· Cf. Vol. 11. Chapter xiv, pp. 422-3.
OB, VII.
## p. 202 (#244) ############################################
202
Trade Routes
לר
only with the south but also with the north. It was possible to journey
from the Dnieper to the river Lovat, and to penetrate thence by Lake
Ilmen', the river Volkhov, the Ladoga lake, and the river Neva to
the Baltic Sea. Another route to this sea from the Dnieper was by the
river Dvina. Along both branches of this “route from the Varangians
to the Greeks arose the oldest commercial towns of Russia: Kiev,
Smolensk, Lyubech, Novgorod, Polotsk, and others. Besides these towns
situated directly on the Varangian-Greek trade route, there were a great
number of other towns which formed the connexion between this route
and the affluents of the Dnieper as well as the connexion by water with
the Volga, by which likewise passed the commercial route to the Orient
through the Volga-Bulgars.
As long as the steppes of southern Russia between the Don and
Dnieper were not occupied by the Magyars, no obstacles hindered the
Russian commerce with the Byzantines. But as soon as the Magyars
began to endanger the route, the several towns had to provide for the
security of their commerce. From that time the towns of Russia began
to fortify themselves and to organise a military force. The commercial
centres developed into fortresses offering their protection against hostile
attacks.
At this very time, the beginning of the ninth century, there began
to appear on the Russian rivers greater numbers of enterprising Swedish
companies, the so-called Varangians, travelling in armed bands to Byzan-
tium for commercial purposes. It seems that only a part of the Varan-
gians reached their goal, whereas the majority remained in the Russian
commercial towns, especially in Novgorod and Kiev. Here the inhabitants
employed them not only for their business but principally for their
defence. The Varangians therefore entered the military service of the
Russian towns, and also formed mercenary guards of the Russian com-
mercial caravans.
The fortified Russian towns which could command some military
force developed in course of time into centres of small states. The
inhabitants of the neighbouring smaller towns and villages began to
gravitate towards the greater towns, and in this wise arose the first
Russian town-states, the vólosti. At first all of them were probably
republics, but later some of them became principalities. These princi-
palities probably developed in those towns where the Varangian com-
panies were led by a powerful konung, who succeeded in seizing the
government. But some volosti certainly had princes of Slavonic origin.
These city-states were not founded on a racial basis. The majority
of them were composed of different tribes or parts of tribes; in others
one whole tribe was joined by parts of other tribes. From these fusions
towns arose amongst the populations settled near the principal streams,
the Dnieper, the Volkhov, and the western Dvina. But the tribes which
were too far from the main routes of commerce never combined to form
## p. 203 (#245) ############################################
The vólosti
203
townships, much less states; they formed part of the territories of other
tribes.
The volost of Kiev very soon played the most important part of all
these volosti. It
grew
to be the centre of the Russian trade. It was the
meeting-place of all the merchant-ships of the Volkhov, the western
Dvina, the upper Dnieper, and its tributaries.
The germs of the state of Kiev are old. Urushevsky puts the organisa-
tion of a strong army and the power of the princes of Kiev as early as
the beginning of the eighth century or even earlier, which seems to
be an over-estimate if we consider that the Polyans were tributary to
the Chazars. But we cannot doubt that the independent state of Kiev
already existed in the beginning of the ninth century. At this time the
Russians, evidently those of Kiev, made predatory invasions to the shores
of the Black Sea, and not only to the northern coasts, reports of which
have been preserved in the biography of St Stephen of Surozh (Sugdaea),
but also to Asia Minor on the southern shores, as mentioned in the
biography of St Gregory of Amastris. An accurately dated report of
the existence of the Russian state is found in the Annals of St Bertin,
which inform us that the Greek Emperor Theophilus in 839 included in
an embassy to Louis the Pious members of a nation called “Rhos," who
had been sent to Constantinople as representatives of their lord, called
"chacanus," to conclude a treaty of friendship with the Emperor; fearing
the barbarians who barred their way (evidently the Magyars), they wished
to return by way of Germany. There can be no doubt that by the
khagan of the nation called Rhos is meant the Prince of Kiev. The
name Russia was given first to the land of Kiev, and later to all the lands
(vólosti) united under the sceptre of the Prince of Kiev.
Another exact date in the history of Kiev is the year 860. According
to a Byzantine chronicle, the Russians made a predatory invasion as far
as Constantinople in the summer of that year. Taking advantage of
the fact that the Emperor Michael had marched with his army to Asia
Minor, they sailed with 200 ships against the imperial city. The Russian
chronicle puts this event erroneously in the year 866, and says that it
happened under Askold and Dir, Princes of Kiev.
If the Princes of Kiev were able in the ninth century to venture on
such distant military expeditions beyond the sea, their state must have
already existed for many years. Certainly the period of the small princi-
pality was at an end; the territory of the state was extended over a
greater number of volosti, which were now under the sceptre of a ruler
who later assumed the title of Great Prince.
In the foregoing account we have given a short outline, after Klyu-
chevski and Hrushevsky, of the history of the remotest times of Russia.
Although the descriptions of the oldest phase of the political life of the
Russian Slavs presented by both these historians are on the whole in
harmony, there is nevertheless a great difference between them in their
CB. VII.
## p. 204 (#246) ############################################
204
Settlement of the Varangians
estimate of the influence of the Varangians on the beginnings of Russian
state organisation. These Northmen until the middle of the ninth
century undoubtedly lived in great numbers among the East Slavonic
races, especially among the Slovens, Kriviches, and Polyans, and they
helped the princes to extend their territories and to domineer over the
subjected inhabitants. Klyuchevski, in acknowledging the weight of
the evidence brought forward, and especially the Swedish character of
the names of the first Russian princes and the members of their retinue
(druzhina), does not object to the assertion that among the founders of
the small Russian states there were, besides the Slavs, also Varangians
i. e. Swedish konungs, chiefs of Swedish companies, who came to Gardarik
(Russia) in the course of their adventurous travels. Hrushevsky, on the
contrary, directly denies the account given by the Russian Chronicle of
the Varangian origin of the Russian state and the princely dynasties.
But nevertheless even he acknowledges a certain influence of the Varangian
companies in the building-up of the Russian state during the ninth and
tenth centuries.
Although Hrushevsky defends his opinion very ingeniously, it seems to
us that Klyuchevski is nearer the truth. We believe that the Varangians,
not only the retinue but also the princes, settled at first in the volost of
Novgorod, and only after having gained a firm hold there, went farther
to the south and conquered the volost of Kiev. We believe also that
by the name Russian or Rus just these Swedish companies with their
chiefs were originally meant, although later the Polyans and the country
of Kiev and at last all the inhabitants of the great Russian state were
designated by this name. The oriental sources undoubtedly mean the
Swedes when they use the word Rus, and the “Russian" names of the
rapids of the Dnieper, reported by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, are
evidently of Swedish origin.
The physical conditions forced the Varangians of Novgorod to look
for a way to the Dnieper, to Kiev. Commercial interests also demanded
it. The once small state spread southwards to the regions of the Dnieper.
The Varangians were assisted in these efforts by the Slavs and Finns
over whom they ruled. We see by the history of the state of Smolensk,
formed by a part of the Kriviches, and that of the state of the Sêveryans,
with its capital of Lyubech, that, besides the Varangian, Slavonic states
also developed in Russia, for Oleg became ruler of both these states
when he went from Novgorod to Kiev.
