Normanism and anti-Normanism are competing groups of theories about the origin of

Kievan Rus' Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavs, East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical At ...

that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries concerning the narrative of the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. At the centre of the disagreement is the origin of the Varangian Rus', a people who travelled across and settled in Eastern Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries, and are considered by most modern historians to be of

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

n origin, eventually assimilated with the

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

. The Normanist theory has been firmly established as mainstream, and modern anti-Normanism is viewed as

historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespa ...

. The origin of Kievan Rus' is infamously contentious, and relates to its perceived importance for the

legitimation Legitimation, legitimization ( US), or legitimisation ( UK) is the act of providing legitimacy. Legitimation in the social sciences refers to the process whereby an act, process, or ideology becomes legitimate by its attachment to norms and val ...

nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable. According to Harris Mylonas, ...

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

, and independence movements within the East Slavic-speaking world, and for legitimating different political relationships between eastern and western European countries. The

Norsemen The Norsemen (or Northmen) were a cultural group in the Early Middle Ages, originating among speakers of Old Norse in Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a Viking expansion, large-scale expansion in all direc ...

that ventured from what is now

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, into the waterways of Eastern Europe feature prominently in the history of the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

, Scandinavia,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, and the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

.Elena Melnikova, "The 'Varangian Problem': Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics", in ''Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions'', ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42-52. They are particularly important in the historiography and cultural history of

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, but have also featured in the history of Poland. Nevertheless, contention has centred around whether the development of Kievan Rus' was influenced by non-Slavic Varangians (this idea is characterised as the "Normanist theory"), or whether the people of Kievan Rus' emerged solely from autochthonous Slavic political development (known as the "anti-Normanist theory"), including some other anti-Normanist and skeptical theories stemming from the scarcity of contemporary evidence for the emergence of Kievan Rus', and the great ethnic diversity and complexity of the wide area where these Norsemen were active.

Mainstream view: Normanism

Whereas the term "

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

" in English usually refers to the Scandinavian-descended ruling dynasty of

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

from the 10th century onwards, and their scions elsewhere in Western Europe, in the context of the Rus' people, "Normanism" is the idea that the Rus' had their origins among the Normans (i.e. among " Northmen"). The term "Normanism" was used to cover a range of opinions about the degree of influence of the Varangians in the early history of

Kievan Rus Kievan Rus', also known as Kyivan Rus,. * was the first East Slavic state and later an amalgam of principalities in Eastern Europe from the late 9th to the mid-13th century.John Channon & Robert Hudson, ''Penguin Historical Atlas of Russ ...

. The idea that Varangians founded Rus was seen politically unacceptable by many Russian historians.Dmitry Nikolayevich Verkhoturov,
Normanism: What's in a Name?
, ''Valla'', 1.5 (2015), 57-65, citing Клейн Л.С. Норманизм – антинорманизм: конец дискуссии. // Stratum plus. 1999. №5, Неславянское в славянском мире. С. 91-101. Nevertheless, the close connection of Rus' with Scandinavians is confirmed by both archaeological evidence for extensive Scandinavian settlement in Russia and Ukraine, and Slavic influences in the Swedish language.

Early scholarship

Modern studies of the Rus' began when the German historian Gerhardt Friedrich Müller (1705–1783) was invited to work in the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

in 1725. Müller presented research made by his predecessor Gottlieb-Siegfried Bayer in the papers ''De Varagis'' ("On the

Varangians The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

'', written in the 12th century, and covering the years 852 to 1110. At the beginning of an important speech in 1749, later published as ''Origines gentis et nominis Russorum'' ("The Origins of the People and the Name of the Russians"), Müller argued that the Rurikid dynasty descended from ethnically Scandinavian Varangians and that the term "Russia" originated from Old Norse.Serhii Plokhy, ''Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past'' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), chapter 1. This statement caused such uproar in his Russian audience that he was unable to finish his presentation, and appeals to the president of the academy and the Empress led to the formation of a committee to determine if his research was "harmful to the interests and glory of the Russian Empire". Before the committee, scathing criticism from Lomonosov, Krasheninnikov, and other Russian historians led to Müller being forced to suspend his work on the issue until Lomonosov's death. It was even thought during the 20th century that much of his research was destroyed, but recent research suggests that this is not the case: Müller managed to rework it and had it reprinted as ''Origines Rossicae'' in 1768. Despite the negative reception in the mid-18th century, by the end of the century, Müller's views were the consensus in Russian

