Slavs and Balts the time of existence. The origin of the Balts and the territory of their residence

If the Scythian-Sarmatians are far from the Slavs in language, does it mean that there is someone closer? You can try to find a solution to the mystery of the birth of Slavic tribes by finding their closest relatives by language.
We already know that the existence of a single Indo-European proto-language is beyond doubt. Approximately in the III millennium BC. NS. from this single proto-language, various groups of languages ​​gradually began to form, which in turn, over time, were divided into new branches. Naturally, the carriers of these new kindred languages ​​were different kindred ethnic groups (tribes, tribal unions, nationalities, etc.).
The studies of Soviet linguists, carried out in the 70-80s, led to the discovery of the fact of the formation of the Proto-Slavic language from the Baltic language array. There are a variety of judgments about the time at which the process of separation of the Proto-Slavic language from the Baltic took place (from the 15th century BC to the 6th century AD).
In 1983 the II conference "Balto-Slavic ethno-linguistic relations in the historical and areal plane" was held. It seems that this was the last such large-scale exchange of views of the then Soviet, including Baltic, historians and linguists on the origin of the Old Slavic language. The following conclusions can be drawn from the theses of this conference.
The geographic center of the Balts' settlement is the Vistula basin, and the territory occupied by the Balts stretched east, south, and west from this center. It is important that these territories included the Oka basin and the Upper and Middle Dnieper up to Pripyat. Balts lived in the north of Central Europe before the Wends and Celts! The mythology of the ancient Balts bore a clear Vedic connotation. Religion, the pantheon of gods almost coincided with the ancient Slavic ones. In a linguistic sense, the Baltic linguistic space was heterogeneous and was divided into two large groups - western and eastern, within which there were also dialects. The Baltic and Proto-Slavic languages ​​contain signs of a great influence of the so-called "Italic" and "Iranian" languages.
An interesting mystery is the relationship of the Baltic and Slavic languages ​​with the so-called Indo-European proto-language, which we, linguistics experts forgive me, will henceforth call the Proto-language. The logical scheme of the evolution of the Proto-Slavic language seems to be something like this:

Proto-language - Prabalt - + Italic + Scythian-Sarsmatian = Old Slavic.