Oleg, who appears in history according to the Russian chronicles
for the first time in 880, is a half-legendary person. Foreign authors
do not even mention his name. Oleg's first care, after having gained
possession of Kiev, was to build new fortified places, “castles," against
the Patzinaks, and to bring the neighbouring Slavonic tribes under his
dominion.
After having secured his power at home, Oleg undertook in 907 a
## p. 205 (#247) ############################################
Oleg and Igor of Kiev
205
great military expedition against Constantinople. The Greeks bound
themselves to pay subsidies to several Russian towns, for “in these
towns resided princes, who were under Oleg," as the Chronicle puts it.
Moreover a commercial treaty was concluded with the Greeks, by which
great advantages were conceded to Russian merchants in Constantinople.
Although this treaty between Oleg and the Greeks is the first Russo-
Greek treaty the content of which is given us by the sources, it is evident
that such treaties must have been concluded as early as the ninth century.
One of them is mentioned in 839; the expedition of the Russians against
Constantinople was afterwards undertaken in 860 because the Greeks
had violated the agreement.
In 911, after many verbal negotiations, additional clauses were intro-
duced bearing on civil and penal law and the rules of procedure in the
courts. The text of this treaty is preserved in the Russian Chronicle,
and it has a special interest, for it contains the names of Oleg's envoys,
which are all of them Scandinavian.
The first historical Russian prince who appears in contemporary
foreign sources is Igor. According to the Russian Chronicle, he began
to reign in 913, but Hrushevsky thinks that he ascended the throne
much later. Ilovayski puts Igor, not Rurik, at the head of the Russian
dynasty.
Igor, too, undertook a military expedition against Constantinople in
the summer of 941. The reason probably was that the Greeks had
ceased to pay to the Russians the subsidies which they had promised to
Oleg. We are informed of Igor's expedition not only by the Russian
Chronicle but also by foreign sources. The Russians again chose a time
when the Greek fleet was employed against the Saracens. Igor landed
first on the shores of Bithynia, and cruelly ravaged the land as far as the
Thracian Bosphorus. Driven from Constantinople by Greek fire, he
returned again to Bithynia. Meanwhile the Greek army began to rally.
Frosts, want of food, and the losses sustained from the Greek fire, com-
pelled Igor to return to Russia. He is said to have escaped with only
ten ships to the Cimmerian Bosphorus.
The war lasted for three years more, and was ended in 945 by the
conclusion of another treaty between Russia and Byzantium, in which
not only the former treaties with Oleg were confirmed with some modi-
fications and additions, but both parties also undertook not to attack
the lands of the other party, and to assist each other. We learn from
this treaty that the great principality of Kiev was divided, not only
among the members of the dynasty but also among the foremost chiefs
of the companies, and that even women had their apportioned territories.
The whole state was administered from the standpoint of civil law in a
business-like manner. Oleg had already in his treaty of 907 agreed with
the Greeks what subsidies were to be paid to the several Russian towns,
or rather to his deputies residing there in Russian posádniki). Whereas
CH. VII.
## p. 206 (#248) ############################################
206
Trade and tribute
in Western Europe officials were remunerated by fiefs, in Russia they
had territories upon which they imposed taxes on their own behalf, and
to collect these was their principal care. The taxes were paid in money,
probably Arabian, as well as in kind, especially in furs. Either the
subject tribes brought their dues to Kiev or the princes rode to the
territories to receive them.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus describes the second manner of levying
the taxes. In the early days of November the Russian princes and all
their retinues started from Kiev to the territory of the Derevlyans,
Dregoviches, Kriviches, and other subject tribes, and lived there all the
winter, returning by the Dnieper to Kiev in April, when the ice had
floated down to the sea. Meantime the Slavs built during the winter
boats, hollowed from one piece of timber, and in spring floated them
down-stream to Kiev, where they sold them to the retinue of the prince
on their return from winter quarters in the lands of the subject tribes.
The courtiers shipped their wares, evidently furs and other taxes in kind
gathered from the tribes, and in June they proceeded by the Dnieper
to the castle or fortress of Vitichev, and thence to Constantinople.
Professor Klyuchevski very acutely recognised that the imposts
which the Prince of Kiev levied as a ruler were at the same time the
articles of his trade. “When he became a ruler as a konung, he as a
Varangian (Varyag) did not cease to be an armed merchant. He shared
the taxes with his retinue, which served him as the organ of administra-
tion and was the ruling class. This class governed in winter, visiting the
country and levying taxes, and in summer trafficked in what was gathered
during the winter. "
The oriental authors give us reports of predatory expeditions of
the Russians to the shores of the Caspian Sea. From the first, under-
taken in 880, all these raids ended in disaster. A particularly audacious
one took place in 944. The Russians arrived with their ships by the
Caspian Sea at the estuary of the river Cyrus, and sailing upstream
invaded the land called by the Arabs Arran (the ancient Albania), which
belonged to the Caliphate. Their first success was the conquest of
Berdaa, the capital of Arran, situated on the river Terter, a southern
tributary of the Cyrus. From Berdaa they ravaged the surrounding
country. The governor of Azarbā'ījān levied a great army which beat
the Russians after losing a first battle, but this defeat was not decisive
enough to induce them to leave the country. Dysentery, however,
spreading rapidly among the Russian army, delivered the Albanians
from their enemies. After depredations which lasted six months the
Russians left the land, returning home with rich spoil.
It is strange that the Russian chronicles are silent about these
invasions of the shores of the Caspian Sea, since there is no reason to
doubt their reality. They are an evidence that the state of Kiev was
## p. 207 (#249) ############################################
Beginnings of Christianity
207
already strong enough in Oleg's time—for the earliest expeditions under-
taken in the tenth century were certainly his--to venture on war not
only against Constantinople but also against the East. The easier there-
fore was it for Igor to undertake such a campaign.
After Igor's death his widow Olga ascended the throne, the first
Christian princess in Russia. Christianity had begun to spread in the
principality of Kiev soon after the first expedition of the Russians against
Constantinople in 860. It is probable that the Prince of Kiev himself at
this time embraced the Christian faith. During Oleg's reign Christianity
suffered a decline, although it did not disappear, as can be inferred from
the register of the metropolitan churches subordinated to the Patriarch
of Constantinople published by the Emperor Leo VI (886–911). In the
treaty of Igor with the Greeks in 945 heathen and Christian Russians
are mentioned, and the Russian Chronicle calls the church of St Elias
(Ilya) in Kiev a cathedral, which implies that there were other churches
in the city. But it seems nevertheless that the Christian faith did not
take strong root among the Russians, and there was hardly an improve-
ment when the Princess Olga embraced Christianity, which happened
probably in 954, three years before her voyage to Constantinople. The
purpose of this visit is not known. Former writers thought Olga went
there to be baptized, but it seems to be nearer the truth that her
journey had only diplomatic aims.
