Brian J. Boeck

Stone of Con tention: Medi eval Tmutarakan’ As a Measure of So viet Ar che ol ogy in the 1950s and 1960s

The me dieval Rus’ enti ty of Tmutarakan’ has been one of the most endur ing objec ts of schol arly in ter est since the eigh teenth cen tury. It is at the same time one of the most enig matic top ics in early Rus’ his tory. The fa mous late nine teenth-cen tury Rus sian ar che ol o gist Aleksandr Spitsyn de- clared:

“Tmutarakan’ is an unknown… the history of Tmutarakan’ is so dark and uncer - tain (ne o predelenna) that there are no ea ger vol un teers (net okhotnikov) to carry out monogra phic resea rch on its fate. On this topic one cannot locat e ma teri als for learned dis ser ta tions.”1

More op ti mis ti cally in clined his to ri ans, how ever, have given Tmutarakan’ credit for every thi ng from the ori gins of the Rus’ state, to the Cyril lic al phabet, to the seat of the first Rus’ bishop. George Vernadsky was one of the most ambi ti ous his tori ans to pro- pose a wide histor i cal role for Tmutarakan’, but he cauti ously peppered his refer ence s to it with such phrases as “sur mise,” “it ap pears,” “may have,” “one may sup pose,” “we may like wise con jecture,” “as sume,” and three cases of “pre sum ably.”2 For the skep- tics the evi dence is too limit ed to draw any secure conclu sions , while for the opti mists it provides the key to unlock ing mys ter ies of the Rus’ past. The scat tered me dieval textual refer ence s to Tmutarakan’ do not provide enough in- forma ti on to re construc t its history in full.3 The Rus’ chroni cle s only provide a few la- conic ref er ences to Tmutarakan’ and it ap pears var iously as a city, an ap pa nage prin ci- palit y, or a “no man’s land” to which rene gade princes flee and from which they some- times return to fight other Rus’ princes in the eleventh century. The Slovo o Polku Igoreve, an epic about an unsuc ces sful campaign by Igor Sviatoslavich in the twelfth

1 Ñïè öûí À. À. Èñòî ðè êî-àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êèå ðàç ûñ êà íèÿ. Æóð íàë Ìè íèñ òå ðñòâà íà ðîä íî ãî ïðî - ñâå ùå íèÿ. 1909, ÿíâàðü. Ñ. 79. 2 George Vernadsky, Kievan , New Haven, 1948, 31, 34, 56, 60, 67, 68, 77, 78, 257. 3 The reliable evidence in Rus’ sources is conveniently summarized in Êîòëÿð Í. Ô. Òìóòî ðî êàí ñêèå çà áî òû êè åâ ñêèõ êíÿ çåé. Íîð íà ó èñ òî÷ íè êà ñóäü áû. Ñáîð íèê ñòà òåé â ÷åñòü Åëå íû Àëåêñàíäðîâíû Ìåëü íè êî âîé. M., 2001. Ñ. 191–196.

ã Brian J. Boeck, 2005 Stone of Con ten tion: Me di eval Tmutarakan’ 33

cen tury, has sev eral ref er ences to Tmutarakan’, but its authen ticity is con tested.4 The scarcit y of textual sources has meant that inter preta ti on, imagi na ti on and conjec - ture have played an inor di nate role in discus sions of Tmutarakan’. Tmutarakan’ is also one of the oldest problem s in the his tori og ra phy of Rus’. If early debate s focuse d on sim ply locat ing Tmutarakan’ after centu rie s of oblivion, the un- earthing of a purporte d medi eval Rus’ian stone inscri pti on on the Taman’ Penin sula near in 1792 has spawned a conti nu ous proces s of debate and contestation about its his tor i cal sig nif i cance.5 Rus sian his to ri ans have shown con sid er ably more in- ter est in this contro ver sia l monu ment than their Ukrai nian collea gues and counter parts. I would submit that this can be explai ned by the fact that Tmutarakan’ has long been part of a discourse of domi nance concerne d with Russia n power in the North Cauca sus region. In historiographic terms, all roads to the North Cauca sus (includ ing the modern day one to Chechnia) pass through Tmutarakan’. In the mid-twenti eth century, it appeare d that the age old problem of Tmutarakan’ could be de ci sively re solved by dis cov er ies in ar chae ol ogy and an cil lary dis ci plines such as folkloristics, metrol ogy, and epigra phy. In fact, two of the most promi nent archeologists and his tori ans of the Soviet era tackled the problem of Tmutarakan’ in the ninetee n fifti es and sixti es. Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov (1908–2001), one of the most in flu en tial Rus sian scholar-bu reau crats of the twenti eth cen tury, ad vanced an op ti mis tic, Great Rus sian na tional agenda to dem on strate the im por tance of Tmutarakan’ in early Russia n history. Aleksander L’vovich Mongait (1915–1976), an ac com plished Marx ist ar che ol o gist, ad vo cated a skep ti cal ap proach to wards ex pan sive claims about the Slavic role in the his tory of this enig matic en tity. This ar ticle will survey the dispute be tween Mongait and Rybakov over Tmutarakan’, eval uate their meth ods of in ter pret ing and pre sent ing ev i dence, and dem on strate how power pre- vailed over pro fes sion al ism within the So viet ar che o log i cal es tab lish ment of the 1950s and 1960s. Both schol ars seem to have devel oped an inter est in Tmutarkan’ in the ninetee n for- ties. Mongait ap par ently be came in ter ested in the topic as a re sult of his cele brated ex - cava tions of Old Riazan’.6 The Primary chroni cle suggest ed a connec ti on betwee n Riazan’ and Tmutarakan (in 1078 Oleg of Riazan’ fled to Tmutarakan’) and the eigh- teenth century histo ria n V. N. Tatishchev had identi fied Tmutarakan’ as Riazan’.7 B. A. Gorodtsov, a Soviet arche ol o gist , claimed that certai n potter y finds in the Kuban’

4 For the skeptical view, consult Edward L. Keenan, Josef Dobrovský and the Origins of the Igor Tale (Cambridge, 2004). The voluminous literature championing its authenticity is presented effectively in Òâîðî ãîâ Î. Â., ðåä. Ýíöèê ëî ïå äèÿ “Ñëî âà î ïî ëêó Èãî ðå âå”, â 5 òò. ÑÏá., 1995. 5 For the process of debate and contention, see my study: A tale of two stones: comparing contested epigraphic artifacts from Kensington, Minnesota and Kievan Rus’. Festschrift for Thomas Noonan, Volume II, Russian history/Histoire Russ (forthcoming 2005). 6 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Ñòà ðàÿ Ðÿ çàíü. M., 1955. 7 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íàäïèñü íà êàìíå. M. 1969. Ñ. 27. 34 Brian J. Boeck

