Gone Medieval - Vikings & The Rus in Medieval Ukraine

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

One year ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. While the invasion and subsequent war have largely been driven by modern geopolitics, the history of the two countries has also played a part, especially that of the medieval period.In today’s episode of Gone Medieval Dr. Cat Jarman explains the relationship between the Rus’ people and the Viking Age where this story begins, with contributions from Dr. Olenka Pevny from the University of Cambridge and Dr. Fedir Androschuk, Director of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine.This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob WeinbergIf you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval by History Hit. I'm Dr Kat Jarman. One year ago, on the 24th of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The past year has been devastating for the people of Ukraine, with a loss of lives currently estimated at over 40,000 alongside immeasurable destruction to cities, towns and villages. While the war and invasion were largely driven by modern geopolitics, the history of the two countries have also played a part,

and especially the part of Ukraine and Russia's history that relates to the medieval period. In this episode of Gone Medieval, I'm going to be talking through some of this history, and particularly that relating to the Russe and the Viking Age. because in many ways, that is where the story begins. We're also going to be hearing back from two experts who have taken part in Gone Medieval and other history hit interviews before. The first of these is Dr. Olenka Pevny from the University of Cambridge, who talked to Matt Lewis about the origins of Kiev.

The second is Dr. Fedir Anderschuk, who is the director of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, who I interviewed last year at a conference at the University of Liverpool. around seven months before the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin published an essay entitled On the Historical Unity of Russia and Ukraine, which set out some of his imperial ambitions. In the essay, he argued that the people of the two countries

share a common history and identity and that Ukraine had been unjustly taken from Russia in more recent times. Other Russian propaganda has similarly painted Ukraine as lacking any unique history separate and apart from Russia. Part of this line of thinking relates to the attitude that Russians and Ukrainians are one and the same people, stemming from the Kievan Russe and the descendants of the so-called Rurikid dynasty

that dates back to the 9th century. How far back can we trace this joint past? What do we really know about it? And how do Russia and Ukraine differ in the way they see it? Putin endorses this narrative. In his article, he writes, Throne of Kiev held a dominant position in ancient Rus. This had been the custom since the late 9th century.

The tale of bygone years captured for posterity the words of Oleg the Prophet about Kiev, let it be the mother of all Russian cities. To many, these people known as the Rus, or the Rusians, who give rise to the names Russia and Belarus, are synonymous for the Vikings. But that's not entirely accurate either. It's a much more complicated story than that. Here's what Olenka had to say about the Rus.

Yes, it's fair to say that we begin to know more about this region when the Norsemen coming from Finland and Norway and Sweden begin to make their way down the river routes to Constantinople, and they begin to serve in the Constantinopolitan palace guard and begin to travel around the world and we begin to hear more about the Rus in historical Byzantine sources. And this is how we begin to imagine the Rus.

And we also know about the Rus from the main chronicle for the Rus period, which is the chronicle called the Povist Vremenichlet, which is the tale of the bygone years. The only English translation that exists, calls it the Russian primary chronicle, even though we, of course, realize there was no Russia or modern nation state at this period. But part of the reason why we have these misconceptions is because of the loose translation of the word Rus. The truth is to know about

the Rus is really quite complicated, because I think as we begin to realize how complex our global world is, we begin to realize also the fluidity of meanings, of words, and of concepts. The way the word Rus was used was also not constant, not even in the medieval period. So if you read what is referred to as the primary chronicle or the Povies forameniglatt, you begin to see that the term Rus is differently applied at different points of the chronicle. So at first it might refer to the Norsemen coming down the river routes and establishing trading settlements along the river routes. Then eventually you begin to see that it refers to a broader ruling class that is already intermarried with the Slavic populations.

And then even later by the 12th century, it refers to the Rus lands. And Rus was never a state. I think that is one of the biggest problems that we have in studying this period. Fadir also commented on how problematic this is, this idea of a singular Rus' origin, in the way that Putin presents it in his essay. He also explains the differences in understanding of this history in Russia and Ukraine, and not least the contributions that archaeology can make.

Russian scholarship is basically preoccupied with only one problem. It's a region of Russian state. state. This is pretty much they are very happy to do. But quite a lot of such research is based on written sources which have a later origin. And this is contracts against the Ukrainian scholarship, which are actually dealing with issues such like what origin of this source is. Where are the ideological implication to create them and stuff like that. And particularly they are highlighting this chronological distance between years and the events it described for 200 years gap. That is why important to know where come this information from which the Chronicle was relying.