A true type of the adventurous viking was Prince Svyatoslav, son of
Igor and Olga, the first prince of the Varangian dynasty to bear a
Slavonic name. The Chronicle describes him as a gallant, daring man,
undertaking long expeditions to distant lands and neglecting the interests
of his own country. His mind was filled with the plan of transferring the
centre of his state to the Balkan peninsula. He spent the greater part
of his time in foreign lands. He was the first of the Russian princes who
forced the Vyatiches to pay him tribute, whereas they had formerly been
tributary to the Chazars. But before that he tried to break the power
of the Chazars, which from the beginning of the ninth century had been
continually declining.
administer justice; two of them were appointed for the Muslims, two
for the Jews, two for Christians, and one for the heathen. If the judges
of their own religion were unable to decide a complicated controversy, the
litigants appealed to the cadis of the Muslims, whose administration of
justice at that time was considered as the most perfect.
But in spite of religious tolerance, it was a great drawback to the
Chazar state that there existed within it so many different religions,
and, in all probability, it suffered much harm from the adoption of the
Mosaic faith by the rulers and their courtiers. The inhabitants of the
Chazar empire could not coalesce into one nation, and the Chazar realm
continued until its downfall to be a conglomerate of different ethnic and
religious elements. The state was upheld by artificial means, especially
by the foreign Musulman mercenaries. Although the downfall of the
empire did not begin in the ninth century, yet in the tenth it certainly
was in rapid decline.
That the Chazar civilisation attained a high development is apparent
from the flourishing commerce of a part of the inhabitants and from the
existence of several great towns in the empire. The authorities mention
principally the towns Iti), Balanjar, Samandar, and Sarkel. Balanjar
was a more ancient capital of the Chazars; some ancient authors wrongly
assert that it is identical with Itil or Atel.
The oriental historians give us a better knowledge of the later resi-
dence of the Chazar kbagans, the town Itil or Atel, than we have of
Balanjar. It was the greatest town of the Chazars, situated some miles
from the estuary of the river Volga (by the Turks named also Itil or
Atel), to the north of the present town of Astrakhan. The ancient Arab
authors call this town Al-Baidā (The White City), which corresponds
with the later name Sarygshar (Yellow City), as the western part of the
town of Itil was called. The Arabian geographers relate that the town
of Itil was composed of two (according to Masóūdī of three) parts
separated by the river Itil. The western part situated on the river was
the greater, where the supreme khagan resided. The ruler's palace was
the only building constructed of brick; the other houses were either
of timber or clay. The eastern part of the town was probably the business
centre of the Chazars. But according to Ibn Rusta the Chazar inhabi-
tants lived in this twin-town only in winter, moving in spring to the
steppes. This led Marquart to the opinion that Itil was the winter
Cf. infra, Chapter vii (B), pp. 219-20.
CE. VO.
## p. 192 (#234) ############################################
192
The Burdas
resort (kishlak) of the Chazars and Balanjar their summer dwelling
(yaylak). Later writers, beginning with the twelfth century, give the
name Saksin to the town of Itil.
On the river Don was an important town of the Chazars, Sarkel
(White Town, a name which the Greeks translated correctly "Aom povoot-
tlov, and the Russians Bélavêzha). According to Constantine Porphyro-
genitus, this town was built in the reign of the Greek Emperor Theophilus
(829-842) at the request of the Khagan of the Chazars. The Emperor
is said to have sent there Petronas, who built the city for the Chazars
about 835 and was at the same time made an imperial governor,
strategus of the city of Cherson, which had hitherto enjoyed full
autonomy, being governed by a proteuon elected by the citizens.
The Emperor Constantine does not say against whom Sarkel was
built, but according to Cedrenus (eleventh century) it was against the
Patzinaks. Uspenski tries to prove that the town of Sarkel was founded
at the initiative of the Greeks, to secure the Greek territory on the north
shores of the Black Sea and at the same time to protect the Chazars,
their allies.
To the Chazar empire belonged, according to Ibn Rusta, a people
called Burdas or Burtas by the orientals. Their territory extended
along the Volga at a distance of a fortnight's journey from the territory
of the Chazars proper. The Burdas disposed of an army of 10,000 horse.
Their limited political capacity prevented them from founding an inde-
pendent state. In fact Ibn Rusta narrates that they had no other chief-
tains than the elders of their communes. Their territory was rich in
forests. They reared cattle, were hunters, and practised a little agri-
culture and commerce. They raided the neighbouring Bulgars and
Patzinaks. They practised the vendetta in sanguinary feuds. The
ethnical affinity of the Burdas is still a matter of dispute; according to
Mas'udi they were a people of a Turkish race, settled along the banks
of a river called also Burdas (according to Marquart, the Samara). They
exported great quantities of black and brown fox-hides, generally called
burtasians.
To the north of the Burdas the Bulgars were settled. Their land
extended over the regions of the central Volga to the river Kama, and
was full of swamps and dense forests. They are the so-called Volga and
Kama Bulgars, White or Silver Bulgars, who remained in their original
homes when part of the nation emigrated to the Black Sea. They were
divided into three tribes, the Barsuls, the Esegels, and the Bulgars
proper. They also belonged to the most advanced Ural-Altaic peoples.
They very early began to till their lands, and were good hunters and
shrewd tradesmen as intermediaries of the commerce between the Swedes
(" Russians "), Slavs, and Chazars. The southern boundaries of their lands
were only a three days' journey distant from the territory of the Burdas. )
## p. 193 (#235) ############################################
The White Bulgars
193
The Volga Bulgars often made predatory invasions on their swift horses
into the lands of the Burdas and carried the inhabitants into captivity.
Among themselves they used fox-hides instead of money, although they
obtained silver coins (dirhem, i. e. drachma) from the Muslim countries.
These silver coins were used by the Bulgars as money when trading with
foreigners, the Swedes and Slavs, who did not exchange wares except for
money. The great number of foreign coins found in the present
government of Perm near the river Kama is the best proof of the brisk
trade the Bulgars already drove in the fifth century with foreign lands,
especially with the far Orient, the coins being Sasanian and Indo-Bactrian
of the fifth century.
To supply the increasing need for specie, the Bulgars began to coin
their own money in the tenth century. Three Bulgarian coins of native
origin, struck in Bulgary in the towns of Bulgar and Suvar under the
rulers Talib and Mumin, have been preserved from the years 950 and 976.
Trade drew members of very different nations to the Bulgarian
cities—Chazars, Swedes, Finns, Slavs, Greeks, Armenians, and Khwāraz-
mians. The principal commercial route of the Bulgars was the Volga;
by this river merchandise was carried to the west, and southwards to the
Caspian Sea, for several centuries called the Chazar Sea. Two waterways
led to the west, one to the Western Dvina and the Dnieper, the other
by the Oka upstream to its sources and thence by land to the river Desna
to reach Kiev downstream. Merchandise was also shipped southwards to
the Sea of Azov. The ships went down the Volga to the point opposite
to where the Don bends farthest eastward. From here the wares were
transported by land to the Don and then shipped to the Sea of Azov.
There was moreover another trade route by land to the south.
