Settlement zones of the people of ancient Rus'. History of the emergence of ancient Rus' (culture of Slavic and Proto-Slavic tribes)
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The second part of the article is about Slavic tribes. In the last article we met such tribes as: Dulebs, Volynians, Vyatichi, Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Krivichi, Polyane. Here we will continue this long list of tribes. If we speak in dry scientific-historical language, then ancient Slavs- a sedentary people who were mainly engaged in farming, raising livestock and various crafts. According to many researchers, it was this way of life that made our ancestors civilized - the development of agriculture, the construction of villages and cities, infrastructure and much more turned us from nomads into the greatest country in the world. Since ancient times, all other peoples of the world have reckoned with Russia and, despite the great diversity of tribes, in difficult times all Slavic peoples united to defend their lives and territories from enemies.
Radimichi. A union of tribes that lived in the eastern part of the Upper Dnieper region, as well as on the Sozh River and its tributaries. If you believe, then the ancestor of the Radimichi was Radim and his brother Vyatko (later who founded the Vyatichi tribe), who were of Polish origin. Archaeologists note some similarities between the Radimichi and Vyatichi tribes. In particular, both of them buried the ashes of the dead in a log house, and both of them used women's jewelry - temple rings. In 984, the Radimich troops were defeated by the governor of the Prince of Kyiv Vladimir Svyatoslavovich. In the same chronicle, they were mentioned for the last time in 1169. After this date, the lands of this tribe entered the Chernigov and Smolensk principalities.
Rus. The Rus are still the most controversial, interesting and mysterious tribe. Many researchers in our time cannot agree among themselves about the history of this people and their role in the formation of the Old Russian State. Arab geographers in the 9th-10th centuries wrote that the Rus dominated the Slavs and were the ruling elite in the hierarchy of Rus' of that period. German historian G.3. Bayer (1725), considered the Rus and Normans to be the same tribe from which Rurik came. Other modern historians believe that the Rus are related to the Polyan tribe from the upper Danube. Third, that the Rus are of origin from the Northern Black Sea region and the Don basin. There is even an assumption that the Rus are none other than the people of the island of Ruyan in the Baltic Sea or modern Rügen, which is better known as Buyan.
In ancient sources, the names of this tribe are called differently: Rugs, Rogi, Rutens, Ruyi, Ruyans, Rans, Rens, Rus, Rus, Dews. There is a version that the word Rus is similar to island, which may mean that the Rus were Baltic Slavs. There are many versions and therefore the mystery of the Rus tribe has not yet been solved and remains open for discussion and study.
Northerners. The Northerners are an East Slavic union of tribes that lived in the basins of the Desna, Seim and Sula rivers, presumably until the 9th-10th centuries. There are some questions associated with the name of this tribe. The northerners were not the most northern people; the Radimichi and Vyatichi, for example, lived much further north, so the name is not usually associated with the geographical location of the tribe. Researcher V.V. Sedov, who studied this issue, puts forward the following version of the origin: The word “Northerners” may be of Scythian-Sarmatian origin and is translated as “Black”, as confirmed by the city of Northerners - Chernigov.
Slovenia Ilmenskie. In Slovenia, the Ilmenskys lived next door to the Krivichs on the territory of the Novgorod Land, near Lake Ilmen, which is where the name actually came from. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions the Ilmen Slovenians as one of several tribes that called in the Varangians.
Tivertsy. Tivertsy lived in the area between the Dniester and Prut rivers, the Danube, the Budzhak coast of the Black Sea, in the territory of Moldova and Ukraine. The name Tivertsi may go back to the ancient Greek word Tiras, which they used to call the Dniester River. At the beginning of the 12th century, the Tivertsy left their lands due to constant raids by the Pechenegs and Cumans, and subsequently mixed with other tribes.
Ulichi. They lived in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Bug and along the shores of the Black Sea (PVL. - “Previously, the streets sat in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, but then they moved to the Bug and Dniester”). The central city of the tribes was Peresechen. It is likely that the ethnonym Ulichi comes from the word “Angle”. It is known that in 885 Oleg the Prophet fought with the Ulichs. The Kyiv governor Svineld held for three years in the 10th century. main city Crossed under siege.
Chud. A legendary tribe that lived in the north of the European part of Rus' and the Urals. This tribe is mainly known only from the legends of the Komi peoples. Currently, it is believed that Chud are the ancestors of modern Estonians, Vepsians, Karelians, Komi and Komi-Permyaks. The name is due to the fact that other tribes believed that this tribe had a wonderful language and wonderful customs.
Tribes ancient Rus' Tribes of Central and Southwestern Rus': Polyans, Drevlyans, Dregovichs, Polochans, Krivichi, Slovenes (Novgorod), Northerners, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Croats, Duleb Ulichi and Tivertsy. The Polyanes, Drevlyans and Northerners lived either in the Kyiv region or close to it. Procopius, a historian of the sixth century, gives the names of two main groups: the Sklavenes and the Antes. However, each of them probably consisted of a number of smaller groups, and Procopius himself speaks in one case of "innumerable tribes of Antes." Jordanes, who knows both the Sclaveni and the Antes (as well as the Veneti in the north), also claims that the names of the tribes vary in different clans and localities. Unfortunately, neither he nor Procopius took the trouble to give even a tentative list of these smaller tribes and clans. According to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, when the Bulgars began to advance into Thrace at the end of the seventh century, they first conquered the Northerners (Σεβερειζ) and the Seven Clans (επταγενεαι). South of the Balkan Northerners and the Seven Clans in the Rhodope Mountains were the settlement sites of the Dregovichi tribe. One of the participants in the Church Council in Constantinople in 879 was Bishop Peter of Dregovichi (Δρυνγβιταζ). The Polyans and Smolyans (Σμολαινοι or Σμολεανοι) are mentioned among the Macedonian tribes of the tenth century. It is known that the tribes of the Polyans, Krivichi and Drevlyans inhabited the Peloponnese, the Balkans and the tribes of Rus' represent different branches of the same original tribes. Some of them must have belonged to the Sklavensian group, others to the Antes. During the time of Procopius, both the Sklavenes and the Antes occupied large areas north of the lower Danube. Later, some of them moved south, to Thrace and Macedonia. As a result of subsequent events, especially the invasion of the Avars, the Anta unification on the lower Danube was split; that part of each tribe or group of tribes that went south found itself subject to either Byzantium or the Bulgars, while others that went north eventually became members of Kievan Rus. Which tribes belonged to the Sklavensian group, and which to the Anta? Of the Balkan tribes, both the northerners and seven clans belonged to the Ant group. Evidence of this is their geographical location in the northeastern part of Thrace, since it is known that in the sixth and seventh centuries the Ants occupied the eastern part of the Lower Danube territory, and the Sklavenes occupied the western. Moreover, the very name “northerners” indicates the Azov-North Caucasian connections of this tribe, being another form of the name “Sabeirs”, or “Savirs”, which belonged to the Bulgaro-Hunnic people in the North Caucasus. If the Balkan northerners were Ants, they should also be the northerners of Rus', and if seven clans should be identified with the Radimichi and Vyatichi, which means that the tribes of Rus', bearing the same names, also belonged to the Ant group. The Polyans - both Balkan and Russian - should also be considered as an Ant tribe. In this case, their very name appears to be a translation of the name Antes, which originally meant “steppe people”, the same as the name “glades”. On the other hand, such tribes as the Drevlyans, Dregovichs, Krivichis and Smolyans were rather Sklavens rather than Antes, since in Rus' these tribes formed northwest a new group, the northern “edge” of which even retained the original name Sklavens (Novgorod Slovenes). The sphere of distribution and way of life of the tribes of Rus' in the eighth and ninth centuries. Unfortunately, written evidence on this topic, as on many others, is very scarce. More information can be obtained from archaeological data, but there is not much of it regarding our period; a significant part of the systematically studied mounds and settlements date back to a later time - from the tenth to the thirteenth century. For convenience, we will consider the origin of the tribes of Rus', grouping them by geographical areas as follows: a) Southwestern region; b) South-eastern region; c) West; d) Forest area of Pripyat; d) North. A) Southwestern region. These are the regions of right-bank Ukraine (without Volyn and Galicia) and Bessarabia, that is, the territory from the Prut in the west to the lower Dnieper (below Kyiv) in the east. It is the homeland of the Western Antes group in the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the Magyars penetrated into the region of the lower Bug. Even after this, individual Ant settlements may have remained on their lands, but in general the border between the territory controlled by the Magyars and the lands of the Ants ran along a line from Tiraspol on the lower Dniester to the mouth of the Rosi on the Dnieper. The Magyars in the ninth century lived east of this line. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the following tribes lived in the southwestern region, which is now in question: the Polyans, the Ulichs and the Tivertsy. By this time, the Polyans occupied most of the Kyiv region, the Tivertsy - the southern part of Bessarabia, and the Ulichs - northern Bessarabia and the southern part of the Podolsk region. The name itself, Tivertsy, possibly comes from the name of the fortress of Tura (Tvra, Turris), in which Emperor Justinian I placed one of the Ant tribes, apparently the ancestors of the Tivertsy. The name of Tura, of course, is in some way connected with the ancient name of the Dniester Tiras (Τυραζ), which is mentioned by Herodotus. The Greek letter (upsilon) was apparently used to convey a sound foreign to Greek language. The original name comes from the Iranian root (tur or tvr). Consequently, the Tivertsy (or Turks) were a Dniester tribe. As for the streets, in different chronicles their name is read differently (ulich, uluch, uglichi, ulutich, lyutich, luchan). Some researchers prefer the form "Uglichi", which they derive from the word "angle" and suggest accordingly that the homeland of the "Uglichi" was in the southern part of Bessarabia, known as the "Angle" (Ογγλοζ) between the Prut and the lower Danube. At first glance, this explanation seems plausible, but there are several considerations against it. First of all, the so-called “Nikon Chronicle” mentions the city of streets, Peresechen. This city must have been located not in the southern part of Bessarabia, but in its center, north of Chisinau. Moreover, the Nikon Chronicle also says that the Ulichi initially lived in the area of the lower Dnieper, and they moved west of the Dniester later. The Nikon Chronicle, however, is a late compilation (sixteenth century). But here is another reason not to place the streets in the Bessarabian “Corner”: it has been occupied by the Tiverts since the sixth century. Thus, it turns out that the “Uglichi” form does not have sufficient grounds, and the “uluchi” or “ulichi” form turns out to be preferable. The name "uluchi" possibly comes from the word "luka". In this regard, we can recall the bend of the Black Sea coast between the mouths of the Dnieper and Dniester. This is where Jordan places the Antes. "Antesvero...qua Ponticum mare curvatur, a Danastro extenduntur ad Danaprum". The Uluchi Ants in the second half of the sixth century were subject to raids by the Kutrigurs and Avars and were probably driven inland, losing access to the sea for some time, but later, in the seventh and eighth centuries, they must have reappeared on Black Sea coast . By the end of the eighth century, the territory of the lower Bug was occupied by the Magyars, who a century later, in turn, were forced to move west to make way for the Pechenegs, who were pushing them from the east. At the time when the first chronicle was compiled, the Polyans inhabited the Kyiv region. In the seventh and eighth centuries, however, their habitat was probably in the south. Since the territory of the lower Bug at that time was occupied by the uluchs, we can determine the place of residence of the glades in the Ingul area. They probably also controlled the mouth of the Dnieper. Even in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Oleshye at the mouth of the Dnieper served as a transit point for Kyiv (i.e. Polyanian) merchants on their way to Constantinople. With the arrival of the Magyars - at the end of the eighth century - the glades retreated north, to the region of Kyiv, which until then, apparently, had been occupied by the Drevlyans. The tribal name of the Polyans (like the Drevlyans) may have been given to them, or adopted by them as an indication of the nature of the country in which they originally lived. The name "Polyane" means "field (steppe) people." In this regard, we can recall some other tribal names of similar origin: Ezerites (“lake people”), Pomorans (“coastal people”), Dolyans (“valley people”). On the other hand, the names "Polyanin" and "Drevlyanin" may refer to the previous political connections of each of the two tribes, respectively. One of the Gothic tribes was called Greutungi, which exactly corresponds to the name “glade”; the name of another Gothic tribe, the Tervingi, has the same meaning as "Derevlians". During the Gothic rule - in the third and fourth centuries - the ancestors of the Polans were subordinate to the Grevtungs, and the Drevlians - to the Tervings. Archaeological evidence: The antiquities of both the Ulichs and the Tiverts have not been sufficiently studied. The area of their original settlement was later “flooded” by various nomadic tribes, mainly of Turkic origin, so there may have been few traces of these two Ant tribes left and even fewer actually discovered. The author of the first chronicle says that in his time (eleventh century) some cities of Ulichs and Tivertsi still existed (their cities still exist today). A number of stone-lined mounds have been excavated in the southern part of Podolia; they are presumably identified as street mounds. In these mounds, vessels with remains, burnt bones were discovered, that's almost all. More materials were provided by various settlements of the Kyiv region to the north of which the glades moved later, but in the south of the region the settlements of the glades apparently existed in the early period. Some of these settlements, such as Pasteur and Matronino in the Cherkassy region, existed from ancient times, and the finds here illustrate mainly the early stage of culture - the stage of burial in urns. At the Pasteur settlement, decorations were discovered during excavations - pendants, stylized images of horses and etc. - which can be attributed to the period of the fifth-sixth centuries, but other objects of later periods, even the eleventh century, have similarities with them. In some other settlements of the Kyiv region, such as, in particular, Knyazhya Gora at the mouth of the Ros River, early (fifth to sixth centuries) and late (tenth and eleventh centuries) stages of cultural development are equally better represented than the intermediate period of the ninth and tenth centuries. However, since there are similarities between early and late finds, both in style and in the composition of things, it is possible to gain some insight into the intermediate period. Among the items discovered in these settlements, it is worth mentioning iron tools and accessories, such as knives, axes, nails, sickles, locks, hoops. It is clear that the production of iron products was at a high level in the glades. It should be added that they were famous for their art forging weapons, especially swords. The first chronicle contains a characteristic story about the response of the Polans to the Khazars, when the latter were going to demand tribute from them. The Polans offered to pay with swords. We can assume that the cultural level of the Polans was relatively high even in the eighth and ninth centuries, although the accumulation of wealth, jewelry and works of art had not yet reached such proportions as it would later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. B) Southeastern region. These are the territories south of the Ugra River and its continuation, the Oka River. In the west, this territory is limited, roughly speaking, by the flow of the Dnieper down from Mogilev; in the east - by the Don current; in the south - the Black Sea. We also include the Azov region and the Kuban delta in this territory. At the time of compiling the first chronicle, i.e. in the eleventh century, the entire southeastern part of the territory that we are considering was controlled by the Cumans, and only at the mouth of the Kuban did the Tmutarakan “island” remain in the hands of Rus'. In the early period the situation was different, and we We have enough evidence to state that in the eighth century there were settlements on the lower Don and in the Azov region. In the eleventh century, northerners inhabited the basins of the following eastern tributaries of the middle Dnieper: Psel, Suda and Desna with its tributary Seym; this corresponds to the territories of the Chernigov, Kursk and northwestern parts of the Poltava regions. The Radimichi inhabited the Sozh River basin, that is, the left bank part of the Mogilev region. The Vyatichi controlled the southern part of the Oka basin and the upper Don region, covering the territory of the Oryol, Kaluga, Tula and Ryazan regions. We can say with confidence that in an earlier period the lands of these three tribes extended much further to the southeast, and the tribes were driven north only as a result of Pecheneg and Cuman raids. It can be assumed that in the first half of the ninth river, the northerners occupied the entire Donets basin, and the Radimichi - the Desna. When the northerners were pushed northwest from the Donets basin by the Pechenegs, they, in turn, pushed the Radimichi north of the Desna into the Sozh region. As for the Vyatichi, we can assume that initially their settlements were located on the Don, at least reaching in the south to Boguchar. Archaeological data: The antiquities of the Northerners, Radimichi and Vyatichi within the boundaries of the corresponding territories that they inhabited in the eleventh century have been quite thoroughly studied. On the other hand, antiquities on the territory of the Donets and the Don have not been systematically studied, as for the lower Don and the Azov region, even the possibility of the existence of antiquities there is denied by some scientists. According to materials discovered in the burial mounds of the northerners of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the most common burial rite among them was cremation. However, mounds with buried remains are also known. . Some burial mounds of the northerners are not rich in grave goods. They contained a small number of earrings inlaid with silver and glass, buckles and beads. Another group of mounds is much richer. Among the finds in typical mounds of another type were temple rings made of spirally twisted wire, copper and iron twisted necklaces, pendants for necklaces - round and crescent-shaped, bracelets, rings, decorative plates for halo-shaped headdresses. Weapons were discovered in some Severyansk mounds, as well as in ancient settlements. A Polyana type sword was found in the Gochev mound in the Kursk region. Due to the differences between the two types of Severyansk burials, it was assumed that these two groups represent the burials of people of different social status: nobles and common people. It is also possible that the difference is not of an economic, but of a tribal nature. A study of the antiquities of the Radimichi and Vyatichi leads to the conclusion that, despite some particular differences, these two groups had much in common. The seven-petal pendant is characteristic of the antiquities of both the Radimichi and the Vyatichi, although the shape of the petal is different for these tribes. We repeat that either one or both tribes are connected with the seven clans (επταγενεαι) in Thrace. The pendant was apparently a tribal emblem, symbolizing the union of the seven clans in each case, but the two tribes themselves were also closely related. According to the Tale of Bygone Years, these tribes were descendants of two brothers - Radim and Vyatok (Vyatko). We believe that these two brothers were Poles (lyakhs), or lived among Poles (in lyakhs). Commenting on this statement and taking into account the possibility of migration of individual western tribes to the east following the fall of the Avar Kaganate, A.A. Shakhmatov built a hypothesis about the Polish origin of the Radimichi and Vyatichi. This hypothesis cannot be supported, since it clearly contradicts existing archaeological evidence. . It is quite possible that the legend about the Polish origin of the Radimichi and Vyatichi was put into use at the time when Kyiv was captured by the Polish king Boleslav I (1018). It is also possible that the text of the legend, as it is read in the Tale of Bygone Years, is distorted. According to the text, “there were two brothers among the Poles” (byasta two brothers in Lyasi). Is it possible to assume that in original text was it read “among the Azovs” (in Yazekh) instead of “among the Poles” (in Poles)? In any case, there are more reasons to believe that the Radimichi and Vyatichi descended from the Ases than from the Poles. In the Vyatichi and Radimichi mounds of the tenth and eleventh centuries, burial, as a funeral rite, prevails over cremation. Cremation is very rare among the Radimichi, and even less common among the Vyatichi. Apparently, burial was an ancient custom of both tribes. Now we know that this custom was also common among the Alans (Aces). Moreover, the very names of the two mythical brothers, Radim and Vyatok, may be of Ossetian origin. As for the name “Radim”, we can cite the Ossetian word rad (“order”, “line”), and “Vyatok” is the Ossetian jaetaeg (“leader”) Usually Vyatichi mounds are low - from 0.7 to 1.4 meters in height. The bones are located with their heads to the north or northwest. Probably, the idea was to orient the head of the buried person in the direction of sunset, and the change is associated with the time of year. The composition of objects in burials is quite uniform in most mounds. Here are typical items: seven-petal temple pendants, beads, twisted necklaces, bracelets and forged rings and crosses made using the openwork technique. The crosses were apparently just decorations, and their discovery is not necessarily evidence in favor of Christianity. In the Radimichi mounds1200 the body was located on a special bed of ash and earth, rising 0.5 m above the ground level. Then a