1. Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe, Gumilev

Including what we must look for in this study, What will be necessary, our mode of study, what we need and what we must omit, and the meaning of terms. Origin of the Slavic people.

Gumilev jumps into his system rather quickly, for those not used to his methods and theories. Please stay with it, and it will surely “wash out” in the early beginning of this long book. Eurasia and Eastern Europe were inhabited by many peoples and tribes and all have been given names. The names in Russian are translated to English phonetically. There is no direct transliteration of Russian and English sounds. So I cannot vouch for the English version of tribal names. They come fast and furious. (Wouldn’t it be nice to have them all overlaid on a map?) What we are getting is the complexity of ancient life. I think it is impossible to absorb it all on the first go-around. It will become clearer as we progress.

I always be sure to include the footnotes of each section. I suggest following along with them. One way to do that is to open this same file on two tabs. Scroll one down to the footnotes and jump back and forth as you read. Thank you.

Statement of the Problem  - the THESIS

The principle of ethnogenesis - the extinction of momentum due to entropy,[2] or what is the same, the loss of the system's passionarity due to environmental, ethnic and natural resistance - does not exhaust the variety of historical-geographical collisions. Of course, if ethnoses, and even more so if their more complex constructions - super-ethnoses - live in their ecological niches - the host landscapes, the ethnogenesis curve reflects their development quite completely. But if there are large migrations connected with social, economic, political and ideological phenomena, and with different passionary tensions of ethnoses participating in the events, a special problem arises - a break or shift of direct (orthogenesis), changes the directions of ethnogenesis, which is always fraught with surprises, unpleasant as a rule, and sometimes tragic.

If at such collisions the ethnos does not disappear, the process is restored, but the exogenous influence always leaves scars on the ethnos body and the memory of the losses, often irreparable. Super-ethnic contacts give rise to violations of the pattern. They should be always considered as “zigzags”, (not the norm), the very presence of which is a necessary component of ethnogenesis, because nobody lives alone and the relations between neighbors are diverse.

When two systems interact, the problem is easily solved by opposing "we – and our enemies", but with three or more it is difficult to obtain a solution. Namely three ethno-cultural traditions collided in Eastern Europe in the IX-XI centuries, and only in the XII century the zigzag of history was overcome, after which the cultural flowering began with the passionate decline, i.e. the inertial phase of ethnogenesis. This is a unique variant of ethnic history, and that is why it is of interest in a number of aspects, which will be discussed below.

The evolutionary theory of Darwin and Lamarck was proposed to explain speciation, while ethnogenesis is an intraspecific and specific process. That is why it is wrong to apply the principles of evolution to ethnic phenomena.

Ethnic processes are discrete (discontinuous) and the exceptions to this rule - persistents (solid, stable) - do not prolong their life, but stop it, as Faust stopped the moment; but that's where Mephistopheles clawed him! So, for the dynamic ethnos such solution to the problem of immortality is contraindicated.

For the relic ethnic group as a persistent ethnic group there are three possible ways except complete isolation:

1) to wait until its neighbors exterminate it (elimination);

2) to integrate into the living super-ethnos during the phase change and consolidate in it (incorporation);

3) to scatter apart (dispersion).

All three variants can be traced in just one century, the 12th century. This century is like an intermission between the breakdown of the world of Islam, the reanimation of Byzantium and the childish rampage of "Christian" Europe, magnificently called the "Crusades". Here it is easy to trace variations in the relationship between Russia and the Steppe. It was dealt with by the most remarkable historians of the 18th-19th centuries, and therefore one should be familiar with their ideas, but of course from the standpoint of ethnology, because this new science has already shown what it can do. And the main thesis of ethnology is dialectical: a new ethnos, young and creative, arises suddenly, breaking the dilapidated culture and the soulless, i.e. having lost the ability to create, life of old ethnoses, be they relicts or simply obscurants.  In thunder and storm it claims its place under the sun, in blood and suffering it finds its ideal of beauty and wisdom, and then, growing old, it collects the remains of antiquities, once destroyed by it.

This is called rebirth, though it would be more correct to say "degeneration. And if the new shock does not shake up the decrepit ethnic groups, they are in danger of turning into relics. But shocks are repeated, though haphazardly, and mankind exists in its diversity. This is what our conversation with the reader will be about.

Both the author and probably the reader are interested in the history of Ancient Rus', which, in the opinion of the chronicler, emerged as a definite entity only in the middle of the ninth century [3]. And what was there before that? Who surrounded this newborn ethnic system? Who was a friend, and who was an enemy? Why is there nowhere to read about it, although the sources tell us about the Khazars and Vikings, and even about the Western Slavs, Turks and Mongols? In the books there is a simple enumeration of events, including the unreliable. They are summarized in a synchronistic table proposed below, but the connections between these events required additional critical analysis and the choice of a point of reference.

The most favorable point for a broad overview was the lower Volga, and the problem came down to the question: why did Kievan Rus, which experienced countless troubles, not die, but won, leaving the descendants with magnificent art and brilliant literature? In order to find the answer, it is worth trying. But we must not forget that it is easier to hit a big target than a small one. So let us consider our subject against the backdrop of the vast region between Western Europe and China, for only such an approach will help us meet our task.

KHAZARIA AND OYKUMEN BEFORE 800.

Let us begin with a brief reminder of the initial situation against which the process under study began. The easiest to perceive is the review of the oikumene at the level of super-ethnoses, taking into account the age phases of undisturbed ethnogenesis[4]. With the exception of numerous relics, including the Khazars themselves, the oldest were the nomads of the Great Steppe, the descendants of the Huns and Sarmatians, whose ethnic systems were formed in the 3rd century BC. In 800 BC they had three Khaganates: Uigur in the east of the Steppe, Avar in the west, and Khazar in the Volga and Northern Caucasus. Only in that last one the Turkic Ashin dynasty ruled, the others had already entered a phase of obscuration, replacing the original steppe culture with borrowed worldviews, and both Khaganates, despite their outward brilliance, were on the verge of death.