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

, and this remained largely the case through the 19th century and early 20th centuries. Russian historians who accepted this historical account included Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826) and his disciple Mikhail Pogodin (1800–1875), who gave credit to the claims of the ''Primary Chronicle'' that the Varangians were invited by East Slavs to rule over them and bring order. The theory was not without political implications. For some, it fitted with embracing and celebrating the multiethnic character of the Russian Empire. However, it was also consistent with the racial theory widespread at the time that Germanics (and their descendants) were naturally suited to government, whereas Slavs were not. According to Karamzin, the Norse migration formed the basis and justification for Russian autocracy (as opposed to anarchy of the pre-Rurikid period), and Pogodin used the theory to advance his view that Russia was immune to social upheavals and revolutions, because the Russian state originated from a voluntary treaty between the people of

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

and Varangian rulers. The German-born Moscow academician

August Ludwig von Schlözer August Ludwig von Schlözer (5 July 1735, in Gaggstatt – 9 September 1809, in Göttingen) was a German historian and pedagogist who laid foundations for the critical study of Russian medieval history. He was a member of the Göttingen schoo ...

said in 1802 that the Slavs had been living like "savage beasts and birds" before the advent of the civilizing Norsemen, a view later adopted by several scholars as well as non-scholars such as

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

in the 20th-century, who saw in Russia "a wonderful instance of the state-organizing capability of the Germans among an inferior race".

Emergence of Western scholarly consensus

During the historical debates of the 20th century, the key evidence for the mainstream view that Scandinavian migrants had an important role in the formation of Kievan Rus' emerged as the following: * Notwithstanding other suggestions, the name ''Rus'' can readily be interpreted as originating in

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

.Stefan Brink, "Who were the Vikings?", in
The Viking World
'', ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4-10 (pp. 6-7)."Russ, adj. and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/169069. Accessed 12 January 2021. * The personal names of the first few Rus' leaders are etymologically Old Norse, from

Rurik Rurik (also spelled Rorik, Riurik or Ryurik; ; ; died 879) was a Varangians, Varangian chieftain of the Rus' people, Rus' who, according to tradition, was invited to reign in Veliky Novgorod, Novgorod in the year 862. The ''Primary Chronicle' ...

(from Old Norse " Hrærekr") down to Olga of Kiev (from Old Norse " Helga"). Starting with Olga's son Sviatoslav I of Kiev onwards, Slavic names take over.Omeljan Pritsak, "Rus'", in
Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia
'', ed. by Phillip Pulsiano (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 555-56. * The list of cataracts on the Dnieper listed by

Constantine VII Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, an ...

in his ''

De Administrando Imperio (; ) is a Greek-language work written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII. It is a domestic and foreign policy manual for the use of Constantine's son and successor, the Emperor Romanos II. It is a prominent example of Byz ...

'' as belonging to the language of the ''Rhos'' can most readily be etymologised as

.H. R. Ellis Davidson, ''The Viking Road to Byzantium'' (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976), p. 83. * The Annals of St. Bertin account of the ''Rhos'' for 839 has them identify themselves as ''sueoni'' (

Swedes Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...

). * 13th-century Icelandic historiography portrays close connections between the 11th-century rulers of Rus' and Scandinavian dynasties in England and Norway. In the 21st century, analyses of the rapidly growing range of archaeological evidence further noted that high-status 9th- to 10th-century burials of both men and women in the vicinity of the Upper