This scheme does not reflect one important and mysterious detail: the Prabalt (aka “Balto-Slavic”) language, having formed from the Proto-language, did not stop contacts with it; both languages ​​existed for a while at the same time! It turns out that the Pro-Baltic language is a contemporary of the Proto-language!
This contradicts the idea of ​​the continuity of the Prabalt language from the Proto-language. One of the most authoritative experts on the problems of the Prabalt language V.N. Toporov put forward the assumption that "the Baltic area is a" reserve "of the ancient Indo-European speech". Moreover, THE PRABALTIC LANGUAGE IS AN ANCIENT LANGUAGE OF INDO-EUROPEANS!
Taken together with the data of anthropologists and archaeologists, this may mean that the Prabalts were representatives of the "catacomb" culture (beginning of the 2nd millennium BC).
Perhaps the ancient Slavs were some southeastern variety of the Prabalts? No. The Old Slavic language reveals continuity precisely from the western group of the Baltic languages ​​(west of the Vistula!), And not from the neighboring eastern one.
Does this mean that the Slavs are the descendants of the ancient Balts?
Who are the Balts?
First of all, “Balts” is a scientific term for the related ancient peoples of the Southern Baltic, and not a self-name. Today the descendants of the Balts are represented by Latvians and Lithuanians. It is believed that the Lithuanian and Latvian tribes (Curonians, Letgola, Zimegola, Seli, Aukshtaity, Samogit, Skalva, Nadruv, Prussians, Yatvingians) were formed from more ancient Baltic tribal formations in the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD. But who were and where did these more ancient Balts live? Until recently, it was believed that the ancient Balts were the descendants of the carriers of the late nealytic cultures of polished battle axes and corded pottery (last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC). This opinion is contradicted by the results of research by anthropologists. Already in the Bronze Age, the ancient South Baltic tribes were absorbed by the "narrow-faced" Indo-Europeans who came from the south, who became the ancestors of the Balts. The Balts were engaged in primitive agriculture, hunting, fishing, lived in weakly fortified villages in log or clay-coated houses and semi-dugouts. Militarily, the Balts were inactive and rarely attracted the attention of Mediterranean writers.
It turns out that we have to return to the initial, autochthonous version of the origin of the Slavs. But then where does the Italic and Scythian-Sarmatian components of the Old Slavic language come from? Where do all those similarities with the Scythian-Sarmatians, which we talked about in the previous chapters, come from?
Yes, if we proceed from the initial goal at all costs to establish the Slavs as the most ancient and permanent population of Eastern Europe, or as the descendants of one of the tribes who settled on the land of the future Russia, then we have to bypass the numerous contradictions arising from anthropological, linguistic, archaeological and other the facts of the history of the territory on which the Slavs lived reliably only from the 6th century AD, and only in the 9th century the state of Rus was formed.
To try to more objectively answer the mysteries of the history of the emergence of the Slavs, let's try to look at the events that took place from the 5th millennium BC to the middle of the 1st millennium AD in a wider geographical space than the territory of Russia.
So, in the V-VI millennia BC. NS. in Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, India, the cities of the first reliably known civilizations are developing. At the same time, in the basin of the lower Danube, a "Vincha" ("Terterian") culture was formed, associated with the civilizations of Asia Minor. The peripheral part of this culture was the "Bug-Dniester", and later the "Trypillian" culture on the territory of the future Rus. The area from the Dnieper to the Urals at that time was inhabited by the tribes of early pastoralists who still spoke the same language. Together with the "Vinchan" farmers, these tribes were the ancestors of the modern Indo-European peoples.
At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, from the Volga region to the Yenisei, right up to the western borders of the Mongoloid settlement, the “Yamnaya” (“Afanasyevskaya”) culture of nomadic pastoralists appears. By the second quarter of the III millennium BC. e., "yamniks" spread to the lands on which the Trypillians lived, and by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC pushed them westward. "Vinchans" in the III millennium BC gave rise to the civilizations of the Pelasgians and Minoans, and by the end of the III millennium BC - the Mycenaeans.
To save your time, I am omitting the further development of the ethnogenesis of European peoples in the III-II millennia BC.
It is more important for us that by the XII century BC the "Srubniks" - Cimmerians, who were part of the Aryans, or who were their descendants and successors in Asia, came to Europe. Judging by the distribution of the South Ural Bronze throughout Eastern and Northern Europe during this period, a vast territory was influenced by the Cimmerians. Many European peoples of late times owe the Aryan part of their blood to the Cimmerians. Having conquered many tribes in Europe, the Cimmerians brought them their own mythology, but they themselves changed, they adopted the local languages. Later, the Germans, who conquered the Gauls and Romans, spoke in a similar way in the Romance languages. After some time, the Cimmerians who conquered the Balts began to speak the Baltic dialects, merged with the conquered tribes. The Balts, who settled in Europe with the previous wave of peoples' migration from the Urals and the Volga, received from the Cimmerians the first portion of the "Iranian" component of their language and Aryan mythology.
Around the 8th century BC the Wends came from the south to the regions inhabited by the Western Prabalts. They brought a significant part of the "Italic" dialect into the language of the Prabalts, as well as the self-name - Wends. From the 8th to the 3rd century BC NS. waves of immigrants from the west passed one after another - representatives of the “Luzhitsa”, “Chornolis” and “Zarubenets” cultures pressed by the Celts, that is, the Etruscans, Wends and, possibly, the Western Balts. So the "western" Balts became "southern".
Both archaeologists and linguists distinguish two large tribal formations of the Balts on the territory of the future Rus: one - in the Oka basin, the other - in the Middle Dnieper region. It was them that the ancient writers could have in mind when speaking of neurons, disputes, aists, chives, villages, gelons and boudins. Where Herodotus placed Gelons, other sources at different times called Galindians, Goldscythians, Golunians, and Goliad. This means that the name of one of the Baltic tribes living in the Middle Dnieper region can be established with high probability.
So, the Balts lived on the Oka and in the Middle Dnieper. But these territories were under the rule of the Sarmatians (“between the Pevkinnians and the Fenns” according to Tacitus, that is, from the Danube to the lands of the Finno-Ugric peoples)! And the Peutinger tables assign these territories to the Wends and the Venedo-Sarmatians. This may mean that the southern Baltic tribes for a long time were in a single tribal union with the Scythian-Sarmatians. The Balts and Scythian-Sarmatians were united by a similar religion and an increasingly common culture. The power of the weapons of the Kshatriya warriors provided farmers, cattle breeders, fishermen and forest hunters from the Oka and the upper reaches of the Dnieper to the shores of the Black Sea and the foothills of the Caucasus with the possibility of peaceful labor and, as they would say today, confidence in the future.
At the end of the 3rd century, the Goths invaded Eastern Europe. They managed to conquer many tribes of the Balts and Finno-Ugrians, to seize a gigantic territory from the shores of the Baltic to the Volga and the Black Sea, including the Crimea.
The Scythian-Sarmatians fought for a long time and fiercely with the Goths, but still suffered a defeat, such a heavy defeat that had never happened in their history. It is not just that the memory of the events of this war remained in the "Lay of Igor's Campaign"!
If the Alans and Roksolans of the forest-steppe and steppe zone could escape from the Goths by retreating to the north and south, then the “royal Scythians” had nowhere to retreat from the Crimea. Most quickly they were completely destroyed.
The Gothic possessions divided the Scythian-Sarmatians into southern and northern parts. The southern Scythian-Sarmatians (Yases, Alans), to which the leader Bus, known from the Lay of Igor's Host, belonged, retreated to the North Caucasus and became vassals of the Goths. There was a monument-tombstone of Bus, installed by his widow and known to historians of the 19th century.
The northern ones were forced to go to the lands of the Balts and Finno-Ugrians (Ilmeri), who also suffered from the Goths. Here, apparently, a rapid merger of the Balts and Scythian-Sarmatians began, who were possessed by a common will and necessity - liberation from Gothic domination.
It is logical to assume that numerically, the majority of the new community were Balts, so the Sarmatians who fell into their midst soon began to speak South Balt with an admixture of the "Iranian" dialect - the Old Slavic language. For a long time the military-princely part of the new tribes was mainly of Scythian-Sarmatian origin.
The formation of the Slavic tribes took about 100 years during the life of 3-4 generations. The new ethnic community received a new self-name - "Slavs". Perhaps it was born from the phrase "sva-alans". "Alans" is apparently the common self-name of a part of the Sarmatians, although there was also a tribe of Alans proper (this phenomenon is not uncommon: later, among the Slavic tribes with different names, there was a tribe proper "Slovenes"). The word "sva" - among the Aryans, meant both glory and sacredness. In many Slavic languages, the sounds "l" and "v" easily pass into each other. And for the former Balts, this name, in the sound of "slo-vene", had its own meaning: the Veneti who knew the word, had a common language, as opposed to the "Germans" - the Goths.
The military confrontation with the Goths continued all this time. Probably, the struggle was carried out mainly by partisan methods, in conditions when cities and large villages, centers of arms craft, were captured or destroyed by the enemy. This affected both armaments (darts, light bows and shields woven from rods, lack of armor) and the military tactics of the Slavs (attacks from ambushes and cover, feigned retreats, luring into traps). But the very fact of the continuation of the struggle in such conditions suggests that the military traditions of the ancestors were preserved. It is difficult to imagine how long the struggle of the Slavs with the Goths would have lasted and how the struggle of the Slavs with the Goths could have ended, but hordes of the Huns burst into the Northern Black Sea region. The Slavs had to choose between a vassal alliance with the Huns against the Goths and a fight on two fronts.
The need to obey the Huns, who came to Europe as invaders, was probably met by the Slavs ambiguously and caused not only inter-tribal, but also intra-tribal disagreements. Some tribes split into two or even three parts, fighting on the side of the Huns or Goths, or against both. The Huns and Slavs defeated the Goths, but the steppe Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region remained with the Huns. Together with the Huns, the Slavs, whom the Byzantines also called the Scythians (according to the testimony of the Byzantine author Priscus), came to the Danube. Following the Goths retreating to the northwest, part of the Slavs went to the lands of the Venets, Balts-Lugians, Celts, who also became participants in the emergence of a new ethnic community. This is how the final basis and territory of the formation of the Slavic tribes was formed. In the 6th century, the Slavs appeared on the historical stage under their new name.
Linguistically, many scholars divide the Slavs of the 5th-6th centuries into three groups: Western - Wends, Southern - Sklavins, and Eastern - Antes.
However, Byzantine historians of that time see in the Sklavins and Antes not ethnic formations, but political tribal unions of the Slavs, located from Lake Balaton to the Vistula (Sklavina) and from the mouth of the Danube to the Dnieper and the Black Sea coast (Anta). The Antes were considered "the strongest of both tribes." It can be assumed that the existence of two unions of Slavic tribes known to the Byzantines is a consequence of inter-tribal and intra-tribal strife over the "Gothic-Hunnic" issue (as well as the presence of Slavic tribes with the same names distant from each other).
The Sklavins are probably those tribes (Millingi, Ezerites, North, Draguvites (Dregovichi?), Smolens, Sagudats, Velegesites (Volynians?), Vayunits, Berzites, Rinkhin, Krivichi (Krivichi?), Timochans and others), which in In the 5th century they were allies of the Huns, went with them to the west and settled north of the Danube. Large parts of the Krivichi, Smolens, Severians, Dregovichs, Volhynians, as well as the Dulebs, Tivertsy, Uchiha, Croats, Glade, Drevlyans, Vyatichi, Polochans, Buzhans and others who did not obey the Huns, but did not side with the Goths, made up the Ant alliance, who opposed the new Huns - the Avars. But in the north of the Sklavins, Western Slavs, little-known to the Byzantines, also lived - the Veneti: other parts of the once united tribes of the Polyans, Slovenes, as well as Serbs, Lyakhs, Mazurs, Mazovians, Czechs, Bodrici, Lyutichi, Pomorians, Radimichi - the descendants of those Slavs who once left parallel to the Hunnic invasion. From the beginning of the 8th century, probably under pressure from the Germans, the Western Slavs partially moved to the south (Serbs, Slovenes) and east (Slovenes, Radimichi).
Is there a time in history that can be considered the time of the absorption of the Baltic tribes by the Slavs, or the final merger of the southern Balts and Slavs? There is. This time is the VI-VII centuries, when, according to archaeologists, there was a completely peaceful and gradual settlement of the Baltic settlements by the Slavs. This was probably due to the return of a part of the Slavs to the homeland of their ancestors after the Avars seized the lands near the Danube by the Sklavins and Antes. Since that time, the “Wends” and Scythian-Sarmatians practically disappear from the sources, and the Slavs appear, and they operate exactly where the Scythian-Sarmatians and the disappeared Baltic tribes “were listed” until recently. According to V.V. Sedova "it is possible that the tribal boundaries of the early ancient Russian tribes reflect the peculiarities of the ethnic division of this territory before the arrival of the Slavs."
Thus, it turns out that the Slavs, having absorbed the blood of very many Indo-European tribes and nationalities, are still to a greater extent the descendants and spiritual heirs of the Balts and Scythian-Sarmatians. The ancestral home of the Indo-Aryans is Southwestern Siberia from the Southern Urals to the Balkhash and Yenisei. The ancestral home of the Slavs - the Middle Dnieper, Northern Black Sea region, Crimea.
This version explains why it is so difficult to find one single ascending line of the Slavic genealogy, and explains the archaeological confusion of Slavic antiquities. And yet - this is only one of the versions.
The search continues.