region showed connec ti ons with types from Riazan’.8 Rybakov also seems to have been intri gued by reports that local arche o log i cal digs had uncov ered “Slavic” feature s in exca va ti ons north of the Cauca sus along the coast. In a 1950 arti cle on the Ulichi tribe he proposed a possi ble connec ti on betwee n refer ence s in textual sources to fifth-century “Evdusians” (the name Evdusian appeare d Slavic to him) and re ports that cre ma tion practices in a grave com plex near Gelenzhik on the Black Sea Coast showed sim ilar ities to Slavic cus toms.9 These paral lel inter ests would take a diver gent course in the year 1952 at the famous “Cri mean ses sion” of the Acad emy of Sci ences. As Mykhailo Braichevs’kyi re lates in his Ruthenica ar ti cle de voted to this ar che o log i cal dis cus sion, in the post-war pe riod the cele bra tion of all things Rus sian lead lo cal pub licists and his to ri ans in Cri mea to pro claim Achil les a Rus sian, la bel Scythia a Rus sian state, and iden tify Rus sians even among the remai ns of Neanderthal-era hominids. 10 At the Cri mean ses sion held in Simferopol’ in May 1952 an aca demi c dis cussion was staged in order to osten si bly re - claim the Cri mean past from the dil et tantes. Ac cord ing to Braichevs’kyi the “main hero of the session” was Rybakov, who advance d claims that evi dence of ancie nt Slavic set tlement could be at tested all over the Black Sea re gion.11 Rybakov is reporte d to have pub licly de clared: “We can trace the in filtra tion (proniknovenie) of Slavs in Cri mea and Taman’ for almost a thousand years prior to the forma ti on of the Tmutarakan’ prin ci pal ity.”12 In the after math of the session, Rybakov would pro- mote an am bi tious en deavor to ap pro pri ate an cient Cri mea and ad ja cent ar eas of the North Cauca sus for Russia n history. Tmutarakan’ be came a keystone used to but- tress other, more dubi ous claims. The very same year, however, Mongait surveyed ar- cheo log i cal sites and museum collec tions in the Kuban’ re gion and found “no charac - ter is tics typ i cal of Slavic cul ture.”13 Because these claims were mu tu ally ex clu sive, the rep u tation of each scholar was at stake. Rybakov soon acquire d the resource s to test his vi sion. Buoyed by the succes s of his exten sive study of ancie nt “Russia n” handi craft s (1948) and his Stali n prize, Rybakov be came a lead ing fig ure in the So viet ar che o log i cal es tab lish ment.14 His willing ness to pander to Sta lin era ideol ogy and Great Russia n chauvin ism to a large extent help to ex- plain his mete oric rise from a senior re search posi ti on in the mid-forti es to head of In-

8 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íå êî òî ðûå ñðåä íå âå êî âûå àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êèå ïà ìÿò íè êè Ñå âå ðî-Çà ïàä íî ãî Êàâ - êà çà. ÑÀ. 1955. XXIII. Ñ. 321. The full Gorodtsov excavation reports were apparently never published. 9 Ðû áà êîâ Á. À. Óëè ÷è. ÊÑÈÈÌÊ. 1950. XXXV, Ñ. 15. 10 Áðàé ÷åâñüêè é Ì. Êðèìñüêà ñåñ³ÿ 1952 ðîêó. Ruthenica, ². 2002. Ñ. 177–78. 11 Ibidem. 12 Ãàä ëî À. Â. Ïðîá ëå ìà Ïðè à çîâ ñêîé Ðóñè êàê òåìà ðóñ ñêîé èñ òî ðè îã ðà ôèè. ÑÐÈÎ, 2002. 4 (152). Ñ. 28. 13 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íå êî òî ðûå ñðåä íå âå êî âûå àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êèå ïà ìÿò íè êè Ñå âå ðî-Çà ïàä íî ãî Êàâ - êàçà. Ñ. 340. 14 For a biographical sketch, see Ïëåò íåâà Ñ. À., Íèêî ëàå âà Ò. Â., ðåä. Á. À. Ðûáà êîâ. M., 1978. For his acclaimed early work, consult Ðûáà êîâ Á. À. Ðå ìåñ ëî Äðåâ íåé Ðóñè. M., 1948. Stone of Con ten tion: Me di eval Tmutarakan’ 35

sti tute for the His tory of Ma te rial Cultur e in Mos cow (1951) to direc tor of the In sti tute of Ar che ol ogy in (1956).15 A popu lar arti cle publi shed by Rybakov in 1954 in a jour nal de voted to the Slavs pro vides the most sub stan tial and ac ces si ble pub lished ev i dence of his op ti mis tic agenda for re-cover ing the his tory of Tmutarakan’.16 In this publi cati on he launched an am bi tious ef fort to con vince read ers of the con tin u ous ex is tence of Slavic set tle ments in the northern Black Sea region from the third century A. D. to the emergence of Tmutarakan’ as a “Rus sian” princi pal it y in the tenth century. To do this he wove a slen- der thread of his own conjec tures togethe r with authen ti c, but creati vely inter preted, tes ti mo nies from Byzantine and Arab his to ri ans. He con fi dently de clared: “Tmu- tarakan’ played an impor tant role in the devel op ment of Russia n culture and [exert ed] ben e fi cial (blagotvornoe) influ ence on the peoples of the North Cauca sus.” 17 More - over, accord ing to him it was a rich, prosper ous, Rus sian (russkii) city. This pu ta tive cultura l center and great me tropo li s was destroye d by the Mongols in 1223, but in the eightee nth century general A. V. Suvorov was able to “liber ate this ancie nt Russia n land and once again join it to the rest of Russia (priobshchit’ k ostal’noi Rossii).”18 This un subtl e at tempt to appro pri ate the Kievan past and construc t an even earli er Slavic pre-history consis ted primar il y of a se ries of bold asser ti ons not backed up by ei ther ev i dence or de tailed ex pla na tions. Rybakov had an nounced an am bi tious agenda to dem onstra te the “huge histor i cal role” of Tmutarakan’, but the contro ver sia l textual evi dence alone could not support such grand conclu sions . Only arche ol ogy could re- veal the contours of such a submerge d past. Mongait also express ed the hope that ar chae ology might solve many age old prob - lems in the his tory of Tmutarakan’. In 1955 he even acknowl edged the extre me impor - tance of the exca va ti ons being carrie d out by his col league:

The Taman’ arche o log i cal expe di ti on of the IIMK, headed by B. A. Rybakov, must solve one of the most compli cated problem s of Rus sian history. This is not only the problem of Tmutarakan’ and the ques tions surround ing the his tory, cul- ture and life of this town, but also the much wider problem of south-east ern Rus’ as a whole. In real it y was Tmutrakan’ just one city, a southern fore-post of