The passional push of the first century gave rise to Byzantium, the Great Migration of Peoples and Slavic unity by the middle of the second century. In the 9th century, these three phenomena were at the boundary of the phase of fracture and the inertial phase of ethnogenesis. The Byzantine Empire, created by Charlemagne in 800, faced an unavoidable fate - in its depths, as in neighboring Scandinavia and Asturias, there was an incubation period of a new passionary explosion, which in the next IX-X centuries broke the iron hoop of the Carolingian Empire and conceived a feudal-papist Europe, which proudly called itself, and only itself, "the Christian world".

The most active were the super-ethnoses that emerged around 500 in the band stretching from Arabia to Japan: the Muslim Caliphate, from which Muslim Spain had already broken away; Rajput India; Tibet, which had transformed itself from a small tribe of the Bothes into a contender for hegemony in Central Asia; the Tang Empire, already broken by external failures and internal turmoil; and Japan, which had suddenly taken the path of reform, which brought it much grief.

These super-ethnoses were in the acmatic phase of ethnogenesis. Passionarity was tearing them to pieces, breaking cultural traditions, throwing them into order and, in the end, breaking through the shackles of the social and political structure, it spread into sectarian movements, destructive as steppe fires. But this was still a prospect, and in 800 the Abbasid caliphate, the Tibetan kingdom and the Tang empire were standing so firmly that they seemed eternal to contemporaries. The usual aberration of proximity characteristic of the philistine perception of the world--the modern is seen as permanent.

But despite the diversity of ages, host landscapes, cultural types, and with the variability of political forms of feudalism, there was something common between all the listed ethnoses, and even relics: they all appeared due to explosions of passionarity in certain geographical regions, to which their ancestors, the ethnic substrata, were already adapted. Consequently, their migrations were of the nature of settling in similar landscape conditions, habitual and suitable for farming by traditional methods. The exceptions were some Germanic ethnic groups: Goths, Vandals, Rugians, and Lombards.

Thus they perished as ethnic systems, and their descendants merged with the aborigines of Spain, Italy and Provence. The ethnoses of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons expanded into their familiar landscape and survived.

Due to this geographical regularity in the 1st millennium A.D. the role of ethnic chimeras, which if they emerged in the frontier areas, for example in the 4th-5th centuries in China,[5] was almost unstable and short-lived, was almost invisible. But even here there was an exception to the rule: the ethnos that mastered the anthropogenic landscape together with its aborigines became independent from the natural landscapes and received a wide possibility of spreading. For this ethnos, the whole oikumen became its areal, and its contacts with the local inhabitants became chimerical rather than symbiotic. Let us see (staying within the Caspian Sea vicinity) how such systems emerged and what this led to for aborigines and for migrants. This will be necessary and sufficient for the task at hand.

However, the history of culture in the territory of Eastern Europe in the 1st millennium has been studied very incompletely. Traces of it have disappeared, but this is a reason to put the problem this way: a cultural area always has a center, as if a capital, to which hegemony belongs. Ancient Russia intercepted the hegemony of the Khazar Kaganate in the X century. Consequently, before the X century, the hegemony belonged to the Khazars, and the history of ancient Russia was preceded by the history of Khazaria. But the history of Khazaria had two sides: local and global, brought from the Middle East by Jewish immigrants. Without taking into account the factor of international trade, the history of not only Khazaria, but of the whole world is incomprehensible.

Since the conclusions we come to are quite different from the traditional, based on the chronicles, it is necessary to explain to the reader why the author has the right to distrust the sources. And what is the difference between ethnic history and socio-political and cultural-ideological history, will be clear from the text and the nature of the presentation.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR AND HOW TO LOOK FOR IT?

The task we set is both promising and extremely complex. On the one hand, in Southeastern Europe the influence of many super-ethnoses intertwined: the Eurasian Turks - the heirs of the Great Kaganate epoch, [6] Byzantium, the Muslim world of the Caliphate epoch and the "Christian world" which had just formed into a super-ethnic unity.  No less important were the relics of the Great Migration of the peoples of Asia - the indomitable Ugrians, the warlike Cumans (a branch of the Dinlins). But in the first place stood Ancient Rus, which closed its borders with the Great Steppe. To capture and describe the nature of the relationship between these ethnic groups in the same territory and during the same era is to solve the problem of ethnic contact by making empirical generalizations.

But on the other hand, the history of the Khazars was written more than once and remained incomprehensible because of the diversity of multilingual sources, which are extremely difficult to bring together into a consistent version. The same can be said about archaeological findings, including those made by the author. Without additional data, they do not clarify the problem.

Finally, there is no general opinion about the significance of ethnic contacts for the history of culture. Some believe that any contact and mestizatsiya is a good thing, others argue that it is doom, others believe that the mixing of peoples does not matter for their fate at all. But, most importantly, no one has presented sufficiently compelling arguments in their favor or refutations of other points of view.

We take the fourth view: mixtures of anything-gases, wines, people, - cannot be like the primary ingredients, but the consequences of mixtures of ethnoses are always varied, for they depend on a number of circumstances:

1.          The nature of the interaction of either ethnos with the surrounding geographical environment, for this determines the modes of economy, which produce either symbiosis or rivalry.

2.         The ratio of the phases of ethnogenesis of both components, (rising or falling). The phases may or may not coincide, and in the latter case the more passionate ethnos presses on its neighbor regardless of the personal wishes of its individual representatives, even against their will.

3.         Complementarity, which manifests itself in the combination of cultural and psychological dominants, which can be positive or negative. The sign of complementarity manifests itself in unaccountable sympathy or antipathy at the population level.

4.         Prospects of contact, because it can lead either to the assimilation of one ethnic group by another, or to elimination, or, more simply, to the extermination of one ethnic group by another, or to the merger of two ethnic groups into a single third one, which is the birth of ethnic groups.