It's no secret that history and culture of the Baltic Slavs for centuries it has attracted great interest not only from German historians, who often do it more out of their professional duty, but no less from Russians. What is the reason for this continuing interest? To a large extent - the "Varangian question", but not only it. Not a single researcher or lover of Slavic antiquities can pass by the Baltic Slavs. Detailed descriptions in medieval German chronicles of brave, proud and strong people, with their own distinctive and unique culture, sometimes capture the imagination. Majestic pagan temples and rituals, many-headed idols and sacred islands, unceasing wars, ancient cities and unusual for the modern ear names of princes and gods - this list can be continued for a long time.

For the first time discovering the North-West Slavic culture, they seem to find themselves in a completely new, in many ways mysterious, world. But what exactly attracts him - does he seem familiar and familiar, or, on the contrary, is it just interesting because he is unique and does not look like other Slavs? Having studied the history of the Baltic Slavs for several years, as a personal opinion, I would choose both options at once. The Baltic Slavs, of course, were Slavs, the closest relatives of all other Slavs, but they also had a number of distinctive features. The history of the Baltic Slavs and the southern Baltic still keeps many secrets and one of the most poorly studied moments is the so-called early Slavic period - from the late era of the Great Nations Migration to the end of the 8th-9th centuries. Who were the mysterious tribes of the Rugs, Varins, Vandals, Lugians and others, called "Germans" by Roman authors, and when did the Slavic language appear here? In I tried to briefly give the available linguistic indications that before the Slavic language a certain other language, but not Germanic, but more similar to the Baltic, and the history of its study, was spread here. For greater clarity, it makes sense to give a few specific examples.