15 The chronology of Rybakov’s rise is based on Ïëåòíå âà Ñ. À., Íèêî ëà å âà Ò. Â., ðåä. Á. À. Ðû áà - êîâ. The assessment of his rise is mine. For a classic study of the emerging Stalinist approach to the Russian past, consult Nicholas S. Timasheff, The Great Retreat: The Growth and Decline of Communism in Russia (New York, 1946). David Brandenberger’s recent book provides an excellent treatment of the Russian component of Stalinist culture. See National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956 (Cambridge, 2002). 16 This paragraph is based upon Ðû áàêîâ Á. À. Äðåâíèå ñëà âÿíå â Ïðè÷åð íî ìîðüå. Ñëà âÿ íå. 1954. ¹ 2. Ñ. 22–26. Similar ideas were expressed in a talk given at the Institute of Material Culture, see Âîï ðî ñû èñ òî ðèè. 1954. ¹ 8. Ñ. 103. For more on the struggle for control of Soviet archeology in the early fifties, see Êî íî ïàòñêèé À. Ê. Ïðîøëî ãî âåëè êèé ñëåäî ïûò (Àêàäåìèê À. Ï. Îêëàäíè - êîâ: ñòðà íè öû áè îã ðà ôèè). Íîâî ñè áèðñê, 2001. Ñ. 186–188. 17 Ðû áà êîâ Á. À. Äðåâ íèå ñëà âÿ íå â Ïðè ÷åð íî ìîðüå. Ñ. 24. 18 Ibidem, 24. 36 Brian J. Boeck

the east Slavs, a trading em porium, or was it an expan sive region popu lat ed by Slavs?19

As is evi dent from the quote, he consid ered the al ter nati ve of a more limit ed, and hence less glori ous, histor i cal role for Tmutarakan’. In spite of his profess ed faith that answers would be forthcom ing, he would have to wait nearly a decade for answers and was ulti mately un sat is fied with ones that emerged. After exten sive exca va ti ons were under take n betwee n 1952 and 1955 to uncover medi eval layers at Taman’, only one truly unex plai ned myster y remai ns in the his tory of Tmutarakan’. Why were the exca va ti on reports never publi shed? By 1956 Rybakov obvi ously had the power and influ ence to put into print his views on a whole range of topics , but concern ing his pet projec t of Tmutarakan’ he was unchar ac ter isti cally tight-lipped. His enti re publi shed out put on a place that he person all y exca vate d and that he had himsel f expli cit ly promote d as playing a “huge his tori cal role” amounted to a few con fer ence ab stracts, a four-page pop u lar ar ticle, and some news pa per ar ticles. None of these forums de manded any of the foot notes, photo graphs, or techni cal docu - men ta tion re quired for the dis sem i na tion of ar che o log i cal ev i dence. There fore Rybakov’s ac ademi c si lence is perhaps his most impor tant statement about Tmu- tarakan’. The em pir ical ev idence he dis cov ered seems to have deflated vir tu ally all of his infla ted claims about Tmutarakan’. Support for this conclu sion came to light in the form of a slender ac ademi c volume (with a small print run) publi shed in 1963 and dedi cat ed to the ce ramics and glass mate- rials un cov ered dur ing the ex ca va tions of Taman’/Tmutarakan’.20 In a very brief prefa ce to the volume, Rybakov menti oned that his exca va ti ons had uncov ered, among other things, the founda ti ons of a church built by Mstislav in 1023 and a fortre ss wall. Al- though he pledged to publi sh the evi dence for these discov er ies in a second volume, it never ap peared. The content s of this first vol ume made it painfull y clear that the exca va ti ons had failed to find any substa nti al evi dence of Slavic settl ement before the tenth century, and thus all of Rybakov’s prior spec ula ti ons about a thousand years of Slavic pres ence lit- erall y had no founda ti on. Specia list s in mate ria l cul ture conclude d that even during the Rus’ era of the settl ement ’s his tory the Slavic popu la ti on of Tmutarakan’ was “insig - nif i cant.”21 The ”Russia n” period of Tmutarakan’s exis tenc e was not a pe riod of flour- ishing trade, but was ac tuall y a period of de cline. Al though the site was prosper ous un- der Khazar and Byzantine rule, it could be char acter ized as de pop u lated (zapustevshii) during the period of Rus’ rule.22

19 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íå êî òî ðûå ñðåä íå âå êî âûå àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êèå ïà ìÿò íè êè Ñå âå ðî-Çà ïàä íî ãî Êàâ - êàçà. Ñ. 321. 20 Ðû áà êîâ Á. À., ðåä. Êå ðà ìè êà è ñòåê ëî äðåâ íåé Òìó òà ðà êà íè. M., 1963. 21 Ïëåò íå âà Ñ. À. Ñðåä íå âå êî âàÿ êå ðà ìè êà Òà ìàí ñêî ãî ãî ðî äè ùà. Êå ðà ìè êà è ñòåê ëî äðåâ íåé Òìó òà ðà êà íè. Ñ. 68. 22 Ïëåò íå âà Ñ. À. Ñðåä íå âå êî âàÿ êå ðà ìè êà Òà ìàí ñêî ãî ãî ðî äè ùà. Ñ. 70, and Ìà íà å âà Ò. È. Ïî - ëèâ íàÿ êå ðà ìè êà Òà ìàí ñêî ãî ãî ðî äè ùà. Êå ðà ìè êà è ñòåê ëî äðåâ íåé Òìó òà ðà êà íè. Ñ. 94. Stone of Con ten tion: Me di eval Tmutarakan’ 37

When arche ol ogy failed to deli ver the desire d result s, the reli abil ity of folklore for re cov er ing an an cient Slavic pres ence at Tmutarakan’ became a point of con ten tion for the two schol ars. Rybakov had extende d his opti mism to folklore already in his 1954 popu lar arti cle. He had pronounced confi dentl y that the “most ancie nt Slavic epic about the struggle of the Antes with the Goths and Avars was preserve d in later Kabardian tales, which tes tify to the ancie nt cul tural influ ence of the Tmutarakan’ Rus’ on their neighbors.” 23 Once again the cu ri ous reader would have to wait sev eral years for him to provide either evi dence or a more detai led expla na ti on. It was only in a 1963 book en ti tled Drevniaia Rus’: Skazaniia, byliny, letopisi that Rybakov reveal ed his be- li efs about how Kabardian oral tra diti on had suppos edly preserve d an ancie nt Slavic epic. Rybakov had re-discov ered the texts of Shora B. Nogmov, a self-trained Kabardian author who in the 1840s wrote a manuscri pt on Kabardian oral tra diti ons. His works were later edit ed and posthu mousl y publi shed by others in the second half of the nine- teenth century. Rybakov ei ther neglec ted to acquaint himsel f with the histo ri og ra phy devoted to this contro ver sia l witness to Kabardian oral tra diti on or he consci ously de - cided not to compli cate his argu ment with contra ry assess ments. In the late ninetee nth century the famous folklor ist Vsevelod Miller had im pugned the reli abil ity of Nog- mov’s texts and an impor tant twen ti eth-century study had also questi oned their ve raci - ty.24 But becaus e Nogmov’s text promise d to lend credi bil ity to Rybakov’s pre-con- ceived noti on that the An tes were an east Slavic polit y, he ac cepted Nogmov’s texts as genu ine . Dismis sing any in fluence from later Russia n sources, Rybakov uti lized passage s from Nogmov to recover an “Ante epic” that focuse d on the sixth-century Avar Khan Baikan.25 Finding that one of Nogmov’s texts bore striking simi lar iti es to the testi - mony of the Guards man, a sixth-century Byzantine histo ria n, Rybakov pro- nounced “almost complet e com pati bil ity” betwee n the two accounts . He further spec u - lated that the Kabardian song orig inated as a Slavic tale (skazaniie) that en tered the “Adygei sphere” during “the epoch of the flourish ing of the Tmutarakan’ principali - ty” in the eleventh century. Such contac ts be tween Slavs and Cauca sia ns could be fur- ther demon stra ted by the fact that Nogmov also include d a song about the single com- bat be tween the Kasog leader Rededia and Rus’ian prince Mstislav that seemed to con - firm de tails from the Rus’ Primary Chron icle. This line of argu ment had been anti ci pate d by Mongait al ready in 1955 and provoked a criti cal response. Although intri gued by the fact that Nogmov’s narra ti ve contai ned infor ma ti on about ancie nt events, Mongait suggest ed that Nogmov had read N. M. Karamzin’s history of Russia (publi shed be tween 1816 and 1829) and might