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

exhibit material culture largely consistent with that of Scandinavia (though this is less the case away from the river, or further downstream). This has been seen as further demonstrating the Scandinavian character of elites in Old Rus'.Wladyslaw Duczko, ''Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe'' (Leiden: Brill, 2004).Jonathan Shepherd, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", ''English Historical Review'', vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 . It is also agreed, however, that ancestrally Scandinavian Rus' aristocrats, like Scandinavians elsewhere, swiftly assimilated culturally to a Slavic identity: in the words of F. Donald Logan, "in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs". "The controversies over the nature of the Rus and the origins of the Russian state have bedevilled Viking studies, and indeed Russian history, for well over a century. It is historically certain that the Rus were Swedes. The evidence is incontrovertible, and that a debate still lingers at some levels of historical writing is clear evidence of the holding power of received notions. The debate over this issue - futile, embittered, tendentious, doctrinaire – served to obscure the most serious and genuine historical problem which remains: the assimilation of these Viking Rus into the Slavic people among whom they lived. The principal historical question is not whether the Rus were Scandinavians or Slavs, but, rather, how quickly these Scandinavian Rus became absorbed into Slavic life and culture." This relatively fast integration is noteworthy, and the processes of cultural assimilation in Rus' are an important area of research. The old Normanist assumption was that the Scandinavians introduced civilization to their Slavic subjects, but the number of Norsemen was relatively small compared to the number of Slavs and non-Slavs. In addition, the Norsemen married local women, had their weapons made by Slavs, and only a relatively small number of Norse loanwords in Russian have been established. In general, the Norsemen absorbed culture in Russia and down the Volga. There is uncertainty as to how large the Scandinavian migration to Rus' was, but some archaeological work in the years around 2000 argued for a substantial number of free farmers settling in the upper Volga region.

Anti-Normanism

Proponents of anti-Normanism are of the opinion that a state was founded by the Slavs even before the vocation of

. Starting with

Mikhail Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (; , ; – ) was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the law of conservation of ...

(1711–1765), Slavophilic scholars have criticised the idea of Norse invaders. By the early 20th century, the traditional anti-Normanist doctrine (as articulated by Dmitry Ilovaisky) seemed to have lost currency. Russian and then Soviet historians began to downplay the idea of Scandinavian influence in early Russian history. The anti-Normanist arguments were revived and adopted in official Soviet historiography, partly in response to Nazi propaganda, which posited that Russia owed its existence to a Germanic ruling elite. In the earlier 20th century, Nazi Germany had promoted the idea that Russia owed its statehood to a Germanic, racially superior, elite.Jonathan Shepherd, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", ''English Historical Review'', vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 (pp. 386–87). Mikhail Artamonov ranks among those who attempted to reconcile both theories by hypothesizing that the Kievan state united the southern Rus' (of Slavic stock) and the northern Rus' (of Germanic stock) into a single nation. The staunchest advocate of the anti-Normanist views in the period following the Second World War was

Boris Rybakov Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov (; 3 June 1908, Moscow – 27 December 2001, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian archeologist and historian. He was one of the main proponents of anti-Normanist vision of Russian history. He is the father of Indologis ...

, who argued that the cultural level of the Varangians could not have warranted an invitation from the culturally advanced Slavs. This conclusion leads Slavicists to deny the ''Primary Chronicle'', which writes that the Varangian Rus' were invited by the native Slavs. Rybakov assumed that Nestor, putative author of the Chronicle, was biased against the pro-Greek party of Vladimir Monomakh and supported the pro-Scandinavian party of the ruling prince Svyatopolk. He cites Nestor as a pro-Scandinavian manipulator and compares his account of Rurik's invitation with numerous similar stories found in folklore around the world. By the 21st century, most professional scholars, in both

Anglophone The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

and Slavic-language scholarship, had reached a consensus that the origins of the Rus' people lay in Scandinavia and that this originally Scandinavian elite had a significant role in forming the polity of Kievan Rus'. Indeed, in 1995, the Russian archaeologist Leo Klejn "gave a paper entitled 'The End of the Discussion', in the belief that anti-Normanism 'was dead and buried. However, Klejn soon had to revise this opinion as anti-Normanist ideas gained a new prominence in both public and academic discourse in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Anglophone scholarship has identified the continued commitment to anti-Normanism in these countries since the collapse of the Soviet Union as being motivated by present-day ethno-nationalism and state-formation. One prominent Russian example occurred with an anti-Normanist conference in 2002, which was followed by publications on the same theme, and which appears to have been promoted by Russian government policy of the time. Accordingly, anti-Normanist accounts are prominent in some 21st century Russian school textbooks. Meanwhile, in Ukraine and to a lesser extent Belarus, post-Soviet nation-building opposed to a history of Russian imperialism has promoted anti-Normanist views in academia and, to a greater extent, popular culture.