spherical burial mound was erected above the funeral bed. The body was always laid with its head to the west. For funerary decorations, seven-petal temple pendants, forged necklaces and pendants for necklaces are typical. C) Western lands Western Volyn and Galicia. Western Volyn in the eighth and ninth centuries was home to the Dulebs, and Galicia, located on the northeastern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, was the homeland of the Croats (Croats). The Yugoslav scholar L. Hauptmann recently made a fairly plausible assumption that the Croats were a tribe under the control of the Alan clan. In other words, the Croats can be considered one of the tribes of the Aesir or Ants. The country they inhabited was called White Croatia, and geographically and ethnographically it formed a combination of Russian, Polish and Czech tribes. According to Hauptmann, it was from Galicia that the Croats (Croats) crossed the Carpathian Mountains in a southerly direction and penetrated first into the basin of the upper Elbe (Laba), and then into the region of the middle Danube, until they finally settled south of this river. Part of this tribe, however, remained in Galicia and at the end of the ninth century recognized the dominance of the Moravian prince Svyatopolk. At the end of the tenth century, the Kiev prince Vladimir, in turn, claimed rights to Galicia. As for the Dulebs, their history was closely linked with the history of the Croats. We know that in the second half of the sixth century the Avars conquered the Dulebs and forced some of them to migrate to Moravia. Basically, the tribe, however, remained in Volyn, moving a little north down the Western Bug. Perhaps it was after this that they became known as Buzhans. The name duleba is ancient. In the list of tribes from the Tale of Bygone Years, there is a remark defining the location of the Dulebs: the country of the Dulebs is “where the Volynians are now.” According to Barsov, this remark in the Tale of Bygone Years is an insertion of a later copyist, most likely the compiler of a short set of chronicles in the fourteenth century, Barsov's assumption is quite acceptable. And if so, then the name Volynians came into use in a relatively late period. Archaeological evidence also contradicts the assumption that the Volynians, or even their predecessors the Dulebs, were a strong enough tribe to dominate others. mounds are quite poor. In some mounds, no funeral equipment was found. In those cases where utensils were found, they were represented by simple jugs, wooden buckets, and primitive decorations. Volyn mounds were low. The predominant burial custom was burial, although individual cases of cremation are also known. D) Forest region of Pripyat To the north of Pripyat lived the Dregovichi, to the south - the Drevlyans. In the tenth century, the Drevlyans lived in forested and swampy areas between the rivers Irsha and Teterev in the south and Pripyat in the north. However, there is reason to believe that in more distant times, preceding the retreat of the glades from the lower Dnieper to the Kyiv region due to the onslaught of the Magyars, the territory occupied by the Drevlyans extended much further to the south than in the tenth century. Perhaps they then controlled the Kyiv lands, at least the area around Kyiv itself; in other words, their lands extended to the northern edge of the steppe zone. Although the name “Drevlyans” itself means “tree (forest) people,” it apparently has more to do with political conditions than with natural environment, that is, it most likely indicates that they were previously subordinate to the Gothic tribe of the Tervingi. In any case, burials similar to the Drevlyans were discovered during excavations near Kyiv. It is also possible that no later than the end of the eighth century, part of the Drevlyans settled east of the Dnieper, from where they were later driven west, on the other side of the river, by the Radimichi and Northern tribes. Only antiquities discovered in the territory occupied by the Drevlyans in the tenth century can be reliably identified as Drevlyan. More than seven thousand Drevlyan burial mounds have been excavated. They date from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. The predominant type of burial is burial. The composition of items is not rich. Simple pots, wooden buckets, glass beads, and low-grade bronze or silver earrings were discovered. Other items found during the excavations include flint items, small iron knives, sickles, fragments of woolen fabric and leather shoes . In general, the level of material culture of the Drevlyans of the ninth and tenth centuries is lower than that of the Polyans. Was the situation the same in the seventh and eighth centuries, or did the Drevlyans' fortunes decline after they were driven north of the Kyiv lands? Hard to say. The Drevlyans are described in the Tale of Bygone Years as a proud and warlike people, despite the fact that by the time this chronicle was compiled they had been driven into the swampy wilderness. As for the Dregovichi, they also buried their dead. The composition of the items in the burials is not impressive. Along with other objects, filigree beads and temple pendants with partially matching ends were discovered, which, according to Gautier, are closer to the style of jewelry of the Krivichi than the Radimichi; and this despite the fact that the latter lived directly on the other side of the Dnieper from the Dregovichi. . D) North In the northern and northwestern lands there were two main tribes: the Krivichi and the Slovenes. The Krivichi inhabited the upper reaches of the Dnieper, the Western Dvina and the Volga, thus controlling an important intersection of river routes. Judging by archaeological evidence, the Krivichi had much in common with the Slovenes. For both, cremation of the deceased was typical. Only in the eleventh century, under the influence of Christian rituals, burial spread among the Krivichi. Slovenian mounds are usually high, over ten meters. Residents of the Novgorod and Pskov lands, as a rule, called mounds of this type hills. The earliest hills date back to the seventh century, and a Sasanian coin dated to 617 AD was discovered in one of them. . However, most of the hills date back to the eighth and ninth centuries. The composition of objects found in them during excavations is not rich. Pottery and charred animal and human bones make up the finds. In the Smolensk region - in the territory of the Krivichi - most of the burial mounds are lower and smaller in size than the Slovenian mounds. The most important location for the concentration of Krivichi mounds is Gnezdovo. Most of the Gnezdovsky mounds can be dated back to the tenth century, but some of them date back to an earlier period. The contents of the Gnezdovsky mounds are much richer than the Slovenian hills. Even in the early mounds, decorations were discovered, such as iron and copper twisted necklaces, copper brooches, pendants in the shape of a cross and a crescent, metal figurines of birds, etc. There were minor migrations of representatives of the nobility from a number of southern tribes, such as the Uluchi, Polyane , northerners, Radimichi and Vyatichi, from south to north behind their overlords, which cannot be called migration. Early burials of the Slovenian type were discovered near Bezhetsk and on the banks of the City River. general review way of life and civilization of the ancient tribes of Rus'. In terms of economic life, the tribes of the eighth and ninth centuries were well acquainted with agriculture, which in most cases formed the basis of their economic activities. In the steppe regions, horse and livestock breeding was another important branch of the economy, while in the northern forests hunting and beekeeping seemed to be of particular importance. As for material culture, the Russian tribes were at the Iron Age stage. Many household items and agricultural tools, such as sickles, were made of iron. Iron weapons like swords were forged. Bronze and silver were used to make jewelry. Finds of spindles indicate familiarity with weaving, while fragments of woolen fabric indicate the development of cloth production. The practice of two different methods of burial - burial and cremation - reflects the existence of two different trends in religious beliefs. Cremation of the dead was an old tradition, at least among those tribes that worshiped Perun, the god of thunder and lightning. We have seen that in the eighth and ninth centuries the rite of cremation dominated among the Krivichi and Slovenes. As for the Polans and Northerners, we have evidence of cremation dating back to the tenth century, and it cannot be certain that the same practice existed among them at an earlier period. In the funeral rites of all other tribes - Radimichi, Vyatichi, Duleb, Drevlyan and Dregovichi - the burial custom seems to be predominant. The same probably applies to Croats. We should remember in this regard that the burial was typical for the North Caucasus cultural sphere, in particular, for Alans. Since the Ants were, in our opinion, closely related to the Alans, the spread of this form of funeral among such Ant tribes as the Radimichi, Vyatichi, Northerners and Dulebs can be attributed to the Alan origin of the ruling clans of these tribes. The Drevlyans and Dregovichs apparently adopted this ritual from their neighbors, the Dulebs. The difference in funeral ritual among the tribes of Rus' is undoubtedly evidence of the duality of their religious beliefs. The religion of the Ant tribes was clearly influenced by Iranian dogma and mythology. The worship of Senmurv probably continued into the Khazar and early Varangian periods, and the ceramic tiles discovered at Gnezdovo, dating from the eighth or ninth centuries, are characteristic in this regard. In the Tale of Bygone Years, Senmurv is mentioned under the name Simargla, which is close to “Simurg” - this is how the Persian poet Ferdowsi calls the mystical bird in his poem “Shah Nameh” After the political unification of the tribes of Rus' under the rule of the Kyiv princes religious beliefs various tribes were syncretized, and in the second half of the tenth century, before Vladimir's conversion to Christianity, the Kiev pantheon included both Perun and the Iranian Simurgh Regarding the social stratification of the tribes of Rus' in the eighth and ninth centuries, archaeological evidence points to a division between the rich upper classes and the common people, at least among the glades, northerners and Krivichi. Nobles and merchants like these big cities, like Kyiv and Smolensk, accumulated significant wealth. Nakhodki large quantity treasures with oriental coins discovered in different provinces indicate a wide range foreign trade relations. Leaving aside the treasures dating back to a later time, and taking into account only those that contain eastern coins of the eighth and ninth centuries, it should be said that most of these treasures were discovered on the lands of the northerners, Radimichi and Vyatichi; although there were many similar treasures in the lands of the Krivichi and Slovenians. As for the Kyiv lands, little was found here in the period before the tenth century, and only one treasure was discovered during excavations on the territory of the lower Don. As for height, the Slovenes, Polyans and some of the northerners were taller than representatives of other tribes. The Drevlyans and Radimichi were of average height (above 165 cm); Krivichi were the shortest (about 157 cm). From a craniometric point of view, the Polans were subbrachycephalic; northerners, western Krivichi, Drevlyans - subdolichocephalic; Eastern Krivichi are dolichocephalic. As for the width of the forehead, the Northerners, Polyans, Drevlyans and Krivichi had fairly wide foreheads. The Polyans had wide napes, this also applies to the Northerners, Drevlyans and Krivichis; The Drevlyans and Krivichi had large faces, the Severians and Polyans had much smaller faces.