The centre of the Volga-Bulgarian realm was situated in the
country where the river Kama joins the Volga. North and south of the
confluence of the Kama and along its upper course were the principal
Bulgarian towns. The capital, called Bulgar by the Arabian writers,
was situated at a distance of about 20 miles to the south of the junc-
tion of the Kama, and about four miles from the Volga, between the present
towns of Spassk and Tetyushi. In the Russian annals of 1164 it appears
under the name of “the great town,” and not earlier than 1361 it is for
the first time called Bulgary. The advantageous situation near the Volga
was the cause of its rapid growth, and its extensive trade made it famous
all over the Orient. The best proof of the great size of the city is perhaps
the narrative of Ibn Haukal, an author of the second half of the tenth
century, who tells us that even after the devastation of the town by the
Russians it contained 10,000 inhabitants. It was only after the invasion
of the Mongols that the town of Bulgar declined; it decayed con-
siderably during the second half of the fourteenth century owing to the
ravages of Tamerlane, and was completely destroyed by the Golden
Horde.
C. MED. H. VOL. IV, CH. VII.
13
## p. 194 (#236) ############################################
194
The White Bulgars
The first beginnings of the political life of the Bulgars are unknown
to us. The history of the Volga-Bulgars becomes somewhat clearer when
the Russian annals and the Arabian writers give some notices of them in
the tenth century. The advantageous situation of the land was favour-
able to the formation of a state. The north and east were inhabited by
the inert Ugrian tribes of the Eastern Finns, who were no menace to their
neighbours. To the south lived the Chazars, powerful indeed but
remote, and separated by the territory of the Burdas from the Bulgars.
It was not until the ninth century that a dangerous neighbour arose on
their western borders in the Russian state. The expeditions of the
Russians against the Bulgars will be mentioned later. The Ugrian tribes,
settled to the north and east of the Bulgars, were partly under the
dominion of the Bulgars and partly retained their independence, such as
the Permyaks, Yugers, Votyaks, and Cheremises. All these peoples had
their own tribal princes, and their submission to the Bulgars consisted
only in the payment of a tribute chiefly of furs.
We get some information of the political organisation of the Bulgars
from Ibn Fadlan, who in June 921 was dispatched by the Caliph Muq-
tadir of Baghdad to the ruler of the Bulgars to instruct them at his
request in Islām; he built a mosque, and for the Bulgarian ruler a
castle where he could resist the attacks of hostile princes. Ibn Fadlan
arrived at Bulgar in the early summer of 922, and accomplished his task.
We learn from his description of the journey, preserved by the geographer
Yāqūt, that the throne of the Bulgarian rulers was hereditary and their
power limited by that of the princes and magnates. As a proof of this,
four princes, subject to the Bulgarian king, are mentioned, who went
with their brothers and children to meet the embassy led by Ibn Fadlan.
They were probably tribal chieftains, although we are informed by other
authors that there were only three Bulgarian tribes.
With the ninth century we get a clearer insight into the history of
the Magyars, another Ural-Altaic nation, which began to play its
part in history within the territory of the later Russian empire, on the
northern coasts of the Black Sea. There are but few nations of whose
origin and original settlements we know so little as we do of the Mag-
yars. The majority of writers contend that they are a nation of Finnish
origin, which only at a later period was under the influence of the Turks
and Slavs. The principal champion of this theory is Hunfalvy. Vámbéry
on the contrary thinks that the Magyars are a Turkish race, which
inhabited the northern and north-eastern border-lands of the Turco-
Tartar tribes and was in touch with the Ugrian tribes. To Vámbéry the
language is not of such decisive weight as the social life and civilisation.
The whole mode of living, the first appearance in history; the political
organisation of the Magyars, shew clearly that they belong in origin to
Turco-Tartar races. According to Vámbéry, even the names by which
## p. 195 (#237) ############################################
The Magyars
195
the Magyars are called by foreigners are of considerable moment. Not
only the Byzantines but also the Arabo-Persian writers called them
“ Turks. ” Vámbéry therefore is of the opinion that the Magyars
originally belonged to the Turco-Tartar peoples, and that they in course
of time adopted in their vocabulary Finno-Ugrian words. The ethnical
blending of the two races began in times so remote that it escapes
historical observation.
Winkler found in the Magyar language a yet greater mixture. The
Finnish foundation was influenced, as he thinks, by the Turkish, Mongol,
Dravidian, Iranian, and Caucasian languages.
By far the majority of scholars accept Hunfalvy's theory. But, although
Vámbéry's fundamental opinion may not be quite correct, it must be con-
ceded that the cultural influence of the Turks on the Finno-Ugrian
Magyars was so strong that they thoroughly changed their former mode
of life, and that from hunters they became a nomadic people, one of the
most warlike of nations.
The oriental authors give us the first mention of the Magyars.
Although they wrote in the tenth century and later, the first original
source from which they derived their information comes from the
second quarter of the ninth century. Ibn Rusta locates the territory of
the Magyars between the Patzinaks, who lived as nomads in the Ural-
Caspian steppes, and the Esegelian Bulgars, i. e. in the territory of the
Bashkirs, called by the Arabian authors Bashgurt and the like. It
seems that Ibn Rusta confounds the Bashkirs with the Magyars, which
can be easily explained by the kinship of the two nations. According
to Pauler they were one nation, of which the lesser part, the Bashkirs,
remained in their original territory, later on called Great Hungaria,
whereas the greater part, the Magyars, migrated about the beginning
of the ninth century in a south-westerly direction to the Black Sea.
But this was not the first Magyar wave flowing from north to south.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who also gives us important information
regarding the Magyars, says that only a part of the new immigrants
remained near the Black Sea, whereas another branch called Eaßáptou
ão parou moved farther to the east into Persia, where these Eastern
Magyars lived even in his time in the tenth century.
At first the Magyars occupied the lands near the Black Sea between
the rivers Don and Dnieper. Ibn Rusta and Gurdizi very clearly mention
two great rivers to which they give different names. Constantine Porphy-
rogenitus calls this first territory of the Magyars near the Black Sea
Lebedia. Many writers have tried to explain this word, but without
success. Constantine speaks of a river Chidmas or Chingylus, which
watered the territory of the Magyars.
The lands between the rivers Don and Dnieper belonged to the Chazars
at the beginning of the ninth century. The Magyars therefore must
CH. VII.
13–2
## p. 196 (#238) ############################################
196
Admixture of races
have fought them to get possession of their new home. Constantine
Porphyrogenitus says indeed that the Magyars were the allies of the
Chazars, and that they were their neighbours during three years (which
some authors correct to 200 or 300 years or at least to 30 years), but
an alliance seems to have been impossible, at least at the beginning of
the settlement of the Magyars near the Black Sea. The existence of an
alliance between the two nations is further made improbable by another
report of Constantine that the Kabars (which means, according to
Vámbéry, insurgents), a part of the Chazars who were in revolt, joined
seven Magyar tribes, becoming thus the eighth tribe. Even if we do not
take into account that the Magyars occupied lands belonging to the
Chazar empire, they could not at the beginning have been the friends of
the Chazars, because they received among them the insurgent Kabars.
Besides a part of the Chazars a certain number also of Black Bulgars,
living near the Don, joined the Magyars, for all the nomadic hordes
absorbed the different foreign elements barring their way. And so the
Magyars, too, were a motley ethnical conglomerate when they settled
on the banks of the Black Sea.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus has preserved for us the names of the
seven tribes composing the Magyar people. The principal tribe, Meryepn,
in all probability gave its name at that time to the whole nation; the
Musulman writers at least know this name (Majghariyah, Majghariyan),
whereas the Byzantines called the Magyars for a longer period
“Turks,"
evidently considering them, just as the Musulman writers did, to be
a nation of Turkish origin.