In short, the solution of the posed problem demands not only geography, but also history, i.e. the description of events in their connection and sequence at that level, which in this case is optimum. And to find this level is necessary.

NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT

It is said, and rightly so, that it is impossible to write everything you know in one book. And it is not necessary for the reader who is not going to outdo the author in erudition, but wants to get an idea of the subject of research.

So, the author must sacrifice something, and the most expedient - not to write what "the Germans will write anyway" (as Timofeev-Ressovsky put it), i.e., bibliography and history. Indeed, a bibliography on the Khazars compiled by the Slavic Department of the New York Public Library was published in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library. 42 (N.Y., 1938. P. 695-710), followed by Moravcsik's book (Moravcsik G. Byzantinoturcica. 1. Berlin, 1958), not including some other publications [7]. Why should one repeat a perfectly done work? What is needed?

It is considered, that on a question arisen at the reader there should be an answer in sources and researches. But it is not there! The answer is not contained in the essays themselves, but somewhere in between, and the solution derives from broad comparisons of facts and phenomena.

Consequently, the kind of history we need can be written not from the sources, but from facts layered on top of the sources. This is possible because enough such facts have accumulated. It would seem that the task is simple. The political history of Khazaria is short - 650-965 years, territorially limited, and the connections with its neighbors are clearly traceable. Literature of the question is immense, but, fortunately for us, it has lost importance after the appearance of a consolidated work of M.I. Artamonov "History of the Khazars". This book contains almost all material we need on the political history of the Khazar Kaganate, but poorly highlights the Khazar paleogeography and paleoethnography, and also leaves unresolved a number of problems, which we only partially compensated for while editing his book, in the footnotes and subsequent publications. (Gumilev edited Artamonov’s book)

M.I. Artamonov's book is a history of events, shedding bright and clear white light on the problem.  But it is known that this light, refracted in the focus of the lens, splits into a multicolored spectrum, and this is what is needed to analyze the phenomenon. The red beam of social progressive development, the yellow light with an orange golden hue - cultural tradition, the blue-green tones - the impact of climatic changes of the eternally fluctuating air ocean and the whitish ultraviolet of passionary tension, invisible, but burning the skin. - All this diversity is accessible only to a modern scientist who combines natural history with history and sociology.

For the ethnologist, the history of events is a necessary springboard, the starting point of study. This history poses the questions "how?" but not "why?" or "could it have been otherwise? And it is these questions that worry readers of the twentieth century. Therefore, further development of M.I. Artamonov's ideas and topics does not diminish the importance of his work, but, on the contrary, gives his contribution to science a new life.

In 1959-1963, Khazar burials and graves of Khazar neighbors were discovered in the Volga delta [8]. Then it was possible to establish the nature of climatic fluctuations in the steppe zone of Eurasia and the dates of transgressions of the Caspian Sea, which greatly influenced the fate of the Volga Khazars [9] Physical geography has contributed to history.

[The Caspian is a land locked sea. The northern coast has a gentle slope such that a couple meters of water level invades the shore line for kilometers. During the period, the Caspian water level raised about 20 meters, which totally drowned the living space of Khazaria.]

But all this was not enough for a coherent explanation of the greatness and the fall of the Khazars. It required the use of ethnological methodology and a few additional studies to interpret the ethnic history of the Khazars and neighboring countries briefly and clearly, with a minimum of detail.

Boundaries are spatial, temporal, and causal. Since the treatise "Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth" showed that ethnic history is not a random collection of information, "without beginning and end" (A.Blok), and not just "anecdotes of bygone days" (A. Pushkin), but a strict chain of cause and effect relationships, with a beginning and an end, interwoven with each other, so to hit the target, we must consider the past of the process, its surroundings in the study period and the overall panorama after the fifth act of the tragedy. Yes, exactly tragedy, for each "end" is the demise of that to which the historical narrative was devoted.

Therefore, the author asks the reader to get acquainted with the history of the Lower Volga region [10] and adds to this book here a preface excursion about the ethnic group that invaded the expanses of the Great Steppe, due to which a zigzag history arose, which could not be, if events in the Middle East in the 1st millennium AD had occurred even a little differently.

There is a belief among historians that whatever happened could not have not happened, no matter how insignificant the event was in scale. This opinion is nowhere proven, is essentially prejudiced, and is therefore not necessary for either the reader or the thinker. Of course, the laws of nature and social development cannot be changed arbitrarily, but the actions of individual persons are not contemplated by the world order, even if they entail significant consequences. Another thing is that they are mutually compensated in the processes of global, regional and epochal, but the zigzags formed by these actions give the degree of approximation that is necessary to clarify the phenomenon being described. That is why the consideration of details for ethnic history is not a hindrance, although not an end in itself.

MODE OF STUDY

Ethnological research, unlike historical research based on sources, is based on the sum of reliable facts drawn from monographs, where sources have been verified through historical criticism. But if new material is attracted, or old material requires revision, or little known information from related fields, related to our subject is taken into account, the research is carried out by traditional methodology and reflected in footnotes.

Failure to observe this condition has made our work difficult to read because of an overload of trivialities that distract the reader's attention but do not provide anything substantially new and important.

A large part of Artamonov's book is a retelling of sources with a lot of detail, which does not make sense to repeat. Conversely, there is no analysis of international political and cultural ties, and the background of the ethnic history, which was the scene of the Khazar tragedy that swept the great ethnos into oblivion. And it is the latter that is of interest to the modern reader.

In our opinion, not shared by all, the task of science is not so much to state the known facts, but also by analysis and synthesis to establish the facts unknown, and not mentioned in the sources. One of the most effective ways of historical synthesis is to apply a systematic approach.

Let us imagine the author of a literary work or narrative source and the reader to whom the author addresses his work is a simple system of one-way information. In other words, the author convinces the reader of what the reader does not know or believe, but can learn or verify with a sufficiently talented narrative. Years and sometimes centuries pass. The author and reader die, but the work remains. So its focus remains, so that we can surmise that the reader, a contemporary who held different views from the author, was either over-convinced and fascinated by his talent, or stayed with his own opinion. In either case, this unrecorded opinion of the reader is restored with a certain degree of accuracy. The latter can be increased if we know the historical setting and events relevant to the era under study.

