HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES Volume XVI Number 3/4 December 1992 Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts Publication of this issue has been made possible by the Dr. Eugene Omelsky Publication Fund in Ukrainian Studies, Harvard University. The editors assume no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by contributors. Copyright 1994, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved ISSN 0363-5570 Published by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Printed by BookCrafters, Fredericksburg, Virginia. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. CONTENTS ARTICLES Fluctuations in Islamic Trade with Eastern Europe during the Viking Age 237 THOMAS S. NOONAN A Hungarian-Galician Marriage at the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century? 261 STANISŁAW SROKA Archbishop Gennadii and the Heresy of the "Judaizers" 269 ANDREI PLIGUZOV The First Old Believers in Ukraine: Observations about Their Social Profile and Behavior 289 GEORG MICHELS Baudouin de Courtenay and the Ukrainian Question 315 ROBERT A. ROTHSTEIN Planning of the Capital in Kharkiv 325 TITUS D. HEWRYK DOCUMENT Stalin's Meeting with a Delegation of Ukrainian Writers on 12 February 1929 361 LEONID MAXIMENKOV ESSAY Ukraine between East and West: Some Reflections on Professor Sevcenko's Essay 433 WŁADYSŁAW A. SERCZYK REVIEW ARTICLE On Teaching the History of Russian 441 HORACE G. LUNT REVIEWS Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and Policy toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society (James Critchlow) 449 Roman Szporluk, Communism and Nationalism. Karl Marx Versus Friedrich List (Taras Hryshchenko) 451 Evgenii V. Anisimov, The Reforms of Peter the Great: Progress through Coercion in Russia (James Cracraft) 453 Aidan Nichols, OP, Theology in the Russian Diaspora: Church, Fathers, Eucharist in Nikolai Afanas 'ev, 1893-1966 (Roy R. Robson) 455 Myroslav Labunka, Mytropolyt Ilarion i ioho pysannia (George S. N. Luckyj) 458 Hugh Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy. The Development of the Eucharistie Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite (Robert F. Taft, S.J.) 459 Léon Tretjakewitsch, Bishop Michel d'Herbigny SJ and Russia (Dennis J. Dunn) 460 Varshavs'ki ukrainoznavchi zapysky (Andrzej A. Zięba) 461 Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War (Henry Abramson) 463 Edward A. Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks from the Fourteenth Century to the Present: A Cultural History (Audrey L. Altstadt) 465 Paul Robert Magocsi, Carpatho-Rusyn Studies: An Annotated Bibliography, vol. 1:1975-1984 (Robert A. Karlowich) 467 LETTER TO THE EDITOR 471 CONTRIBUTORS Thomas S. Noonan is professor of history, University of Minnesota. Stanisław Sroka is lecturer in history, Jagiellonian University, Cracow. Andrei Pliguzov is aresearch fellow at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Georg Michels is assistant professor of history, University of California, Riverside. Robert A. Rothstein is professor of Slavic languages and literatures and of Judaic studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Titus D. Hewryk is director, Department of Facilities Planning, University of Pennsylvania. Leonid Maximenkov is a Resident Fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto. Władysław A. Serczyk is professor of the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Jagiellonian University, Cracow. Horace G. Lunt is Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures Emeritus, Harvard University. Fluctuations in Islamic Trade with Eastern Europe during the Viking Age THOMAS S. NOONAN It has long been known that during the ninth and tenth centuries, a very lively trade existed between the Islamic world and eastern Europe. Already in the mid-ninth century, Ibn Khurdädhbih described how Rus merchants from the distant north brought furs and swords to the Black Sea and Caspian, where they paid a tithe to the Byzantine and Khazar rulers of these regions. The merchants could then cross to Jurjân on the southeastern Caspian whence they travelled on camels to Baghdad with their goods. 1 This information was repeated by Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadham, who wrote around 900. The only difference is that Ibn al-Faqlh has the Rus journey to al-Rayy/al-Muhammadiyyah rather than to Baghdad.^ If the ninth-century trade was pioneered by Viking-Rus merchants who ventured to Baghdad, then the flourishing tenth-century commerce with eastern Europe was centered in the Khazar and Volga Bulghär lands along the lower and middle Volga. The Khazar and Bulghâr rulers provided a safe market where Rus merchants could bring their furs, slaves, wax, honey, and amber in order to exchange them with Islamic traders from the Near East and central Asia. There was even a multi-ethnic and multi-religious panel of judges who decided disputes among these merchants in Khazaria. This trade is perhaps best known from Ibn Fadlân's eyewitness account of the Rus merchants who came to the Bulghâr lands to barter their goods with their Islamic counterparts.