At the head of the several Magyar tribes were chieftains, called after
the Slav fashion voivodes (army-leaders). According to the reports of
the Musulman authors, the Magyars like the Chazars had two rulers.
One of them was called kende (knda) and is said to have held the higher
rank, but the real government was in the hands of the jila (jele). Čon-
stantine Porphyrogenitus gives a different description of the political
organisation of the Magyars, saying that beside the ruling prince there
were two judges, one of whom was called gyla and the other karchas.
The dignity of the gyla (Magyar, gyula) may be identical with that of
the jila of the Musulman writers. The jila was both a judge and a
military commander according to Ibn Rusta; but as he was sometimes
unable on account of old age to perform the duties of a military chief-
tain, the Magyars elected besides him a deputy called kende. This
prominent dignity, combined with its outer splendour, could easily be
mistaken by foreigners for that of the chief ruler. Pauler thinks that
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who certainly used some Chazar writings,
meant by the word karchas the dignity of the kende. It seems, at any
rate, that the dignities of karchas and kende were copied by the Magyars
from the institutions of the Chazars. These words are Turkish, whereas
gyula is Magyar. The offices disappeared in the Christian period, but
## p. 197 (#239) ############################################
Magyar customs
197
during a heathen reaction the Magyars reinstated that of the karchas,
as appears from the decree (m. 2) of King Ladislas the Saint, dating
from the year 1092.
According to Ibn Rusta, the Magyars in their new homes lived during
the summer on the steppes, moving with their tents wherever they found
a better pasture for their horses and cattle. They even tilled some land.
But with the coming of winter they went to the river to live by fishing.
Besides that, they made predatory raids into countries inhabited by the
Russian Slavs. They led the captive Slavs to the town of Karkh, and
bartered them there to Greek merchants for Byzantine gold, brocade,
carpets, and other Greek merchandise.
It is difficult to say how long the Magyars lived in their original
territory (the so-called Lebedia) by the Black Sea. Pauler thinks that
they lived in the lands between the Don and the Dnieper for about sixty
years, starting thence for their predatory raids to even more distant
countries. In 862 they reached the kingdom of Louis the German, and
devastated it. They again penetrated into the lands along the Danube
about 884, during the lifetime of St Methodius. That the Magyars
lived for a considerable period in Lebedia may be inferred from their
changed relations with the Chazars; an alliance was by now concluded,
and that could not have been accomplished in a short time,
To the north-east of the Chazars, between the rivers Atel (Volga) and
Yaik (Ural), the Turkish nation of the Patzinaks led, according to
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, a nomadic life. The Greeks called them
Patzinakitai, the Arabs Bajnak, the Latin medieval authors Pezineigi,
Picenati, Bisseni, or Bessi, and the Slavs Pechenêgs.
According to the statements of Oriental writers, the territory of the
Patzinaks in the middle of the ninth century seems to have been wider
than it was later when described by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. It
comprised the lands between the rivers Yaik and Don, a distance of one
month's journey, reaching on the west to the Slavs, on the south or
south-west to the Chazars, and on the east and north to the Kipchaks
(Cumans, in Russian Polovtzi) and Guzes (in Russian Torki).
Like other Turco-Tartar hordes, the Patzinaks during a period of
several centuries troubled the various nations of south-eastern Europe,
until at last they disappeared among them, absorbed by or making room
for the Cumans,
Vámbéry is of the opinion that the Patzinaks and the Cumans were
one and the same nation, which under different names and at different
periods played its part in the history of the peoples of south-eastern
Europe. This opinion may not be quite correct, but nevertheless it can-
not be doubted that the Patzinaks were closely related to the Cumans.
The common original home of all these Turkish races was the boundless
steppes of central Asia. From these steppes whole groups of kindred
CA. VU.
## p. 198 (#240) ############################################
198
Patzinaks and Magyars
hordes poured into the steppes of southern Russia. The westernmost of
these hordes was that which in Europe was given the name of Patzinaks.
While they roamed as nomads in the steppes near the Aral and the
Caspian Seas the Chinese called them K'ang-li, in which name all the
other kindred hordes were comprised before they were perhaps differen-
tiated in Europe. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the hordes
of the Patzinaks were driven from their original seats in Europe between
the Volga and the Ural about 55 years before he wrote (c. 950–2)
Chapter 37 of the De administrando imperio. This would mean that
the Patzinaks crossed the Volga as late as the very end of the ninth
century. In conflict with this statement other evidence about the
Magyars and the Russians leads us to suppose that the Patzinaks expelled
the Magyars from the territory between the Don and the Dnieper as
early as the seventh or at the latest the eighth decade of the ninth
century.
Constantine also informs us of the reason why the Patzinaks left their
original seats in Europe. They were pressed on by the Guzes (or
Ghuzz). The majority of the Patzinaks therefore moved to the west
beyond the river Don, expelling the Magyars. Only a small part of
the Patzinaks remained in the east and blended with the Guzes. The
Magyars did not go far from their original seats. They occupied
territories hitherto inhabited by Slavs, especially the Tivertsy : this
territory comprised the lands to the northwest of the Black Sea and
was watered by the rivers Bug, Dniester, Pruth, and Seret. Constan-
tine calls it Atelkuzu, which was until recent times explained as
the Magyar Atelköz, i. e. the land between the rivers. Westberg,
however, sees in the Byzantine form Kuzu the oriental name of the river
Dnieper (Kotsho of Moses of Chorene). The new home of the Magyars
therefore consisted of the lands of south-western Russia, Bessarabia, and
Moldavia. Pauler puts their arrival in these lands in the year 889,
following Regino of Prüm, while the narrative of Constantine Porphyro-
genitus would date it 896-897.
From Atelkuzu the Magyars went on with their predatory raids into
the neighbouring countries, and certainly gained in a short time a good
acquaintance with their future home, Hungary. When the German King
Arnulf in 892 waged a war against Svatopluk, Prince of Great Moravia,
a Magyar horde, at that time in Hungary, joined with the Germans and
devastated Great Moravia. Two years later (894) the Magyars came
again in considerable numbers to the Danube, but this time they allied
themselves with the Moravians and with them invaded Pannonia and
the German march or borderland.
But Balkan Bulgaria was far nearer to the Magyars than Hungary,
the distance between the two nations being not greater than half a day's
journey. The Bulgars in 894 were at war with the Greeks. The Emperor
Leo allied himself at that time with the Magyars. While the patrician
## p. 199 (#241) ############################################
The Magyars migrate to Hungary
199
Nicephorus Phocas (895) led an army from the south against the Bulgars,
the patrician Eustathius sailed with a fleet to bring the Magyar forces. But
the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon hired the Patzinaks against the Magyars. The
Magyar army was led by one of the sons of the supreme ruler Árpád.
As soon as they had crossed the Danube they ravaged the land terribly
and vanquished Simeon in two consecutive battles. It was not until the
third conflict that Simeon gained a victory and destroyed the greater
part of their army. Only a few Magyars saved themselves by flight, to
find their land absolutely ruined and depopulated, as the Patzinaks had
killed all the inhabitants who remained in Atelkuzu. This national
catastrophe induced the Magyars to migrate under the leadership of
Árpád into Hungary about the year 895-896.
