It would seem that everyone knows this: Cyril and Methodius, whom the Orthodox Church calls equal to the apostles for this merit. But what kind of alphabet did Kirill come up with - Cyrillic or Glagolitic? (Methodius, this is known and proven, supported his brother in everything, but it was the monk Kirill who was the “brain of the operation” and an educated person who knew many languages). There is still debate about this in the scientific world. Some Slavic researchers say: “Cyrillic alphabet! It is named after its creator.” Others object: “Glagolitic! The first letter of this alphabet looks like a cross. Kirill is a monk. It's a sign". It is also argued that before Cyril’s work there was no written language in Rus'. Professor Nikolai Taranov categorically disagrees with this.

Modern scientists, historians and theologians of the Russian Orthodox Church argue that Rus' became Orthodox only thanks to the baptism of Rus' and the spread of Byzantine Christianity among the dark, wild, mired in paganism of the Slavs. This formulation is very convenient for distorting history and belittling the significance of the most ancient culture of all Slavic peoples. What could Christian missionaries know about the culture and Faith of the Slavic peoples? How could they understand a culture alien to them?

The series of programs “Hour of Truth”, dedicated to the ancient Slavs and the formation of Ancient Rus'. The questions of the origin of the ancient Slavs, the calling of the Varangians, the emergence of Novgorod, etc. are considered.

Russian barbarians broke into villages, camps and auls, leaving behind cities, theaters and libraries. They wore, I don’t understand why, furs and walked around in pants, while cultural Europe wrapped itself in rags...

Same-sex marriage has long been banned and tolerance was despised, and European men loved to fuck each other. The Russians lived in the dirt and very rarely washed themselves, and they did not go to the baths, which they borrowed from the Finns, out of laziness. And their cities were irregular, according to European medieval custom, in the center of the city there was a gallows with a “torture chamber”, and along the streets there were special ditches where respectable citizens drained sewage in a civilized manner.

We need to remember our history and follow our own path. Currently, we use dating years from the birth of Christ and the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar, the so-called “old style”, has not been forgotten either. Every year in January we remember him when we celebrate the “old” New Year. Also, the media carefully reminds us of the change of years according to the Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other calendars. Of course, this broadens our horizons.

Christianity took over Rus' in 988 AD. e. during the reign of Prince Vladimir. How did this happen? The official version can be read from the official history of Russia, for example from Ishimov’s “History of Russia”, Novosibirsk, 1993. In short, the picture was supposedly like this. Before Prince Vladimir, paganism reigned and Rus' flourished.

Neighboring peoples persuaded Vladimir to convert to their faith, and many ambassadors came to him from the Kama Bulgarians, from German Catholics, from Jews and from Greeks, and everyone praised their faith. Vladimir initially assessed these beliefs by the beauty of what was invented. I consulted with the boyars. They told him: “Everyone praises his faith, but it is better to send to different lands to find out where the faith is better.” Vladimir sent ten of the smartest boyars to the Bulgarians, Germans and Greeks. Among the Bulgarians they found poor churches, dull prayers, sad faces; The Germans have many rituals, but without beauty and grandeur. Finally they arrived in Constantinople.

Grand Duke Svyatoslav is one of the most prominent figures in the rich Russian history, unfortunately virtually forgotten by our official authorities and historiography. If other personalities who made a huge contribution to the development of Russian civilization, such as Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin, are regularly slandered, then they decided to keep silent about Svyatoslav and subjected him to oblivion. Apparently, in order not to stir up the affairs of bygone days, too many painful questions may emerge about that turning point - about the Khazar Khaganate, Judaism, Rakhdonites, the Christianization of Rus', its consequences, in Byzantium and Rome, the destroyed civilization of the Rus of Central Europe.

The history of the reduction and simplification of the alphabet of the ancient Slavs is the history of humanity’s loss of its intelligence - from the full use of the brain to the modern 3-5 percent. Our modern language is just a shadow, a projection of an ancient multidimensional language. To slow down and stop the process of degradation, you need to return to your roots - learn to communicate with images. To do this, you just need to learn the language of your forefathers and become their full-fledged heirs.