So let's start with the known, with the global environment, which would fill in the obscure and understand why the role of hegemon in Eastern Europe shifted from Khazaria to Ancient Christian Rus'.

But does the reader know these events? And does he have to know them in those terms and from those angles, which are necessary to solve the problem? And finally, can he, even as an erudite, guess what the author has in mind, only mentioning rather than describing any fact from the history of the early Middle Ages? Certainly not!  And so the author is obliged to state his understanding of the processes, which is easiest to do using the tried-and-true method of visual chronological narration.

And even if there is a fastidious reader who will be unhappy with the fact that he will find in the text of places familiar, mentioned in other much more monumental works, then let him consider them as an information archive, replacing the many references and cumbersome bibliography. After all, our essay is not a reference book, but a book for reading, and its purpose is to bring the reader the joy of learning.

WHAT WE HAVE TO DO WITHOUT

Every historian begins by striving for a broad generalization of his subject. It is as if he wants to paint a picture on a broad canvas, but is often forced to confine himself to a series of sketches. Some, however, are fortunate: instead of an album of sketches, i.e. private studies on narrow subjects, a painting appears. As a rule, such "paintings" have defects, due to which there is distrust of the proposed interpretations. But it is impossible to ignore such attempts: it is academically incorrect.

The history of the Khazar problem before 1962 is presented by M.I. Artamonov [11], and, according to the principle adopted here, we shall not repeat it. But for the last 20 years concepts, clothed in monographs, concerning our theme and original to such an extent, that it is necessary either to accept them completely, or to explain the reasons for distrust to them. Although the latter will be clear from the text of our own book, and the monographs mentioned will not be quoted in it, it is simply impolite to their authors not to write about their existence and significance. The most paradoxical is the view of Arthur Koestler[12].

He believes that from the 7th to the 12th century, from the Black Sea to the Urals and from the Caucasus to the convergence of the Don and the Volga spread a semi-nomadic empire inhabited by the Khazars, a people of Turkic origin (?). Occupying a vital strategic passage (whence and where?) between the Black and Caspian Seas, they played an important role in the bloody events in the Eastern Roman Empire. They were a buffer zone between the steppe robbers and Byzantium (?). They repelled the apa6oov (?) and thereby prevented the conquest of Eastern Europe by Islam.  They tried to hold back the Viking invasion of Southern Russia to the Byzantine borders (but the Vikings got into Byzantium by the Mediterranean Sea - L.G.).

Somewhere around 740 AD, (the date is not correct) the royal court and ruling military class converted to Judaism. Nothing is known about the motives behind this extraordinary event. It probably gave a certain advantage to maneuver between the rival Christian and Muslim "worlds".

By the 10th century a new enemy appeared - the Vikings, who soon became known as the Rus (an outdated and incorrect identification: the Rus were known from the 4th century).   The Khazar bastion Sarkel was destroyed in 965 AD. Central Khazaria remained intact, but the state of the Khazars declined.

The main thesis of that book, for the sake of which it was written, is the following: the flow of Jewish migration to Europe went not via the Mediterranean, as previously thought (and as it was), but from Caucasus through Poland and Central Europe. Therefore the inhabitants of Eastern Europe are the descendants of the Jewish-the thirteenth tribe of Israel. Why this point of view is unacceptable will be seen in what follows.

The angle of view that we have chosen - considering the early history of Ancient Rus' as a sequence of Russo-Khazar connections - allows us to avoid a polemic on petty questions. In 50-60-ies in America two researches on prehistory of Russia are published [13]. They are executed on Russian materials, the very ones that are available to us. Both contain a lot of petty inaccuracies, mainly because of uncritical perception of the theory of the existence of the third center of Russia - Azov-Black Sea area, which population came from Sarmatians (Roxalans). This concept, born in Russia, is not shared now by the vast majority of scholars, among which is the author.

But to challenge this version is possible either by a scrupulous verification of the details of the sources, or by opposing their own version, in which these details are interpreted without hypotheses and strains. The second way is better, for the Romans called scrupulus the pebble that fell into the sandals and pricked the heel. It should have been simply shaken out, not studied. In addition, our academic requirements are higher than in the United States, in the sense that we do not publish knowingly incorrect dates, and our own hypotheses are stipulated as optional for the reader. G.V. Vernadsky at drawing up of the chronological table on ancient history of Russia has supplied doubtful dates with asterisks, and it became clear that all the reliable facts are known to us too [14]. But S.Lyashevsky for support of the hypotheses has unvolved the data "Vlesovaya annals"[15] though it is published not in full and has not passed check by historical criticism. He did it in vain, because it became dangerous to refer to his research: what if Prince Svyatoyar or the origin of Rurik from Gostomysl's daughter Umila is a fiction, a speculation or unclear reading of the text? After all, one such oversight can affect the conclusions and thereby compromise the entire work. And is such clarification necessary for history?

S.Lyashevskij himself writes:   "...there is nothing outstanding in these annals, what would sharply change our knowledge of the past" [16]. Therefore we do not use these works as a manual, though the points of view of the authors are taken into consideration.

The book by Sergey Lesny (S.Paramonov) is of a different nature. It surprises the reader. Of the author's five main theses, the Soviet reader perceives four as something generally accepted [17], and the fifth - about the "Vlesova Book" - as a personal whim of the author. The lack of a referential apparatus deprives the reader of the opportunity to check the correctness and completeness of the quotations, and where the subject is known, it turns out that it is described incorrectly. The accusations against Soviet historians are unfair, and against foreign colleagues, such as G.V. Vernadsky, are rude. Speculations of Sergey Lesny, which he substitutes scientific evidence, borders on fiction, and references to "Vlesov's book" do not save, because the information is extremely doubtful. The topic of Khazaria is out of the author's field of view, which gives the right to refuse citing his work.