Their territory near the Black Sea was henceforward completely
occupied by the Patzinaks, who now wandered as nomads on the great
plains between the Don and the estuary of the Danube.
They numbered
eight hordes living separately, each probably having its own centre like
the Avars, who lived in their hrings.
The relations of the Patzinaks to their heighbours and to surround-
ing nations are interesting. The Greeks, endeavouring to restrain them
from invading their colonies in the Crimea, sent them valuable gifts,
and bought their assistance against their enemies, such as the Magyars,
Danubian Bulgars, Russians, and Chazars. In times of peace the
Patzinaks furthered the commercial intercourse between the Russians
and Cherson (Korsun) by transporting their merchandise. In times of
war they not only robbed the Russian merchants but penetrated with
their predatory expeditions even as far as the dominions of Kiev. The
princes of Kiev preferred therefore to be on friendly terms with the
Patzinaks, and when they had a war with other Russian lands they often
won them over to be their allies.
As yet our attention has been engaged with the history of the steppes
of southern Russia. Now we must turn to the history of the Slav
tribes, who laid the foundations of the later Russian Empire. Even to
recent times there prevailed in Russian literature the opinion, defended
by the German scholar A. Schlözer, that the Russian empire was
founded as late as the middle of the ninth century by Northman
(Swedish) immigrants, who united under their dominion numerous Slav
and Finnish tribes, losing in course of time their own nationality, and
finally becoming blended with the Slav elements. This is the theory of
the Varangian origin of the Russian Empire, which was accepted even by
the foremost Russian historians, Karamzin, Pogodin, and Solov'ëv. The
Russian scholars were misled by the report of their own native annalist,
that the first Russian princes were called to the throne from foreign
lands and not earlier than the latter half of the ninth century. Just
a few scholars tried to prove that the Russian Empire originated by its
CA. VII.
## p. 200 (#242) ############################################
200
Russia. The “Varangian” theory
own innate vitality, without any external assistance. The historical truth
lies between the two extreme theories. It was expounded by the late
Professor V. Klyuchevski. While the name Rus no doubt belongs to the
Swedes and the dynasty which ruled till Fëdor Ivanovich descended from
Rurik', the legend that in 862 three Swedish brothers Rurik, Sineus,
and Truvor were called by the Slav and Finnish tribes to rule over them,
only recounts a single incident in the forniation of a great state in what
is now Russia.
By the authors of the sixth century a southern division of the
eastern group of Slavonic tribes is sometimes mentioned, which they call
the Antae? . These are the tribes which we now call Little Russians
or Ukrainians. The Avars tried to subdue the Antae, who in 602 were
allied with the Byzantines, but without success. From the seventh century
onwards we have no information at all of this branch of the Eastern Slavs.
This is explained by the circumstance that Byzantine historiography in
these times had considerably declined. But nevertheless we can propound
a probable supposition as to the history of the Antae from the latter half
of the seventh to the ninth century. As early as the second quarter of the
seventh century the dominion of the Avars was on the decline, and when
in 679 the principal part of the Bulgars departed from the lands near
the Black Sea to the Balkan peninsula, a favourable time opened for the
Antae. They were free from the hostile nomadic hordes, who marred any
peaceful existence, until the ninth century, when the Magyars appeared
near the Black Sea. We must suppose that the Antae spread very far to
the east during this period of peace. We learn from Procopius that Slav
colonisation had already approached the Sea of Azov in the first half of
the sixth century. The Antae were at this time settled to the north of
the Utigurs. Afterwards, up to the tenth century, they probably occupied
the whole northern borderland of the steppes of southern Russia as far
eastward as the river Don, but were driven out of these countries by the
later arrival of new nomadic hordes.
We have no reports of the names of the several tribes of the Eastern
Slavs of that period. The Russian annals enumerate them only according
to their position in the eleventh century. But at that time the Russian
peoples had already a history of several centuries; they began at the end
of the sixth or at the beginning of the seventh century to spread over
Russian territory from the south-west, especially from the south-eastern
slopes and spurs of the Carpathian mountains. At that time the Russian
Slavs already had a nucleus of political organisation. Masóūdi mentions
a once powerful Slavonic race, the Walinana, who lived on the western
banks of the Bug and were once oppressed by the Avars. The Walinana
were probably the first East Slavonic tribe to become the centre of some
state organisation; they founded a small federation of Slavs.
i Cf. Vol. 111. chapter XIII, pp. 327-8.
? See supra, p. 186.
## p. 201 (#243) ############################################
The Eastern Slavs
201
From this south-western corner of modern Russia the Slavonic coloni-
sation spread in an eastern and north-eastern direction. In the wild and
-boundless forests of Russia the Slavonic immigrants hunted wild animals,
kept bees, and soon tilled the land in clearings, founding there small
solitary homesteads not only surrounded by the forest but also secured on
every side by ditches and mounds. In course of time these settlements
of single farms developed into hamlets or villages of several farms! .
Besides the villages there soon arose along the Dnieper, the greatest
river in western Russia, several commercial centres, the kernels of future
commercial towns. The Greek colonies on the Black Sea had given the
impulse to these commercial relations with the more distant Russian
countries long before the Christian era. This connexion did not cease
even when some Greek cities on the Black Sea were destroyed during the
migrations of the nations. The Slavonic colonists thus found a market
for various products of their forest industry. Furs, honey, and wax were
the principal wares exported from Russia. The development of the
Russian trade was also favoured by the circumstance that, just at the
time when the Eastern Slavs began to occupy the wooded plains of Russia,
the dominion of the Chazars was organised in the southern steppes
between the Caspian and the Black Sea, a dominion which performed a
rather important cultural mission in the territories of the later south-
eastern Russia. Through the Chazar lands passed important commercial
routes, partly by land, partly by the rivers connecting Mesopotamia and
Central Asia with Eastern Europe, and vice versa. In the second half of
the seventh or in the first half of the eighth century the Chazars
further extended their empire over the lands of the central Dnieper,
subduing and making tributary the Slavonic tribe settled around Kiev
and subsequently called Polyans. The subjection of the Polyans to the
Chazars was not a hard one, and indeed brought eminent advantages to
the Polyans. The Slavs along the Dnieper were guarded against the
iproads of the nomadic hordes of Asia and had therefore free com-
mercial relations with the Black Sea, while new roads to the East through
the dominion of the Chazars were opened to them.
The Arabian author Ibn Khurdādhbih, in the first half of the ninth
century, gives us good information on the early and great development
of the Russian trade with the Byzantine Empire and the Orient. Russian
merchants not only sailed on the Black and Caspian Seas but brought
their wares even to Baghdad, to which in the middle of the eighth century
the centre of the Arabian Caliphate was transferred. The frequent finds
of Arabian coins in the territories of Russia are an important proof
of the development of this trade. Most of these coins date from the
pinth and tenth centuries, when the trade with the Orient flourished
best, but some of them belong to the beginning of the eighth century.
The Dnieper connected the Slavonic colonies of western Russia not
· Cf. Vol. 11. Chapter xiv, pp. 422-3.
OB, VII.