The history of the ancient Slavs is extremely interesting. The first recorded data about the ancient Slavs dates back only to the sixth century AD. Then the Antes and Sklavins were mentioned. In fact, the history of the Slavs begins in the second and third millennium BC. However, today historians do not yet provide definitive and specific data about the exact place and time of the appearance of the first Slavs. There is a theory that the Slavs are a branch of the Indo-European tribe that separated in the fifth century of the last era. From the latter also came the Celts, Germans, Balts and other peoples.

Historians and scientists believe that the Proto-Slavs originally lived in a forested area, rich in lakes and swamps, far from the mountains and the sea. There were suggestions that this was the territory of modern Poland.

We learn historical data about the ancient Slavs from written sources left by Byzantine chroniclers, as well as by Nestor of Kyiv. In addition, some data was obtained during excavations.

Movement and settlement of the ancient Slavs

The settlement of the Slavs also causes a lot of controversy among archaeologists, historians and ethnographers. One theory says that the ancient Slavic tribes began their migration from the banks of the Danube. According to another hypothesis, the Slavs made their way from Asia to the north, bypassing the Black Sea. Since then they began to call themselves Scythians, or Sarmatians. The third assumption is that the Slavs settled throughout the Baltic states. It is quite possible that the spread of the ancient Slavs went in several directions. In any case, according to these theories, migration and resettlement took place. Moreover, during the resettlement, the Slavs “mixed” with other ethnic groups.

However, recently opinions have increasingly been expressed that the Slavs did not move anywhere. Allegedly, they lived in the territories of modern Slavic states.

The territory inhabited by the ancient Slavs was between the Dnieper, the Baltic states, and the Carpathians. Then they gradually settled throughout the territory of modern Russia and Europe. Like many first tribes, the ancient Slavs first had a primitive communal system, and then a tribal one.

The Western Slavs were the very first of this group. Their appearance dates back to the first centuries AD. After five or six centuries, the southern branch of the Slavs was formed. The most numerous branch was the eastern one. It is interesting that the life and way of life of different branches of the Slavs was different. This is explained by differences in climate, as well as established traditions.

1. Introduction 3

2. Origin of the Slavs 4

3. Religion of the ancient Slavs 8

4. Social system 10

5. Slavic culture 12

6. References 16

Introduction

“The history of research into the origins and religion of the Slavs is a history of disappointments,” said the prominent Slavic scholar Stanislav Urbanchik, and he had reason to say this. We can say that nothing remained of the Slavic culture, since almost everything was destroyed by Christianity. 70 years ago Vatroslav Yagich, one of the creators of historical and linguistic Slavic studies, said that he would agree to trade all the accumulated scientific literature on this issue for several ancient texts of Slavic culture. Since then, no major finds of such texts have been noted, although archeology has made progress by discovering and exploring a number of previously unknown ancient Slavic settlements and religious buildings.

Origin of the Slavs

“- Tell me, Gamayun, the prophetic bird, about the birth of the Russian family,

about laws, data from Svarog!

I won’t hide anything that I know...”

“And we went to Zhiva Svarogovna with young Dazhbog Perunovich.

soon children: Prince Kisek, father of Orey. And father Oreius gave birth to sons - Kiy, Shchek and Khoreb the younger.

Zemun fed them with her milk, the cradle was rocked by the god of winds Stribog, Semargl warmed them, Khors illuminated the world for them.

They also had grandchildren, and then great-grandchildren appeared - then the descendants of Dazhbog and Zhiva and Ros - the beautiful mermaid, then the people are great and glorious, the tribe is called Rus.”

Songs of the bird Gamayun

The ancestors of the Slavs have long lived in Central and Eastern Europe. In terms of their language, they belong to the Indo-European peoples who inhabit Europe and part of Asia up to India. Archaeologists believe that Slavic tribes can be traced from excavations to the mid-second millennium BC. The ancestors of the Slavs (in scientific literature they are called Proto-Slavs) are supposedly found among the tribes that inhabited the basin of the Odra, Vistula and Dnieper; in the Danube basin and the Balkans, Slavic tribes appeared only at the beginning of our era.

