2019.10.14 VIKING EXPANSION IN THE EAST BY DENIS SUKHINO-KHOMENKO (DOKTORAND I HISTORIA) DENIS.SUKHINO-KHOMENKO@GU.SE Suggested extracurricular literature 2019.10.14 • Christiansen, Eric. 2002. The Norsemen in the Viking Age, 214–235. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. (NB: requires a level of factual knowledge before reading!) • Franklin, Simon and Shepard, Jonathan. 1996. The Emergence of Rus 750–1200. New York: Longman. (NB: the book’s date!) • Jones, Gwyn. 1968. A History of the Vikings, 241–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (NB: a very classical style, no easy-read for an unprepared reader; some hypotheses outdated!) • Haywood, John. 2015. Northmen: The Viking Saga 793–1241 AD, 164–209, 314–321 London: Head of Zeus. (NB: a very old-school and syncretic narrative!) • Hedenstierna-Jonson, Charlotte. 2009. “Rus’, Varangians, and Birka Warriors.” In The Martial Society: Aspects of Warriors, Fortifications and Social Change in Scandinavia, edited by Lena Holmquist Olausson and Michael Olausson, 159–178. Stockholm: Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University. • Lönnroth, Lars. 2014. “From History to Myth. The Ingvar Stones and Yngvars Saga Viðfǫrla.” In Nordic Mythologies: Interpretations, Intersections, and Institutions, edited by Timothy R. Tangherlini, 100–114. Berkley; Los Angeles: North Pinehurst Press. • Svanberg, Fredrik. 2003. Decolonizing the Viking Age 1. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. 2019.10.14 Regional expansion: a structural overview In the East, the Viking expansion could be traced in three main cultural (!) regions. They do not necessarily belong east in the geographical sense, and it is often hard to delineate one from another: • The Islamic world, • The eastern Slavic territories, • The Byzantine empire. (↑ The Viking expansion in the East) The question of the day: what and why is common and different between the Viking expansion in the East and the West? The Viking expansion in the Mediterranean: the 9th century 2019.10.14 (↓ Viking raids in the Mediterranean, after: Haywood, John. 1995. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings, 48–9. London: Penguin Books) • 844: Vikings (alMajus) sail along Iberian west coast, pillaging Galicia and Asturias; capture Gijón, Lisbon, and Seville; defeated by King Ramiro I at La Coruña and badly by the Emir of Cordoba near Seville. • 859–860: Bjǫrn and Hastein raid Galicia, Asturias, and the Cordoba Emirate; meet resistance until Algeciras, then enter the Mediterranean; first encounter with the blámenn (“blue men”, presumably Africans); raid Iberian east coast; sack Luna, mistaking it for Rome, then Pisa and Fiesole; presumably carry on to the Byzantine Empire (?). • 861–862: Bjǫrn and Hastein return west, losing 40 of their 60 ships to the emir’s fleet at Gibraltar; raid Navarre and ransom King Garcia I for 308 kg of gold; Bjǫrn later dies in Frisia, Hastein joins the “great heathen army” in England. The Viking expansion in the Mediterranean: the 10–11th centuries 2019.10.14 (↓ Norman campaigns in the Central Mediterranean, after: Bennet, Matthew, and Nicholas Hooper. 1996. Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: The Middle Ages 768–1487, 83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) • • • • • Raids in Iberia: repelled in 889, 912–13, 966, and 971; the survivors of the 889 raid were settled in the countryside of Seville: the only known Scandinavian colony in Spain. • 1017: first Normans hired as mercenaries in the local wars. • 1030: first Norman county of Aversa founded. 1047: Robert Guiscard of Hauteville arrives in Italy from Normandy, later joined by his brothers Roger and Richard. 1072: the Hauteville brothers conquer the Lombard duchies, drive the Byzantines out of Italy, and invade Sicily; 1091: Roger finishes the conquest of Sicily; 1190–94: the German emperor Henry VI conquers the Kingdom of Sicily. The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs 2019.10.14 (↓ Scandinavian influence in the Eastern Baltic and Russia; after: Graham-Campbell, James, and Batey, Colleen. 