Download PDF | (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia, 14) Fedir Androshchuk - Vikings in the East_ Essays on Contacts along the Road to Byzantium (800-1100)-Uppsala University (2013).
288 Pages
Introduction
IT HAS BEEN A tradition to write about Vikings' and Varangians' within the framework of national histories of Scandinavia. However, it is known that most of them were outsiders in the local societies of the respective coun- tries. Vikings shaped their identity profiles beyond the social and political borders of their homelands, which means that 'Viking Studies' actually rep- resent a transnational history. In order to overcome the tendency to margin- alize these social categories, we need to see their place in a global historical context.
The material culture of Scandinavia reveals some 'oriental' influences, which took place in the 9th and 10th centuries. These influences can be traced in weaponry, riding gear, coins, clothing, jewellery, ceramic, textile and copper vessels; however, no interpretative model has yet been proposed to explain them. No critical interpretation of these objects can be undertaken without tracing channels of communication, forms of contacts and social and cultural environments in which they were circulated. During the past decade, I have studied military aspects and cultural contacts in the early towns of Scandinavia and Rus', and lately also contacts between Byzantium and the Viking world. One result of these studies is the identification of Byzantine influences on cloth style, city life, court ceremonies, town planning and defense, all contributing to a'Byzantine dimension' of Scandinavian history.
There are numerous examples of national histories of the North, while the concept of a transnational history still needs to be explored. The method of writing a transnational history remains to be defined, though we are aware that in dealing with a number of local histories we are required to find one story - a way of uniting different histories in a common plot. Topics that unite histories are, for example, movements of people and the spreading of ideas and tech- nologies across national boundaries. Such common topics are quite popular in the writing of medieval history, but depending on political and/or cultural preferences they may be approached with different attitudes; sometimes they are simply denied.
The debate, about a Byzantine heritage in Scandinavia offers us a case in point. The question of whether or not Byzantine cultural influences may be discerned have been debated at length and are still far from being re- solved. Some historians of religion and art deny any considerable impact due to a lack of plain evidence. By contrast, other scholars, especially archaeologists, try to show the importance of Byzantium in the spreading of Christianity and in the shaping of a local elite in Scandinavia. In this debate the role of Old Rus as an agent of cultural transfer between Byzantium and Northern Europe has indeed been noted. Northmen, who were known in the East as Rhos and Va- rangians, held a unique position in world history; originating from the North they became representatives of a transnational history.
SOURCES, METHODOLOGY AND TERMINOLOGY
The study of contacts between Rus' and Scandinavia has a long tradition going back to the 18th century. The main concern of previous studies has been the extent to which Scandinavians contributed to the emergence of the Rus' state. The role of the Scandinavians in the early history of Rus' has been the subject of intense debate since the 18th century, with "Normanists" claiming that the Old Russian state was founded by Scandinavians and anti-Normanists" claim- ing it was founded by Slavs.
This "Normanist controversy, however, is based on a very simplified understanding of early state formation and therefore ha little relevance to serious research. Another weak point in earlier discussions is that the archaeological material has been seen as subordinate to the written sources." However, the written sources relevant to this subject are limited and it is unlikely that their further examination will shed new light on old problems. Under such circumstances the archaeological sources take on a prominent role.
Yet the value of archaeological finds has not been fully explored in the extensive discussions concerning the Scandinavian contribution to the shaping of the Old Russian state and culture. One reason is the poor quality of the publica- tion of the results of archaeological excavations in Eastern Europe during the 20th century. Another reason is the poor knowledge of Scandinavian collec- tions and the previous unavailability of Scandinavian publications which pre-vented access to reference material in Eastern Europe.
The situation changed for the better after the 1990s. Russian, Ukrainian and Scandinavian scholars have now initiated a major project with the aim of publishing the whole corpus of Scandinavian artefacts found in Eastern Europe. The Ukrainian section has recently been published.10 This reassessment of the archaeological source material has raised new questions and offers new directions in the study of the Northmen in Eastern Europe and their impact on the emergence of Old Rus' towns, Kiev in par- ricular." How long did Scandinavians in foreign cultural settings continue to remember their Norse origin? How did they display their cultural identity?
It has been suggested by some archaeologists that they assimilated quite quickly.¹¹ One of their arguments was the identification of so-called hybrid objects in some Rus' centres which reflect both Scandinavian and local cultural peculiar- iries, suggesting they had been produced there." While this view found favour among Russian archaeologists, their Scandinavian colleagues do not regard these objects as anything other than pure Scandinavian. Several important issues accordingly remain to be further discussed. First, relative numbers. The number of artefacts of Scandinavian origin in Eastern Europe is very large, especially in comparison with those recorded in Western Europe and the British Isles. The range of artefacts includes a number of functional everyday items, such as oval brooches, which were manufactured for a specific type of traditional female dress in Scandinavia and were not a common item among the local population of Eastern Europe.