Inexpediency of the historiographic generalization is shown in the work of A.N. Sakharov "Diplomacy of ancient Rus':  from IX – to first half of the X century"[18]. The author has shown untold diligence, having studied a large number of articles on some important questions of history of Kievan Rus, but not all that has made his book lopsided, and the version of historical process - unconvincing. In essence he took as a scheme the annalistic tradition, according to which the category of "Rus" coincided with the power of the dynasty of Rurikovich. It seems that this concept is somewhat outdated. Even if we call the state of Oleg and Igor an early feudal state, the matter would not change, because the ethnic dissimilarity between "Russ" and "Duleb" at first, and then between Slav-Russ and Vikings is obvious. It was noted by authors of the tenth century and recognized by historians of the twentieth century. Therefore the separation of the history of diplomacy from the historical and geographical background is unjustified.

However, the historiography collected by A.N. Sakharov can be useful as any summary of material: it facilitates the compilation of synthetic works.  It is important only to treat the "Conclusion" and the second book - "Svyatoslav's Diplomacy"[19] with caution, because Sakharov's conclusions are by no means supported by the factual data he himself cited. But it is not a fault, but a misfortune.

Sakharov's third book, "We Are of Russian Kind. The Birth of Russian Diplomacy" [20] - was published in the popular science series, which gives the right to limit itself to a simple mention. However, it is impossible not to be surprised to that the author of the book considers the ancestors ancient Rus, instead of Slavs, but, maybe, it is a direct descendant of Rurik and is capable to trace the genealogy a further thousand years. To dispute his confession is inexpedient, for in the text cited by him "of the kind of Russians" were 15 people: "Charles, Ingeld, Farlof, Velmud, Rulov, Gudy, Ruald, Karne, Frelov, Ruar, Aktewu, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid" (Sakharov A.N. We from the kind of Russ... P.138). And not a single Slav! So, the aversion to the above mentioned works is due to either historical and geographical confusion, or to a legitimate distrust of unreliable sources. The author of this book is twice unoriginal: he, like everyone else, wants to create a broad historical picture, but only on established facts, through logically consistent versions: and, as usual, he checks these facts with the traditional methods of historical criticism.

The original is the ethnological approach, the principles of which are outlined in our treatise "Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth". As a matter of fact, this work was written to test the effectiveness of the proposed natural-scientific approach to the history of peoples (ethnoses) and their interactions. It was the presence of such an approach that helped the author to avoid the temptations, examples of which are given above. To what extent the reader, who has read the book to the end, has succeeded in this, let him judge.

LET'S AGREE ON THE MEANING OF TERMS

In the historical narrative we often have to use polysemantic words as scientific terms. This sometimes makes it difficult to understand each other, especially in an exchange of views. "Great Steppe" is a conventional term, since the steppe zone of the Eurasian continent has many azonal landscapes: mountain ranges overgrown with forests, river valleys, and oases in barren deserts. But the term has become familiar and its use uncomplicated.

It is much more difficult when the ethno-cultural boundaries are fluid. For example, the term "Europe," introduced by Herodotus, in his time did not include Scythia and the country of the Hyperboreans. In the Middle Ages it went out of use for a while, for Spain from 711 became "East";  Byzantium became a special cultural region, and the Baltic basin - a field of permanent war of feudal-Catholic "Christian world" with pagans - Slavs, Prussians, Lithuanians and Estonians.

The term "Ancient Rus'" is even more difficult. It is familiar, but not simple, and its history is full of contradictory interpretations. If we stand at the level of historical sources XII-XШ centuries, it is clear that the term "Ancient Rus" is not in them, because Russia was modern. It became ancient only in the 15th century, when it was necessary to substantiate the claims of Ivan III to the entire territorial heritage of the Rurikids. Thus emerged the scheme of unity, the continuity of the historical process, starting from Rurik, and, according to the adopted scheme, only capitals were changing, and that in strict order: Kiev, Vladimir, Moscow, St. Petersburg. The periods of turmoil and disintegration were considered a consequence of the erroneous policies of the great princes. Tension and the artificiality of this concept are obvious, but after all, also she has grown not as the scientific generalization, and as a substantiation of the political program of the Moscow grand dukes and tsars. [21]

A.E. Presnyakov notes that the main defect of the official scheme is the lack of attention to Western Russia, even the actual exclusion of her from Russian history. This section of the truly Russian history falls back to the history of the Wormwood, which is not at all true. So to find a place for the Golden Horde, they had to create the concept of the Tatar yoke [22]. This is an organic flaw of the concept, which considers the institution of the state to be the object of study.

The study of culture, an integral part of history, gives another conclusion, which was made by P.N. Milyukov in his early work, "Essays on the history of Russian culture". The thesis of this book is as follows: "We can say that the Russian nationality, which had achieved significant success in the south, in the north had to start its historical work again."[23].

The observation is subtle, but the interpretation is unacceptable. According to P.N. Milyukov, before the XVI century Russia as a coherent phenomenon did not exist, and each region lived its own separate historical life. This idea stems from the then prevailing evolutionary theory, which was taken without criticism and did not take into account the discontinuity of historical development.

A step back was made by Professor M.S. Hrushevsky of Lviv, who worked in Austria-Hungary, and who also needed a political justification for the occupation of Galicia by Austria. Here was proposed a scheme reminiscent of the Russian state, but in reverse.   The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was declared a continuation of Kievan Rus', and Vladimir-Moscow Rus' was presented as a special nation, a rival and even as an enemy of "Ukraine-Rus"[24]. This idea was based on the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century the category of "ethnos" had not yet been revealed.  A.E.Presnyakov points at this uncertainty as the main difficulty in solving the problem posed here"[25]. And he leads a refutation of M.S. Hrushevsky's scheme, pointing out on complete absence of signs of enmity and even distinction between northern and southern Rus' people in the Kiev period. "The enmity of the Kievan and the Novgorodians, the Kievan and the Suzdalians is manifested in no other ... In forms, than the rivalry in struggle of Vladimir and Rostovites during sons Andrey Bogolyubsky"[26]. And from myself, I will add - than between Kievan and Chernigovites. Suffice it to recollect cruel massacre of Igor Olgovich in 1147 and Kiev pogrom in 1203 after which the city long could not recover. Only in the 14th century, when Olgerd and Vitovt conquered Kiev, Chernigov, Kursk, and Smolensk, the fates of southwestern and northeastern Russians were parted. But in the XVII century Ukraine, and in the XVIII century Belarus and Volyn were reunited with Russia, not by conquering them by Moscow, but by liberating from the Polish yoke, which was much heavier than the Horde yoke.