The rural archaeologies can tell us a completely different story, and particularly in recently time there are a lot of finds. And what is interesting, we have quite, I think, interested collection of objects dated to the Wendell period, the 7th century, 8th century, some of them are quite high. I think it's probably something we need to rethink about the beginning of the Viking Age. But what is important, At the time, it's a bit saying something about contacts between Scandinavia and the population of Ukraine, which was actually previous to this when the Uricardinus installed in Kiev. So I think this is very interesting at this scale, the new page actually in this story.

Now, the connection with Scandinavia and the possible Scandinavian origins of the Russe has been very contentious and led to what has been known as a Normanist debate, with one side arguing that the Russo were essentially the Vikings or Normans, and the other side, the anti-normans, arguing that they were anything but. We do know that the Viking is a conventional term from the CFR in people trading and riding and colonize in part of the European countries. And you can't find the Vikings in Russian history. And the reason for this is that they pulled by two other terms, the Ross and the Brangians.

And both mentioned it in the tale of Begons. years, which actually a literary source which are basically dated to the beginning of 12th century. This source actually tells us about the invitation of the Berenjian to rule over the Slavonic and Finnish-speaking population. And this is basically the start of this debate because debates about the origin of Russian state and this is the start actually when the rose began called by the Russians. Of course there have been different opinion which actually were trying to identify the Varengians and the Rosas, Scandinavians. And this debate, they started in 18th century and had been continued until their recent time.

But during the Soviet time, these discussions tend to be like a debate between two academic seats. One of them is situated in Moscow with another one in Leningrad. And the scholars, they were representing a normalistic position, and those who were walking in the Moscow anti-narmonistic. Normanism at the time it was like to be academic dissident. And the explanation for this is that when the Soviet Union collapsed, they lost interest to this subject. So this sort of degree of connection is very much about how much of a link

and what a role the Scandinavians had, I suppose. Yeah, it's all these discussion between Normanism and anti-Nermanist. It was basically based on the written sources which have late character. And of course, archaeology could actually contribute a lot more new material. and this is why it became a more important discussion because these finds we are finding them and on different places of Eastern Europe and they need to be explained.

But let's backtrack a little here and consider what we really know about the earliest truce. That written source, the tale of bygone years, claims that this story begins in the 9th century in the year 862 when Rurig and his brothers were calling from the north to rule over the same. Slavic people. Now, there's no real archaeological evidence for this happening at that precise time at all, but we do know that people from Scandinavia started to make their way down the eastern

river routes and establishing trading settlements from the 8th century onwards. One of the first of these is St. Ladoga near modern day in St. Petersburg, which allowed for access to the Baltic Sea trading networks. Soon after, other similar sites and artifice. began to appear along the river networks. And in these areas, the Scandinavians met and interacted with the Slavic people. Olenka explained who these Slavs were. One of our issues is that we know very little about the Slavic people in the beginning. So we think the area that is today the Eastern Slavic world,

so the area north of the Carpathian regions, was settled sometime in the 6th century by a group of peoples that we refer to as Slavs, who spoke a common language, so usually referred to as common Slavic, common language, and they settled in the area north of the Carpathian mountains, and from there they spread to Central Europe, and the language of the Slavs became distinguished into three different groups, South Slavic languages, the West Slavic and the East Slavic, and the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusian languages,

belonged to the East Slavic group, which occupied the area north of the Carpathians, around Kiev, the Nipra, the cities of Novgorod and Skob. They were very disparate. The Slavs were composed of tribal units, and usually the names of the tribes took the names of local features of the environment. So we had the Derivlane, so they lived derbo as wood, they lived in the wooden areas, the Polane, the Beald areas, and each one of these tribes, far as we know, probably spoke slightly different versions of the common Slavic language and had different forms of government and different religious and cultural practices. Over on the Warfare podcast by History here, we bring you brand new military histories from around

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We don't know how many, we don't have many accurate dates, and we don't really know exactly what the relationship was with the Slavic people. Much of that has been because of the strong focus on Western Europe by researchers. Before most of Viking Konger's activity was basically concentrated on the presenting results of studies which actually were dealing with the western part of the Viking world. And Eastern part was basically very few present. But it's important to remember that the eastern part of the Viking world was very important. And it's also quite early period of time and we can find still a lot of new information which actually contribute to our current knowledge about the Viking Age heritage.