## p. 202 (#244) ############################################
202
Trade Routes
לר
only with the south but also with the north. It was possible to journey
from the Dnieper to the river Lovat, and to penetrate thence by Lake
Ilmen', the river Volkhov, the Ladoga lake, and the river Neva to
the Baltic Sea. Another route to this sea from the Dnieper was by the
river Dvina. Along both branches of this “route from the Varangians
to the Greeks arose the oldest commercial towns of Russia: Kiev,
Smolensk, Lyubech, Novgorod, Polotsk, and others. Besides these towns
situated directly on the Varangian-Greek trade route, there were a great
number of other towns which formed the connexion between this route
and the affluents of the Dnieper as well as the connexion by water with
the Volga, by which likewise passed the commercial route to the Orient
through the Volga-Bulgars.
As long as the steppes of southern Russia between the Don and
Dnieper were not occupied by the Magyars, no obstacles hindered the
Russian commerce with the Byzantines. But as soon as the Magyars
began to endanger the route, the several towns had to provide for the
security of their commerce. From that time the towns of Russia began
to fortify themselves and to organise a military force. The commercial
centres developed into fortresses offering their protection against hostile
attacks.
At this very time, the beginning of the ninth century, there began
to appear on the Russian rivers greater numbers of enterprising Swedish
companies, the so-called Varangians, travelling in armed bands to Byzan-
tium for commercial purposes. It seems that only a part of the Varan-
gians reached their goal, whereas the majority remained in the Russian
commercial towns, especially in Novgorod and Kiev. Here the inhabitants
employed them not only for their business but principally for their
defence. The Varangians therefore entered the military service of the
Russian towns, and also formed mercenary guards of the Russian com-
mercial caravans.
The fortified Russian towns which could command some military
force developed in course of time into centres of small states. The
inhabitants of the neighbouring smaller towns and villages began to
gravitate towards the greater towns, and in this wise arose the first
Russian town-states, the vólosti. At first all of them were probably
republics, but later some of them became principalities. These princi-
palities probably developed in those towns where the Varangian com-
panies were led by a powerful konung, who succeeded in seizing the
government. But some volosti certainly had princes of Slavonic origin.
These city-states were not founded on a racial basis. The majority
of them were composed of different tribes or parts of tribes; in others
one whole tribe was joined by parts of other tribes. From these fusions
towns arose amongst the populations settled near the principal streams,
the Dnieper, the Volkhov, and the western Dvina. But the tribes which
were too far from the main routes of commerce never combined to form
## p. 203 (#245) ############################################
The vólosti
203
townships, much less states; they formed part of the territories of other
tribes.
The volost of Kiev very soon played the most important part of all
these volosti. It
grew
to be the centre of the Russian trade. It was the
meeting-place of all the merchant-ships of the Volkhov, the western
Dvina, the upper Dnieper, and its tributaries.
The germs of the state of Kiev are old. Urushevsky puts the organisa-
tion of a strong army and the power of the princes of Kiev as early as
the beginning of the eighth century or even earlier, which seems to
be an over-estimate if we consider that the Polyans were tributary to
the Chazars. But we cannot doubt that the independent state of Kiev
already existed in the beginning of the ninth century. At this time the
Russians, evidently those of Kiev, made predatory invasions to the shores
of the Black Sea, and not only to the northern coasts, reports of which
have been preserved in the biography of St Stephen of Surozh (Sugdaea),
but also to Asia Minor on the southern shores, as mentioned in the
biography of St Gregory of Amastris. An accurately dated report of
the existence of the Russian state is found in the Annals of St Bertin,
which inform us that the Greek Emperor Theophilus in 839 included in
an embassy to Louis the Pious members of a nation called “Rhos," who
had been sent to Constantinople as representatives of their lord, called
"chacanus," to conclude a treaty of friendship with the Emperor; fearing
the barbarians who barred their way (evidently the Magyars), they wished
to return by way of Germany. There can be no doubt that by the
khagan of the nation called Rhos is meant the Prince of Kiev. The
name Russia was given first to the land of Kiev, and later to all the lands
(vólosti) united under the sceptre of the Prince of Kiev.
Another exact date in the history of Kiev is the year 860. According
to a Byzantine chronicle, the Russians made a predatory invasion as far
as Constantinople in the summer of that year. Taking advantage of
the fact that the Emperor Michael had marched with his army to Asia
Minor, they sailed with 200 ships against the imperial city. The Russian
chronicle puts this event erroneously in the year 866, and says that it
happened under Askold and Dir, Princes of Kiev.
If the Princes of Kiev were able in the ninth century to venture on
such distant military expeditions beyond the sea, their state must have
already existed for many years. Certainly the period of the small princi-
pality was at an end; the territory of the state was extended over a
greater number of volosti, which were now under the sceptre of a ruler
who later assumed the title of Great Prince.
In the foregoing account we have given a short outline, after Klyu-
chevski and Hrushevsky, of the history of the remotest times of Russia.
Although the descriptions of the oldest phase of the political life of the
Russian Slavs presented by both these historians are on the whole in
harmony, there is nevertheless a great difference between them in their
CB. VII.
## p. 204 (#246) ############################################
204
Settlement of the Varangians
estimate of the influence of the Varangians on the beginnings of Russian
state organisation. These Northmen until the middle of the ninth
century undoubtedly lived in great numbers among the East Slavonic
races, especially among the Slovens, Kriviches, and Polyans, and they
helped the princes to extend their territories and to domineer over the
subjected inhabitants. Klyuchevski, in acknowledging the weight of
the evidence brought forward, and especially the Swedish character of
the names of the first Russian princes and the members of their retinue
(druzhina), does not object to the assertion that among the founders of
the small Russian states there were, besides the Slavs, also Varangians
i. e. Swedish konungs, chiefs of Swedish companies, who came to Gardarik
(Russia) in the course of their adventurous travels. Hrushevsky, on the
contrary, directly denies the account given by the Russian Chronicle of
the Varangian origin of the Russian state and the princely dynasties.
But nevertheless even he acknowledges a certain influence of the Varangian
companies in the building-up of the Russian state during the ninth and
tenth centuries.
Although Hrushevsky defends his opinion very ingeniously, it seems to
us that Klyuchevski is nearer the truth. We believe that the Varangians,
not only the retinue but also the princes, settled at first in the volost of
Novgorod, and only after having gained a firm hold there, went farther
to the south and conquered the volost of Kiev. We believe also that
by the name Russian or Rus just these Swedish companies with their
chiefs were originally meant, although later the Polyans and the country
of Kiev and at last all the inhabitants of the great Russian state were
designated by this name. The oriental sources undoubtedly mean the
Swedes when they use the word Rus, and the “Russian" names of the
rapids of the Dnieper, reported by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, are
evidently of Swedish origin.
The physical conditions forced the Varangians of Novgorod to look
for a way to the Dnieper, to Kiev. Commercial interests also demanded
it. The once small state spread southwards to the regions of the Dnieper.
The Varangians were assisted in these efforts by the Slavs and Finns
over whom they ruled. We see by the history of the state of Smolensk,
formed by a part of the Kriviches, and that of the state of the Sêveryans,
with its capital of Lyubech, that, besides the Varangian, Slavonic states
also developed in Russia, for Oleg became ruler of both these states
when he went from Novgorod to Kiev.
Oleg, who appears in history according to the Russian chronicles
for the first time in 880, is a half-legendary person. Foreign authors
do not even mention his name. Oleg's first care, after having gained
possession of Kiev, was to build new fortified places, “castles," against
the Patzinaks, and to bring the neighbouring Slavonic tribes under his
dominion.