I. Baltic Substratum?
In my previous article, it was already mentioned that according to archeological data, in the south of the Baltic there is a continuity of material cultures of the Bronze, Iron and Roman periods. Despite the fact that traditionally this "pre-Slavic" culture is identified with the speakers of the ancient Germanic languages, this assumption contradicts the data of linguistics. Indeed, if the ancient Germanic population left the south of the Baltic a century or two before the arrival of the Slavs here, then where does such a decent layer of "pre-Slavic toponymy" come from? If the ancient Germans were assimilated by the Slavs, then why are there no borrowings of ancient Germanic toponymy (in the case of an attempt to isolate this, the situation becomes even more contradictory), did not they borrow the “Baltic” toponymy from them?

Moreover. During colonization and assimilation, not only the borrowing of the names of rivers and places, but also words from the language of the autochthonous population, the substrate, into the language of the colonialists, is inevitable. This always happens - where the Slavs had to closely contact the non-Slavic population, borrowings of words are known. You can point to borrowings from Turkic to South Slavic, from Iranian - to East Slavic, or from German - to West Slavic. By the 20th century, the vocabulary of the Kashubians living in the German environment was up to 10% borrowed from German. In turn, in the Saxon dialects of the regions of Germany surrounding Luzhitsa, linguists count up to several hundred not even borrowings, but Slavic relic words. If we assume that the Baltic Slavs assimilated the German-speaking population in the vast spaces between the Elbe and the Vistula, one would expect many borrowings from Old East Germanic in their language. However, this is not the case. If in the case of the Polabian Wends-Drevan this circumstance could still be explained by the poor fixation of vocabulary and phonetics, then in the case of another well-known North-Lehite language that has survived to this day Kashubian, it is much more difficult to explain this. It is worth emphasizing that we are not talking about borrowing into Kashubian from German or common Slavic borrowings from East German.

According to the concept of the East German substratum, it should have turned out that the Baltic Slavs assimilated the autochthonous population of the south of the Baltic after the division of the Proto-Slavic into branches. In other words, in order to prove the foreign-speaking population of the southern Baltic, assimilated by the Slavs, it is necessary to identify a unique layer of borrowings from the non-Slavic language, characteristic only for the Baltic and unknown among other Slavs. Due to the fact that practically no medieval monuments of the language of the Slavs of northern Germany and Poland have survived, except for a few mentions in chronicles written in a different linguistic environment, for the modern regions of Holstein, Mecklenburg and northwestern Poland, the study of toponymy plays the greatest role. The layer of these "pre-Slavic" names is quite extensive throughout the south of the Baltic and linguists usually associate it with "ancient European hydronymy". The results of the study of the Slavicization of the pre-Slavic hydronymy of Poland, cited by Yu. Udolph, may turn out to be very important in this regard.

Slavic and pre-Slavic hydronyms of Poland according to Yu. Udolf, 1990
It turns out that the hydronymic situation in northern Poland is very different from its southern half. Pre-Slavic hydronymy is confirmed throughout the territory of this country, but significant differences are also noticeable. In the southern part of Poland, pre-Slavic hydronyms coexist with Slavic ones. In the north, it is exclusively pre-Slavic hydronymy. The circumstance is rather strange, since it is reliably known that since the era of at least the Great Migration of Nations, all these lands were already inhabited by speakers of the Slavic language proper, or various Slavic dialects. If we accept the presence of pre-Slavic hydronymy as a pointer to the pre-Slavic language or substrate, then this may indicate that part of the pre-Slavic population of southern Poland at some time left their lands, so that the speakers of the Slavic language proper, having settled these areas, gave the rivers new Slavic names. The line south of which Slavic hydronymics begins in Poland, on the whole, corresponds to the medieval tribal division, so that the zone of exclusively pre-Slavic hydronymy approximately corresponds to the settlement of the speakers of the Northern Lechite dialects. Simply put, the regions inhabited in the Middle Ages by various Baltic-Slavic tribes, better known under the collective name of the Pomorians, differ from the “Polish” ones by the absence of Slavic hydronymy proper.

In the eastern part of this exclusively "pre-Slavic" area, Mazov dialects began to prevail later, however, in the early Middle Ages, the Vistula River was still the border of the Pomorians and the Balto-speaking tribes. In the Old English translation of Orosius dating back to the 9th century, in the story of the traveler Wulfstan, the Vistula is indicated as the border of Windland (that is, the country of the Wends) and the Estonians. It is not known exactly how far south the Baltic dialects east of the Vistula extended to the south at that time. However, given that traces of Baltic settlements are also known west of the Vistula (see for example: Toporov V.N. New works on the traces of the stay of the Prussians to the west of the Vistula // Balto-Slavic studies, M., 1984 and further references), it can be assumed that part of this region in the early Middle Ages or during the era of the Great Migration of Peoples could speak Baltic. Another map by Yu. Udolph is no less indicative.

Slavicization of Indo-European hydronymy in Poland according to Yu. Udolph, 1990
The northern part of Poland, the southern coast of the Baltic, differs from other continental regions also in that only here are known pre-Slavic hydronyms that were not influenced by Slavic phonetics. Both circumstances bring the "Indo-European" hydronymics from the Pomorian region closer to the hydronyms from the Baltic lands. But if the fact that words did not undergo Slavicization for a long time in the lands inhabited by the Balts is quite understandable, then the Pomorian non-Slavic hydronyms seem interesting for the study of a possible pre-Slavic substrate. Two conclusions can be drawn from the maps above:

The Pomorian language was supposed to be closer to the neighboring West Baltic than the continental West Slavic dialects and to preserve some archaic Indo-European features or phonetics already forgotten in the Slavic languages ​​proper;

Linguistic processes in the Slavic and Baltic regions of the southern Baltic proceeded in a similar way, which was reflected both in a wide layer of “Balto-Slavic” and “Baltic toponymy” and in phonetics. The "Slavization" (that is, the transition to the proper Slavic dialects) of the south of the Baltic should have begun later than in southern Poland.

