The Radimichs (also Radimichi) (, , and ) were an East Slavic tribe of the last several centuries of the 1st millennium, which inhabited upper east parts of the

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 ...

down the Sozh and its tributaries. The name probably derives from the name of the forefather of the tribe - Radim. According to Russian chronicle tradition, "... but there were Radimichs from the

Lechites Lechites (, ), also known as the Lechitic tribes (, ), is a name given to certain West Slavs, West Slavic tribes who inhabited modern-day Poland and eastern Germany, and were speakers of the Lechitic languages. Distinct from the Czech–Slovak lan ...

family, who came and settled here and paid tribute to Rus, and the wagon was carried to the present day" (a ''wagon'' is a type of tax for the right to have one's own prince). However, in the scientific literature, there is no consensus on the ethnicity of the Radimichs. Archaeological evidence indicates that this tribal association had a mixed Slavic- Baltic origin. The Radimichs lived in the interfluve of the upper Dnieper and Desna rivers along the Sozh and its tributaries (the south of

Vitebsk Vitebsk or Vitsyebsk (, ; , ; ) is a city in northern Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Vitebsk Region and Vitebsk District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has 358,927 inhabitants, m ...

, the east of the

Mogilev Mogilev (; , ), also transliterated as Mahilyow (, ), is a city in eastern Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, about from the Belarus–Russia border, border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from Bryansk Oblast. As of 2024, ...

and

Gomel Gomel (, ) or Homyel (, ) is a city in south-eastern Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Gomel Region and Gomel District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it is the List of cities and largest ...

regions of modern

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 ...

, the west of the

Bryansk Bryansk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Desna (river), Desna River, southwest of Moscow. It has a population of 379,152 at the 2021 census. Bryans ...

and south-west of the

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

regions of modern

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 ...

. Written evidence on Radimichi falls on the period from 885 to 1169.

History

The lands of the Radimichs were conveniently connected with the central regions of the

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 ...

by waterway. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Radimichs had a few known cities: Gomey (today's Homel) and Chechersk on the Sozh river, Vshchizh on the Desna River, Vorobyin, Ropeysk, Starodub, and others. Seven-beam temporal

jewelry Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

made of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

represent a specific

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

trait of the Radimichs of the 9th - 11th centuries. There is little information on the Radimichs. According to Nestor the Chronicler, the tribe of Radimichs "sprang from the ''Lyakhs''" or after the conquest by

Vladimir the Great Vladimir I Sviatoslavich or Volodymyr I Sviatoslavych (; Christian name: ''Basil''; 15 July 1015), given the epithet "the Great", was Prince of Novgorod from 970 and Grand Prince of Kiev from 978 until his death in 1015. The Eastern Orthodox ...

became part of the race of ''Lyakhs'' ( Lendians) and used to live in areas of Sozh river. According to tradition recorded by Nestor, their name derives from the name of the forefather of the tribe, Radim, who was one of the Lyakh brothers, other being Vyatko from whom emerged

Vyatichi The Vyatichs or more properly Vyatichi or Viatichi () were a tribe of Early East Slavs who inhabited regions around the Oka River, Oka, Moskva River, Moskva and Don (river), Don rivers. The Vyatichi had for a long time no princes, but the soci ...

. Historians know that in the middle of the 9th century they were paying tribute to the

Khazars 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, a ...

. In 885, the Radimichs were conquered by

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

Oleg of Novgorod Oleg (), Oleh (), or Aleh () is an Slavic peoples, East Slavic given name. The name is very common in Russia, Ukraine, and Belаrus. Origins ''Oleg'' derives from the Old Norse ''Helgi'' (Helge (name), Helge), meaning "holy", "sacred", or "ble ...

and became part of

. In 907, the Radimichs are mentioned as a part of Oleg's army in his military campaign against

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 ...

. In 984, the Radimichs tried to break away from the Kievan Rus, but were defeated on the Pischan River by Vladimir the Great's

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank as well as a job title in many army, armies. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countri ...

Volchiy Khvost ("Wolf's Tail"). Since then, there had been no mentioning of the tribe in the

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

s. They continued living on their land, gradually assimilating with neighboring tribes and peoples and forming the Belarusian nationality. Subsequently, the lands of the Radimichs became a part of the Chernihiv and

principalities. In the ''Primary Chronicle'', it is recorded that the Radimichs, Vyatichi, and

Severians The Severians, also Severyans, Siverians, or Siverianians (; ; ; ) were a tribe or tribal confederation of early East Slavs occupying areas to the east of the middle Dnieper River and southeast of the Danube River. They are mentioned by the Bav ...

"had the same customs", all lived violent lifestyles, "burned their dead and preserved the ashes in urns set upon posts beside the highways", and they did not enter

monogamous Monogamy ( ) is a relationship of two individuals in which they form a mutual and exclusive intimate partnership. Having only one partner at any one time, whether for life or serial monogamy, contrasts with various forms of non-monogamy (e.g. ...

marriages but practiced

polygamy Polygamy (from Late Greek , "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marriage, marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more tha ...