Rybakov in his book "The World of History" writes that the Slavic peoples belong to the ancient Indo-European unity, which included such peoples as Germanic, Baltic ("Lithuanian-Latvian"), Romanesque, Greek, Indian ("Aryan") and others, spread even further in ancient times over a vast area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Four to five thousand years ago, the Indo-Europeans had not yet occupied all of Europe and had not yet populated Hindustan.

The estimated maximum territory of settlement of the ancestors of our Slavs in the west reached the Elbe (Laba), in the north to the Baltic Sea, in the east - to the Seim and Oka, and in the south their border was a wide strip of forest-steppe running from the left bank of the Danube to the east in the direction of Kharkov . Several hundred Slavic tribes lived in this territory.

Despite the seemingly fragmented and scattered nature of the Slavic tribes, the Slavic tribes nevertheless represented a single whole. The chronicler of "The Tale of Bygone Years" wrote at the beginning of his work: "... There was one Slavic people" ("There was only one Slovenian language"). The problem is not only to determine the ancestral home of the Slavs, but even to answer the question of their origin. There are many versions of this problem, however, none of them can be considered completely reliable.

In the VI century. from a single Slavic community the East Slavic branch (the future Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian peoples) stands out. The emergence of large tribal unions of the Eastern Slavs dates back to approximately this time. The chronicle has preserved the legend about the reign of the brothers Kiya, Shchek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid in the Middle Dnieper region and about the founding of Kyiv. There were similar reigns in other tribal unions, which included 100-200 individual tribes.

Many Slavs who lived on the banks of the Vistula settled on the Dnieper in the Kyiv province and were called polyans from their pure fields. This name disappeared in ancient Russia, but became the common name of the Poles, the founders of the Polish state. From the same tribe of Slavs there were two brothers, Radim and Vyatko, the heads of the Radimichi and Vyatichi: the first chose a home on the banks of the Sozh, in the Mogilev province, and the second on the Oka, in Kaluga, Tula or Oryol. The Drevlyans, named after their forest land, lived in the Volyn province; Dulebs and Buzhans along the Bug River, which flows into the Vistula. Lutichi and Tivertsy along the Dniester to the sea and the Danube, already having cities in their land; White Croats in the vicinity of the Carpathian Mountains. Northerners, neighbors of the glades, on the banks of the Desna, Semi and Suda, in the Chernigov and Poltava provinces; in Minsk and Vitebsk, between the Pripet and the Western Dvina. Dregovichi; in Vitebsk, Pskov, Tver and Smolensk, in the upper reaches of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga. Krivichi; and on the Dvina, where the Polota River flows into it, the Polotsk people of the same tribe are with them, and on the shores of Lake Ilmena are the so-called Slavs, who founded Novgorod.

The most developed and cultural among the Slavic associations were the Polyans. According to the chronicler, “the land of the glades was also called “Rus”. One of the explanations for the origin of the term “Rus” put forward by historians is associated with the name of the Ros River, a tributary of the Dnieper, which gave the name to the tribe on whose territory the Polyans lived.

Religion of the ancient Slavs

The ancient Slavs were pagans who deified the forces of nature. The main god was, apparently, Rod, the god of heaven and earth. An important role was also played by deities associated with those forces of nature that are especially important for agriculture: Yarilo - the god of the sun (among some Slavic tribes he was called Yarilo, Khors) and Perun - the god of thunder and lightning. Perun was also the god of war and weapons, and therefore his cult was subsequently especially significant among the warriors. His idol stood in Kyiv on a hill, outside Vladimirov’s courtyard, and in Novgorod above the Volkhov River it was wooden, with a silver head and a golden mustache. Also known are the “cattle god” Volos, or Belee, Dazhbog, Samargl, Svarog (god of fire), Mokosha (goddess of earth and fertility), etc. The pagan cult was performed in specially constructed temples where the idol was placed. The princes acted as high priests, but there were also special priests - sorcerers and magicians. Paganism persisted until 988, before the invasion of the Christian faith

Oleg’s treaty with the Greeks also mentions Volos, whose name and Perunov the Rosichi swore allegiance to, having special respect for him, since he was considered the patron of livestock, their main wealth. The god of fun, love, harmony and all prosperity was called Lado; those entering into a marriage donated to him. Kupala, the god of earthly fruits, was revered before collecting bread, on June 23. Young people decorated themselves with wreaths, lit a fire in the evening, danced around it and sang Kupala. On December 24 we praise Kolyada, the god of celebrations and peace.