It is extremely indicative that the data of the Slavicization of the phonetics of the hydronymics of northern Poland and the area of ​​the "Baltic" toponymy of eastern Germany receive additional confirmation when compared with the differences in West Slavic languages ​​and dialects that already existed in the Middle Ages. Linguistically and culturally, the West Slavic tribes of Germany and Poland are distinguished into two or three large groups, so that in the northern half of these lands there lived speakers of the North Lechite dialects, and in the southern half of the South Lehite and Lusatian-Serbian dialects. The southern border of "Baltic place names" in eastern Germany is Lower Lusatia, a region south of modern-day Berlin. Researchers of the Slavic toponymy of Germany E. Eichler and T. Witkowski ( Eichler E., Witkowski T. Das altpolabische Sprachgebiet unter Einschluß des Drawehnopolabischen // Slawen in Deutschland, Berlin, 1985) highlighted the approximate "border" of the distribution of Northern Lechite and Lusatian-Serbian dialects in Germany. With all the conventionality of this "border" and the possibility of small deviations to the north or south, it is worth noting that it very accurately coincides with the border of the Baltic toponymy.

Border of Northern Lechite and Lusatian-Serbian dialects in medieval Germany
In other words, the Northern Lechite dialects both on the territory of Germany and Poland in the Middle Ages became widespread in those territories where an extensive layer of "Baltic" toponymy is known. At the same time, the differences between North Lehite and other West Slavic languages ​​are so great that in this case we are talking about an independent Proto-Slavic dialect, and not a branch or dialect of Lehite. The fact that at the same time the original Northern Lechite dialects also reveal a close connection with the Baltic in phonetics, and in some cases - much closer than with neighboring Slavic dialects - seems no longer a "strange coincidence" but a completely natural regularity (cf. . "Karva" and Baltic "karva", cow, or sev.-lech. "Guard" and Baltic. "Guard", etc.).

"Balt" toponymy and North-Lehite dialects
The above circumstances contradict the generally accepted concept of living here before the Slavs of the carriers of ancient Germanic dialects. If the Slavization of the South Baltic substratum took place for a long time and slowly, then the absence of Germanic place names and exclusive East Germanic borrowings into Kashubian can be called self-explanatory. In addition to the assumption of a possible East Germanic etymology of Gdansk, it turns out to be very tight with ancient Germanic toponymy here - at a time when many river names not only go back to the pre-Slavic language, but have also been preserved so well that they do not show any traces of the influence of Slavic phonetics. Yu. Udolph attributed the entire pre-Slavic hydronymy of Poland to the Old Indo-European language, before the division into separate branches, and pointed to the possible Germanic influence for the two names of the West Polish rivers Warta and Notech, however, here we were not talking about their own Germanic origin.

At the same time, in the Kashubian language, linguists see it possible to distinguish a layer of not just borrowings from the Baltic, but also relict Baltic words. You can point to the article "Pomorian-Baltic correspondences in vocabulary" by the famous researcher and expert of the Kashubian language F. Hinze ( Hinze F. Pomoranisch-baltische Entsprechungen im Wortschatz // Zeitschrift für Slavistik, 29, Heft 2, 1984) with the presentation of exclusive Baltic-Pomorian borrowings: 1 Pomorian-Old Prussian, 4 Pomorian-Lithuanian and 4 Pomorian-Latvian. At the same time, the observation made by the author in the conclusion deserves special attention:

“Among the examples given in both previous chapters, there may well be ancient borrowings from the Baltic and even Baltic relict words (for example, the Pomorian stabuna), however, it will often be difficult to prove this. Here I would like to give just one example, which testifies to the close connections between the Pomorian and Baltic speech elements. We are talking about the Pomorian word kuling - "curlew, sandpiper". Although this word by its root is etymologically and inseparable from its Slavic relatives (kul-ik), however, by morphological features, that is, by the suffix, it goes back to the Balto-Slavic proto-form * koulinga - “bird”. The closest Baltic analogue is lit. koulinga - "curlew", however, the Pomorian kuling should be a borrowing not from Lithuanian, but from Old Prussian, in favor of which Buga has already spoken out. Unfortunately, this word is not recorded in Old Prussian. In any case, we are talking about the ancient Baltic-Slavic borrowing "( Hinze F, 1984, S. 195).

The linguistic formulation of relict words is inevitably followed by a historical conclusion about the assimilation of the Baltic substrate by the Kashubians. Unfortunately, one gets the impression that in Poland, where they mainly studied Kashubian, this issue has moved from a purely historical to a political one. In her monograph on the Kashubian language, Hanna Popovska-Taborska ( Popowska-Taborska H. Szkice z kaszubszczynzny. Leksyka, Zabytki, Kontakty jezykowe, Gdansk, 1998) cites a bibliography of the issue, the opinions of various Polish historians "for" and "against" the Baltic substratum in the lands of the Kashubians, and criticizes F. Hinze, however, the very controversy that the Kashubians were Slavs, not Balts, seems more emotional than scientific , and the statement of the question is incorrect. The Slavism of the Kashubians is undoubted, but one should not rush from one extreme to another. There are many indications of a greater similarity of the culture and language of the Baltic Slavs with the Balts, unknown among other Slavs, and this circumstance deserves the closest attention.