There is evidence of local production of such jewellery on sites where a large quantity of other Scandinavian objects have been recognised (Gnëzdovo, Rjurikovo gorodišče). This raises the hitherto unconsidered question of the role women played in the dissemination of traditional Norse culture into Eastern Europe. Second, trade versus immigration. The archaeological material has not yet proven the suggestion of a commercial origin for most of the Scandinavian objects in Eastern Europe. One important issue in this regard is the role of unusual or foreign objects in the local cultural setting as well as local patterns of consumption. Third, landscape and identity. It is important to study models of the way in which cultural landscapes might be deliberately shaped in relation to the cul- tural identity of the Northmen active in Eastern Europe. How do we identify.
a population's social and cultural manifestations and how were they recognized in the landscapes of the time? And fourth, comparative analysis of burial rites. Graves were an impor- tant element in the construction of the cultural landscape. The topography and contents of graves in relation to settlement finds are two issues that need to be placed in a broader social and cultural context. Not all of these topics will be fully discussed in this work. My intention is merely to approach them through the examples presented in the following essays. The first essay thus offers a general outline and contains a survey of the archaeological evidence available on the prevalence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe.
The second essay, "Identifying Northmen in southern Rus" deals with the important question of Norse identity and the problems associated with recognising it in archaeological sources. The third essay is a case-study of a Scandinavian presence in the territory west of Kiev, "The role of Dereva and Volhynia in contacts between Northmen and Slavs in the 9th-11th centuries". Essay number four, "Byzantium and the Viking World: archaeological evidence for contacts in the 9th-10th centuries", addresses contacts with Byzantium and the effects such contacts had on shaping the social elite in old Norse societies in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The fifth essay is devoted to the question of the material manifestation of power and some rituals connected with the construction of large mounds known both in Rus' and Scandinavia. The sixth essay represents an attempt to prove actual contacts between Rus and Scandi- navia in the 11th and 12th centuries by taking into account mainly archaeolog- ical sources.
In essay number seven, "Symbols of Faith or Symbols of Status? Christian objects in Viking Rus' contexts". I investigate the material symbols of Christianity in Viking Rus locations. The eighth essay is a study of the role played by cemeteries in the shaping of early Christian urban landscapes in Scandinavia and Rus'. I then briefly summarize my results in a final section under the title "Cultural Adaptation and Shaping Identities". At the centre of this volume is the significance of the region of modern Ukraine for the interaction between the Scandinavians and Byzantium. My intention is to put the main focus on the southern parts of Rus'. This is not a particularly well-investigated area, especially in terms of its links with Scandi- navia, and I hope that my work, rather than offering a full picture, will provide a starting point for further discussion.
A comparison of this area with northern and eastern parts of Rus' is not included in this study. That depends to some extent on the different characters of settlements and politico-military situa- tions in all these regions, but also on the state of published material in Russia. 16 As already mentioned, the present study involves the correlating of two types of sources: textual narratives and archaeological material. Each type en- tails its own complexities and methodology. For the period of the 9th and 10th centuries, the major written records on this topic were composed by Byzantine and Islamic authors. The 11th and 12th centuries were a formative time for the shaping of the identity of the Rus' as a people and as a political entity. That the Rus' began writing chronicles is in itself an indication of this process. "
This is the tale of bygone years regarding the origin of the land of the Rus', the first princes of Kiev, and from which source the land of Rus' had its beginning", reads the subtitle of the Russian Primary Chronicle, considered to have been composed around the beginning of the 12th century." Though it is still a mat- ter of debate how well the writer of the chronicle knew the early history of the Rus', it would seem he did not know it very well: he borrowed his most important inforntation from the Byzantine chronicle of Georgios Hamartolos and from the Greek originals of the Russo-Byzantine treaties of the 10th cen- tury. Whenever details were missing, the Russian compiler borrowed from the local oral tradition.
Under these circumstances, the manner of relating the first centuries of Rus existence in the Russian Primary Chronicle displays clear legendary element. Should we avoid such problematic information and keep only to safe ground? Surely not. In Chapter 3, I will show that even such a fabulous description as Olga's attack on Iskorosten', the city of the Derevlians, contains a core of historical truth. Archaeological excavations in Old Iskoros- ten' (the modern city of Korosten', Žytomirska oblast') have shown the ex- istence of at least one hillfort settlement, which produced outstanding finds of silver and gold as well as objects of Byzantine, Scandinavian and local origin, and which was destroyed by fire some time in the middle of the 10th century. Of course, this does not mean that we should take the chronicle's explanation of the reason for this event at face value, but should take it into consideration and, with the help of archaeology and other available written sources, examine its credibility.
By cross-examining and correlating the information to be gleaned from the written sources at our disposal, we should then seek verification in other rele- vant sources. This is the methodology of classical source criticism, familiar to both philologists and historians, but apparently less in favour among archaeol- ogists, who too seldom use written sources critically. For the reader who is not aware of the nature of these works, I will here offer a brief summary of the most important written sources.
The descriptions of Rus' and Varangians in Arabic sources are extremely important. Most have been translated into Russian and are thus known to the Slavic audience.20 They are also available in editions and translation into other modern languages. In order to discover what the Byzantines knew about the people of the Rus' (or Rhos, as they were called in Greece) in the 9th-10th centuries we must examine several key narratives. One is the work known as the chronicle of Theophanes Continuatus (or Scriptores post Theophanem), a collection of chronicles covering the period 813-961 and consisting of four in- dependent parts. The first part contains a series of biographies of emperors reigning from 813 to 867 and was commissioned by Emperor Constantine VII Porhyrogennetos (913-959).