Communal structure of Slavic tribes. The life of individual Slavic tribes: Ulichi and Tivertsy, Dulebs or Buzhans and Volynians, Drevlyans, Polyans, Northerners, Krivichi, Polotsk, Novgorodians. Novgorod possessions. Social structure of Novgorod. Customs. The nature of the Novgorod community
Communal structure of Slavic tribes. Chronicles and other sources that have come down to us report very little news about the primitive structure of Slavic societies in Rus', however, it is possible to form a fairly clear idea about this structure, at least in its main features. From a consideration of all the evidence that has reached us, it turns out that the primitive, pre-Rurik structure of social life of the Slavs in Rus' was communal, not tribal. The chronicler about the ancient structure of social life among the Russian Slavs generally says: “The Novgorodians from the beginning, and the Smolyans, and the Kiyans and all the authorities, as if they came to a meeting at the Duma, and whatever the elders decided on, that’s what the suburbs would be.” The communal veche system among the Slavs penetrated into all aspects of social life. Each tribe is a union of cities, a city is a union of streets, a street is a union of families. Hence, primitive device Slavic societies in Rus' had a veche, but a veche was inappropriate in tribal life, there the head of the entire structure is the founder, and not the veche. The very history of the settlement of the Slavs in Rus' also points to a communal, rather than tribal structure. Nestor says: “Volokhom bo. who found the Slovenes on the Danube, sat in them and violated them. The Slovenians Ovii who came sat on the Vistula and were nicknamed the Lyakhovs, and from those Poles they were nicknamed the Polans, the Lyakhovs, the Druzii Lutichs, and the Mazovshans, and the Pomeranians. It’s the same with these Slovenians, who came and sat down along the Dnieper and found themselves in the clearing, and the Druzians, the Drevlyans, sat down in the forests; and the friends sat between the Pripet and the Dvina and got into trouble with the Dregovichi; and I rode along the Dvina and called the Polochans for the sake of the river that flows into the Dvina, by the name of Polota, from this they were nicknamed the Polochans. The Slovenes, sitting near Lake Ilmen, became known by their own name, and made a city and a baptism of Novgorod; and the Druzians rode along the Desna and Semi, and along the Sula, and crossed the north. The Slovenian language has become so rich.” These words of Nestor show that the Slavs did not suddenly populate the Russian land, but gradually - “gray, he says, on the Vistula, on the Dnieper, gray on the Desna,” etc. From this evidence from the chronicle it is clear that the Slavs were not old-timers in Rus', but moved to this side from the Danube. And if they were aliens in Rus', then tribal life could not be carried out. It is known that tribal life belongs to native tribes, domestic ones, who develop through natural birth in a country freely occupied by their ancestors and not previously owned by anyone, where the family, and then the clan, multiply in the open, without competition, without contact with foreigners. Such societies or tribes usually live scattered, each family or clan separately; in such societies there are no cities, but only villages. This is how the Slavs lived before moving from the Danube. Roman and Greek writers testify that the Slavs on the Danube lived in a tribal way of life, without cities and villages, scattered over a large area in separate families. Thus, Procopius, who lived in the 6th century AD, says that the Slavs did not form a state, lived in poor huts and often changed their homes. This is an eyewitness account. The same is confirmed by the Greek writer of the 6th century Mauritius; he writes that the Slavs willingly settle in forests near rivers and lakes, do not have cities, lead a lonely life, love freedom, each of their clans has ancestors. The Slavs, says Mauritius further, persecute each other with hatred, do not know how to fight open field, they fight in all directions. This is how the life of the Slavic clans is portrayed by writers worthy of trust. But, moving to another place, the Slavs had to change their way of life, because the new conditions of their life were unfavorable for their tribal life. We know that the land to which they moved was occupied by non-Slavic tribes. Thus, according to the testimony of Greek and Roman writers, the lands in the east of the Danube, perhaps along the Prilet and Oka, were occupied by the Scythians, Sarmatians and other tribes, and in the north from the Prilet and Oka up to the Baltic Sea and the Northern Ocean, according to our testimony chronicles, tribes of Latvian and Finnish origin lived. These foreigners would have completely erased the nationality of the Slavs if they had continued to live in Rus' the same way they lived on the Danube, scattered, each family separately. Thus, in order to protect themselves from the natives and preserve their nationality, the Slavs, when they first appeared in Rus', had to leave their tribal way of life, settle in masses and build cities, so the Scandinavians called the local country occupied by the Slavs the country of cities - “Gordoricia” . Nestor says about the general life of the Slavs: “And the Polyans and the Drevlyans, the North and the Radimichi, and the Vyatichi, and the Croats live in the world. The Dulebs live along the Bug, where the Volynians are now, and the Ulichs, Tivertsy, travel along the Dniester, sit down to the Dunaevi, there are many of them, they travel along the Dniester to the sea, the essence of their cities to this day.” And the existence of cities is already a clear sign of communal life; city life, no matter what level of development it may be, cannot but be communal, because the first and main condition of community is inseparable from it - to live together and be governed by one power, with a common force to support the fortification of the city, to defend the city, to have common streets, squares, be in constant communication with citizens; without these conditions it is impossible to imagine city life, and these conditions represent the main principles of community, denying tribal life in its very foundations and constituting the root and basis of any social development . Of course, clan life can sometimes exist between settlers, evidence of which we find in the Germanic tribes, which during their migrations for the most part retained the forms of clan life in the social structure for quite a long time, so that some traces of this structure are even still noticeable in other societies of Germany . But for such an order of affairs, many intervening circumstances and a special structure of the people are needed, their special attachment to the tribal way of life. The Slavic tribes in Rus' had neither a special attachment to the tribal way of life, nor circumstances favorable to this. Germanic tribes that migrated to different countries of Europe passed on their family names to the newly occupied areas, for example, Nordling, Northumberland in Saxony and England; on the contrary, the Slavic tribes themselves took names from the areas they occupied: glades - from fields, Drevlyans - from forests, northerners - from the fact that they previously lived in the north, and then moved to the south, Polotsk - from the river Polota, on which they settled, Novgorodians - from Novgorod. It is obvious that our Slavs did not value their Danube ancestral life; The Germans valued their family life so much that they even organized artificial births, for example, Ditmarsen births, when in fact the settlers were not related to each other. In the history of the Russian Slavs there was no mention of artificial childbirth. The preservation of the tribal way of life among the Germans was favored by the fact that the German tribes made their migrations during the reign of the tribal way of life in their homeland, therefore the German settlers for the most part set off on their journey with strict adherence to the tribal forms, under the leadership of the ancestor. German relocations were arbitrary; on the contrary, the Slavs began to move from the Danube when their tribal life was greatly shocked and even upset by the Romans, who gradually occupied their lands and built their cities there. The Slavs began to move beyond the Danube not out of their own free will, but out of coercion, as a result of violence, as Nestor directly says: “By Volokh who found Slovenia on the Danube.” Moreover, one should not lose sight of the fact that the close and prolonged proximity of the Slavs with the Greeks and Romans on the Danube greatly shook their tribal life and developed in them the need for a social structure. That the Danube Slavs had to change their tribal way of life in many ways is shown by their history on the Danube; Thus, at the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th centuries, cities with a purely communal structure appeared in the Bulgarian kingdom and among the Serbs. Although history noticed them only in this era, in all likelihood they were even earlier. Therefore, when moving to Eastern Europe, the Slavs had already lost faith in the superiority of their ancestral life back on the Danube. Moving on to our history, we see that when the Slavic tribes came to Rus', they already had a communal structure; Consequently, the family life was shaken even on the Danube. The tribes, moving to Rus', brought with them some education, which is evidenced by the fact that they were already engaged in agriculture; in comparison with the native Finnish and Latvian tribes, they were incomparably higher in their development, the best proof of which is that most of the Latvian and Finnish tribes, even before Rurik, were subjugated to the Slavs, and, moreover, not so much, it seems, by war as by colonization, the construction of Slavic cities between Finnish and Latvian tribes. Thus, history already finds Rostov, Suzdal, Beloozero and other Slavic cities among the settlements of Vesi, Meri and Murom, and this Finnish region, before the eyes of history, became so glorified that already in the 12th century. it was difficult to distinguish them in some places from the Slavs - a clear sign that the Slavs came to Rus', already at a certain stage of development, that their social structure was not tribal, but communal, so that they accepted every foreigner into their society and made it equal Tribal life did not allow this: here anyone who entered the land of someone else’s clan had to become either a slave or die, as was the case among the Germans; on the contrary, among the Slavs in Rus' we do not see that non-relatives are excluded. The Slavs accepted Finns into their society as equals; Thus, it is known that the Chud participated in the invitation of the Varangian-Russians along with the Slavs, - therefore, they were recognized as having equal rights with the Slavs; this same condition for accepting foreigners into society clearly indicates the communal structure of the Slavs in Rus' - only the community does not distinguish between fellow tribesmen and foreigners. In general, it can be accepted with certainty that the Slavs changed their way of life on the Danube and mainly from the influence of the neighboring Greeks and Romans. Finally, a sure sign of the social condition of the Slavs can also be the special conditions of land ownership. We, in Rus', and the Serbs on the Danube had two types of ownership: communal and private land ownership. In the first type, land belonged to the whole society, and each member had the right of ownership and use without the right of alienation; in the second type, the land was the full property of the owner with the right of alienation. Such an order of ownership is possible only under a communal structure. In tribal life, the land belongs to the whole clan, and its members use it. In ancient Germany, all members of the clan divided among themselves all the land that belonged to one known clan, and not a single owner remained for several years on the same land. This has been preserved in some places to this day, while among the Slavic tribes in Rus' there was no mention of such an annual division. In our country, each member of society owned the land of the community so that he could pass it on to his children. Communal ownership differed from private ownership only in that the owner of communal land had to be a member of society.