The Slavs had an annual cycle of agricultural holidays in honor of the sun and the change of seasons. Pagan rituals were supposed to ensure high harvests and the health of people and livestock.

Social system

The then level of development of productive forces required significant labor costs to run the economy. Labor-intensive work that had to be completed within a limited and strictly defined time frame could only be completed by a team. Connected with this is the large role of the community in the life of the Slavic tribes.

Cultivation of the land became possible with the help of one family. The economic independence of individual families made the existence of strong clan groups unnecessary. People from the clan community were no longer doomed to death, because... could develop new lands and become members of the territorial community. The tribal community was also destroyed during the development of new lands (colonization) and the inclusion of slaves in the community.

Each community owned a certain territory in which several families lived. All possessions of the community were divided into public and private. The house, personal land, livestock, and equipment were the personal property of each community member. Common property included arable land, meadows, forests, fishing grounds, and reservoirs. Arable land and mowing could be periodically divided among community members.

The collapse of primitive communal relations was facilitated by the military campaigns of the Slavs and, above all, the campaigns against Byzantium.

Participants in these campaigns received most of the military spoils. The share of military leaders - princes and tribal nobility - the best men was especially significant. Gradually, a special organization of professional warriors took shape around the prince - a squad, whose members differed from their fellow tribesmen in both economic and social status. The squad was divided into the senior squad, from which came the princely managers, and the junior squad, who lived with the prince and served his court and household.

The most important issues in the life of the community were resolved at public meetings - veche gatherings. In addition to the professional squad, there was also a tribal militia (regiment, thousand).

Slavic culture

Little is known about the culture of the Slavic tribes. This is explained by extremely meager data from sources. Changing over time, folk tales, songs, and riddles have preserved a significant layer of ancient beliefs. Oral folk art reflects the diverse ideas of the Eastern Slavs about the nature and life of people.

Very few examples of the art of the ancient Slavs have survived to this day. An interesting treasure of items from the 6th-7th centuries was found in the Ros River basin, among which stand out silver figurines of horses with golden manes and hooves and silver images of men in typical Slavic clothing with patterned embroidery on their shirts. Slavic silver items from the southern Russian regions are characterized by complex compositions of human figures, animals, birds and snakes. Many subjects in modern folk art have very ancient origins and have changed little over time.

The Slavs are Europe's largest ethnic group, but what do we really know about them? From whom did they come, where was their homeland, and where did the self-name “Slavs” come from? We'll figure out.

Origin of the Slavs

There are many hypotheses about the origin of the Slavs. Some attribute them to the Scythians and Sarmatians who came from Central Asia, others to the Aryans and Germans, others even identify them with the Celts.

In general, all hypotheses of the origin of the Slavs can be divided into two main categories, directly opposite to each other. One of them is well known "Norman", was put forward in the 18th century by German scientists Bayer, Miller and Schlozer, although such ideas first appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The gist was this: Slavs are an Indo-European people who were once part of the “German-Slavic” community, but broke away from the Germans during the Great Migration. Finding themselves on the periphery of Europe and cut off from the continuity of Roman civilization, they were very behind in development, so much so that they could not create their own state and invited the Varangians, that is, the Vikings, to rule them.

This theory is based on the historiographical tradition of “The Tale of Bygone Years” and the famous phrase: “Our land is great, rich, but there is no side in it. Come reign and rule over us." Such a categorical interpretation, which was based on obvious ideological background, could not but arouse criticism. Today, archeology confirms the presence of strong intercultural ties between the Scandinavians and Slavs, but it hardly suggests that the former played a decisive role in the formation of the ancient Russian state. But the debate about the “Norman” origin of the Slavs and Kievan Rus does not subside to this day.

