Rus' people

Guests from Overseas, Nicholas Roerich (1899)

The Rus' were a group of Norsemen from Sweden who settled in modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and northwestern Russia. Their name comes from the word Ruotsi, an Old Norse term meaning "the men who row". The Rus' were responsible for the foundation of the Kievan Rus' state. The East Slavic tribes who were native to the area north of Kyiv were exploited by the Rus' and mainly sold off as slaves.

Who were they?

Most western scholars believe them to be a group of Varangians. According to the Povist vremennykh lit or Primary Chronicle of Rus', compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus' had relocated from Pomerania. Their leader was named Rurik. Later, Rurik's relative Oleg captured Kiev, founding Kievan Rus'. The descendants of Rurik were the ruling dynasty of Rus' (after 862). In the controversy, this is called the "Normanist" view. Most scholars believe that name Rus came from Swedish Vikings originating from Rothi or Roslagen as it is known today.

The "anti-Normanist" view is that the Rus' were Slavic people from south of Kiev. In support of this theory it has been pointed out that several rivers have similar names. Once example is the Ros river which is a tributary of the Dnieper river. This may have been where the Rus' took their name. The official Soviet Union history did not include the Norman viewpoint giving the reason: "The Normanist theory is politically harmful, because it denies the ability of the Slavic nations to form an independent state by their own efforts."

The invitation

The story from the Primary Chronicle is that the Slavs of Kiev were fighting among themselves. To restore order they invited the legendary Varangian Rus Rurik to be their leader. This is another area of controversy. One school of thought accepts the Primary Chronicle account with the Norman origin of the Rus' people. The opposing view says the Scandinavians played a small part in the creation of the Kievan Rus. The Scandinavians were simply hired by the Slavs to protect them. Since the 1990s there has been a further controversy over who, Russia or Ukraine, had a better claim to be descended from the Kievan Rus' princes. Since the breakup of the USSR Russian historians are not forced to accept the anti-Norman theory.

Byzantines

Another version is possible in this comment by scholars on De Administrando Imperio, by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII (913-959):

“

It is now, indeed, widely recognized that the Kiev state was not born ex nihilo (out of nothing) with the advent of the Rus in the ninth century; but that social and economic foundations were laid in the preceding period, during which the Slavs in the Dnieper basin played an active part in the political and commercial life of the west Eurasian and Pontic steppes; and that a pre-existing Slavonic land-owning aristocracy and merchant class remained the main stay of the country's territorial stability and economic growth under its Rus overlords. It is equally clear, however, that it was the Balto Slavic Rugi invaders who in the second half of the ninth century united the scattered tribes of the Eastern Slavs into a single state based on the Baltic-Black Sea waterway, to which they gave their Rus' name.

”

Common threads

It was at this point in history the area of Kiev grew and expanded. The Kievan state lasted about a hundred years, until about 972. Between 839 and 1043 the Balto Slavs combined with the South Slavic peoples to form a new society. The name Rus' came to mean those combined peoples. In 860 the Byzantine Patriarch Photios I described a people who were almost certainly Rani accompanied by Slavs. The leaders of the Rus' had Balto Slavic names even into the tenth century. In 911 the Rus' who signed a treaty with the Greeks all had Balto Slavic names. But in the treaty of 945 there were some South Slavonic names.

Etymology

Image of Rurik from Russian manuscripts

The word "Rus' is found in the slavonic languages. This parallels with Latin: Rhos, Greek: Rös and Arabic: Rüs. Words used to describe Pomeranians in Russia or the east were Veneti or Rujan (in medieval Latin literature known as Ruzzi ). The Finnish: Venäjä, Estonian: Vene, Karelian: Veneä) denoting Russia

Rus' People Media

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  Map showing the major Varangian trade routes: the Volga trade route (in red) and the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks (in purple). Sufficiently controlling strongholds, market places and portages along the routes was necessary for the Scandinavian raiders and traders.

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  Europe in the 9th century. Roslagen is located along the coast of the northern tip of the area marked "Swedes and Goths".

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  The Kälvesten runestone from the 9th century.

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  Ship burial of a Rus' chieftain as described by the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan who visited north-eastern Europe in the 10th century.Henryk Siemiradzki (1883)

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  The Pilgårds runestone, which tells of two locations at the Dniepr cataracts, Eifor (one of the rapids) and Rufstein (Rvanyj Kamin').

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  Princess Olga (Baptism), 1993 painting by Sergei Kirillov. In Olga's time, the Norse elite mostly switched to Old East Slavic.

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  Birch bark letter No. 155, 12th century