1994. The Cultural Atlas of the Viking World, 189. New York: Facts on File) • Mid-7th century: a Scandinavian colony at Grobiņa (western Latvia) established. • Mid-8th century: [Staraya] Ladoga (ON Aldeigja, Aldeigjuborg) founded; Scandinavian presence almost immediately. First half of the 9th century: Gorodishche (“former town”), 2 km of modern Novgorod, founded; considered to be the Novgorod of the Primary Chronicle for this period. 839: first mentioning of the people of Rhos in the Annales Bertiniani: “…qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant, quos rex illorum chacanus vocabulo… Imperator… comperint, eos gentis esse Sueonum” […who claimed to be called, i.e. their people, Rhos, whose king is called chacanus… The emperor [Louis the Pious] understood that they were of the people of Sueones]. 860: first recorded siege of Constantinople by the people of Ῥῶς (Rhôs). The first supposedly successful Christian mission to the Rhôs. • • • The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs 2019.10.14 (Rus’ trade and military activity in the 9th – early 10th centuries; after: Markov, Nikolay (ed.) 2012. Rus in the 9–10th Centuries: An Archaeological Panorama 15, ed. by Nikolay Markov. Moscow: Drevnosti Severa ↓). c. mid-9th century: Descriptio civitatum et regionum ad septentrionalem plagam Danubii (a.k.a. “Bavarian Geographer”) locates certain Ruzzi somewhere between the Khazars and the Magyars. • 862: semi-legendary Rurik (*Hrø̄rīkʀ) and two of his brothers “and all the Rus” are invited “from across the sea” to rule the Novgorodian Slavs and surrounding Finno-Ugric tribes. • no later than the 880s (possibly c. 840?): Ibn Khurradadhbih mentions ar-Rūs traders (a “type of aṣ-Ṣaqāliba”, i.e. Slavs) in Baghdad and Khazaria. • 882: Oleg (Helgi) annexes Kiev, kills its princes Askold (Hǫskuldr) and Dir (Dyri), former Rurik’s men; they could have led the raid of 860 (866 in the Russian Primary Chronicle) • 907/911: Oleg’s raid against Constantinople culminates in a Russo-Byzantine trade treaty. • 922: Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, the ambassador of Caliph al-Muqtadir to the Volga Bulghar, leaves the first detailed ethnographic description of the Rus. • The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs ↓ 2019.10.14 ( A Rus merchant’s prayer according to Ibn Fadlan; after: Kalinina, T.M., et al. (eds.). 2009. Ancient Rus in the Light of the Foreign Sources, 3:67. Moscow: Russian Fund of Scientific Collaboration) (← Oleg’s campaign and siege of Constantinople, from the 15thcentury Radzivill chronicle, fol. 15r) (↑ Arabic coins or imitations, after: Rus in the 9–10th Centuries 2012: 375) (Rurik grants Askold and Dir to travel to Constantinople, from the 15thcentury Radzivill chronicle, fol. 9r →) (← Early medieval Novgorod, after: Graham-Campbell and Batey 1994: 192) The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs 2019.10.14 (Vladimir’s golden coin; after: Rus in the 9–10th Centuries 2012: 402 ↓). • 941/944: an unsuccessful raid by prince Igor (Yngvarr) leads to a less favourable treaty for the Rus. • 943/944: the Rus raid Barda in the Caucasus on the Caspian Sea; the raid is led by one H-l-g-w (probably Helgi); after an initial success the Rus are defeated. • 945–965: the reign of princess Olga (Helga), first official Russian Christian ruler; Olga personally visits Constantinople in c. 957 and meets the emperor who also becomes her godfather. • 965–972: prince Svyatoslav defeats Khazaria (966/7), invades Bulgaria at the invitation of the Greek emperor (967/8); retreats to Kiev to relieve the siege by the nomad Pechenegs, returns to Bulgaria (969); forced to sign a treaty with the new emperor; dies at the Dnieper rapids in a Pecheneg ambush. • 988: prince Vladimir officially baptises (Yaroslav’s daughters, a contemporary Kievan fresco ↑; after: Melnikova, Elena, and Russia, having married a Greek Petrukhin, Vladimir (eds.). 