So, the structure of the Slavs in Rus' was communal, not tribal. Two reasons had an impact on the change in the tribal life of the Slavs: 1) the neighborhood with the Greeks and Romans, which shook the tribal life of the Slavs even at the time when they lived on the Danube; 2) resettlement to a foreign land occupied by Finnish and Latvian tribes confronted the Slavs with the need to live in communities in a foreign land and build cities so as not to mix with the natives. According to Nestor, the ancestral way of life was preserved only among one of the Slavic tribes that moved to Rus' - among the Polyans: “In the Polyans, who live separately and lead their families, likewise before this, the brothers Byakhu Polyana and Zhivyakhu each with their clan and in their places, owning every one of his kind.” But even the glades did not adhere to the forms of tribal life for long. Nestor further says that the clan of Kiya, Shchek and Horiv rose above all the Polyansky clans and that the city of Kyiv was built among them. From this it is clear that the glades subsequently abandoned their tribal life and began to adhere to the communal life, because the predominance of one clan over others is impossible with the tribal life, just as the construction of a city is a direct negation of the tribal life.
Life of individual Slavic tribes. We saw that the social structure of the Slavs in Rus' was communal, not tribal. Now let's see how communalism developed among one tribe or another. The Slavic tribes that came to Rus' from the Danube occupied the land from the Black to the White and Baltic seas. Naturally, with such settlement, they did not all live the same way: some of them rather felt the need for a communal life and developed it, while others, on the contrary, could remain with the old tribal way of life. Let's start with the tribes who lived in the south of Russia; These include:
Ulichi and Tivertsi. These tribes lived along the Black Sea coast, from the lower Danube to the Dnieper. Threatened from the west by the same enemy who forced them to move to Russian soil, and from the east by various nomads, the Ulichi and Tivertsy soon after the resettlement were forced to turn to communal life. The Bavarian geographer, dating back to the second half of the 9th century, counts 318 cities among the Streets, and 148 cities among the Tiverts. The existence of cities among these tribes proves that their life was communal. But how developed it was among them, how each city was structured, we do not know in detail. Nestor only says that they were strong, so Oleg could not conquer them, although he fought with them for 10 years. Igor fought a war with them with great difficulty; his troops stood near one of their cities, Peresechny, for about three years. But it is not known whether these tribes were conquered by him, all that is known is that they paid tribute to Igor.
Dulebs or Buzhans (“zane sedosha along the Bug”) and Volynians lived along the river. Bugu in the north from the streets and Tivertsi. We have little information about their internal structure. According to Nestor, these tribes moved very early and in the middle of the 7th century were conquered by the Avars, who treated the conquered too harshly. To the north of the Dulebs and Volynians lived the wild Lithuanians and the even wilder warlike Yotvingians, a tribe which, despite all efforts to subdue it, survived for about 500 years. The proximity to these tribes, of course, forced the Dulebs and Volynians to live in nothing other than societies and have cities. Thus, we have, albeit indirectly, an indication in the chronicle that the Dulebs and Volynians lived in communities, but besides this we have another historical evidence - the myths that we find in the epics of St. Vladimir. In them, the Ulichi and Volynians are presented as extremely rich people. Further, in these myths there are indications of the internal structure of these tribes; From this region, Vladimir St. had two heroes who had a special character from other heroes - these were Dyuk Stepanovich and Churilo Plenkovich. Churilo Plenkovich, a handsome young man, accompanied by a rich squad, goes to Kyiv to Vladimir, who receives him very affectionately and asks him who he is. “I am the son,” says Churilo, “of old Plen from Volyn; my father asks you to accept me into your service.” Vladimir accepted him, but after a while he decided to visit old Captivity himself. Here he finds a magnificent dwelling, surrounded by huge buildings; Everywhere one could see amazing wealth and splendor. There is another legend about Duke Stepanovich. The Galician Duke, after the death of his father, came to serve Vladimir with a magnificent retinue and boasted of his wealth so that everyone was amazed. At a dinner with Vladimir, he sharply spoke out against the poverty of the people of Kiev. The irritated prince sent an envoy to find out about Duke's wealth. The messenger, returning, said that Duke’s wealth was truly immense: “to rewrite it, you need two cartloads of pens and ink, and who knows how much paper.” But neither Duke Stepanovich nor Churilo Plenkovich are called princes anywhere. Therefore, the Ulichs, Tiverts, Dulebs and Volynians did not have princes, but some rich people lived here, on whom the other residents were completely dependent.
To the east of the Dulebs and to the northeast of the Tivertsi lived the Drevlyans, who were adjacent to the glades at the headwaters of the Irsha and Teterev. Nestor preserved several precious news about the social structure in this tribe when describing the war of the Drevlyans with Igor and Olga. From this news it is clear that the head of the Drevlyan tribe was the prince, he was the main trustee of the entire land, he grazed the village land, as the chronicle puts it, tried to spread it, about order and decoration the whole country. But together with the prince, the best men, whom Nestor directly calls holding the land, also participated in the administration; Thus, when describing the secondary embassy of the Drevlyans to Olga, he says: “The Drevlyans chose the best men who held the village land.” It is remarkable that the chronicler calls these holders of the Drevlyan land the best men, and not elders, a clear sign of a community life in strong development. Further, together with the prince and the best men, the entire tribe of the Drevlyans participated in the administration. So the chronicler, describing Igor’s second attack on the Drevlyan land, says: “The Drevlyans, having decided with their Prince Mal, sent to Igor saying: why are you coming again.” Or the Drevlyan embassy says to Olga: “We have sent the village land.” Here the community appears in all its development; the ambassadors directly say that they were sent from the entire village land, and not from the prince or elders; therefore, the village land constituted something whole, a community, moral personality. The social structure of the Drevlyans is completely identical with the social structure of the Serbs, as it appears from Dushanov’s Law Book and other ancient monuments. The Serbs, like the Drevlyans, had their own prince or zhupan, their own rulers or the best people, holding the land, as they are exactly called in Serbian monuments, as well as their popular assemblies or veches, called cathedrals. And the Serbian communal structure, according to last word science, is recognized as communal or, as the Serbs call it, optina, obkina (Dr. Krstic). Consequently, it is clear that the Drevlyan structure, described by Nestor, was communal. Another note regarding the best people. The best people cannot be seen as ancestors or elders, but only land owners, like the Volostels among the Serbs. The existence of private property serves as the best proof that their life was not tribal, but communal. Among peoples living in a tribal way of life, the land belongs to the whole clan, and there cannot be private property. Such was the ownership of the land by the Germans. On the contrary, in communal life there are two types of ownership: communal, when the land belongs to the whole community, and its member only enjoys the income from the plot of land he occupies, without the right to sell, and private, belonging to one person as property (patrimony) and formed in this way : land in some place, for example, in a forest, remains uncultivated due to inconvenience and does not generate any income; to make it generate income, capital must be expended and one must have the power to protect it, which is impossible for a person of limited means. When land is owned in common, then one part protects it and the other cultivates it; but among the people of the community there may be strong, better people - they can occupy the land in the forest, cultivate it and protect it with wealth. Consequently, private land ownership can only exist in a community, and, moreover, one that is sufficiently developed.
To the east of the Drevlyans, right along the western bank of the Dnieper, lived the glades. Nestor left quite a lot of evidence about this tribe and its social structure. According to Nestor, the glades came from the Danube under the influence of clan life: at the initial settlement, they settled near the Dnieper along the Danube, scattered, each clan separately, in the mountains and in the forests, and were engaged in hunting, as Nestor directly says: “ A person living in the glade and ruling over his clans, and each living with his clan and in his own places, each owning his clan; and beat the catching beast.” But a foreign land soon forced the glades to renounce their ancestral life. Among them, one clan soon grew stronger, with its settlements directly adjacent to the Dnieper, and the oldest representatives of this clan, the brothers Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv, became the main leaders, princes of all the Polyana clans, and built the first city of Kyiv in this region. After the death of Kiy and his brothers, the power acquired by them passed to their clan: “... and to this day the brothers, according to Nestor, increased their clan to reign in the Fields.” Thus, even in the first generations of the Danube settlers, the Polyansky clans were united into one whole, and at the same time their original clan structure suffered a strong change. And when the descendants of Kiya, who ruled the glades, died out, the communal principles in this tribe received full development - the glades had already begun to be governed by the veche; so that Nestor already compares them with the Novgorodians: “The Novgorodians and the Smolnyans, and the Kiyans, and all the authorities, as if they were converging on a council at a meeting, whatever the elders decide, the suburbs will become the same.” Thus, with the suppression of Kyiv's descendants, the entire tribe of the Polyans formed a union of communities, and the former clan eldership turned into a new eldership - a communal one, based as much on eldership as on power and wealth; The eldest became not the clan and not its representative - the ancestor, but the city, which served as the first basis of the community, and the youngest were its settlements and suburbs. Clan life here has decisively lost its former significance, society has taken a completely different path, its benefits are completely at odds with the benefits of the clan. The clan demanded separation and removal from others, and society sought communication and unification into one whole and found it in the subordination of the suburbs to the older city. Among the glades, the representative and leader of the whole tribe became not the ancestor, but the eldest city in that region - Kyiv; There is no mention of clans, as representatives of tribal life, in the entire subsequent history of the Polyansky tribe. The first news about the communal structure of the glades, attested by history, we encounter during the attack of Kozar. Nestor says: “Most of all Kozare, who sits on these mountains, Iresha Kozari: “pay us tribute.” I thought of the clearing and gave away my sword from the smoke.” Here is the first Kiev veche known to us. We meet the second veche during the invasion of Askold and Dir.