II. Slavs with a "Baltic accent"?
In the above quote, F. Hinze drew attention to the presence of the –ing suffix in the Pomor word kuling, considering it to be an ancient borrowing. But it seems no less likely that in this case we can talk more about a relict word from a substrate language, since in the presence of a Slavic own sandpiper from the same root common to the Balts and Slavs, all grounds for actually "borrowing" are lost. Obviously, the assumption of borrowing arose from the researcher due to the unknown suffix -ing in Slavic. Perhaps, with a broader consideration of the issue, such word formation will not be so unique, but on the contrary, it may turn out to be characteristic of the Northern Lechite dialects that arose in the places of the longest preservation of the "pre-Slavic" language.

In Indo-European languages, the –ing suffix meant belonging to something and was most typical for Germanic and Baltic. Udolph notes the use of this suffix in the pre-Slavic place names of Poland (the preforms * Leut-ing-ia for the hydronym Lucaza, * Lüt-ing-ios for the toponym Lautensee and * L (o) up-ing-ia for Lupenze). The use of this suffix in the names of hydronyms later became widely known for the Baltic-speaking regions of Prussia (for example: Dobr-ing-e, Erl-ing, Ew-ing-e, Is-ing, Elb-ing) and Lithuania (for example: Del- ing-a, Dub-ing-a, Ned-ing-is). Also, the –ing suffix was widely used in the ethnonyms of the tribes of “ancient Germany” - one can recall the tribes listed by Tacitus, whose names contained such a suffix, or the Baltic jatv-ing-i, in the Old Russian pronunciation known as Yatvyagi. In the ethnonyms of the Baltic-Slavic tribes, the suffix –ing is known among the Polabs (polab-ing-i) and Smeldings (smeld-ing-i). Since a connection is found between both tribes, it makes sense to dwell on this point in more detail.

Smeldingi are first mentioned in the Frankish annals under the year 808. During the attack of the Danes and Viltsy on the kingdom of the Cheer, the two tribes that had previously obeyed the Cheer - the Smeldings and the Linons - rebelled and went over to the side of the Danes. Obviously, this required two circumstances:

The Smeldings were not initially “encouraged”, but were forced into submission by them;

One can assume direct contact between the Smeldings and the Danes in 808.

The latter is important for the localization of daredevil. It is reported that in 808, after the conquest of two regions of encouragement, Godfried went to the Elba. In response to this, Charlemagne sent to the Elbe, to help the cheers, troops led by his son, who fought here against the Smeldings and Linons. Thus, both tribes had to dwell somewhere near the Elbe, bordering on the one hand with the encouraged, and on the other with the Frankish empire. Einhard, describing the events of those years, reports only about the "Linonian war" of the Franks, but does not mention the daredevils. The reason, as we see it, is that the Smeldings managed to withstand in 808 - for the Franks this campaign ended unsuccessfully, so no details about it have survived. This is also confirmed by the Frankish annals - in the next 809 the king of the encouraging Drazhko sets off on a retaliatory campaign against the Viltsy and on the way back conquers the daredevils after the siege of their capital. In the annals of Moissac, the latter is recorded as Smeldinconoburg - a word containing the stem smeldin or smeldincon and the German word burg, meaning fortress.

Subsequently, the Smeldings are mentioned only once more, at the end of the 9th century by the Bavarian geographer, who reports that next to the Linaa tribe are the Bethenici, Smeldingon and Morizani tribes. The Bethenichi lived in the Pringnitz region at the confluence of the Elbe and Gavola, in the area of ​​the city of Havelberg and are subsequently referred to by Helmold as Brizani. The Linons also lived on the Elbe, west of the Bethenichs - their capital was Lenzen. Who exactly the Bavarian geographer calls Morizani is not entirely clear, since two tribes with similar names are known at once by the proximity - the Morichans (Mortsani), who lived on the Elbe south of the Bethenichi, closer to Magdeburg, and the Murichans, who lived on Lake Müritz or Moritz, to the east of betenichi. However, in both cases, Morichans are neighbors of the Betenichi. Since the Linons lived on the southeastern border of the Obodrit kingdom, the place where the dwarves lived can be determined with sufficient accuracy - in order to meet all the criteria, they had to be the western neighbors of the Linons. The southeastern border of the Saxon Nordalbingia (that is, the southwestern border of the encouraging kingdom), the imperial letters and Adam of Bremen call the Delbend Forest, located between the river of the same name Delbenda (a tributary of the Elbe) and Hamburg. It was here, between the Delbend forest and Lenzen, that the dwarves were supposed to live.

Prospective area of ​​settlement of the Smeldings
Mention about them mysteriously ceases at the end of the 9th century, although all their neighbors (linons, cheers, Viltsy, Morichans, Brizani) are often mentioned later. At the same time, starting from the middle of the 11th century, a new large tribe of Polabs “appeared” on the Elbe. The first mention of the Polabs goes back to the charter of the Emperor Henry in 1062 as the "region of Palobe". Obviously, in this case there was a banal slip of the tongue from Polabe. A little later, the polabingi are described by Adam of Bremen as one of the most powerful obodrit tribes, it is reported about the provinces subordinate to them. Helmold called them polabi, however, as the toponym once calls them "the province of the polabing". Thus, it becomes obvious that the ethnonym polabingi comes from the Slavic toponym Labe (polab-ing-i - "inhabitants of Polabe") and the suffix –ing is used in it as expected as an indication of belonging.