The contemporary view, generally accepted in the Soviet science too, accepts XIV century for "watershed" between ancient, Kiev, Russia with its northeast suburbs - Suzdal and Vladimir princedoms and allocation from the all-Russian ethnos three new: Velikorosses, Belarusians and Ukrainians [27]. Such periodization does not require corrections, but the questions remain unclear:

1) what is the reason for the erroneousness of the three former concepts? (and this reason is obviously common);

2) how was it possible to overcome the obvious fallacy and eliminate the cause of the general error? Brief answers to these questions: 1) date of the basis of Russia - 862, offered by chronicler Nestor; 2) works of A.A.Shakhmatov and D.S.Lihachev about the most ancient Slavs and the concept of ethnogenesis of the author of these lines.

The history of the eastern Slavs and the Russian ethnos began long before Rurik, believes A.A.Shakhmatov. Retelling of his theory of an origin of east Slavs [28] is not included in our task. It is enough for us to know his conclusions. Recognizing as the first Slavic homeland pool of Western Dvina, A.A.Shahmatov names Povislenie which in III-II centuries BC was left by Bastarny and where in II century AD came Goths. At the same time the Slavs were drawn into the Great Migration of Peoples, which made the Slavs split into western - Veneads - and southern - the Sklavins. At the same time the Ants (Polans), who moved to the southeast, stood out.

Note that in ethnological terminology the passionary push is described here. It is the beginning of process of ethnogenesis of Slavs and Byzantines (Romeo-Christians). Under A.A. Shakhmatov's assumption, accepted by A.E. Presnyakov, from the Black Sea coast Slavs were pushed away by Avars and Bulgars, because of what Slavs have occupied a wood strip between Dnepr and Dnestr, i.e. Volyn, that is the first all-Slavic state, crushed by Avars. In the 7th century, the Bulgarians were defeated by the Khazars) and the pan-Slavic kingdom fell apart, separating Bulgaria, Bohemia, Poland and Pomerania. [We’re moving pretty fast here.]

Two waves of Slavs moved eastward from the southern Baltic: the Krivichi, who created Smolensk, Polotsk, Vitebsk and Pskov; and the Slovenes, who created Novgorod and settled in the Upper Volga. Radimichi and Vyatichi came "from the Poles"[29]. The resettlement resulted in the disintegration of the former tribal unity. Finally, in the IX-X centuries was formed Kievan Rus, "a major phenomenon in the history of the Eastern Slavs", which disintegrated in the second half of the XII century.[30].

By "disintegration" A.E.Presnyakov understands political disintegration, but not ethnogenesis, as in the phase of obscuration, accompanied by blossoming of culture (and it happens), the Old Russian ethnos lived till the end of XIV century and only in XV century gave place to the now existing East Slavic ethnoses.

On this background, even if to accept Nestor's story about "calling of Vikings" to Novgorod without criticism, it is obvious, that usurpation of Rurik is an episode in the millennial history of the Eastern Slavs, for some reason, protruded by the chronicler, while the events of larger ones are omitted or obscured by him.

Acknowledging this, we obtain a non-contradictory version, according to which the process of ethnogenesis "behaves" in the same way as speciation. Today, paleontologists distinguish three stages in the evolution of each separate group of living organisms. In the first one there is a powerful rise of life activity. In the second one, they adapt to different conditions and expand their range. And in the third, there is a narrow internal specialization, which leads to either death or stagnation. A change in the habitual conditions of existence makes a species, or in our case an ethnos, particularly vulnerable as the viability of the system declines. In paleontology this phenomenon is regarded as "discontinuous equilibrium,"[31] in history as discrete ethnic processes.

Kievan Rus is the third stage of Slavic ethnogenesis. It emerged when Slavs ceased to exist as a whole, preserving as a reminiscence of the former unity the common language or proximity of languages.  Thus, we have established the temporal boundaries of Ancient Rus', while the spatial ones have yet to be clarified.

EASTERN SLAVS, BUT NOT YET RUSS

Here passed 70 years, and it became clear, that the localizations of A.A. Shakhmatova were confirmed. Works of the Ukrainian archeologists and historians have established areas of archeological cultures of the Slavic ancestral land and specified dating [32]. The beginning of Slavic settlement is an epoch of Zarubintskaya culture. The Slavs moved from the upper Vistula to the south, to the Sub-Dnepr, and to the north, to the upper courses of the Dnieper, Desna and Oka rivers; in III-V centuries, during the "Gothic wars", to the south, to Danube and to the steppe Black Sea region, to the north-east, to the Dnieper left bank. It has been suggested that the reasons for migration were the population explosion and the exhaustion of the fund of free lands [33], but it seems paradoxical that the motive, the will to live, was connected with increased militancy, and in war the risk of death is great.

In the 6th century Slavs continued to spread westwards, through the passages in the Carpathians up to the Tissa, up the Danube and into the interfluves of the Vistula and Oder [34], and southwards - 550-551 they forced the Danube and by the IX century they occupied "all of Hellas" [35], and part of them moved into Asia Minor.