Under the communal structure, the glades began to strengthen, which was greatly facilitated by the benefits of the area they occupied during the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The glades became representatives of communal life, the principles of which began to penetrate into their family life. The very structure of the family in the Polyans was special. Marriage was determined by a contract, which determined the amount of dowry for the bride, and the contract determined the child of the community. Family relations among the Polyans were particularly strict and orderly: “For the Polyans, the custom is that their father is meek and quiet, and he is ashamed of his daughters-in-law, and sisters, and brothers-in-law, of great shame in name; Marriage customs are: a son-in-law does not want to marry a bride, but I spend the evening, and in the morning I bring her what I have given.” The religion of the Polyans itself was influenced by the communal structure. According to Procopius, the Slavs on the Danube did not change ancient customs and strictly observed them, while the Polans, having moved, changed their religion. Initially, their religion consisted of worshiping lakes, rivers, forests, mountains, but later we see other gods among them - Perun, Stribog, Volos, etc., which they borrowed from the Lithuanians and Finnish tribes. This borrowing of foreign gods, unthinkable in tribal life, serves as irrefutable proof that the Slavic tribe moved from alienation and isolation to community on the broadest scale.
To the east of the glades, on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, lived the northerners. This tribe, according to Nestor, was made up of deportees who came from the Krivichi; Nestor calls the Krivichians the deportees of Polotsk, and produces Polotsk residents from the Ilmen Slavs or Novgorodians. Thus, the northerners belonged to the same generation with the Novgorodians, Polochans and Krivichi and were colonists of the Ilmen colonists, which, in addition to the testimony of Nestor, is proved by the very name of the northerners, i.e. newcomers from the north. This is news
- the origin of the northerners indicates their communal structure, for the communal colonists could not be non-communalists; In addition, we do not have any news that the northerners had princes in ancient times, and this further indicates a communal structure in this tribe, for in the princes, although it is not always true, one could still assume the ancestors. The communal structure of the northerners is indicated by a number of northern cities from Lyubech to Pereyaslavl, already known to the Byzantines for their trade in the 10th century, as clearly evidenced by Konstantin Porphyrorodny, who says that every year boats from Lyubech and Chernigov converge at Kiev to depart for Constantinople. In addition to Constantinople, the northerners also carried on extensive trade with Kasaria and Kama
Nestor gives us some information about the life and morals of the northerners. So he says that they had the custom of gathering for games that took place between their villages, to which men and women gathered: “I gather for games, for dancing, and for all the demonic games, and for stealing my wife, whoever conferred with her " The existence of such a custom leads us to assume that the life of the northerners was communal: they do not need each other, they do not live in isolation, as they usually live in a tribal way of life. The approval of marriage contracts for them also has the character of communal life: the bride was given to the groom in the presence of a large meeting of the people, however, not without prior consent between them. This custom has been preserved in general outline and to this day in the provinces: Kursk, Oryol and some districts of Chernigov. Weddings took place at general gatherings on the occasion of some special holiday or at a fair, and if the groom announced his bride, then she was considered his real bride and the groom was no longer able to refuse her. In addition to evidence of marriage customs among the northerners, Nestor also reports funeral rites. In these rituals the influence of communal life is also noticeable. Just as publicity is required when entering into a marriage or joining a family, just as publicity is required when leaving the family, i.e. upon the death of any of its members. The funeral consisted of burning the dead man, and his ashes, collected in some kind of vessel, placed in places where several roads intersected, after which a funeral feast was performed: “If anyone dies, I perform a feast over him, and for this deed I place a great funeral feast.” and put the dead man’s treasure on the treasure, burn it, and then, having collected the bones, put it in a small vessel and put it on a pillar on the way.” Trizna is a community, not a tribal rite; Games were held there in honor of the deceased, and in addition to his relatives and friends, everyone could be present. The third part of the property left after the deceased was allocated for this funeral.
The same tribesmen and ancestors of the northerners - the Krivichi, who, as we have already seen, belonged to the same generation with the Novgorodians, according to Nestor, lived along the upper reaches of the Dnieper, Western Dvina and Volga. This tribe was one of the most numerous and occupied a country, although not rich in earthly products, but with an advantageous location: the Dnieper showed the Krivichi the way to Constantinople, the Western Dvina and Neman opened the way for them to the Baltic Sea and Western Europe, and the Volga opened the gates to Kama Bulgaria and Chozaria . The Krivichi were not slow to take advantage of the benefits of their location; Emperor Konstantin Porfirorodny, a writer of the 10th century, testifies to the trade of the Krivichi with Byzantium: according to him, merchant boats from Smolensk annually came to Constantinople in the month of June or around this time; in the north, the Krivichi traded with the Novgorodians in Kholma and with the Chud in Izborsk, from where Lake Peipsi and Narva reached the Baltic Sea; in the east along the Volga, the Krivichi apparently traded with Kama Bulgaria and Kazaria, for, according to the testimony of Ibn-Fotslan, under the name of the Slavic merchants who came to Itil and lived there in a special settlement called Khazeran, one should mean no other Slavs, like the Novgorodians and Krivichi, who came to Bulgaria and Khozaria along the Volga from the north-west. But it seems that the predominant trading activity of the Krivichi was directed towards the Lithuanian country, where they had no rivals for their trade and where, through the Neman, they could have communication with the Baltic Sea. The close and active relations of the Krivichs with the Lithuanians and in general with the Latvian tribes are indicated by the habit of Latvians that has survived to this day to call all Russians Krivichs, and the Russian land - Krivsky land. Nestor testifies about the communal structure of the Krivichi or Smolnyans in their main city; he says that the Smolnyans, like the Novgorodians, were governed in ancient times by the veche and that the veche of the older city of Smolensk was the leader of all the Krivich suburbs.
Polotsk residents, fellow tribesmen and ancestors of the Krivichi, lived along the Polota and Western Dvina rivers; their oldest city, Polotsk, was located at the confluence of the Polota and the Dvina, then along the Dvina their villages reached almost its mouth in the Baltic Sea, for, according to the Livonian chronicle, there were the Polotsk cities of Kukeinos and Bersik. Further, to the south of the Dvina, through the land of Lithuania, the settlements of Polotsk reached the Neman and beyond the Neman to the southwest, perhaps to the Bug and the Vistula, as hinted at by the purely Polotsk names of the Diena and Narev rivers, and the cities of Poltovesk or Pultusk. The same deepening of Polochans into the lands of Lithuania and Latvian is also indicated by Nestor’s testimony that the non-Slavic tribes there: Lithuania, Zimgola, Kors and Lib paid tribute to Rus'; and the entire subsequent history of Lithuania clearly shows that the Polotsk people have long been the dominant people in Lithuania and were in close relations with the Lithuanian and Latvian tribes, so there is no doubt that most of the cities of the Lithuanian land, and precisely the oldest of them, were built by the Polotsk people and Krivichs, who gradually colonized this region with Slavic settlements, just as the Novgorodians colonized the lands of Chud, Meri and Vesi. We have two testimonies from Nestor about the social structure of the Polotsk residents: in the first, he calls the Polotsk land a reign, therefore, he recognizes the Polotsk residents as princes, and in the second he says that the Polotsk residents, as if they come to a Duma at a veche, and whatever the elders decide on, that’s what the suburbs will become; the same is confirmed by Bykhovets in the Lithuanian chronicle; in his words: “the Polovtsy men celebrated like the great Novgorod.” From the evidence of Nestor and Bykhovets it is clear that the social structure of the Polotsk people was communal, identical with the structure of the Drevlyans and Serbs. As for the trade of Polotsk residents, in all likelihood, it was directed along the Western Dvina to the Baltic Sea, where the Polotsk residents were masters right up to the sea shore, as can be concluded from the fact that, according to the Livonian chronicles, the Germans for the initial settlement on this shore asked the consent of the Polotsk princes. The Western Dvina was one of the main trade roads along which the Russian Slavs since ancient times traded with Western Europe; Nestor points to it as one of the oldest routes of communication with the West. We have no news, not even hints, about the eastern and Greek trade of Polotsk residents. In all likelihood, the Polotsk residents did not go to trade either in Constantinople, or in Bulgaria, or in Kozaria, for the roads to these countries lay in the possession of the Krivichi, Novgorodians, Polyans and Northerners, with whom the Polotsk residents exchanged goods received from the West. SLAVIC TRIBES IN Rus'
Slavic tribes
Vyatichi is a union of East Slavic tribes that lived in the second half of the first millennium AD. e. in the upper and middle reaches of the Oka. The name Vyatichi presumably comes from the name of the ancestor of the tribe, Vyatko. However, some associate the origin of this name with the morpheme “ven” and the Veneds (or Venets/Vents) (the name “Vyatichi” was pronounced “Ventici”).
In the middle of the 10th century, Svyatoslav annexed the lands of the Vyatichi to Kievan Rus, but until the end of the 11th century these tribes retained a certain political independence; campaigns against the Vyatichi princes of this time are mentioned.
Since the 12th century, the territory of the Vyatichi became part of the Chernigov, Rostov-Suzdal and Ryazan principalities. Until the end of the 13th century, the Vyatichi preserved many pagan rituals and traditions, in particular, they cremated the dead, erecting small mounds over the burial site. After Christianity took root among the Vyatichi, the ritual of cremation gradually fell out of use.