Second theory The ethnogenesis of the Slavs, on the contrary, is of a patriotic nature. And, by the way, it is much older than the Norman one - one of its founders was the Croatian historian Mavro Orbini, who wrote a work called “The Slavic Kingdom” at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. His point of view was very extraordinary: among the Slavs he included the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gepids, Getae, Alans, Verls, Avars, Dacians, Swedes, Normans, Finns, Ukrainians, Marcomanni, Quadi, Thracians and Illyrians and many others: “They were all of the same Slavic tribe, as will be seen later.” Their exodus from the historical homeland of Orbini dates back to 1460 BC. Where they didn’t have time to visit after that:

“The Slavs fought with almost all the tribes of the world, attacked Persia, ruled Asia and Africa, fought the Egyptians and Alexander the Great, conquered Greece, Macedonia and Illyria, occupied Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland and the coasts of the Baltic Sea.”

He was echoed by many court scribes who created the theory of the origin of the Slavs from the ancient Romans, and Rurik from the Emperor Octavian Augustus. In the 18th century, the Russian historian Tatishchev published the so-called “Joachim Chronicle,” which, as opposed to the “Tale of Bygone Years,” identified the Slavs with the ancient Greeks.

Both of these theories (although there are echoes of truth in each of them) represent two extremes, which are characterized by a free interpretation of historical facts and archaeological information. They were criticized by such “giants” of Russian history as B. Grekov, B. Rybakov, V. Yanin, A. Artsikhovsky, arguing that a historian should in his research rely not on his preferences, but on facts. However, the historical texture of the “ethnogenesis of the Slavs”, to this day, is so incomplete that it leaves many options for speculation, without the ability to finally answer the main question: “Who are these Slavs anyway?”

Age of the people

The next pressing problem for historians is the age of the Slavic ethnic group. When did the Slavs finally emerge as a single people from the pan-European ethnic “mess”?

The first attempt to answer this question belongs to the author of The Tale of Bygone Years, monk Nestor. Taking the biblical tradition as a basis, he began the history of the Slavs with the Babylonian pandemonium, which divided humanity into 72 nations: “From these 70 and 2 languages ​​the Slovenian language was born...”. The above-mentioned Mavro Orbini generously gave the Slavic tribes a couple of extra thousand years of history, dating their exodus from their historical homeland to 1496: “At the indicated time, the Goths and Slavs left Scandinavia ... since the Slavs and Goths were of the same tribe. So, having subjugated Sarmatia, the Slavic tribe was divided into several tribes and received different names: Wends, Slavs, Ants, Verls, Alans, Massetians... Vandals, Goths, Avars, Roskolans, Russians or Muscovites, Poles, Czechs, Silesians, Bulgarians ...

In short, the Slavic language is heard from the Caspian Sea to Saxony, from the Adriatic Sea to the German Sea, and within all these limits lies the Slavic tribe.”

Of course, such “information” was not enough for historians. Archeology, genetics and linguistics were used to study the “age” of the Slavs. As a result, we managed to achieve modest, but still results. According to the accepted version, the Slavs belonged to the Indo-European community, which most likely emerged from the Dnieper-Donets archaeological culture, in the area between the Dnieper and Don rivers, seven thousand years ago during the Stone Age. Subsequently, the influence of this culture spread to the territory from the Vistula to the Urals, although no one has yet been able to accurately localize it. In general, when speaking about the Indo-European community, we do not mean a single ethnic group or civilization, but the influence of cultures and linguistic similarity. About four thousand years BC it broke up into conventional three groups: the Celts and Romans in the West, the Indo-Iranians in the East, and somewhere in the middle, in Central and Eastern Europe, another language group emerged, from which the Germans later emerged, Balts and Slavs. Of these, around the 1st millennium BC, the Slavic language begins to stand out.

But information from linguistics alone is not enough - to determine the unity of an ethnic group there must be an uninterrupted continuity of archaeological cultures. The bottom link in the archaeological chain of the Slavs is considered to be the so-called “culture of podklosh burials”, which received its name from the custom of covering cremated remains with a large vessel, in Polish “klesh”, that is, “upside down”. It existed in the V-II centuries BC between the Vistula and the Dnieper. In a sense, we can say that its bearers were the earliest Slavs. It is from this that it is possible to identify the continuity of cultural elements right up to the Slavic antiquities of the early Middle Ages.