23 Ðû áà êîâ Á. À. Äðåâ íèå ñëà âÿ íå â Ïðè ÷åð íî ìîðüå. Ñ. 24. 24 Brian J. Boeck, Probing Parity Between History and Oral Tradition: Putting Shora Nogmov’s History of the Adygei People in its Place. Central Asian Survey, 1998. 17(2), 322. 25 This paragraph is based on Ðû áàêîâ Á. À. Äðåâ íÿÿ Ðóñü. Ñêà çà íèÿ, áû ëè íû, ëå òî ïè ñè. M., 1963. Ñ. 19–22. 38 Brian J. Boeck

have include d infor ma ti on taken from books and chroni cle s in his work.26 In a foot note he menti oned Soviet orientalist L. I. Lavrov’s conclu sion that Adygei folklore pre- served no memory of the legend ary eleventh- century warrior Rededia. He conclude d that even if Nogmov’s infor ma ti on derive d from oral tra diti on, it would be diffi cult to estab li sh precis ely when testi mony about Slavs enter ed North Cauca sia n folklore . In 1963, he once again ar gued that, in leiu of precis e evi dence , any sugges ti on that Kabardian folklore had preserve d memory of the Antes was based upon suppo si ti on.27 While Mongait conclude d that very lit tle was known about Nogmov’s sources, he was willing to accept the pos sibil ity that Tmutarakan’ could have been a conduit through which Slavic tradi ti ons enter ed North Cauca sia n folklore . Mongait’s skepti cal note did not even merit a footnote in Rybakov’s 1963 study. Neither Rybakov nor Mongait fol lowed up on the pos sibil ity that Nogmov’s ancie nt folklore could in fact be nine teenth-century fakelore. In a 1998 arti cle I demon stra ted that in Nogmov’s history there are over 25 cases of direct , unac knowl edged borrow ing from Karamzin that are rep re sented as ex am ples of Kabardian oral tradi tion.28 Textual paral lel s demon strate conclu sive ly that the enti re secti on on Avar Khan Baikan derive s from Karamzin. The secti on on Rededia and Mstistlav, the other link to Tmutarakan’, was also borrowed from Karamzin and reworked by Nogmov. Rybakov was in fact correct that Nogmov’s texts have Slavic ori gins, but his chronol ogy was mistake n by over 800 years. In spite of the fact that the specu la ti ve approach has been discred it ed, it has re cently been re-em braced by schol ars in southern Russia .29 Although folk lore could be faulted be cause it was not set in stone, the same could not be said of an other criti cal source: The Stone of Tmutarakan’. This famous inscri p tion on a slab of marble was discov ered in August 1792 on the Taman’ penin sula .30 Its inscri p tion reads: “In the year 6576 [1068] in the 6th indiction Prince Gleb mea sured the sea over the ice from T”mutorokan’ to K”rchev 14000 sazhens.” Almos t imm edi a tely aft er its disc overy, its authe nti cit y began to be questi oned and a conti n u ous proces s of contestation has marked the cul tural bi ogra phy of this monu ment . This curi ous inscri pti on consis ting of just over sixty charac ter s has

26 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íå êî òî ðûå ñðåä íå âå êî âûå àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êèå ïà ìÿò íè êè Ñå âå ðî-Çà ïàä íî ãî Êàâ - êàçà. Ñ. 328–329. 27 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Î ãðà íè öàõ Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêî ãî êíÿ æåñ òâà â XI â. Ïðîá ëå ìû îá ùåñ òâåí íî-ïî ëè - òè ÷åñ êîé èñ òî ðèè Ðîñ ñèè è ñëà âÿí ñêèõ ñòðàí. M., 1963. Ñ. 57. 28 Brian J. Boeck, Probing Parity Between History and Oral Tradition: Putting Shora Nogmov’s History of the Adygei People in its Place, 319–336. See especially the appendices. 29 The fact that I published my conclusions about Nogmov in Russian does not seem to have influenced the situation. See B. M. Bouk [B. Boeck] Çàè ìñò âîâà íèÿ èç Êàðàì çè íà â «Èñòîðèè Àäûãåéñêîãî íà ðî äà» Ø. Á. Íîã ìî âà. Èòî ãè ôî ëüêëîð íî-ýò íîã ðà ôè ÷åñ êèõ èñ ñëå äî âà íèé ýò íè ÷åñ êèõ êóëü - òóð Êóáà íè çà 1996 ãîä. Êðàñíî äàð, 1997. For the speculative approach, see Ãî ëîâà íî âà Ñ. À., Âè íîã ðà äîâ Â. Á. Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêî-êà ñîæ ñêèå ñâÿ çè êîí öà Õ âåêà â ôî ëüêëîð íîì îò ðà æå íèè. ÑÐÈÎ, 2002. 4 (152). Ñ 197–184 and Äæà ìèõîâ Ê. Ô. Òìó òàðà êàíü è ðàííèå ëåòî ïèñ íûå ñþæå - òû î êà ñîãàõ. Ibidem, 185–192. 30 The most extensive treatment to date appears in Çà õà ðîâ Â. À. Çà ìåòêè î Òìó òàðà êàí ñêîì êàì íå. ÑÐÈÎ, 2002. 4 (152). Ñ. 154–178. The most recent technical study of the inscription is Ìåäûí öå- âà À. À. Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêèé êà ìåíü. M., 1979. Stone of Con ten tion: Me di eval Tmutarakan’ 39