The capital of the Polabs was the city of Ratzeburg, which was located at the junction of the three provinces of encouragement - Wagria, the "land of the encouraged" and the Labe. The practice of setting up princely rates on the borders of the regions was quite typical for the Baltic Slavs - one can recall the city of Lyubitsa, which stands on the border of Vagria and the "land of the emboldened in a narrow sense" (practically - next to Ratzeburg) or the capital of the hijans, Kessin, which was located on the very border with the emboldened , on the Varnov river. However, the area of ​​settlement of the Polabs, already based on the very meaning of the word, should have been located in the Elbe region, no matter how far from the Elbe their capital was located. The Polabings are mentioned simultaneously with the Linons, therefore, in the east, the border of their settlement could not be east of Lenzen. This means that the entire region, bounded in the northwest by Ratzeburg, in the northeast by Zverin (modern Schwerin), in the southwest by the Delbend forest, and in the southeast by the city of Lenzen, should be considered as a presumptive place for the settlement of the Polabs, so that in the eastern part of this area also includes the areas previously inhabited by smeldings.

Estimated area of ​​settlement of the Polabs
Due to the fact that chronologically the Polabs begin to be mentioned later than the Smeldings and both tribes are never mentioned together, it can be assumed that the Labe by the 11th century became a collective name for a number of small regions and the tribes inhabiting them between the Obodrit and the Elba. Having been under the rule of the Encouraging kings at least from the beginning of the 9th century, in the 11th century these regions could have been united into a single province "Labe", ruled by the Prince of Encouragement from Ratzeburg. Thus, for two centuries the Smeldings simply “dissolved” in the “Polabs”, having not had their own self-government since 809, by the 11th century they were no longer perceived by their neighbors as a separate political force or tribe.

It seems all the more curious that the suffix -ing is found in the names of both tribes. It is worth paying attention to the name of smeldings - the most ancient of both forms. The linguists R. Trautmann and O.N. Trubachev explained the ethnonym Smeldings from the Slavic "Smolyan", however, Trubachev already admitted that methodologically such an etymology would be a stretch. The fact is that without the -ing suffix, the stem smeld- remains, and not smel- / smol-. At the root, there is another consonant, which is repeated with all mentions of smeldings in at least three independent sources, so to write off this fact as a "distortion" would be an escape from the problem. The words of Udolph and Kazemir come to mind that it would be impossible to explain dozens of toponyms and hydronyms based on Germanic or Slavic in neighboring Lower Saxony, and that such an explanation becomes possible only with the use of the Baltic. In my personal opinion, breeders are just such a case. Neither Slavic nor Germanic etymology is possible here without strong strains. The Slavic did not have the -ing suffix and it is difficult to explain why the neighboring Germans suddenly needed to transmit the word * smolani through this Germanic particle, at a time when dozens of other Slavic tribes in Germany were easily written by the Germans with the Slavic suffixes -ani, -ini.

More probable than the "Germanization" of Slavic phonetics, would be purely Germanic word formation, and smeld-ingi would mean "inhabitants of Smeld" in the language of the neighboring Saxons. The problem here is that the name of this hypothetical region Smeld is difficult to explain from Germanic or Slavic. At the same time, with the help of the Baltic, this word acquires a suitable meaning, so that neither semantics nor phonetics require any stretching. Unfortunately, linguists who compose etymological reference books, sometimes for huge regions, very rarely have a good idea of ​​the places they describe. It can be assumed that they themselves have never been to most of them and are not thoroughly familiar with the history of each specific toponym. Their approach is simple: are the Smeldings a Slavic tribe? This means that we will look for etymology in Slavic. Are similar ethnonyms known in the Slavic world? Are Smolyans known in the Balkans? Wonderful, that means Smolyan on the Elbe too!

However, every place, every people, tribe and even a person has its own history, without taking into account which one can go down the wrong path. If the name of the Smelding tribe was a distortion of the Slavic "Smolyan", then the Smeldings should have been associated with the burning, clearing of forests by their neighbors. This was a very widespread type of activity in the Middle Ages, therefore, in order to "stand out" from the mass of others engaged in burning, the smildings probably had to do this more intensively than others. In other words, to live in some very wooded, rugged terrain, where a person had to win a place for himself to live near the forest. Wooded places are really known on the Elbe - it is enough to recall the Draven region, located on the other side of the Elbe, or neighboring with Vagria Golzatia - both names mean nothing more than “wooded areas”. Therefore, "Smolyans" would look quite natural against the background of neighboring trees and golzats - "in theory". “In practice,” everything turns out to be different. The lower course of the Elbe between Lenzen and Hamburg really stands out strongly from other neighboring regions, however, not at all on the basis of a “forest” character. This region is known for its sands. Already Adam of Bremen mentioned that the Elbe in the region of Saxony "becomes sandy". Obviously, exactly the lower course of the Elbe should have been meant, since its middle and upper course at the time of the chronicler were part of the marks, but not actually "historical Saxony", in the story about which he placed his remark. It is here, in the area of ​​the city of Deemitz, between the villages with the speaking names Big and Small Schmölln (Gross Schmölln, Klein Schmölln), where the largest inland dune in Europe is located.

Sand dune on the Elbe near the village of Maly Schmölln
In strong winds, the sand scatters from here for many kilometers, making the entire surrounding area infertile and therefore one of the most sparsely populated in Mecklenburg. The historical name of this area is Grise Gegend (German for "gray area"). Due to the high content of sand, the soil here really takes on a gray color.

Land in the area of ​​the town of Demitz
Geologists attribute the appearance of the Elbe sand dunes to the end of the last ice age, when sand layers of 20-40 m were brought to the river banks with melt water. accelerated the process of spreading sand. Even now, in the Demitz area, sand dunes reach many meters in height and are perfectly visible among the surrounding plains, undoubtedly being the most "striking" local landmark. Therefore, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in the Baltic languages ​​sand is called very similar words: "smilis" (lit.) or "smiltis" (lat.). In a word Smeltine the Balts designated large sand dunes (compare the name of the large sand dune on the Curonian Spit, Smeltine).