This source contains important records of raiding activities and the conversion of the Rus'. Theophanes' chronicle was continued in Leo the Deacon's History, describing events from 959 to 976,23 and the Syn- opsis Historiarum of John Skylitzes, which covers the period from 811 to 1057.24 Both Leo the Deacon and John Skylitzes include information on the military activity of the Rus' in the Balkans and specifically the role played by Prince Svjatoslav. Two other important works compiled in the reign of Constantine VII are the treatises De Ceremoniis and De Administrando Imperio. The for- mer contains information on Princess Olga's visit to the Byzantine court in the middle of the 10th century; the latter describes the Rus' route to Byzantiúm as well as imperial attitudes to surrounding neighbours.
Old Russian narratives are represented by the younger version of the Novgo- rod First Chronicle (or The Chronicle of Novgorod),27 and the above-mentioned Russian Primary Chronicle, representing different traditions of depicting the early history of the Rus'. The Novgorod First Chronicle was compiled in the 15th century and covers the period from the 9th to the 12th century.
The Russian Primary Chronicle extends from when the Earth was divided berween the sons of Noah" down to the year 1109 and is preserved in two redactions the Lau- rentian Chronicle, dated to 1377, and the Hypation Chronicle, dated to the middle of the fifteenth century. A Slavonic translation of the Byzantine chronicle of George Hamartolos covers the period from "Adam" to 867 and was written in the 10th or 11th century. This was the main source for the compiler of the Russian Primary Chronicle on early raids by the Rus' on Byzantium.31 Art history supplies us with another source of information, since visual rep- resentations can be very exact in their details of costume, jewellery, weapons, etc. However, the dates and sources of such illustrations need to be examined critically, as is the case with all written material. A case in point is provided by the so-called Menologion of Basil II," an illuminated manuscript of the 11th century containing no less than 430 miniatures.
The Menologion has not yet been studied sufficiently, but is a very important source for studies of Byzantine dress of the 10th-11th centuries. 4 The use of archaeological sources also has its methodological problems. First of all, a large part of the material that is relevant here consists of old finds without proper documentation or which have not yet been published. The well documented finds are, as a rule, published only in Russian and Ukrainian. As a result. some readers might need a short introduction to the available archaeo- logical sources.
The most vital archaeological records relate to a range of key sites. Old Ladoga, Rjurikovo gorodišče and Timerëvo in Russia were established in the early Viking period and provide the earliest material evidence for contacts with Scandinavia. Some of that material has been published and discussed in Eng-lish, German and French." The situation is far worse as regards the publica- tion of sites such as Gnezdovo, Kiev and Černihiv, sites which are fundamental for studying the presence of Scandinavians in the 10th and 11th centuries.
The extensive articles by Eduard Mühle and Johan Callmer dealing with Gnezdo- vo and Kiev respectively still provide the only available foreign access to these sources. The published evidence for Scandinavian artefacts has been exam- ined by Władysław Duczko as a source of Scandinavian presence in Rus'. 17 The present study is intended to present the hitherto inaccessible evidence to non-Slavic readers. It is based on my catalogue of the Scandinavian artefacts of the 10th-11th centuries from Ukraine published in collaboration with Volod- ymyr Zocenko (see Androščuk and Zocenko 2012). Recognition of a Scandi- navian origin for this wide range of artefacts is based on my examination in situ of museum collections in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Ukraine. Finally, I need to address a terminological issue.
The designation "Vikings" in this book is a broad construct. It is known that such a name was charac- teristic only for one social category of Scandinavian society in the 8th to inth centuries, namely those who were engaged in warfare and robbery. The Vi- king raids were a characteristic feature of this period and we may thus label it as the "Viking Age"." The terms "Northmen" and "Scandinavians" are applied to all residents of Viking Age Scandinavia, regardless of their social status an genetic history; they share the same cultural preferences that may be read in the style of artefacts, "fashion", organisation of sites, architecture, and language. Any interpretation of artefacts needs to be problem-oriented and demands a specific contextual knowledge.
That is why we have to pay special attention to both the spatial and cultural context of every single odd and untypical find in various regions. We must bear in mind all these aspects while interpreting Scandinavian finds in Eastern Europe. Viking studies are a branch of his- torical or "text-aided" archaeology, which means that we cannot avoid dealing with both written and archaeological sources. There is no universal approach when combining these two sorts of information other than a constant aware- ness of the source criticism demanded by each discipline. Being trained in both history and archaeology, I am continually aware of this dilemma, and I remain
in debt to those historians and archaeologists who have assisted me during the various stages of my research. 0 Both Cyrillic and Greek have been transliterated in this volume. The trans- literation of Cyrillic follows the practice employed by Scandinavian linguistic journals; a conspicuous exception is provided by my own name (Androshchuk rather than Androščuk), a choice made for bibliographical reasons. Byzantine names and terms are transliterated according to their spelling in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.
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