gener ate d over sixty works de voted to its authen ti cit y.31 But Rybakov consis tently downplayed all doubts about the authen ti cit y of the Stone. In 1949, Rybakov put the Stone of Tmutarakan’ at the center of his study of ancie nt Russia n weights and mea sures.32 Employ ing the inscri pti on on the Stone, Rybakov ad - vanced the idea that a Tmutarakan’ sazhen’ (a sazhen’ is a unit of mea sure ment sim ilar to the Engli sh fathom) exist ed in Rus’. Without menti oning any of the contro versy sur- rounding the Stone, Rybakov used the text of its inscri pti on to postu lat e a new unit of mea surement . But in order to ascer tai n its modern equiva lent , he needed to figure out a medi eval mea sure of the dis tance from Tmutarakan’ (modern Taman’) to Korchev (modern ). The Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus had re corded that the straits of Taman’ measured 18 miles. Since shoreli nes could have changed con- sid er ably over the cen tu ries, for Rybakov this me di eval mea sure ment was pref er a ble to a modern one. Using a ninetee nth-century calcu la ti on by P. G. Butkov suggest ing that 18 Byzantine miles equaled 21,199 me ters, he di vided it by 14,000 (the dis tance in sazhens on the stone) to calcu late that the Tmutarakan’ sazhen’ was equal to 151.42 centi meter s. Yet again one encoun ter s the problem of non-transpar ency. Rybakov does not state the evi dence upon which Butkov (his source) based his calcu la ti on of Byzantine miles. Conse quentl y, Rybakov’s conclu sion de pends enti rely upon whether or not his sec ondary source provides an ac curat e approx i ma ti on of a Byzantine mile. It is uncle ar when Mongait began studying the stone of Tmutarakan’, but he eventu - ally formed the opinion that it did not measure up and was thus unre li able for history of metrol ogy. In his 1967 study of the Stone, Mongait disputed the very exis tenc e of the Tmutarakan’ sazhen’. “It cannot be found,” he empha siz ed, “in Russia n sources.”33 In his view, the only evi dence in fa vor of the possi bil ity of the exis tenc e of such a sazhen’ is the inscri pti on on the Tmutarakan’ stone. The matter was further compli - cated by the fact that modern scholars do not know precis ely how much a Byzantine mile measured. “In a word,” Mongait conclude d, “the dis tance recorded on the stone is un known.”34 Mongait ar gued that the exis tenc e of a short sazhen’ was in ex tri ca bly linked to the authen ti cit y of the Tmutarakan’ inscri pti on, but this was not neces sar il y the case. In fact, in 1949 Rybakov had provided another medi eval exam ple, albeit a rather late one, that seemed to con firm the ex istence of a smaller sazhen’. In 1389 the Rus’ pilgrim Ignatius of Smolensk reporte d mea surement s for the width of the 40 windows in the drum of Hagia Sophia in Consta nti nople and had recorded his figures in sazhens.35 Employ ing the version of the narra ti ve in the sixtee nth-century Nikon chroni cle , which reads “v shyrinu imeakhu so stolpom po 2 sazheni,” Rybakov derive d the size of

31 Çà õà ðîâ Â. À. Çà ìåò êè î Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêîì êàì íå. Ñ. 154. 175–178. 32 Ðûáà êîâ Á. À. Ðóñ ñêèå ñèñ òåìû ìåð äëèííû XI–XV ââ. Ñî âåò ñêàÿ ýò íîã ðà ôèÿ. 1949. ¹ 1. Ñ. 76–77. 33 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íàäïèñü íà êàìíå . Ñ. 98. 34 Ibidem, 99. 35 George P. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. (Washington D. C., 1984), 96–97, 232–233. 40 Brian J. Boeck

a sazhen’ from a modern measure ment of the same windows. 36 Since he held the win - dows to be roughly 300 centi meter s across, he arrive d at a figure of ca. 150 centi meter s for the sazhen’. In this case Rybakov appeare d to be more em piri cal than Mongait, whose skepti cism made him doubt the value of the exist ing evi dence . So who in fact went to farther links to find the truth? Upon scruti ny, Rybakov’s Tmutarakan’ sazhen’ appears to be a prod uct of his own metrological manip u la ti ons. The best modern es ti mate of a Byzantine mile would appear to under mine Ryba - kov’s argu ment . Erich Schilbach pos its it as varying betwee n 1312 and 1404 me ters.37 Mul ti plied by the eightee n mile measure ment given by Constantine Porphy ro ge nit us would yield a distanc e of betwee n 23,616 and 25,272 me ters, a figure signif i cant ly higher than the nine teenth-century esti mate (21,199) used by Rybakov. Apply ing Rybakov’s method of cal cula ti on to this num ber would, therefore, gener ate a sazhen’ of 168–180 centi meter s. It is crit ical to note that the me dian be tween these is precis ely the distanc e of the mernaia, or regu lar , sazhen’.38 Thus it is highly proba ble that the Stone provides no evi dence for the exis tenc e of a specia l 150 centi meter sazhen’. Rybakov’s sec ond clear-cut ex am ple also shows ev i dence of meth od olog i cal short- comings. Inste ad of consult ing the earli est available copies of the Ignatius text, he used a sixtee nth-century version. To compli cate matter s even further , he used an approx i - mate modern measure ment of the windows in Hagia Sofia . A seemingl y more pre cise mea surement provided by George Majeska suggest s that the win dows aver aged 270 centi meter s rather than the 300 centi meter s of Rybakov’s un-named source.39 Taking Majeska’s mea surement togethe r with Rybakov’s textual source would yield a di min u tive sazhen’ of only 135 centi meter s. A reading from earli er manuscri pts, in which Ignatius states “merikh okno so stolpom po dve sazheni bez dvu piadei, ” further dissolve s confi dence in Rybakov’s rock solid conclu sions .40 Ironi cal ly, Majeska’s figure of 270 centi meter s when paired with the origi nal reading of Ignatius would indeed yield a sazhen’ of betwee n 153 and 160 centi meter s. This depends of course upon how one cal culat es the dis tance of a pi- ad’. But what do we know about the piad’? Evi dentl y, not much inde pend entl y of our

36 Ðûáà êîâ Á. À. Ðóñ ñêèå ñèñ òåìû ìåð äëèííû XI–XV ââ. Ñ. 77. 37 E. Schilbach, “Milion,” Alexander P. Kazhdan, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of (Oxford, 1991), vol. 2, 1373. 38 He seems to have realized this in later publications. In a late article on measuring instruments of Novgorod he derived a “straight sazhen’” of 152.76 centimeters from the regular sazhen’ by means of geometric formula. He also admitted that even the purported church of Mstislav in Taman’ / Tmutarakan’ appears to have been constructed using the regular (176.4 cm), rather than the Tmu - tarakan’, sazhen’. The regular sazhen’ appears to derive from Byzantine orgyia, which also measured 176.4 cm. Thus, Rybakov seems to have established that Russian measures may derive from Byzantium without actually saying so! Rybakov, B. A. The Measuring Instrument of Novgorod Architects in the Early 13th century. Social Sciences (Moscow, 1974), vol. 5, No. 1, 108–111. 39 G. Majeska, Op. cit., 233. 40 Ibidem, 96–97. Stone of Cont enti on: Medi eval Tmutarakan’ 41