Proto-Slavic homeland

Where, after all, was the Slavic ethnic group born, and what territory can be called “originally Slavic”?

Historians' accounts vary. Orbini, citing a number of authors, claims that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia: “Almost all the authors, whose blessed pen conveyed to their descendants the history of the Slavic tribe, claim and conclude that the Slavs came out of Scandinavia... The descendants of Japheth the son of Noah (to which the author includes the Slavs ) moved north to Europe, penetrating into the country now called Scandinavia. There they multiplied innumerably, as St. Augustine points out in his “City of God,” where he writes that the sons and descendants of Japheth had two hundred homelands and occupied lands located north of Mount Taurus in Cilicia, along the Northern Ocean, half of Asia, and throughout Europe all the way to the British Ocean."

Nestor called the most ancient territory of the Slavs - the lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Pannonia. The reason for the resettlement of the Slavs from the Danube was the attack on them by the Volokhs. “After many times, the essence of Slovenia settled along the Dunaevi, where there is now Ugorsk and Bolgarsk land.” Hence the Danube-Balkan hypothesis of the origin of the Slavs.

The European homeland of the Slavs also had its supporters. Thus, the prominent Czech historian Pavel Safarik believed that the ancestral home of the Slavs should be sought in Europe in the neighborhood of related tribes of Celts, Germans, Balts and Thracians.

He believed that in ancient times the Slavs occupied vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe, from where they were forced to leave beyond the Carpathians under the pressure of Celtic expansion. There was even a version about two ancestral homelands of the Slavs, according to which the first ancestral home was the place where the Proto-Slavic language developed (between the lower reaches of the Neman and Western Dvina) and where the Slavic people themselves were formed (according to the authors of the hypothesis, this happened starting from the 2nd century BC era) - the Vistula River basin. Western and Eastern Slavs had already left from there. The first populated the area of ​​the Elbe River, then the Balkans and the Danube, and the second - the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester.

Vistula-Dnieper hypothesis about the ancestral home of the Slavs, although it remains a hypothesis, is still the most popular among historians. It is conditionally confirmed by local toponyms, as well as vocabulary. If you believe the “words”, that is, the lexical material, the ancestral home of the Slavs was located away from the sea, in a forested flat zone with swamps and lakes, as well as within the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea, judging by the common Slavic names of fish - salmon and eel. By the way, the areas of the culture of under-klesh burials already known to us fully correspond to these geographical characteristics.

"Slavs"

The word “Slavs” itself is a mystery. It firmly came into use already in the 6th century AD; at least, Byzantine historians of this time often mentioned the Slavs - not always friendly neighbors of Byzantium. Among the Slavs themselves, this term was already widely used as a self-name in the Middle Ages, at least judging by the chronicles, including the Tale of Bygone Years.

However, its origin is still unknown. The most popular version is that it comes from the words “word” or “glory,” which go back to the same Indo-European root ḱleu̯- “to hear.” By the way, Mavro Orbini also wrote about this, albeit in his characteristic “arrangement”: “during their residence in Sarmatia, they (the Slavs) took the name “Slavs”, which means “glorious”.

There is a version among linguists that the Slavs owe their self-name to the names of the landscape. Presumably, it was based on the toponym “Slovutich” - another name for the Dnieper, containing a root with the meaning “to wash”, “to cleanse”.

At one time, a lot of noise was caused by the version about the existence of a connection between the self-name “Slavs” and the Middle Greek word for “slave” (σκλάβος). It was very popular among Western scientists of the 18th-19th centuries. It is based on the idea that the Slavs, as one of the most numerous peoples in Europe, made up a significant percentage of captives and often became objects of the slave trade. Today this hypothesis is recognized as erroneous, since most likely the basis of “σκλάβος” was a Greek verb with the meaning “to obtain spoils of war” - “σκυλάο”.

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Introduction

The historical development of mankind has always been uneven. And this is not surprising, because in those distant times man was completely dependent on nature. Features of the landscape, flora and fauna, and climate determined a person’s entire life: his appearance (the formation of races, the type of economy, language characteristics, cultural differences, ideological foundations and the very speed of development of civilization. And the more difficult, the more severe the living conditions were, the slower the pace historical development. In the most favorable areas for humans, local civilizations of Antiquity developed, which laid the foundations - the civilization of the Middle Ages. It was at this time - in the Middle Ages - that the history of our Fatherland begins.