We can't see these people. It's very difficult to find them in the cemeteries because we don't have much information. If we compare the number of Scandinavian artifacts in Western Europe and Eastern Europe, so it's Eastern Europe, it's real much more. On the other hand, it is still discussion. What objects can be identified as a Scandinavian or inspired by Scandinavian cultures?

There are a lot of attempts have been made by historians. But we do know quite a lot about what the Scandinavians traded down those eastern routes. The slave trade was an important part, so much so, in fact, that the very word slave stems from the Slavs. And one of our key sources of knowledge, Fedir points out, is from coin hoards and silver. We have written sources telling us about the importance of slaves and they are also fair trade as well. It defines of silver coin, particularly Islamic coin. It's on the territory of Ukraine.

It's important trade transactions which were going on in the Ukraine. and of course the content of these hordes reveal the connections between Khazars and different parts of the Islamic world with the territory of Ukraine. The horse is very interesting source of information because it actually can reveal different directions of this context which actually did not just be east

but also to the west and north and stuff. That is why it's important to study on. So we do know quite a lot about the contact and connections. But when did these ruse first become something we could describe as a state and do we actually know much about who those people were? We don't have a direct written record until a little later. The tale of bygone years establishment in 862, of course,

is very likely, purely a medieval invention. But the very fast reference we have to the ruse in a written source is from quite an unexpected place, namely Francia, because in 839, so several decades earlier, A contemporary document reported a delegation from Byzantium arriving at the court of Louis the Pius, the Frankish Emperor, in Ingleheim. And with them, these delegates had a group of men who called themselves the Rus. They had been sent by their leader and were vouched for by the Byzantine Emperor.

Now, there's a lot again we don't know about that particular delegation, but what this does mean is by that very early stage, we already have an established group calling themselves a ruse with a name, an identity, and a leader, and they'd already established diplomatic connections with Byzantium. But in terms of their towns and cities, from these early stages again, what we know comes mainly from archaeological sources. The trading settlements soon start to grow,

and one of the towns that becomes really crucial is Keev. Olenka explained to us how Kiv became such an important centre. The Norsemen were sea nomads. They made their way down river routes. So it wasn't land that defined their state at the very beginning, but rather river routes and trading routes. So if you were to have a map of very early Rus, I would just know.

not draw borders, do you have things fizzle out towards the edges and highlight the river roots upon which all of these great cities of Ruis that became the centers of principalities or the centers of Ruis rulers developed. And Kiev happened to be on the Nipro River on the way to Byzantium, to Constantinople, to the Greeks. It was a convenient place to gather merchandise. Basically, what was traded from Rus lands was fur and honey and most importantly slaves and brought to Byzantium and then goods were returned to the Rus lands. So Kiev, I think, it's reasonable to assume that when the Rus came down these river routes, there were already settlements along these great and convenient points of trade and fishing. So Novgorod is one of these cities. Kiev is one of these cities.

The Rus developed these cities into greater merchant centers of trade. And Kiev was one of these centers. And then, of course, there are all of these legends about the importance of the river for Kiev. At the beginning of Rus' history, the capital wasn't in Kiev. We had rulers such as Oleg and Russian Oleg, who tried to move his capital somewhere further west, closer to Constantinople, the Bulgarians, but in the end, it was Kiev that became the most convenient center. And succession is a really interesting phenomenon in Roos lands. And we see that there are certain principles at play. So, for example, the principle of seniority. But Ruiz had what is

called system of succession that is a rota system of succession. So basically the first three sons of a ruler occupied the throne and only then did rulership pass on to the children of the eldest of the three sons. As you can imagine, as they had more and more children and multiplied, this was a very difficult system to follow. And so in several cases, we have meetings recorded in the Pauvis Bremenigliet about how to resolve issues of succession. So it wasn't just succession of different rulers in line for the throne, but these rulers were associated with different Rusilands. And so in a way, they had to move from one land to another, and that got pretty tiresome, and you didn't want to lose your patrimonial land. So with time, in the 12th century already,

you begin to see princes thinking about developing their own patrimonial lands and dividing their patrimonial lands among their sons. So in a way, the Golden Age of Kiev is really a very brief period, very end of the 10th century, early 11th century, when Christianity first comes, it's under Prince Volodymyr and Yaroslav, that we see things fairly content. and Kiev as this central unit, but you begin to get Novgorod developing with the prince playing a secondary role in the Novgorod principality by 1169, the prince of Vladimir,