con cep tions of the sazhen’.41 Para dox i cal ly, Rybakov may have been right about the ex istence of a shorter sazhen’ even if his method of obtai ning it was wrong. Thus a shorter sazhen’ may have exist ed in post-Kievan Rus’ of Ignatius, but the inscri pti on on the Tmutarakan’ stone contri butes very lit tle to the problem of medi eval mea sures becaus e it can only speak through the me dium of modern inter pret ers. Given the contro versy over the length of a sazhen’, it is sur pris ing that nei ther Rybakov nor Mongait es tabli shed whether or not long linear distanc es were ac tuall y mea sured in sazhens in Kievan Rus’. The twelfth-century pilgrim age narra ti ve of Hegumen Daniil provides abundant exam ples of units of measure ment for linear dis- tances. Out of over 130 insta nces in which units of measure ment of linear distanc e are re corded, the versta appears to be the only unit used for mea suring distanc es be tween geographi c landmarks such as cities , lakes, and other feature s of the built and natu ral land scape.42 Sazhens were used in over twenty cases to descri be short distanc es be - tween places lo cated very close to one another (roughly corre spond ing to current usage of yards or me ters) i. e. places within the same gen eral area, ar chi tectural en sem ble, church, etc.43 This patter n seems to also apply to the transla ti on of Josephus Flavius, which may or may not have been made in Kievan Rus’ depend ing upon which author i - ty one trusts.44 There is, how ever, a pre cedent for mea sur ing large seg ments of space in thou sands of sazhens in the Sofiia I Chroni cle . Here we find a measure ment of “5000 and 400 and 30 and 3 sazhens.”45 Unfor tu nate ly, this ex ample cannot be tested, since it re fers to the Tower of Ba bel, a structure whose ex istence is even less cer tain than the authen ti cit y of the Tmutarakan’ stone. Follow ing the sugges ti on of Spitsyn, Mongait inti mated that the ancie nt act of mea- suring the Straits of Taman’ may have served as the starting point for forgery of the Stone.46 Can it be a co in cidence that pre cisely the same two points, Tmutarakan’ and Kerch (Bospor), occur in both a Byzantine text and on the stone? There is no ques- tion that the text of Constantine Porphyrogenitus was available in late eightee nth-cen- tury Russia , but Spitsyn discounte d his own sugges ti on due to the fact that “a forger would have taken the contem porary sazhen’, and would have been dis covered imme di - ately.”47 Is this in fact the case? Can the 14,000 sazhens on the inscri p tion be explai ned solely in terms of eightee nth century knowl edge (or percep ti ons) of me dieval metrol o - gy? I would argue yes. It is not essen ti al to resort to complex argu ments about Byzantine met rology, conduct tort uous disc ussi ons about the act ual dist ance of

41 Øîñ òèí Í. À. Î÷åð êè èñ òî ðèè ðóñ ñêîé ìåò ðî ëî ãèè XI–XII ââ. Ì., 1975. Ñ. 27. 42 Consult Igumen Daniil, Wallfahrtsbericht. Slavische Propylaen 26 (Munich, 1970). 43 For specific references to sazhens, see ibid: 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 31, 33–6, 38, 42, 45, 55, 63, 71. 200 appears to be the largest number. 44 For the text, consult Ìåùåð ñêèé Í. À., ðåä. Èñòî ðèÿ èó äåé ñêîé âîé íû Èî ñè ôà Ôëà âèÿ â äðåâ- íåñ ëà âÿí ñêîì ïå ðå âî äå. M, 1958. 45 ÏÑÐË 5: 82. 46 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íàäïèñü íà êàìíå. Ñ. 104. 47 Ñïè öûí À. À. Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêèé êà ìåíü. Çà ïèñ êè Îòäå ëå íèÿ ðóñ ñêîé è ñëà âÿí ñêîé àð õå î ëî ãèè Ðîñ ñèé ñêî ãî àð õå î ëî ãè ÷åñ êî ãî îá ùåñ òâà. ÑÏá., 1915. Ñ. 123. 42 Brian J. Boeck

the strait in the year 1068, or construc t suppo si ti ons about the specif ic points at which Gleb’s survey ors began and ended their journey across the ice. An eightee nth-century forger could have locat ed in Tatishchev’s his tory both the precis e pas sage from Porphyrogenitus refer ring to eightee n miles, as well as a sug- ges tion that a Bib lical mile is the same as a Rus sian poprishche (equiv a lent to the versta).48 Us ing Leontii Magnitzkii’s math e mat ical trea tise, which was widely used as a textbook in eightee nth-century Russia , a forger could have inferred, whether or not cor rectly is im ma terial, that miles are a cat egor y like versts and that a versta was di - vided into 750 sazhens.49 Mul ti plying 18 by 750 yields a fig ure of 13,500 sazhens. Al- though this is close enough to the number on the stone to speak for itsel f, uncer tai nty about conver sion may have convince d him to round up to the nearest whole number. Alter nati vely, the num ber might have been rounded up in order to occupy less space on the face of the in scrip tion (2 char acters rather than three). Hence me trol ogy can be ma - nipu lat ed to speak just as easil y for forgery as Rybakov’s self-construc ted Tmu- tarakan’ sazhen’ could be made to speak for authen ti cit y. Up to this point we have seen vari ous exam ples of how Rybakov only chose to pur - sue pieces of evi dence that could serve as conve nient stepping stones towards his pre-concei ved conclu sion about Tmutarakan’. He does not seem to have consid ered al- ter nate, but equally plausi ble, inter preta ti ons of his evi dence . But did he do so con- sciously or carelessly? He clearly knew that the Stone was con tro ver sial, yet he rarely commu ni cat ed this to his audi ence . He contri buted to the canon iza tion of the Stone by back ing it with the full weight of his ac a demic au thor ity. Af ter all, he was re ferred to as “Tsar Boris” by his non-Mus covit e col leagues be cause of his auto crat ic tenden cie s over ar che ol ogy.50 Rybakov unequiv o cal ly endorsed the authen ti cit y of the Stone of Tmutarakan’ by in- cluding it in his 1963 compen dium of dated Russia n epigraphic monu ment s and in - scripti ons. While not ing that the monu ment “ini ti ated the study of Russia n epigra phy” he failed to menti on the contro versy that has surrounded the stone since the eightee nth cen tury.51 He had clearly read Spitsyn, who had publi shed in 1915 the most thorough skepti cal eval ua ti on of the stone to that point, but he appears to have consci ously sup - pressed dis cus sion of doubts about the in scrip tion’s au then tic ity. In in cor po rat ing the monu ment into his refer ence work, he failed to warn readers of the possi bil ity that a key, early inscri pti on may be built on shifting sand not solid rock. Rybakov’s consci ous deci sion to concea l past contro versy may have even been pro- voked by Mongait’s skepti cism. Mongait gave a talk in the Insti tute of Arche ol ogy in 1963 claiming that the Stone of Tmutarakan’ was a forgery. A re cently publi shed letter reveal s that Rybakov heard the talk just before deli ver ing his Russkie Nadpisi to

48 Òà òè ùåâ Â. Í. Èñòî ðèÿ ðîñ ñèé ñêàÿ. ². 1768. Ñ. 185. 49 Ìàã íèö êèé Ëå îí òèé. Àðèôìåòèêà, ñè ðå÷ü íà óêà ÷èñ ëè òåëü íîå. M., 1703. (T) 50 Êî íî ïàò ñêèé À. Ê. Ïðîø ëî ãî âå ëè êèé ñëå äî ïûò (Àêàäåìèê À. Ï. Îêëàä íè êîâ: ñòðà íè öû áèî ãðà ôèè). Ñ. 22, 422. 51 Ðû áà êîâ Á. À. Ðóñ ñêèå äà òè ðî âàí íûå íàä ïè ñè Õ²–X²²² âå êîâ. M., 1964. Ñ. 16–17. Stone of Con ten tion: Me di eval Tmutarakan’ 43

the publi sher, but nonethe les s he de cided not to make any changes to his text, not even to add an aster isk or foot note warning poten ti al readers that disti nguishe d schol ars had express ed doubts about the Stone.52 The fact that Rybakov was famil iar with Mongait’s re search is demon stra ted by his statement to D. S. Likhachev in a letter dated July 2, 1963 that “Mongait did not contri b - ute anythi ng new [nichego novogo… Mongait ne dal] and did not put forward any new ar gu men ta tion.”53 In Rybakov’s summary, Mongait’s argu ment appeare d sim plisti c:

Catherine II wanted to prove the ancie nt adher ence [of Tmutarakan’] to Russia n lands and an ob se qui ous court ier, re ly ing on the en ter pris ing and op por tu nis tic (pronyrlyvkh) ata mans of the Black sea Cos sack Host, con cocted a sten cil (sostriapal trafaret) with a text about Gleb. The stencil was sent from Peter sburg to Taman’, was glued to the first slab they came across and the inscri pti on was carved using the stencil . Then it was “found” by Anton Golovatyi.54

Rybakov confide d to D. S. Likhachev that he consid ered the paper to be “weak and strange.”55 He does not appear to have ever subse quentl y address ed Mongait’s argu ment in print, not deigning to dignify his oppo nent with a response. He also worked be hind the scenes to make sure that Mongait did not have acces s to print. Rybakov’s general disdain for and desire to suppress dissent is demon stra ted by the acti ve role he played in the scholarl y trammel ing of A. A. Zimin in 1963.56 Aleksandr Nekrich, a personal friend of Mongait, decla red that Rybakov “create d ob - sta cles” in publi shing for Mongait, who was his oppo nent in the Insti tute of Arche ol o - gy.57 It is tell ing that Mongait was only able to publi sh his study of the Tmutarakan’ stone in a popu lar book devoted to the study of epigra phy. The evi dence adduced in Mongait’s study dem onstra tes that he had clearly read most of the previ ous studies of the stone, and he even include d refer ence s to Spitsyn’s com- prehen sive study and recent skepti cal apprai sals of the Igor Tale. He conducte d a thorough inde pend ent exam i na ti on of every fea ture of the stone from its paleographic evi dence to the circum sta nces of its dis covery, and conclude d that it was a forgery. 58 He could not decla re this di rectly in a popu lar publi cati on, so he left the reader with an equiv o cal im pres sion.

52 Ëè õà ÷åâ Ä. Ñ. Ê èñ òî ðèè ñïî ðà î ïîä ëèí íîñ òè “Ñëî âà î ïî ëêó Èãî ðå âå”. Ðóñ ñêàÿ ëè òå ðà òó ðà, 1994. ¹ 2. Ñ. 250. 53 Ibidem. 54 Ibidem. 55 Ibidem. 56 Ibidem, 250, 260–261. Ibidem, No. 3, 226–227. See also the discussion in Êîáðèí Â. Á. Êîìó òû îïà ñåí, èñ òî ðèê. Ì., 1992. 57 Aleksandr Nekrich, Forsake Fear: Memoirs of a Historian (Boston, 1991), 262. 58 This is evident from the narrative. Unfortunately, the text was published without a bibliography or footnotes. I have been able to trace virtually of all of Mongait’s references back to the sources and believe them to be reliable. 44 Brian J. Boeck

Mongait’s study was the first to dem onstra te that the inscri pti on could have been con cocted in the eigh teenth cen tury. He even com posed a statement of accu sa tion (obvinitel’nyi akt), which uti lized consid er able new infor ma ti on to ar gue for an eigh- teenth-cen tury con text.59 The stone, which docu ment s Prince Gleb’s survey ing ac tivi - ties across the straits of Taman’ to Cri mea, sur faced pre cisely at a time when Rus sia was complet ing the annex ati on of Cri mea and when Empress Catherine II was dab- bling in me dieval Russia n history. The Black Sea Cossac ks, es senti ally a cre ation of Potemkin, were pe ti tioning the court for Taman’ in 1791–1792. He had promise d them Taman’ in 1788, but died in fall 1791 leaving “all his prom ises hanging in the air.” Ac- cording to Mongait, the text could have been cre ated in Pe tersburg and sent to Taman’ with a Cos sack survey ing expe di ti on in sum mer 1792. There it could have been in- scribed on the marble slab and subse quentl y “dis covered. ” Curi ously, the discov ery of the stone coin cide s with the arriva l of the Cos sacks at Taman’ in late summer 1792. The re sponse of Soviet review ers to Mongait’s book was highly nega ti ve. One re- viewer conclude d that since Mongait was unable to “refute even a single of the objec - tions” express ed by col leagues during a discus sion of his resea rch in 1963, he decide d to present his findings in the form of detec tive story and search for support among mil- lions of non-spe cialist s.60 A team of review ers conclude d that the only thing fake about the Stone of Tmutarakan’ was Mongait’s suspi cions and took him to task for his unpa t - ri otic skep ticism: : “the con stant (postoiannie) refer ence s to such noti ons as pa tri oti sm, nati onal consci ousness and others alongside , and in connec ti on with, terms such as fakes and forger ies looks rather strange.”61 This accu sa ti on of lack of patri oti sm (read failure to pro mote Great Rus sian chau vin ism) seems to have been a fa miliar charge against Rybakov’s oppo nents in the sixti es.62 It is fas cinat ing to see the doub le- stan - dard that was de veloped to protec t “gullibl e” popu lar readers. Rybakov’s unsub sta nti - ated, but “pa tri otic,” as ser tions were ap par ently ap pro pri ate for a pop u lar au di ence, but pro fes sional prob ing and crit i cal ques tion ing were not. It is also remark able that Rybakov’s unpub li shed assess ment of Mongait’s work on the Stone in 1963 (“nichego novogo… Mongait ne dal”) is echoed in subse quent pub- lished studies .63 It is re peated ver ba tim (“A. L. Mongait ne dal nichego novogo…”) on page 282 of the Kuz’min re view of 1969. The statement was paraphrase d on page 13 of the 1979 Medyntseva monograph (“A. L. Mongait ne privel nikakikh novykh faktov…”), then repeat ed verba ti m from Medyntseva in the in arti cle on the Stone in volume 5 of the 1995 Rus sian ency clo pe dia of the Slovo o Polku Igoreve. In 1969 (and once again in 2002) V. A. Zakharov based his de fense of the stone’s au- then tic ity on a clear mis read ing of Mongait’s text. He stated:

59 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íàäïèñü íà êàìíå . Ñ. 31–33. 60 Êóçü ìèí À. Ã. Ñó ùåñ òâó åò ëè ïðî áëå ìà Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêî ãî êàì íÿ? ÑÀ. 1969. ¹ 3. Ñ. 278, 283. 61 Êóä ðÿâ öåâ È., Òè ãà íî âà Ë., Òè õî ìè ðîâ Ì. Ïîä äåëü íûå ñî ìíå íèÿ. Ìî ëî äàÿ ãâàð äèÿ. 1970. ¹ 1. Ñ. 296. 62 V. B. Kobrin relates how he fell victim to similar charges for critical review of Rybakov in the mid-sixties: Êîìó òû îïàñåí, èñòî ðèê . Ñ. 183–184. 63 All works mentioned in this paragraph are cited above. Stone of Cont enti on: Medi eval Tmutarakan’ 45