2014. Ancient Rus in the Medieval World: An Encyclopaedia, 920. princess. Moscow: Ladomir) • 1019–1054: the reign of prince Yaroslav the Wise; Yaroslav is the last Russian prince to be actively involved in the Scandinavian politics; he married Ingigerðr, the daughter of the Swedish king Óláfr Skötkonung; his daughter later marries the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada; Yaroslav is involved into the political struggle of the 1020–30s in the North and is the last major employer for the Scandinavian mercenaries in Russia. The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs (↑ Novgorod according to the Vikings, produced by the History Channel): NOPE! 2019.10.14 The Scandinavians and the eastern Slavs (↑ Virtual Gnëzdovo in the vicinity of modern-day Smolensk in the 10th century) 2019.10.14 Yngvarr víðfǫrli’s expedition to Serkland and Garðaríki • 2019.10.14 Yngvarr the Far-Travelled must have been a historical figure. Main sources: o Yngvars saga víðfǫrla: one of the fornaldarsǫgur, supposedly recorded in the 12th century (actual text 300 years younger); o 26 runestones mention people who died “with Yngvarr” in the East (Austrvegr/Serkland/ Garðaríki); o independent narrative sources: the Russian Primary Chronicle (recorded before 1117), Imam Al-Bayhaqi (994–1066), The Chronicle of Cartli (late 11th century); the Pregradnoe cross (a probable 11th-century inscription). • When and where exactly Yngvarr travelled is a matter of debate. The conventional dating is between 1036 and 1041. The two main versions are: 1. ← Byzantium and Asia Minor (the “big river” is Dnieper) 2. Caucasia and/or Middle Asia (the “big river” is Volga) → At any rate, the expedition ended in a disaster. Haraldr Harðráði’s Varangian ↓ adventures 2019.10.14 ( The career of Harald Hardrada, after: Haywood 1995: 116) • Harald Hardrada (born c. 1015) was perhaps the most spectacular Viking in the East. Main biographical events: o 1031: flees east after Óláfr the Saint’s defeat at Stiklestaðir in 1030. o 1031–34: serves the Russian prince Yaroslav as a mercenary. o 1034–42: serves in the Byzantine empire in the Varangian guard (founded in 988); campaigns in Asia Minor, the Mediterranean, Bulgaria; has to flee Constantinople back to Kiev. o 1043/44: marries Yaroslav’s daughter Elizabeth (a.k.a. Ellisif). o 1045: returns to Norway, becomes its co-ruler with King Magnus (son of Óláfr the Saint). o 1047: rules Norway alone; wages war against the Danish King Sven Estridsen until 1064. o 1066: together with the exile Earl Tostig attempts to conquer England; wins the Battle of Fulford on September 20th but gets killed at the Battle at Stamford Bridge only five days later. How to NOT write a national history, or Did “Sweden found Russia”? 2019.10.14 One of the major problems related to the Scandinavian activity in Eastern Europe is the scarcity of coherent contemporary sources coupled with ambiguous ethno-professional names. Hence the problem of who the Ῥῶς, ar-Rūs, рѹсь were and how to separate the Russian and Scandinavian histories proper. SWEDEN ! • • • • • • Extreme Upplandocentrism up until the second half of the 20th century, e.g.: o In 1914, Henrik Schück (1855–1947) hypothesised that the name Denmark comes from a parish Danmark in the vicinity of Uppsala; o In 1930, Jöran Sahlgren (1884–1971) claimed that all of later medieval Sweden was conquered by a • “hardened and strong race” of the inhabitants of a small village Svia in Tiundaland. Scandinavian presence in Russia is archaeologically and onomastially undisputed. • Annales Bertiniani clearly equate the Rhos with the Sueones. Geographically, it is only logical that the Scandinavians in Russia would come from Svealand. That and Annales Bertiniani’s Rhos = Sueones yield svear = Sueones = Ῥῶς/ar-Rūs/Rus, and the very name “Rus” must have come from Roslagen in Uppland. RUSSIA " In 1749, Gerhard Müller (1705–1783) held a speech at the Russian Academy of Sciences, in which he ascribed all early Russian development to the Northmen. This spawned a harsh response from Michael Lomonosov (1711–1765) who completely discarded Rus’ northern origin. The (anti-)Normanist polemics were born. In the 1870s, Vilhelm Thomsen (1842–1927) derived the name Rus from the Balto-Finnic *rōtsi < Old Swedish *rōþ-s-karlar or *rōþs-mannar (“rowers”). Simultaneously, anti-normanists derived “Rus” from various hydronyms in present-day Russia (“folk etymology”). In the late 1940s, Stalinist ideology forbade seeing any positive influence from the West, and the anti-normanist “theory” was revived. E.g. despite the linguistic impossibility, Michael Tikhomirov (1889–1965) “firmly” connected Rus with a small tributary of Dnieper, Ros’ (Рось), south of Kiev, and this became the “official” version until the end of the Soviet period. How to NOT write a national history, or Did “Sweden found Russia”? 