As it is established now, the Slavs were not the aborigines of Eastern Europe, but got into it in the 8th century, populating the Sub-Dnepr and the Ilmen basin. Before the Slavic invasion this territory was inhabited by the Russes, an ethnos that was by no means Slavic. Still in the X century Liutprand Kremon wrote: " Greeks name Russos those people which we call Nordmannos - on a place of habitation " - and placed this people near to Pechenegian and Khazarian in the south of Russia [36].  Scarce remnants of language Russ - names and toponyms - specify on their German-speaking. Constantine Porphyrogennetos gives names of Dnepr thresholds in Russian: Essups, Ulvoren, Gelandra, Eifar, Varuphoros, Leanty, Struvun, and in Slavic: Ostrouni Prakh, Neyasit, Vulni Prakh, Verutsi, Naprezi.

Domestic skills among the Slavs and Russians were also different, especially in characteristic trifles: the Russians washed before dinner in a common basin, and the Slavs - under a stream. Ruses shaved the head, leaving a clump of hair on the vertex, the Slavs cut the hair "in a circle". Russ lived in military settlements and "fed" with the military booty, some of which they sold to the Khazar Jews, and the Slavs were engaged in farming and cattle breeding. Authors of X century never confused Slavs with Russ [37].

But thus it is impossible to count Russ Scandinavian Vikings as the last have begun the campaigns in IX century, and Russ are known as an independent ethnos to authors of the VI century to Jordan and Zacharias Ritor. The only consistent version is the statement of Bishop Adalbert, who called Princess Olga queen of the Rugs, a people whose western part perished in Norica and Italy in the fifth century, while the eastern part survived in Eastern Europe until the tenth century, leaving a dynasty and the name of a state as a legacy to the Slavs. This fact is suggestive.

Archaeologists compare ancient Slavs with Cherniakhovskaja and Penkovskaja cultures, and the mixed ethnic structure of bearers of these cultures is noted; from Zadunavja in the southwest to the Kursk land in the northeast, from Southern Polesie to Northern Black Sea region [38] in II-V centuries. Dako-Thracians, Sarmatians [39] and, probably, Goths [40] lived except for Slavs, but after invasion Hun there were only Slavs, mixed up in VI-VII centuries with Goth - Dacian tribes [41].

The possibilities of archeology are limited. The epoch can be defined satisfactorily, but ethnic structure is impossible. The material culture is easily adopted by the neighbors, because it depends on the landscape conditions and the level of technology, and here both coincided. The burial rite shows the cult, but religion does not always correspond unambiguously with the ethnicity. More important is another thing: the Slavic culture of the 6th-7th centuries differs from the Chernyakhovsk culture. Burial sites disappear, the graves become poorer. In short, the older cultures and their bearers were substrates of the rapidly growing Slavic integrity, which was in a phase of ethnic (passionary) ascent. Therefore in Slavic burials one can see not a repetition of the early cultures, but their synthesis"[42].

But the process of Slavic ethnogenesis was broken by the invasion from the East. The Chionites, who lived on the banks of the lower reaches of Yaksart (Syr Darya), fleeing from the Turkutes, fled to Europe, where they became known as Avars, or Obras[43]. It was an ancient ethnos, a heritage of legendary Turan, and young East Slavs became a victim of the old predator. In 602 the Avars attacked the Antes, the eastern Slavs, who were allies of Byzantium [44]. Then the name Antes disappears from historical sources [45]. Since then Slavic unity disappeared because Aryans separated southern, Balkanian Slavs from northern, or Baltic, - Vendian.  The Remains of the  Ants, in Slavic Polanian [46], have united with ethnos Russ which German chronists in X century considered branch of Russ. Merge of Polanian and Russ in uniform ethnos was carried out only in X century that was shown in formation of the state named in our time "Russia in narrow sense "[47] because it did not include the majority of Slavic tribes of the Eastern Europe won and subdued later, about which the speech will go on below.

Thus, we are faced with a combination of two independent processes: the natural phenomenon - ethnogenesis, which began in the first century, and the social - the construction of the state, broken three times: Goths, Avars and Normans - and implemented in fact only in the XI century under Yaroslav the Wise.

This beginning of the "Russian state", or more precisely, the "Kievan Kaganate", as it was called by contemporaries, for example by Metropolitan Hilarion, falls not on the phase of the rise of passionarity, not on the phase of overheating and even breakdown, but on the inertial phase, which is characterized by intense development of literature and art, which has blinded from later historians the era of heroic achievements, overcome troubles and undescribed victories.

For our study the Slavs - a peripheral topic, but that's why it was necessary to clarify the spatial and temporal understanding of Russian history as a result of two passionary pushes and numerous ethnic contacts, none of which was similar to the other. And the cultural tradition, conditioned by Nicaea confession and valor of bogatyrs, passes a red thread through centuries and countries, not changing, because it is a fruit not of nature, beautiful in its eternal variability, but of consciousness, i.e. culture, the purpose of which – is preservation "[48].

But since the history of one country always goes against the background of world history, just as the latter goes against the background of Earth history, we must return to the set topic of our study - the problem of the diversity of ethnic contacts, taking the northern shore of the Caspian Sea as the starting point, for from there it is convenient to see both the West and the East.

NOTES

[1] Gumilev L.N. Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth. Л., 1989.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The first date is the 859 year; The Tale of Bygone Years (further: STY). M.; L., 1950.

[4] For details see: Gumilev L.N. Ethnogenesis and the Earth's biosphere. Л., 1989.

[5] See: Gumilev L.N. Huns in China.

[6] See: Gumilev L.N. Ancient Turks.

[7] See: Artamonov M.I. History of Khazars. С. 7.

[8] Gumilev L.N. New Data on the Khazars//Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 19. Budapest, 1967. P. 61-103 (Russian literature in footnotes).

[9] Gymilev L.N. Les fluctuations du niveau de la même Caspienne // Cahier du monde russe et sovietique. Vol. CAHIER DU MONDE RUSSE ET SOVIETIQUE. VOL. VI. #3. Paris-Sorbonne, 1965. P. 331-336 (Russian translations in footnotes).

[10] See: Gumilev L.N.Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth. Vol. IV. Millennium Around the Caspian Sea. MOSCOW: VINITI, 1987.