, specifically

polygyny Polygyny () is a form of polygamy entailing the marriage of a man to several women. The term polygyny is from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); . Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any other continent. Some scholar ...

, instead. The Radimichs were last mentioned in a chronicle in 1169.

Origin

The Tale of Bygone Years tells about the Lechites origin of the Radimichi: “…radimichi bo… from the Lechites” and “The former Radimichi from the

family; before that, you are all-powerful, and pay tribute to Russia ”. These words of the chronicler had a great influence on many researchers.

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Polish chroniclers -

Jan Długosz Jan Długosz (; 1 December 1415 – 19 May 1480), also known in Latin as Johannes Longinus, was a Polish priest, chronicler, diplomat, soldier, and secretary to Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki of Kraków. He is considered Poland's first histo ...

, Maciej Stryjkowski and others, as well as historians of the 18th and 19th centuries unconditionally recognized the Polish origin of the Radimichi.

Aleksey Shakhmatov Aleksey Aleksandrovich Shakhmatov (, – 16 August 1920) was a Russian philology, philologist and historian credited with laying the foundations for the science of Textual criticism, textology. Shakhmatov held the title of Doctor of Russ ...

tried to support the annalistic report about the

origin of the Radimichi with

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

data, referring to the fact that the Radimichi region now belongs to the territory of

Belarusian language Belarusian (, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language. It is one of the two Languages of Belarus, official languages in Belarus, the other being Russian language, Russian. It is also spoken in parts of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Polan ...

, in which there are many coincidences with the Polish.''

'' The most ancient destinies of the Russian tribe. - Pg., 1919. - S. 25, 37-39. However

Yefim Karsky Yefim Fyodorovich Karsky (, ; , older name form) ( – 29 April 1931) was a Belarusians, Belarusian linguist, Slavist, ethnographer, and paleographer, founder of Belarusian language, Belarusian linguistics, literary studies and paleography, a me ...

spoke out against the theory of the Lechites origin of the Radimichi, showing the independent development of those features of the Belarusian language that bring it closer to the Polish. According to Karsky, the chronicle of the Lyash origin of the Radimichi does not indicate that they were a Lyash tribe, but that they moved to Sozh from more western regions, where they neighbored with the Lyash tribes. This opinion was also supported by

Lubor Niederle Lubor Niederle (September 20, 1865 – June 14, 1944) was a Czechs, Czech archeologist, anthropologist and ethnographer. He is seen as one of the founders of modern archeology in Czech lands. He was born in Klatovy. He studied at the Charles Univ ...

, who considered the basins of Bug and Nareva. Repeated attempts were made to determine the area from which the Radimichi came to Sozh by mapping toponyms with the base ''rad-''. However, such toponyms, apparently, come from anthroponym ''Radim'', distributed over a much larger territory than the defined regions. On the basis of hydronymics data, it was possible to establish some similarity between the

hydronyms A hydronym (from , , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a subset of top ...

of Sozh area and the hydronyms of a small section of the Upper Dniester region that, according to some historians, is the area from which the Radimichi moved to the Sozh basin. The connection between the Radimichi and the pre-Radimichi population of Sozh area, observed both in objects of material culture and in

rites RITES Ltd, formerly known as Rail India Technical and Economic Service Limited, is an Indian public sector undertaking and engineering consultancy corporation, specializing in the field of transport infrastructure. Established in 1974 by the In ...

, suggests that the newcomer Slavs felt the influence of the Baltic population here. It is also possible to make an assumption about the small number of alien Slavs. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov compared the basis of the ethnonym ''Radimichi'' with the Iranian Scythian stem ''radam-'' from the Iranian ''fratama-'' < ''*pratama-'' "first", used in the Scythian royal names (' ''Radam-furt-'', ''Radam-sad-'', ''Radam-as-'', ''Radam-mizda-'', etc.). Georgy Vernadsky derived the name ''radimichi'' from - "order", "line", - "to subdue", "to conquer". believed that the term "radimichi" was formed from the historically earlier name of the Baltic ethnic community, which was Slavicized by the 9th-10th centuries. The chronicle tells about the origin of the Radimichi from the legendary person Radima: “... Radimichi Bo and Vyatichi from the Poles. For 2 brothers in laces, Radim, and the other Vyatko, and the gray-haired Radim came to Szhya, and was called Radimichi ... ”. Some modern authors believe that this legend reflects the

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

worldview of the author rather than a real historical fact.''Pilipenko MF'' The Emergence of Belarus: A New Concept. - Mn., 1991. - S. 34.

References

{{GSEncyclopedia

Radimichs The Radimichs (also Radimichi) (, , and ) were an East Slavic languages, East Slavic tribe of the last several centuries of the 1st millennium, which inhabited upper east parts of the Dnieper down the Sozh and its tributaries. The name probably ...

Lechites 10th century in Kievan Rus'

History

Origin

See also

References