Ancient Rus' is the origins of statehood, culture, and the mentality of Russian people. Scientific debates continue about who the Slavs are, where the Russian land came from, and what the prehistory of the Russian state is.

Origin of the Slavs

First information about the Slavs

The first written evidence about the Slavs dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. These are Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arabic sources. The ancient authors Herodotus (5th century BC), Polybius (III-II centuries BC), Strabo (1st AD) mention the Slavs under the name of the Wends (Venetians), Antes and Sklavins. The first information about the political history of the Slavs dates back to the 4th century. AD

The Slavic peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, etc.) inhabiting modern Eastern Europe once formed an ethnic community, which is conventionally called the Proto-Slavs. Around the 2nd millennium BC. e. stood out from an even more ancient Indo-European community. Therefore, all Slavic languages ​​belong to the Indo-European language family. This explains the fact that, despite all the similarity of the language and cultural elements associated with it, in other respects there are serious differences between the Slavic peoples, even in anthropological type. This applies not only, for example, to the southern and western Slavs, but there are also differences of this kind within individual groups of certain East Slavic peoples. No less significant differences are found in the sphere of material culture, since the Slavicized ethnic groups that became an integral part of certain Slavic peoples had unequal material culture, the features of which were preserved in their descendants. It is in the sphere of material culture, as well as such an element of culture as music, that there are significant differences even between such closely related peoples as Russians and Ukrainians.

However, in ancient times there was a certain ethnos, the arena of its habitat was obviously not extensive, contrary to the opinion of some researchers who think that the region of residence of the Proto-Slavs should be significant and are looking for confirmation of this. This phenomenon is quite common in history.

The question of which territory is considered the ancestral home of the Slavs does not have a clear answer in historical science. However, when the Slavs joined the world migration process of the 2nd-7th centuries. - “Great Migration” - they settled in three main directions: to the south - to the Balkan Peninsula; to the west - between the Oder and Elbe rivers; to the east and north - along the East European Plain.

There is every reason to believe that the area of ​​settlement of the Proto-Slavs, who, as proven by linguists, separated from their related Balts in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, during the time of Herodotus, was very small. Considering that there is no news about the Slavs until the first centuries AD. in written sources, and these sources, as a rule, came from the regions of the Northern Black Sea region, most of the territory of modern Ukraine, except for its north-west, must be excluded from the area of ​​settlement of the Proto-Slavs.

To this day, there is a historical region of Galicia, the western part of which is now inhabited by Poles, and the eastern part by Ukrainians.

The very name of the area seems to suggest that the Gauls once lived here, i.e. Celts, although a number of scientists dispute this. It is quite possible to assume the presence of Celts in this area at one time, given the Celtic affiliation of the Boii. In this case, the area of ​​​​the oldest settlement of the Slavs has to be sought to the north of Czechoslovakia and the Carpathian Mountains. However, the territory of present-day western Poland was not Slavic either - from the Middle Vistula, including Pomerania, where the East German tribes of the Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, etc. lived.

In general, a retrospective look at ethnic changes in Central Europe shows that the Germanic tribes once occupied some very limited territory of what is now East Germany and Western Poland. Even to the west of modern Germany they came relatively late, literally on the eve of the Romans’ penetration there, and earlier the Celts and perhaps some other peoples lived there.

Probably, some expansion of the ethnic territory of the Slavs was also observed in the 3rd - 4th centuries, but, unfortunately, there are almost no sources for this time. The so-called Peutinger Map, the final edition of which dates back to the first half of the 5th century, includes, however, significant elements of earlier information dating back to the 1st century. BC, and therefore it is very difficult to use its data.

The Wends on this Map are shown to the north-west of the Carpathians, together with some part of the Sarmatians, and obviously this localization corresponds to the very purpose of the Pevtinger Map - itenirarium, which focuses primarily on the most important trade routes that connected Roman possessions with other countries . The joint presence of the Wends and Sarmatians in the Carpathian region obviously reflects, with elements of the 5th century, the realities of the 2nd - 4th centuries. before the invasion of the Huns.