2019.10.14 The (anti-)Normanist polemics/debates of the Rus’ origins revolve not around the 9th century but about the 18th increasingly onwards! SWEDEN ! (↑ A medal struck by King Charles XII after his victory at Narva in 1700, mocking the Russian tsar) RUSSIA " (Biblical character Samson ↑ ripping a lion’s (Lion is Sweden’s heraldic mascot) mouth, mocking the Swedish king; Peterhof, 1735/1802) How to NOT write a national history, or Did “Sweden found Russia”? 2019.10.14 Did “Sweden found Russia”? Not in such formulation: 1. Neither “Sweden”, not “Russia” (especially in the modern sense!) were a thing in the 9th century. 2. Svear ≠ [modern] Swedes; the svear were one on the constituent tribal groups in the medieval Swedish kingdom; the equation svear = Rus is too simplistic and appropriationist. 3. Rus was a rather polyethnic political unit, encompassing various eastern Slavonic and Finno-Ugric tribes and interacting with many foreign cultures. 4. If (!) Rurik was a historical figure, he likely came from the Jutlandic royal house of the Skjǫldungar and was the same Rorik that held Frisia in fief from Lothar and Louis the German in 841–73. Did the Scandinavians contribute to the formation of the Russian state? More than so: their cultural, military, commercial, and political influence is hard to underestimate. Similar precedents: • • Francia: the Romano-Gaulish population was ruled by a Germanic tribe, the Franks; the Franks gave modern France its name and first dynasty but were absorbed by the natives. Bulgaria: the Slavic population of Mœsia was subjugated by a Turkic tribe, the Bulgars, in the 680s; the Bulgars gave modern Bulgaria its first dynasty and name but were absorbed by the natives. The impetus for the whole discussion: • • • aggressive/conservative nationalism; ambiguity of original sources; relative late beginning of written history in both Sweden and Russia; the modern-period “originomania”, “colonization”, and cultural appropriation of the past in the era of romanticism. The take-away of the day: history is complicated! Tribal names’ etymology ≠ ethnic/cultural/genetic/racial origin per se! The circulation of group names ≠ the history of the same groups (or their modern descendants) per se! Modern national borders did not exist 1000 years ago! Classwork 2019.10.14 • Assignment #1 (map work): o On the map, using the pewter models, pencils, and pens, demonstrate the most important events and processes of the Viking eastward expansion in your respective region (the Islamic world, the eastern Slavic territories, the Byzantine empire); please, include the following: essential dates, names, locations. • Assignment #2 (individual conclusion): o Summarise the end result of the Scandinavian expansion by the end of the Viking Age (c. 1050/1100 or later, depending on your respective region); please, include the the following: subjective and objective contributing factors to the success/failure of the colony; interaction with the local population and consequences for both it and the newcomers (supply with examples wherever possible). • Assignment #3 (general conclusion): o Synthesis for all groups: summarise the overall character, process, effect, and outcome of the Viking eastward expansion as a whole and briefly compare the three region. • Assignment #4 (overall conclusion): o Compare the east- and westward Viking expansion c. 800–1050: can we identify any common features between these regions, and if so, what contributed to the (dis)similarities? o Try extending your observations to answer the question: what can the Scandinavian expansion as a case study tell us about the historical processes? (NB: avoid judgmental and/or evaluative conclusions!) What does it all matter?