After having secured his power at home, Oleg undertook in 907 a
## p. 205 (#247) ############################################
Oleg and Igor of Kiev
205
great military expedition against Constantinople. The Greeks bound
themselves to pay subsidies to several Russian towns, for “in these
towns resided princes, who were under Oleg," as the Chronicle puts it.
Moreover a commercial treaty was concluded with the Greeks, by which
great advantages were conceded to Russian merchants in Constantinople.
Although this treaty between Oleg and the Greeks is the first Russo-
Greek treaty the content of which is given us by the sources, it is evident
that such treaties must have been concluded as early as the ninth century.
One of them is mentioned in 839; the expedition of the Russians against
Constantinople was afterwards undertaken in 860 because the Greeks
had violated the agreement.
In 911, after many verbal negotiations, additional clauses were intro-
duced bearing on civil and penal law and the rules of procedure in the
courts. The text of this treaty is preserved in the Russian Chronicle,
and it has a special interest, for it contains the names of Oleg's envoys,
which are all of them Scandinavian.
The first historical Russian prince who appears in contemporary
foreign sources is Igor. According to the Russian Chronicle, he began
to reign in 913, but Hrushevsky thinks that he ascended the throne
much later. Ilovayski puts Igor, not Rurik, at the head of the Russian
dynasty.
Igor, too, undertook a military expedition against Constantinople in
the summer of 941. The reason probably was that the Greeks had
ceased to pay to the Russians the subsidies which they had promised to
Oleg. We are informed of Igor's expedition not only by the Russian
Chronicle but also by foreign sources. The Russians again chose a time
when the Greek fleet was employed against the Saracens. Igor landed
first on the shores of Bithynia, and cruelly ravaged the land as far as the
Thracian Bosphorus. Driven from Constantinople by Greek fire, he
returned again to Bithynia. Meanwhile the Greek army began to rally.
Frosts, want of food, and the losses sustained from the Greek fire, com-
pelled Igor to return to Russia. He is said to have escaped with only
ten ships to the Cimmerian Bosphorus.
The war lasted for three years more, and was ended in 945 by the
conclusion of another treaty between Russia and Byzantium, in which
not only the former treaties with Oleg were confirmed with some modi-
fications and additions, but both parties also undertook not to attack
the lands of the other party, and to assist each other. We learn from
this treaty that the great principality of Kiev was divided, not only
among the members of the dynasty but also among the foremost chiefs
of the companies, and that even women had their apportioned territories.
The whole state was administered from the standpoint of civil law in a
business-like manner. Oleg had already in his treaty of 907 agreed with
the Greeks what subsidies were to be paid to the several Russian towns,
or rather to his deputies residing there in Russian posádniki). Whereas
CH. VII.
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206
Trade and tribute
in Western Europe officials were remunerated by fiefs, in Russia they
had territories upon which they imposed taxes on their own behalf, and
to collect these was their principal care. The taxes were paid in money,
probably Arabian, as well as in kind, especially in furs. Either the
subject tribes brought their dues to Kiev or the princes rode to the
territories to receive them.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus describes the second manner of levying
the taxes. In the early days of November the Russian princes and all
their retinues started from Kiev to the territory of the Derevlyans,
Dregoviches, Kriviches, and other subject tribes, and lived there all the
winter, returning by the Dnieper to Kiev in April, when the ice had
floated down to the sea. Meantime the Slavs built during the winter
boats, hollowed from one piece of timber, and in spring floated them
down-stream to Kiev, where they sold them to the retinue of the prince
on their return from winter quarters in the lands of the subject tribes.
The courtiers shipped their wares, evidently furs and other taxes in kind
gathered from the tribes, and in June they proceeded by the Dnieper
to the castle or fortress of Vitichev, and thence to Constantinople.
Professor Klyuchevski very acutely recognised that the imposts
which the Prince of Kiev levied as a ruler were at the same time the
articles of his trade. “When he became a ruler as a konung, he as a
Varangian (Varyag) did not cease to be an armed merchant. He shared
the taxes with his retinue, which served him as the organ of administra-
tion and was the ruling class. This class governed in winter, visiting the
country and levying taxes, and in summer trafficked in what was gathered
during the winter. "
The oriental authors give us reports of predatory expeditions of
the Russians to the shores of the Caspian Sea. From the first, under-
taken in 880, all these raids ended in disaster. A particularly audacious
one took place in 944. The Russians arrived with their ships by the
Caspian Sea at the estuary of the river Cyrus, and sailing upstream
invaded the land called by the Arabs Arran (the ancient Albania), which
belonged to the Caliphate. Their first success was the conquest of
Berdaa, the capital of Arran, situated on the river Terter, a southern
tributary of the Cyrus. From Berdaa they ravaged the surrounding
country. The governor of Azarbā'ījān levied a great army which beat
the Russians after losing a first battle, but this defeat was not decisive
enough to induce them to leave the country. Dysentery, however,
spreading rapidly among the Russian army, delivered the Albanians
from their enemies. After depredations which lasted six months the
Russians left the land, returning home with rich spoil.
It is strange that the Russian chronicles are silent about these
invasions of the shores of the Caspian Sea, since there is no reason to
doubt their reality. They are an evidence that the state of Kiev was
## p. 207 (#249) ############################################
Beginnings of Christianity
207
already strong enough in Oleg's time—for the earliest expeditions under-
taken in the tenth century were certainly his--to venture on war not
only against Constantinople but also against the East. The easier there-
fore was it for Igor to undertake such a campaign.
After Igor's death his widow Olga ascended the throne, the first
Christian princess in Russia. Christianity had begun to spread in the
principality of Kiev soon after the first expedition of the Russians against
Constantinople in 860. It is probable that the Prince of Kiev himself at
this time embraced the Christian faith. During Oleg's reign Christianity
suffered a decline, although it did not disappear, as can be inferred from
the register of the metropolitan churches subordinated to the Patriarch
of Constantinople published by the Emperor Leo VI (886–911). In the
treaty of Igor with the Greeks in 945 heathen and Christian Russians
are mentioned, and the Russian Chronicle calls the church of St Elias
(Ilya) in Kiev a cathedral, which implies that there were other churches
in the city. But it seems nevertheless that the Christian faith did not
take strong root among the Russians, and there was hardly an improve-
ment when the Princess Olga embraced Christianity, which happened
probably in 954, three years before her voyage to Constantinople. The
purpose of this visit is not known. Former writers thought Olga went
there to be baptized, but it seems to be nearer the truth that her
journey had only diplomatic aims.
A true type of the adventurous viking was Prince Svyatoslav, son of
Igor and Olga, the first prince of the Varangian dynasty to bear a
Slavonic name. The Chronicle describes him as a gallant, daring man,
undertaking long expeditions to distant lands and neglecting the interests
of his own country. His mind was filled with the plan of transferring the
centre of his state to the Balkan peninsula. He spent the greater part
of his time in foreign lands. He was the first of the Russian princes who
forced the Vyatiches to pay him tribute, whereas they had formerly been
tributary to the Chazars. But before that he tried to break the power
of the Chazars, which from the beginning of the ninth century had been
continually declining.
