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Khazaria and Rus’: an Examination of Their Historical Relations

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Khazaria and Rus’: an Examination of Their Historical Relations KHAZARIA AND RUS’: AN EXAMINATION OF THEIR HISTORICAL RELATIONS Vladimir Ja. Petrukhin An impartial evaluation of the relations between Khazaria and Rus’ (or Eastern Slavs) within the limits imposed by official Soviet historiogra- phy was rather uncommon: the role of Khazaria was mainly pictured as an obstacle in the highly progressive processes of the development of the Russian state. In present-day studies (and not only in the recurrences of the old “Eurasianist” theories) the role of Khazaria is often presented as almost determining these processes: going as far as the supposition that the calling-in of the Varangian princes to Novgorod by the Slavs, the Chud’ and the Merja (862 acording to the Primary chronicle—Povest’ vremennych let, PVL) was provoked by the threat of Khazar hegemony in Eastern Europe (cf. Novosel’tsev 1991, p. 6). On the contrary, the sources give evidence for another process: as early as the 9th century, the early Rus’ were forcing their way into the international markets through the river routes controlled by Khaz- aria. Archaeology, and above all numismatics, together with the Arab sources help us realize a certain community of interests that made the Varangians, the Slavs, the Merja and the Chud’ unite. From the period between the 8th–9th centuries, Arabic silver was imported to Eastern and Northern Europe via Khazaria (cf. Noonan 1983), and the onset of this import can be dated from the 860s—the date given in the chronicle for the calling-in of the Varangians (cf. Potin 1970; Noonan 1994, p. 226 ff.). Sometimes, the hoards of the 9th century Arabic coins in the North of Eastern Europe are interpreted as tribute given to the Varangians, but it is much more likely that they represent evidence of the distribution of profits; the local upper strata had exercised their right to a part of the treasures and buried it as hoards in their settlements. The princes of this multi-tribal union with a certain cause (because the union actually included a number of peoples—“tribes”) were claim- ing the “imperial” title of khagan. Besides the Arab sources, these claims were recorded S.A. 839 in the Annales Bertiniani: a Byzantine embassy to the Carolingian emperor came with “certain men who said that they, that is, their people were called Rhos, their king was known as the 246 vladimir ja. petrukhin Chaganus”. This is at the same time the earliest mention of the Rus’. The embassy of the Rus’ arrived in Constantinople “for the sake of friend- ship” and asked for permission to return home through the territory of the Carolingian empire. The emperor Louis the Pious, who was accus- tomed to repelling Viking attacks, suspected that they were spies as they turned out to belong to the “gens of the Sueones” (cf. Nazarenko 1999, pp. 288–290). Their fate as well as the destination of their return jour- ney are unknown: whether they wanted to go back to Birka or Ladoga, because neither Novgorod nor Kiev of that time are fixed in the data of the written sources or archaeology. From this viewpoint, the latest attempts to find the “Rus khaganate” in the Dnieper or Volkhov basin do not seem to be promising (cf. Sedov 1999, Zuckerman 2000) as they are based on a strained interpretation of the sources. The reports of Arab geographers about a mysterious island or peninsula of ar-Rûs ruled by a khagan actually date from the 9th century, but we do not know either its location or whether it actually did exist or was merely a reflection of certain literary legends, either of Biblical origin, about the “Islands of peoples” or ancient graeco-roman traditions about Thule. The new attempts to associate this island with Novgorod and neighbouring Gorodishche (“Old town”) are based on a direct identification of the toponym’s meaning in alien languages: the Scandinavian name of Novgorod—Hólmgarđr (“Island town”—Franklin, Shepard 1996, p. 27 f.) and the vocabulary of Arab geographic literature (cf. Konovalova 2000, pp. 400 ff.). One should remember in this connec- tion that even Alexey A. Shakhmatov tried to find this island near Sta- raja Russa: according to the late medieval sources there existed a locality named Ostrov (“Island”). This hypothesis, though antiquated from the point of view of modern historiography, was popular since the late Mid- dle Ages (cf. the 16th century Voskresenskaja chronicle) and implied that Staraya Russa was the centre of the early Rus’ and Novgorod—New town—was the centre of the Varangians. Judging from the text of the Novgorod I Chronicle, Shakhmatov thought that the Varangians Askold and Dyr had settled in Kiev before the Varangian princes were called into Novgorod. Anatolij P. Novosel’tsev in one of his last works (1991) developed this hypothesis and was even ready to attribute to Askold and Dyr the embassy of 839 and the founda- tion of the “Rus khaganate” in the Middle Dnieper region. Shakhmatov based his constructions rather on the new (for his day) archaeological conception of the Norman colonization of Eastern Europe in the 9th– 10th centuries than on the textological data. Nowadays, it is evident that .
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