The Vyatichi retained their tribal name longer than other Slavs. They lived without princes, the social structure was characterized by self-government and democracy. The last time the Vyatichi were mentioned in the chronicle under such a tribal name was in 1197.
Buzhans (Volynians) - tribe Eastern Slavs, which lived in the basin of the upper reaches of the Western Bug (from which they got their name); Since the end of the 11th century, the Buzhans have been called Volynians (from the area of Volyn).
The Volynians are an East Slavic tribe or tribal union mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years and in the Bavarian chronicles. According to the latter, the Volynians owned seventy fortresses at the end of the 10th century. Some historians believe that the Volynians and Buzhans are descendants of the Dulebs. Their main cities were Volyn and Vladimir-Volynsky. Archaeological research indicates that the Volynians developed agriculture and numerous crafts, including forging, casting and pottery.
In 981, the Volynians were subjugated by the Kyiv prince Vladimir I and became part of Kievan Rus. Later, the Galician-Volyn principality was formed on the territory of the Volynians.
The Drevlyans are one of the tribes of the Russian Slavs, they lived in Pripyat, Goryn, Sluch and Teterev.
The name Drevlyans, according to the chronicler's explanation, was given to them because they lived in forests.
From archaeological excavations in the country of the Drevlians, we can conclude that they had a well-known culture. A well-established burial ritual testifies to the existence of certain religious ideas about the afterlife: the absence of weapons in the graves testifies to the peaceful nature of the tribe; finds of sickles, shards and vessels, iron products, remains of fabrics and leather indicate the existence of arable farming, pottery, blacksmithing, weaving and tanning among the Drevlyans; many bones of domestic animals and spurs indicate cattle breeding and horse breeding; many items made of silver, bronze, glass and carnelian, of foreign origin, indicate the existence of trade, and the absence of coins gives reason to conclude that trade was barter.
The political center of the Drevlyans in the era of their independence was the city of Iskorosten; in later times, this center, apparently, moved to the city of Vruchy (Ovruch)
Dregovichi - an East Slavic tribal union that lived between Pripyat and the Western Dvina.
Most likely the name comes from the Old Russian word dregva or dryagva, which means “swamp”.
Under the name of the Druguvites (Greek δρονγονβίται), the Dregovichi were already known to Constantine the Porphyrogenitus as a tribe subordinate to Rus'. Being away from the “Road from the Varangians to the Greeks,” the Dregovichi did not play a prominent role in the history of Ancient Rus'. The chronicle only mentions that the Dregovichi once had their own reign. The capital of the principality was the city of Turov. The subordination of the Dregovichi to the Kyiv princes probably occurred very early. The Principality of Turov was subsequently formed on the territory of the Dregovichi, and the northwestern lands became part of the Principality of Polotsk.
Duleby (not Duleby) - a union of East Slavic tribes on the territory of Western Volyn in the 6th - early 10th centuries. In the 7th century they were subjected to an Avar invasion (obry). In 907 they took part in Oleg’s campaign against Constantinople. They broke up into tribes of Volynians and Buzhanians and in the middle of the 10th century they finally lost their independence, becoming part of Kievan Rus.
The Krivichi are a large East Slavic tribe (tribal association), which in the 6th-10th centuries occupied the upper reaches of the Volga, Dnieper and Western Dvina, the southern part of the Lake Peipsi basin and part of the Neman basin. Sometimes the Ilmen Slavs are also considered to be Krivichi.
The Krivichi were probably the first Slavic tribe to move from the Carpathian region to the northeast. Limited in their distribution to the northwest and west, where they met stable Lithuanian and Finnish tribes, the Krivichi spread to the northeast, assimilating with the living Tamfinns.
Having settled on the great waterway from Scandinavia to Byzantium (the route from the Varangians to the Greeks), the Krivichi took part in trade with Greece; Konstantin Porphyrogenitus says that the Krivichi make boats on which the Rus go to Constantinople. Participated in the campaigns of Oleg and Igor against the Greeks as a subordinate tribe to the prince of Kyiv; Oleg's agreement mentions their city of Polotsk.
Already in the era of the formation of the Russian state, the Krivichi had political centers: Izborsk, Polotsk and Smolensk.
It is believed that the last tribal prince of the Krivichs, Rogvolod, together with his sons, was killed in 980 by the Novgorod prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. In the Ipatiev list, the Krivichi were mentioned for the last time in 1128, and the Polotsk princes were called Krivichi in 1140 and 1162. After this, the Krivichi were no longer mentioned in the East Slavic chronicles. However, the tribal name Krivichi was used for quite a long time in foreign sources (up to late XVII century). The word krievs entered the Latvian language to designate Russians in general, and the word Krievija to designate Russia.
The southwestern, Polotsk branch of the Krivichi is also called Polotsk. Together with the Dregovichi, Radimichi and some Baltic tribes, this branch of the Krivichi formed the basis of the Belarusian ethnic group.
The northeastern branch of the Krivichi, settled mainly in the territory of modern Tver, Yaroslavl and Kostroma regions, was in close contact with Finno-Ugric tribes.
The border between the settlement territory of the Krivichi and the Novgorod Slovenes is determined archaeologically by the types of burials: long mounds among the Krivichi and hills among the Slovenes.
The Polochans are an East Slavic tribe that inhabited the lands in the middle reaches of the Western Dvina in today's Belarus in the 9th century.
Polotsk residents are mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, which explains their name as living near the Polota River, one of the tributaries of the Western Dvina. In addition, the chronicle claims that the Krivichi were descendants of the Polotsk people. The lands of the Polotsk people extended from Svisloch along the Berezina to the lands of the Dregovichi. The Polotsk people were one of the tribes from which the Principality of Polotsk was later formed. They are one of the founders of the modern Belarusian people.
Polyane (Poly) is the name of a Slavic tribe, during the era of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, who settled along the middle reaches of the Dnieper, on its right bank.
Judging by the chronicles and the latest archaeological research, the territory of the land of the glades before the Christian era was limited by the flow of the Dnieper, Ros and Irpen; in the north-east it was adjacent to the village land, in the west - to the southern settlements of the Dregovichi, in the south-west - to the Tivertsy, in the south - to the streets.
Calling the Slavs who settled here the Polans, the chronicler adds: “Sedyahu was in the field.” The Polyans differed sharply from the neighboring Slavic tribes both in moral properties and in the forms of social life: “The Polans, for their father’s customs, are quiet and meek, and are ashamed of their daughters-in-law and to sisters and to their mothers... I have marriage customs.”
History finds the glades at a rather late stage political development: the social system is composed of two elements - communal and princely-squad, and the first is strongly suppressed by the latter. With the usual and most ancient occupations of the Slavs - hunting, fishing and beekeeping - cattle breeding, agriculture, "timber farming" and trade were more common among the Polyans than other Slavs. The latter was quite extensive not only with its Slavic neighbors, but also with foreigners in the West and East: from the coin hoards it is clear that trade with the East began in the 8th century, but ceased during the strife of the appanage princes.
At first, around the middle of the 8th century, the glades who paid tribute to the Khazars, thanks to their cultural and economic superiority, soon moved from a defensive position in relation to their neighbors to an offensive one; The Drevlyans, Dregovichs, northerners and others by the end of the 9th century were already subject to the glades. Christianity was established among them earlier than others. The center of the Polish (“Polish”) land was Kyiv; her others settlements—Vyshgorod, Belgorod on the Irpen River (now the village of Belogorodka), Zvenigorod, Trepol (now the village of Tripolye), Vasilyev (now Vasilkov) and others.
Zemlyapolyan with the city of Kiev became the center of the Rurikovich possessions in 882. The name of the polyans was mentioned for the last time in the chronicle in 944, on the occasion of Igor’s campaign against the Greeks, and was replaced, probably already at the end of the 10th century, by the name Rus (Ros) and Kiyane. The chronicler also calls the Slavic tribe on the Vistula, mentioned for the last time in the Ipatiev Chronicle in 1208, Polyana.
Radimichi is the name of the population that was part of the union of East Slavic tribes that lived in the area between the upper reaches of the Dnieper and Desna.
Around 885 the Radimichi became part of the Old Russian state, and in the 12th century they mastered most of the Chernigov and southern part of the Smolensk lands. The name comes from the name of the ancestor of the tribe, Radim.
The Northerners (more correctly, the North) are a tribe or tribal union of Eastern Slavs who inhabited the territories east of the middle reaches of the Dnieper, along the Desna and Seimi Sula rivers.
The origin of the name of the north is not fully understood. Most authors associate it with the name of the Savir tribe, which was part of the Hunnic association. According to another version, the name goes back to an obsolete ancient Slavic word meaning “relative”. The explanation from the Slavic siver, north, despite the similarity of sound, is considered extremely controversial, since the north has never been the most northern of the Slavic tribes.
Slovenes (Ilmen Slavs) are an East Slavic tribe that lived in the second half of the first millennium in the basin of Lake Ilmen and the upper reaches of the Mologa and made up the bulk of the population of Novgorod land.
Tivertsi are an East Slavic tribe that lived between the Dniester and Danube near the Black Sea coast. They were first mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years along with other East Slavic tribes of the 9th century. The main occupation of the Tiverts was agriculture. The Tiverts took part in the campaigns of Oleg against Constantinople in 907 and Igor in 944. In the middle of the 10th century, the lands of the Tiverts became part of Kievan Rus.
The descendants of the Tiverts became part of the Ukrainian people, and their western part underwent Romanization.
Ulichi is an East Slavic tribe that inhabited the lands along the lower reaches of the Dnieper, Southern Bug and the Black Sea coast during the 8th-10th centuries.