It would seem that archeology should make significant adjustments to our knowledge of the early history of the Slavs. But due to the specifics of its materials, they cannot exist until the appearance of written sources.

accurately identified with certain ethnic communities. Archaeologists are trying to see the Slavs as bearers of various archaeological

cultures, ranging from the so-called culture of subklosh burials (IV - II centuries BC, Upper Vistula and Warta basin) to various archaeological cultures of the first half of the 1st millennium AD. However, there is much that is controversial in these conclusions even for archaeologists themselves. Until recently, the fairly widespread interpretation that the Chernyakhov culture belonged to the Slavs did not have many adherents, and most scientists believe that this culture was created by different ethnic groups with a predominance of Iranians.

The Hunnic invasion led to significant population movements, including from the steppe and partially forest-steppe zones of our south. This applies most of all to the steppe regions, where, after a short-term hegemony of the corners, already in the 6th century. The proto-Turks prevailed. The forest-steppe of present-day Ukraine and the North Caucasus (Don region) is a different matter. Here the old Iranian population turned out to be more stable, but it also began to gradually be exposed to the Slavs who were steadily moving east. Obviously, already in the 5th century. the latter reached the middle Dnieper, where they assimilated local Iranians. It was probably the latter who founded the towns on the Kyiv mountains, since the name of Kyiv can be explained from Iranian dialects as a princely (town). Then the Slavs advanced beyond the Dnieper into the Desna River basin, which received the Slavic name (Right). It is curious, however, that the main part of the large rivers in the south retained their old, pre-Slavic (Iranian) names. So, the Don is just a river, the Dnieper is explained as a deep river, Russia is a bright river, Pond is a river, etc. But the names of the rivers in the north-west of Ukraine and in most of Belarus are Slavic (Berezina, Teterev, Goryn, etc.), and this is undoubtedly evidence of the very ancient habitation of the Slavs there. In general, there is reason to assert that it was the Hunnic invasion that provided significant incentive and opportunity to expand the territory of the Slavs. Perhaps the main enemies of the Huns were the Germans (Goths, etc.) and Iranians (Alans), whom they conquered and mercilessly pursued, dragging them along in their campaigns to the west. The Slavs, if they did not become natural allies of the Huns (and there are certain grounds for this conclusion), then, in any case, used the current situation to their advantage. In the 5th century The movement of the Slavs to the west continues and they push the Germans back to the Elbe, and then to this river. From the end of the 5th century. The beginning of the Slavic colonization of the Balkans is also observed, where they quickly assimilated the local Illyrians, Dalmatians and Thracians. There is every reason to talk about a similar movement of the Slavs to the east, in the area of ​​​​present-day Ukraine and Great Russia. In the forest-steppe part, after the Hun invasion, the local population decreased significantly, but in the forest it was never numerous.

At the same time, the Slavs, initially as inhabitants of forests (and this is exactly how Byzantine historians of the 6th century portray them to us), moved and settled mainly along large rivers, which at that time served as almost the only transport arteries for forest and forest-steppe regions. The local population (Iranian, Baltic, and then Finnish) was quite easily assimilated by the Slavs, usually peacefully. The vast majority of our information about the early Slavs comes from Byzantine sources. Even information preserved from the 6th - 7th centuries. Syriac and Arab writers, generally go back to Byzantium.

Special, heightened attention to the Slavs began precisely from the end of the second decade of the 6th century. is explained primarily by the fact that from that time they began to actively penetrate the Balkan Peninsula and within a few decades they took possession of most of it. The Greeks, the remnants of the Romanesque population (the Volochs are the ancestors of the Romanians), and the ancestors of the Albanians have survived here, but little is written about them, since the main role in the political life of the Balkans is increasingly played by the Slavs, who were advancing on Byzantium from both sides - from the north Balkan Peninsula and from the lower reaches of the Danube.

Thus, once united, in the VI-VIII centuries. The proto-Slavs were divided into southern, western and eastern Slavs. In the future, although their historical destinies were inevitably connected with each other, each branch of the Slavic peoples created its own history.