Other anti-Normanist interpretations

There have been quite a few alternative, non-Normanist origins for the word ''Rus, although none was endorsed in the Western academic mainstream: * Three early emperors of the Urartian Empire at

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

from 8th to 6th century BC had their names ''Russa I'', ''Russa II'' and ''Russa III'', documented in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

monuments. * The medieval legend of three brothers, one named ''Rus'', had also its predecessor in very similar legend from ancient

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

ns with almost the same classical name (studies by D. J. Marr). Furthermore,

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

was founded centuries before the Rus' rule. * The ancient

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; ; Latin: ) were a large confederation of Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe from about the 5th century BCE to the 4t ...

tribe of the '' Roxolani'' (from the Ossetic, ''ruhs'' "light"; R ''русые волосы'' / rusyje volosy / "light-brown hair"; cf. Dahl's dictionary definition of ''Русь'' /rus/: ''Русь ж. в знач. мир, белсвет.'' Rus, fig. world, universe 'белсвет'': lit. "white world", "white light". * From the Old Slavic name that meant "river-people" (tribes of fishermen and ploughmen who settled near the rivers

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

, Don,

Dniester The Dniester ( ) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova (from which it more or less separates the breakaway territory of Transnistria), finally discharging into the Black Sea on Uk ...

and Western Dvina and were known to navigate them). The ''rus'' root is preserved in the modern Slavic and Russian words ''ruslo'' (river-bed), ''

rusalka In Slavic folklore, the rusalka (plural: rusalki; , plural: русалки; , plural: ''rusałki'') is a female entity, often malicious toward mankind and frequently associated with water. It has counterparts in other parts of Europe, such as th ...

'' ( water sprite), etc. * From one of two rivers in

(near

and Pereyaslav), '' Ros'' and ''Rusna'', whose names are derived from a postulated Slavic term for water, akin to ''rosa'' (dew) (related to the above theory). * A Slavic word ''rusy'' (refers only to hair color – from dark ash-blond to light-brown), cognate with ''ryzhy'' ("red-haired") and English "red". * A postulated proto-Slavic word for

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

, cognate with Greek ''arctos'' and Latin ''ursus''.

Other views

There are some Anglophone scholars who remain skeptical about the origin of Rus', however, either because the evidence is not good enough, or because they remain uncertain whether Rus' was an ethnic group with a clear point of origin.P. B. Golden, "Rūs", in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs. Retrieved on 26 July 2018. .James E. Montgomery
"Ibn Faḍlān and the Rūsiyyah"
, ''Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies'', 3 (2000), 1–25. Scholars such as Omeljan Pritsak and Horace G. Lunt offer explanations that go beyond simplistic attempts to attribute "ethnicity" on first glance interpretation of literary, philological, and archaeological evidence. They view the Rus' as disparate, and often mutually antagonistic, clans of charismatic warriors and traders who formed wide-ranging networks across the North and Baltic Seas. They were a "multi-ethnic, multilingual and non-territorial community of sea nomads and trading settlements" that contained numerous Norsemen—but equally Slavs, Balts, and Finns. Tolochko argues "the story of the royal clan's journey is a device with its own function within the narrative of the chronicle. ... Yet if we take it for what it actually is, if we accept that it is not a documentary ethnographic description of the 10th century, but a medieval ''origo gentis'' masterfully constructed by a Christian cleric of the early 12th century, then we have to reconsider the established scholarly narrative of the earliest phase of East European history, which owes so much to the ''Primary Chronicle''". Archaeological research, synthesizing a wide range of 20th-century excavations, has begun to develop what Jonathan Shepard has called a "bottom up" vision of the formation of the Rus' polity, in which, during the ninth and 10th century increasingly intensive trade networks criss-crossed linguistically and ethnically diverse groups around rivers like the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper. This may have produced "an essentially voluntary convergence of groupings in common pursuit of primary produce exchangeable for artefacts from afar". This fits well with the image of Rus' that dominates the Arabic sources, focusing further south and east, around the