The capital of the streets was the city of Peresechen. In the first half of the 10th century, the Ulichi fought for independence from Kievan Rus, but were nevertheless forced to recognize its supremacy and become part of it. Later, the Ulichi and neighboring Tivertsy were pushed north by the arriving Pecheneg nomads, where they merged with the Volynians. The last mention of the streets dates back to the chronicle of the 970s.
Croats are an East Slavic tribe that lived in the vicinity of the city of Przemysl on the San River. They called themselves White Croats, in contrast to the tribe of the same name who lived in the Balkans. The name of the tribe is derived from the ancient Iranian word “shepherd, guardian of livestock,” which may indicate its main occupation - cattle breeding.
Bodrichi (Obodrity, Rarogi) - Polabian Slavs (lower Elbe) in the 8th-12th centuries. - union of Vagrs, Polabs, Glinyaks, Smolyans. Rarog (from the Danes Rerik) is the main city of the Bodrichis. Mecklenburg State in East Germany.
According to one version, Rurik is a Slav from the Bodrichi tribe, the grandson of Gostomysl, the son of his daughter Umila and the Bodrichi prince Godoslav (Godlav).
The Vistula are a Western Slavic tribe that lived at least since the 7th century in Lesser Poland. In the 9th century, the Vistula formed a tribal state with centers in Krakow, Sandomierz and Stradow. At the end of the century they were conquered by the king of Great Moravia Svyatopolk I and were forced to accept baptism. In the 10th century, the lands of the Vistula were conquered by the Polans and included in Poland.
The Zlicans (Czech Zličane, Polish Zliczanie) are one of the ancient Czech tribes. They inhabited the territory adjacent to the modern city of Kourzhim (Czech Republic). They served as the center of the formation of the Zlican Principality, which covered the beginning of the 10th century. Eastern and Southern Bohemia and the region of the Duleb tribe. The main city of the principality was Libice. The Libice princes Slavniki competed with Prague in the struggle for the unification of the Czech Republic. In 995, Zlicany was subordinated to the Přemyslids.
Lusatians, Lusatian Serbs, Sorbs (German Sorben), Vends are the indigenous Slavic population living in the territory of Lower and Upper Lusatia - regions that are part of modern Germany. The first settlements of Lusatian Serbs in these places were recorded in the 6th century AD. e.
The Lusatian language is divided into Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian.
The Brockhaus and Euphron Dictionary gives the definition: “Sorbs are the name of the Wends and the Polabian Slavs in general.” Slavic people inhabiting a number of regions in Germany, in the federal states of Brandenburg and Saxony.
The Russians were not the only people inhabiting Kievan Rus. Other, more ancient tribes were also “cooked” in the cauldron of the ancient Russian state: Chud, Merya, Muroma. They left early, but left a deep mark on Russian ethnicity, language and folklore.
Chud
“Whatever you call the boat, that’s how it will float.” The mysterious Chud people fully justify their name. The popular version says that the Slavs dubbed certain tribes Chudya, because their language seemed strange and unusual to them. In ancient Russian sources and folklore, there are many references to the “chud”, which “the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on.” They took part in Prince Oleg’s campaign against Smolensk, Yaroslav the Wise fought against them: “and defeated them and established the city of Yuryev,” legends were made about them as about the white-eyed miracle - an ancient people akin to European “fairies.” They left a huge mark on the toponymy of Russia; Lake Peipus, the Peipsi shore, and the villages: “Front Chudi”, “Middle Chudi”, “Back Chudi” are named after them. From the north-west of present-day Russia to the Altai mountains, their mysterious “wonderful” trace can still be traced.
For a long time it was customary to associate them with the Finno-Ugric peoples, since they were mentioned in places where representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples lived or still live. But the folklore of the latter also preserves legends about the mysterious ancient Chud people, whose representatives left their lands and went somewhere, not wanting to accept Christianity. There is especially a lot of talk about them in the Komi Republic. So they say that the ancient tract Vazhgort " Old village"in the Udora area was once a Chud settlement. From there they were allegedly driven out by Slavic newcomers.
In the Kama region you can learn a lot about the Chud: local residents describe their appearance (dark-haired and dark-skinned), language, and customs. They say that they lived in dugouts in the middle of the forests, where they buried themselves, refusing to submit to more successful invaders. There is even a legend that “the chud went underground”: they say they dug a large hole with earthen roof on pillars, and they brought her down, preferring death to captivity. But not a single popular belief or chronicle mention can answer the questions: what kind of tribes were they, where did they go and whether their descendants are still alive.
Some ethnographers attribute them to the Mansi peoples, others to representatives of the Komi people who chose to remain pagans. The boldest version, which appeared after the discovery of Arkaim and the “Land of Cities” of Sintashta, claims that the Chud are ancient arias. But for now one thing is clear, the Chud are one of the aborigines of ancient Rus' whom we have lost.
Merya
“Chud made a mistake, but Merya intended gates, roads and mileposts...” - these lines from a poem by Alexander Blok reflect the confusion of scientists of his time about two tribes that once lived next door to the Slavs. But, unlike the first, Mary had a “more transparent story.” This ancient Finno-Ugric tribe once lived in the territories of modern Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Tver, Vladimir and Kostroma regions of Russia. That is, in the very center of our country.
There are many references to them; merins are found in the Gothic historian Jordan, who in the 6th century called them tributaries of the Gothic king Germanaric. Like the Chud, they were in the troops of Prince Oleg when he went on campaigns against Smolensk, Kyiv and Lyubech, as recorded in the Tale of Bygone Years. True, according to some scientists, in particular Valentin Sedov, by that time ethnically they were no longer a Volga-Finnish tribe, but “half Slavs.” Final assimilation apparently occurred by the 16th century.
One of the largest peasant uprisings of Kievan Rus in 1024 is associated with the name of Merya. The reason was the great famine that gripped the Suzdal land. Moreover, according to the chronicles, it was preceded by “immense rains,” drought, premature frosts, and dry winds. For the Marys, most of whose representatives opposed Christianization, this obviously looked like “divine punishment.” The rebellion was led by the priests of the “old faith” - the Magi, who tried to use the chance to return to pre-Christian cults. However, it was unsuccessful. The rebellion was defeated by Yaroslav the Wise, the instigators were executed or sent into exile.
Despite the meager data that we know about the Merya people, scientists managed to restore their ancient language, which in Russian linguistics was called “Meryan”. It was reconstructed on the basis of the dialect of the Yaroslavl-Kostroma Volga region and the Finno-Ugric languages. A number of words were recovered thanks to geographical names. It turned out that the endings “-gda” in Central Russian toponymy: Vologda, Sudogda, Shogda are the heritage of the Meryan people.
Despite the fact that mentions of the Merya completely disappeared in sources back in the pre-Petrine era, today there are people who consider themselves to be their descendants. These are mainly residents of the Upper Volga region. They claim that the Meryans did not dissolve over the centuries, but formed the substrate (substratum) of the northern Great Russian people, switched to the Russian language, and their descendants call themselves Russians. However, there is no evidence of this.
Muroma
As the Tale of Bygone Years says: in 862 the Slovenes lived in Novgorod, the Krivichi in Polotsk, the Merya in Rostov, and the Murom in Murom. The chronicle, like the Merians, classifies the latter as non-Slavic peoples. Their name translates as “an elevated place by the water,” which corresponds to the position of the city of Murom, which for a long time was their center. Today, based on archaeological finds discovered in large burial grounds of the tribe (located between the left tributaries of the Oka, the Ushna, the Unzha and the right, the Tesha), it is almost impossible to determine which ethnic group they belonged to.
According to domestic archaeologists, they could be either another Finno-Ugric tribe or part of the Meri, or the Mordovians. Only one thing is known, they were friendly neighbors with a highly developed culture. Their weapons were of the best quality in the surrounding areas, and their jewelry, which was found in abundance in the burials, is distinguished by its inventiveness of form and careful workmanship.
Murom was characterized by arched head decorations woven from horsehair and strips of leather, which were spirally braided with bronze wire. Interestingly, there are no analogues among other Finno-Ugric tribes.
Sources show that the Slavic colonization of Murom was peaceful and occurred mainly through strong and economic trade ties. However, the result of this peaceful coexistence was that the Muroma were one of the very first assimilated tribes to disappear from the pages of history. TO XII century they are no longer mentioned in the chronicles.
Polishchuki
Polesia - a region located today on the territory of four states: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland - has a special role in the history of the Slavs. If you look at the map, Polesie will be right in the center of the Slavic world. Hence the idea of it as the ancestral home of the Slavs, as well as the hypothesis of the “Polesie Lake” - an impassable swampy barrier that separated the Slavs and the Balts, which allegedly violated their original unity.
Today, the idea of Polesie as the place where the Proto-Slavic ethnic group first arose is very popular. At least this may be true of its western regions. Soviet archaeologist Yuri Kukharenko called them a “bridge” along which the ancient migration of the Slavs took place from west to east, from Povislenye to the Dnieper region.
Today, these territories are inhabited by a completely unique East Slavic people, who are neither Russians, nor Ukrainians, nor Belarusians. Western Polishchuks or Tuteishes are a distinctive Slavic ethnic group: they differ from their neighbors not only in language and culture, but also in physical features.
According to researchers, they may be descendants of groups of Duleb tribes, known as "Buzhans" and "Volynians", who lived in this territory in the first millennium AD. Today they are divided conditionally into three groups, depending on the territory they inhabit: forest people living in villages on the outskirts of forests, bolotyuki - the most significant group, occupying swamp areas and field grasses living on the plains.
Despite the fact that today the number of Western Polishchuks has exceeded three million, no one has yet recognized their official status as a separate ethnic group.