^ The written sources are quite informative about certain aspects of the Islamic trade with eastern Europe; for example, they even give the prices for certain varieties of furs in Bulghâr markets. At the same time, the Islamic written sources present majorproblems. With theexception of IbnFadlân, none of the authors visited the Volga markets themselves or personally saw Rus merchants on their way to Baghdad. Consequently, all the reports, except Ibn Fadlân's, rely on second, third, or even fourth-hand information, which was no doubt distorted in the process of transmission. Such distortions were magnified by the fact that the Rüs, East Slavs, Baits, and Finns of eastern Europe were all somewhat indistinguishable barbarians in the eyes of educated Muslims. Our learned authors also found it useful to borrow from earlier works, often without attribution. As a result, material from a ninth-century source could be incorpo- rated into an account written in the mid-eleventh century. This material thus predated information found in a tenth-century work describing contemporane- ous events. After our authors had plagiarized outdated information of uncertain validity, they were confronted by divergent and even contradictory reports. This problem was resolved by combining all the data into one, somewhat The original version of this paper was presented at the symposium on "Oriental-Occidental Relations in Monetary Circulation: Money, Trade, and Coin Finds," sponsored by the Forschungsstelle für islamische Numismatik, Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Tübingen, Germany. 238 THOMAS S. NOONAN confused, account which was then rendered more confusing by later interpo- lations. This explains how the Muslim Bulghâr ruler along the middle Volga whose people were active in the trade with Khwärizm could suddenly be transformed into the tsar of the Danubian Bulghärs attacking Constantinople with an army of 50,000 horsemen and sending raiding parties to ravage Rome, al-Andalus, and the Frankish lands.^ In addition to the many difficulties presented by the Islamic written sources, there is an even more serious historical problem. The written sources are like photographs which illuminate the Islamic trade with eastern Europe at one specific time and place. None of our apthors attempted to take the individual pictures and arrange them into a pattern or history. Therefore, there is no discussion of when Islamic trade with eastern Europe began, how it changed from Viking merchants visiting ninth-century Baghdad to Islamic traders journeying to the tenth-century Volga, or what happened to this great com- merce after the tenth century. Clearly, we must look elsewhere in attempting to reconstruct even a basic history of the earliest Islamic trade with eastern Europe. The search for new evidence inevitably leads us to numismatics. During the course of the Viking Age, millions of Islamic silver coins or dirhams were exported from the Near East and central Asia to the lands of eastern and northern Europe. Over one hundred and fifty thousand of these dirhams have been uncovered and at least partially identified in just eastern Europe and Sweden. Most of the dirhams are found in hoards, that is, groups of five or more dirhams deposited together at one time and place. Over fifty years ago, the great Russian Islamic numismatist, Richard Vasmer (Fasmer), demonstrated con- clusively that the composition of the dirham hoards buried in eastern Europe changed significantly over time. At one time, the hoards might contain dirhams struck by a number of dynasties during a long period. At another time, the hoards were overwhelmingly composed of very new dirhams from one dynasty.^ The changes in the composition of the dirham hoards reflect historical developments in the Islamic world and in Islamic trade with eastern Europe. The vast quantity of new Sämänid dirhams in eastern European hoards of the tenth century was, for example, the product of a very active tenth-century trade which went from central Asia to the Volga and from the Volga to all parts of eastern and northern Europe. Before proceeding further, a few comments are necessary to explain why dirham hoards are considered as evidence of Islamic trade with eastern Europe. This key point has two aspects. First, why were Islamic dirhams brought to eastern Europe in the first place? Second, why did peoples in eastern Europe bury some of these dirhams in the ground? Starting with the first question, commerce is only one possible explanation for the appearance of dirhams in eastern Europe. Vikings, as is well known, acquired substantial booty from their raids or, as in the case of the Danegeld, as payment not to attack certain FLUCTUATIONS IN ISLAMIC TRADE 239 areas. Those Vikings serving the Byzantine emperors probably received some compensation in the form of coins. But, whatever may have happened in western Europe or Byzantium, Islamic sources testify unequivocally that the Islamic merchants who travelled to the lands along the Volga used dirhams to obtain furs, slaves, and other goods.