[11] See: Artamonov M.I. History of Khazars.P.7-40.

[12] Koestler Arthur. Thirteenth Tribe - The Khazar Empire and its Heritage. London, 1976.

[13] Vernadsky G. The Origins of Russia. Oxford, 1959; Lyashevsky S. History of Christianity in Russian Land from I c. to XI c. and sketches on the prehistory of Russia. New York; Brooklin, 1967.

[14] Vernadsky G. Ancient Russia. New Haven, 1952.

[15] See: Lesnoy S. The Book of Vlesova. Winnipeg, 1966.

[16] Leshevskiy S. op. cit. p. 169.

[17] See: Lesnoy Sergei. Rus', where are you from? Winnipeg, 1964.P. 6-10 Author considers, that 1) Scandinavians did not play a role in formation of the Russian state; 2) Russ as a tribe was created in the beginning of new era and always was Slavic; 3) Slavs - autochthons of the Central Europe; 4) at ancient Slavs was runic writing; 5) " Vlesova Book " authentic.

[18] See: Sakharov A.N. Diplomacy of ancient Russia: IX - first half X century. 1980.

[19] See: Sakharov A.N. Diplomacy of Svyatoslav.

[20] See: Sakharov L.N. We from a kind of Russian. The birth of Russian diplomacy. LD 1986.

[21] See:Presnyakov L.E. Lectures on Russian history.M.,1938.P.1 - 2.

[22] The problem of mutual relations of Golden Horde and Russia is artificially complicated. That Russians called khan a tsar and paid to the Horde an "exit", there is no doubt, but khans did not interfere in internal affairs of Russ, and, demanding from the nomadic subjects after acceptance of Islam renunciation from the Mongolian culture (yassa) and religion, did not demand this from Russians. Rather, here was a union with domination of the Horde, and Russ was seen as an independent-ulus, which joined the Horde by treaty, rather than by conquest (see: Gumilev L.N. Poiski fictitious kingdom.P.398ff. Apocryphal dialogue // Neva. 1988. № 3, 4).

[23] Quoted from: Presnyakov A.N. Op. cit.

[24] "See: Grushevsky M.S. History of Ukraine-Russia:V5 vol. T.I-III. Lvov, 1904-1905; T.IV. Lvov, 1903, T. U. Lvov, 1905; see also: Presnyakov V.E. Ibid. P. 4-5.

[25] A.E. Presnyakov gives a critical analysis of the aspects of ethnic diagnostics: racial, linguistic, cultural-psychological - and concludes: "States emerge before nations". (But he does not explain why they arise. For our point of view, see: Gumilsv L.N. Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth. Л., 1989.

[26] Presnyakov A.E. op. cit. p. 10.

[27] See: History of the USSR from ancient times to our days: In 2 vols. М., 1966.

[28] See: Shakhmatov L.L. Ancient history of Russian tribe. Pg., 1919. Cf: Presnyakov L.E. Ibid, p. 14-26.

[29] See: Shakhmatov L.L. On the question of the Polish influence on Old Russian dialects / / Russian Philological messenger N 1. Warsaw, 1913. С. 1-12. Cf: PVL. 4.11. С. 225-226.

[30] Presnyakov A.E. op. cit. p. 12.

[31] Rostovtsev K.O. Why dinosaurs died // Leningradskaya pravda. 1983, November 25th.

[32] The Slavs settled from the area between the Dniester, Pripyat and upper Vistula (see: Baran V.D. The formation of Slavic early medieval culture and the problem of Slavs' settlement (Slavs on the Dniester and Danube. Kiev 1983, p. 40).

[33] See: Braychevskiy M.U. Slavs in Danube region and the Balkans in the 6th-8th centuries // Slavs on the Dniester and Danube. С. 221-222.

[34] See also -Baran D. -Baran V.D. op. cit. P 45.

[35] See: Braichevskiy M.U. Slavs in Danube region...P. 225. The Peloponnesian population remained Slavic by the language until the XIX c., i.e. until the liberation of Greece from the Turks. But the school and the literature in the new Greek language forced the descendants of the Slavs - the Minots - to change their language too, which distinguished the "Greeks" from the other southern Slavs.

[36] Cited from: Platonov S.F. Lectures on Russian history. SPb. B., p. 61.

[37] For more details see: M.I. Artamonov: Artamonov M.I. History of Khazars. С. 289-295.

[38] See: Vinokur N.S. Cherniakhovskie tribes on the Dnieper and Danube// Slavs on the Dnieper and Danube. С. 131.

[39] See: Sedov V. V. Slavs of Upper Dnieper and Podvinja. MOSCOW, 1970. P.7.

[40] See: Vinokur I.S. op. cit. P 133.

[41] See: Prihodnyuk O.M. To a question about the presence of Ants in the Carpathian-Dniester lands / / Slavs on the Dniester and Danube. С. 191.

[42] See: Baran V.D. Ibid, p. 40.

[43] See: Gumilev L.N. Ancient Turks p.34-35.

[44] See: Simokatta Theophylact. History/Translated by S.P.Kondratyev. М., 1957. Book VIII. 5. С. 180.

[45] See: Jordanes. On the Origin and Deeds of Goths. Gelica/Interpretation and translation by E.N.Skrzhinskaya (hereinafter Jordanes). М., 1960. С. 220.

[46] See: Breichevsky M.U. Pokhodstvo Rusi. Kiyev, 1968. P.155.

[47] See: Nasonov A.N. "Russkaya zemlya" i obrazovanie territorii drevne-Russkogo gosudarstva [Russian land and the formation of the territory of the ancient Russian state], M. 1951; Rybakov B.V. Svobody, M. V. V. Moscow, 1951; Rybakov B.A. Ancient Russians // Soviet archeology. XVII. 1953; Artamonov M.I. History of Khazars. С. 289-290.

[48] See: Gumilev L.N. Ethnogenesis and the Earth Biosphere. Л., 1989.

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