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

and Caspian Seas, the Caucasus and the Volga Bulgars. Yet this narrative, though plausible, contends with the "top-down" image of state development implied by the ''Primary Chronicle'', archaeological assemblages indicating Scandinavian-style weapon-bearing elites on the Upper Volga, and evidence for slave-trading and violent destruction of fortified settlements. Numerous artefacts of Scandinavian affinity have been found in northern Russia (as well as artefacts of Slavic origin in Sweden). However, exchange between the north and southern shores of the Baltic had occurred since the Iron Age (albeit limited to immediately coastal areas). Northern Russia and adjacent Finnic lands had become a profitable meeting ground for peoples of diverse origins, especially for the trade of furs, and attracted by the presence of oriental silver from the mid-8th century AD. There is an undeniable presence of goods and people of Scandinavian origin; however, the predominant people remained the local (Baltic and Finnic) peoples. The increasing volume of trade and internal competition necessitated higher forms of organization. The Rus' appeared to emulate aspects of

Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...

political organization—hence the mention of a Rus' '' chaganus'' in the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

court in 839 (''

Royal Frankish Annals The ''Royal Frankish Annals'' (Latin: ''Annales regni Francorum''), also called the ''Annales Laurissenses maiores'' ('Greater Lorsch Annals'), are a series of annals composed in Latin in Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state of ...

''). Legitimization was sought by way of adopting a Christian and linguistically Slavic "high culture" that became the "Kievan Rus". Moreover, there is doubt if the emerging Kievan Rus' were the same clan as the "Rus" who visited the Carolingians in 839 or who attacked Constantinople in 860 AD. The rise of Kiev itself is mysterious. Devoid of any silver

dirham The dirham, dirhem or drahm is a unit of currency and of mass. It is the name of the currencies of Moroccan dirham, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates dirham, United Arab Emirates and Armenian dram, Armenia, and is the name of a currency subdivisi ...

finds in the 8th century AD, it was situated west of the profitable fur and silver trade networks that spanned from the Baltic to the Muslim lands, via the Volga– Kama basins. At the prime hill in Kiev, fortifications and other symbols of consolidation and power appear from the 9th century, thus preceding the literary appearance of "Rus" in the middle Dnieper region. By the 10th century, the lowlands around Kiev had extensive "Slavic" styled settlements, and there is evidence of growing trade with the Byzantine lands. This might have attracted Rus' movements, and a shift in power, from the north to Kiev. Thus, Kiev does not appear to have evolved from the infrastructure of the Scandinavian trade networks, but rather it forcibly took them over, as evidenced by the destruction of numerous earlier trade settlements in the north, including the famous Staraya Ladoga.Tolochko p. 186

Notes

References

Bibliography

* ''The Annals of Saint-Bertin'', transl. Janet L. Nelson, Ninth-Century Histories 1 (Manchester and New York, 1991). * Davies, Norman. '' Europe: A History''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. * * Christian, David. ''A History of Russia, Mongolia, and Central Asia''. Blackwell, 1999. * Danylenko, Andrii. "The name Rus': In search of a new dimension." Jahrbueher fuer Geschichte Osteuropas 52 (2004), 1–32. * Davidson, H.R. Ellis, ''The Viking Road to Byzantium''. Allen & Unwin, 1976. * Dolukhanov, Pavel M. ''The Early Slavs: Eastern Europe from the Initial Settlement to the Kievan Rus.'' New York: Longman, 1996. * Duczko, Wladyslaw.
Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe
(The Northern World; 12)''. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004 (hardcover, ). * Goehrke, C. ''Frühzeit des Ostslaven.'' Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992. * Magocsi, Paul R. ''A History of Ukraine.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. * Pritsak, Omeljan. ''The Origin of Rus''. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. * Stang, Hakon. ''The Naming of Russia.'' Oslo: Middelelser, 1996.
Gerard Miller as the author of the Normanist theory
( Brockhaus and Efron) * * * * * * * *

External links

* James E. Montgomery,
Ibn Faḍlān and the Rūsiyyah
, ''Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies'', 3 (2000), 1-25

Includes a translation of Ibn Fadlān's discussion of the ''Rūs''/''Rūsiyyah''. {{Ukraine topics History of the Rus' people Varangians Origin hypotheses of ethnic groups Conspiracy theories in Russia Pseudohistory Historiography of Russia