so North, they begin to try to develop their patrimonial lands to the extent that they write to Constantinople and want to have their own metropolitan in this land. Apart from the horrific loss of lives, the war, not unusually, has also had a devastating impact on Ukraine's cultural heritage. Even though the deliberate targeting of religious and cultural sites is prohibited by the 1954 Hague Convention, museums and archaeological sites are of course not safe in any wartime situation. In my interview with Fadir, I asked him what that was like for him

back at the start of the war. As a director of a museum with very well, valuable and priceless collections. Fadir described to me how, on the morning of the invasion, after reports of the attacks on Keeves' airport, he was called very early by a colleague and asked to get to the museum as quickly as he could. The museum's collections were at risk and needed protection.

The exhibits needed to be dismantled and secured to guard them from bombs and looters. Fadir told me that he had no idea if any of his colleagues would turn up to help. as after all the city was being bombed and they and their families were in mortal danger. But when he got there, around 25 of them had risked their lives to help save the museum.

Well the next month or so, Fadir and some of his colleagues essentially moved into the museum to continue their work of protecting the artefacts. I asked him how they chose to prioritise in a situation like that and whether they had any guidelines for what to rescue first. He told me that they did, in fact, to have an instruction manual for what to rescue first in the case of a disaster or attack. But this manual was written in the 1970s under Soviet rule,

and at the time, the top priority were the objects that are related to communism or that could further communist ideologies. A stark reminder of just how political their past has always been. Thankfully to date, Fadrudea's museum has largely survived unscathed. Numerous museums, however, have been severely, damaged in fighting and missile attacks, and others again have been extensively looted by the invading forces. At the time we're writing this in February 23, one survey counted 553 damaged and destroyed cultural heritage sites and institutions across Ukraine. Although naturally,

as the war is still raging, it's tricky to say if this figure is accurate. One site, Shestovica, southwest of Cheniehev in the northern part of Ukraine, is one of the one of the of those that in an early part of the war was occupied by Russian forces. Shestovica was a crucial site during the Viking Age, a ruse fortified trading settlement by one of the river routes living down to Kiev and eventually down to Constantinople. I've excavated there myself with my Ukrainian colleagues, digging into some of the numerous burial mounds that are spread across the open plain and through the surrounding forests. There, archaeologists have found burial chambers and graves

that are almost identical to those at sites like Birka in Viking Age Sweden, but with artefacts that are a mix of Scandinavian and Slavic types. But the site has been contentious. In 1946, under USSR rule, when the anti-Normanist perspective was in full force, one archaeologist was sent to Zerciestovica to prove that there were no Scandinavian burials. there at all, which was, of course, exactly the opposite of what was found. More recently, a brother and sister buried in the same mound, were found through ancient DNA analysis to have Swedish or Norwegian-like ancestry. If you want to find out a little bit more about

Shestavica and how it fits into the bigger Viking world, I've written about it in my book, River Kings. But there's still an awful lot that we don't know about this particular site and how the Scandinavians and the Slavs interacted. Last spring, when Chester Vitsa was occupied, Russian forces dug trenches and buried tanks across the site and the wider area. Although it has since been liberated, we still don't quite know what might have been lost. There's a quote by George Orwell that fits the fight over Ukraine's past

and especially its Viking-Asian medieval origins very well. In this dystopian novel 1984, he said, who controls the past controls the future? Who controls the present controls the past? For now, we can only commemorate those who have died in the senseless war, who have been injured and their millions have lost their homes. Do still remember to support the people of Ukraine and donate help to some of the organizations that collect for them. Now, if you want to hear a little bit more about this, you can always go back over some of our old, gone. medieval episodes, for example, the full episode on the origins of Kiev, the Dr. Olenka Peveni

from the University of Cambridge is in our back catalogue. This has been an episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman. Thank you all so much for listening. Don't forget that you can subscribe to our newsletter if you want a little bit more medieval history in your inbox every week. It's called Medieval Mondays and just look in the episode notes for how to do that. If you don't already, please do follow and subscribe us. Give us a rate. online it really helps other people find the podcast so for now thank you so much for listening my co-host Matt Lewis will be back with the next episode and I will be back in a week's time until then have a brilliant week