“Mongait consid ers it possi ble that Golovatyi could have re ceived a drawing of the inscri pti on (on paper) and brought (privezti) it to Taman’, where they se - lected an appro pri ate piece of marble and carved the inscri pti on using the model that had been prepared on pa per.”64

This sce nario seems to Zakharov to be im pos sible be cause the ear liest writ ten tes ti- monies concern ing the stone date to August-S eptem ber 1792, while Golovatyi only ar- rived in Taman in August 1793. Had he bothered to follow Mongait’s argu ment , how- ever, Zakharov would have noti ced that Mongait’s text reads “the drawing (on pa per) could have been sent via Golovatyi [cherez Golovatogo] to Taman’, where Mokei Gulik worked togethe r with survey ors and carvers creat ing boundary markers.” 65 This is an enti rely differ ent scenari o alto gethe r, one that does not hinge on Golovatyi’s per- sonal presence on the scene in Taman’ since the Gulik expe di ti on took place in early summer 1792. In spite of Zakharov’s decla ra ti ons to the contra ry, there are no contra - dic tions whatso ever in Mongait’s chro nol ogy. Sadly, schol arly disagree ment about Tmutarakan’ be came the basis of a personal con flict with life-chang ing im pli ca tions. The con flict be tween these So viet his tor i cal heavyweig hts over an obscure medi eval enti ty ended in victory for Rybakov. Using his admin is tra tive might, he was able to remove Mongait from the edi to ria l board of Sovetskaia Arkheologiia and the govern ing council of the Insti tute of Arche ol ogy. 66 When Mongait died, it was even dif fi cult to find a colleagu e will ing to write his of fi cial obit u ary.67 This quarter -century long epoch in the lives of two indi vid u als provides a poignant portra it of a parti cu lar period in the history of the Soviet schol arly estab li shment . Rybakov’s Great Rus sian, great power pa tri o tism and po lit i cal ex pe di ency pre vailed over Mongait’s ac ademi c analy sis and posi tivist rigor. In spite of se rious method olog i - cal flaws in his work, Rybakov was able to ma neuver his way to the top of the Soviet ar- che o log i cal es tab lish ment. His se lec tive use of ev i dence and sup pres sion of dis sent in the name of promot ing a great Russia n past helped him to amass power, presti ge, and acquire multi ple minions through patron age. “Only very few authors would decide to polemicize with the views and scien ti fic method ol ogy of Rybakov,” writes V. Kobrin, “and even fewer edi tors or publi shing houses dared to publi sh criti cis m of his works.”68 As a commit ted Marxist and promote r of profes siona l ar cheol ogy, Mongait was one of those self-selec ted few. He conti n ued to voice his skepti cism unti l end of the thaw era, insur ing that Rybakov’s mono lithic status in Soviet arche ol ogy did not quite become a monop oly.

64 Çà õà ðîâ Â. À. Ê âîï ðî ñó î ïîä ëèí íîñ òè Òìó òà ðà êàí ñêî ãî êàì íÿ. Èñòî ðèÿ ÑÑÑÐ. 1969. ¹ 5. Ñ. 212; Çà õàðîâ Â. À. Çàìåò êè î Òìó òàðà êàí ñêîì êàìíå. Ñ. 168. 65 Ìîí ãàéò À. Ë. Íàäïèñü íà êàìíå . Ñ. 32. 66 Ôîð ìî çîâ À. À. Ðóñ ñêèå àð õå î ëî ãè äî è ïî ñëå ðå âî ëþ öèè. M., 1995. Ñ. 84; Aleksandr Nekrich, Forsake Fear. 262. 67 Ôîð ìî çîâ À. À. Ðóñ ñêèå àð õå î ëî ãè äî è ïî ñëå ðå âî ëþ öèè. Ñ. 84. 68 Êîá ðèí Â. Êîìó òû îïàñåí, èñòî ðèê. Ñ. 183. 46 Brian J. Boeck

Rybakov’s frustra ted search for a glori ous Rus sian past in Tmutarakan’ provides in- sight into the state of the Soviet arche o log i cal estab li shment of the 1950s and 1960s. The limit ed plural ism of views prevente d outright fal sifi ca ti on, but with the com mand- ing heights of scholar ship in the hands of Rybakov and his alli es he could still set the agenda. More over, he could mute dissi dents by deny ing them publi cati on space and prevent their views from enter ing a grand synthe sis of Russia n history as Soviet his- tory. If Mongait had not challenge d Rybakov’s early arche o log i cal spec ula ti ons about Tmutarakan’, how ever, they might have even gained gen eral ac cep tance. Tmutarakan’ was just a small part of Rybakov’s machi na ti ons involv ing me dieval history. If this study is any indi ca ti on, there are numer ous other claims scatter ed throughout Rybakov’s massive oeuvre do not measure up to schol arly scruti ny.69 Rybakov’s vision of Kievan Rus’ as not only a great me dieval polit y, but also a Great Russia n state, has stood the test of time be cause of its expe di ency in enabli ng modern Russia ns to stake a claim to an expan sive ancie nt past. It is re markable that Rybakov’s late Stali n era synthe sis of Russia n history was still being as signed to middle school students in the dawn of the Putin era.70 Ul ti mately, this in de pend ent re ex am i na tion of the ev i dence vin di cates the skep ti cal approach advo cat ed by Mongait. As indi cat ed above, further resea rch along lines first suggest ed by Mongait has se riously under mine d the founda ti on of Rybakov’s opti mis - tic agenda of 1950s. Ar cheo log i cal evi dence suggest s that here was no great Russia n metrop o li s of Tmutarakan’ and no thousand years of conti nuit y. No new monu men tal , medi eval inscri pti ons in Russia n or any other Slavic language have been uneart hed at Taman’. The Nogmov texts have proven to be fakelore rather than folklore . The Tmutarakan’ sazhen’ is no more than a product of mis taken cal cula ti ons. The Sto- ne stands alone, retai ning some credi bil ity in Russia . But as this study has demon - strated, even the Stone of Tmutarakan’ still remai ns a stone of conten ti on (kamen’ pretknoveniia) in ways that «Tsar Boris» (Rybakov) would never have admit ted nor fath omed.

DePaul Uni ver sity, Chi cago

69 For a recent example, see Andrzej Poppe. Introduction to Volume 1. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, -Rus’ (Toronto, 1997), lii–liii. Poppe calls Rybakov an archeologist “whose work invariably overflows with conjectures, rarely takes account of the results of research or the exigencies of scholarly method.” This scathing criticism of Rybakov’s 1982 publication on ’ visit to Scythia would suggest that his late work was as flawed as his early work. 70 Ïðå îá ðà æåí ñêèé À. À., Ðû áà êîâ Á. À. Èñòî ðèÿ îò å ÷åñ òâà. Ó÷åá íèê äëà 6–7 êëàñ ñîâ îá ùå îá - ðàçî â àòåëü íûõ ó÷ðåæäå íèé . 7-å èçä. Ì., 2001.