Due to this, the Baltic etymology in the case of the bastards would look convincing both from the point of view of semantics and from the point of view of phonetics, while having direct parallels in Baltic toponymy. There are also historical grounds for "non-Slavic" etymology. Most of the names of the rivers in the lower reaches of the Elbe are of pre-Slavic origin, and the sand dunes near Demitz and Boyzenburg are located exactly in the interfluve of three rivers with pre-Slavic names - Elbe, Elda and Delbenda. The latter can also become a clue in the question of interest to us. Here it can be noted that it does not have an intelligible Slavic etymology and the name of a tribe neighboring with the Smeldings - the Linons or Lins, who also lived in the area of ​​concentration of pre-Slavic hydronymics and were not part of either the Union of Encouragement or the Union of Lyutichi (i.e., perhaps also former of some other origin). The name Delbend was first mentioned in the Frankish annals under the year 822:

By order of the emperor, the Saxons are building a kind of fortress beyond the Elbe, in a place called Delbend. And when the Slavs who had occupied it before were expelled from it, a Saxon garrison was placed in it against the attacks [of the Slavs].

A city or a fortress with this name is not later mentioned anywhere else, although according to the annals, the city remained with the Franks and became the location of the garrison. It seems likely that the archaeologist F. Lauks has suggested that the Delbend of the Frankish annals is the future Hamburg. The German fortress Gammaburg on the Lower Elbe began to gain importance in the first half of the 9th century. There are no reliable letters on the basis of it (the existing ones are recognized as fakes), and archaeologists define the lower layer of the Gammaburg fortress as Slavic and attribute it to the end of the VIII century. Thus, Hamburg really had the same fate as the city of Delbend - the German city was founded in the first half of the 9th century on the site of a Slavic settlement. The river Delbend itself, on which the city was previously searched, flows east of Hamburg and is one of the tributaries of the Elbe. However, the name of the city could not come from the river itself, but from the Delbend forest described by Adam of Bremen, located between the Delbend and Hamburg rivers. If Delbend is the name of a Slavic city, and after the transition to the Germans it was renamed Gammaburg, then it can be assumed that the name Delbend could be perceived by the Germans as alien. Considering that both the Baltic and the Germanic etymologies are assumed for the hydronym Delbendé as possible at the same time, this circumstance can be considered as an indirect argument in favor of the “Baltic version”.

A similar way could be the case in the case of daredevils. If the name of the entire sandy area between Delbend and Lenzen came from the pre-Slavic, Baltic designation of sand, then the –ing suffix, as a designation of belonging, would be exactly in its place in the ethnonym “inhabitants of [the region] Smeld”, “inhabitants of the sandy area”.

Another, more eastern tributary of the Elbe with the pre-Slavic name Elda, may also be associated with the long-term preservation of the pre-Slavic substratum. On this river is the city of Parhim, first mentioned in 1170 as Parhom. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Mecklenburg historian Nikolai Marshalk left the following message about this city: “Among their [Slavic] lands there are many cities, including Alistos, mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy, now Parhun, named after an idol whose image, cast from pure gold, as they still believe, is hidden somewhere nearby "( Mareschalci Nicolai Annalium Herulorum ac Vandalorum // Westphalen de E.J. Monumenta inedita rerum Germanicarum praecipue Cimbricarum et Megapolensium, Tomus I, 1739, S. 178).

Judging by the expression "still believe", the information transmitted by the Marshal about the origin of the name of the city on behalf of the Slavic pagan deity was based on the tradition or idea that existed in Mecklenburg back in his time. At the beginning of the 16th century, as Marshalk points out elsewhere, there was still a Slavic population in the south of Mecklenburg ( Ibid., S. 571). Similar reports about the traces and memory of Slavic paganism preserved here are, indeed, far from isolated. Including the Marshalk himself mentioned in his Rhymed Chronicle about the preservation of a certain crown of the idol of Radegast in the church of the city of Gadebusch at the same time. The connection between the Slavic past of the city in the popular memory with paganism resonates well with the discovery by archaeologists of the remains of a pagan temple in the accompanying Parkhim or replacing it at a certain stage of the fortress in Shartsin. This fortress was located just 3 km from Parhim and was a large, walled trading center on the southeastern border of the kingdom of the cheers. Among the many artifacts, many luxury goods, imports and trade indications have been found here, such as shackles for slaves, dozens of scales, and hundreds of weights ( Paddenberg D. Die Funde der jungslawischen Feuchtbodensiedlung von Parchim-Löddigsee, Kr. Parchim, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2012).

One of the structures found in the fortress is interpreted by archaeologists as a pagan temple, similar to the pagan temple in Gross Raden ( Keiling H. Eine wichtige slawische Marktsiedlung am ehemaligen Löddigsee bei Parchim // Archäologisches Freilichtmuseum Groß Raden, Museum für Ur- und Frügeschichte Schwerin, 1989). This practice of combining a place of worship and bargaining is well known from written sources. Helmold describes a large fish market on Rügen, where merchants were to make a donation to the Sventovit temple. From more distant examples, we can recall the descriptions of Ibn Fadlan about the Russians on the Volga, who started trading only after donating part of the goods to an anthropomorphic idol. At the same time, cult centers - significant temples and sanctuaries - show an amazing "vitality" in the people's memory and in the midst of historical transformations. New churches were built on the sites of old sanctuaries, and the idols themselves or parts of destroyed temples were often built into their walls. In other cases, the former sanctuaries, not without the help of church propaganda, which sought to “turn away” the flock from visiting them, were remembered as “damn”, “devilish” or just “bad” places.

Reconstruction of the Shartsin fortress and the pagan temple in the museum
Be that as it may, the form of the name of the pagan deity Parhun seems too similar to the name of the Baltic god of thunder Perkun to be an arbitrary "folk" invention. The location of Parhim on the southern border of the Obodrit lands, in close proximity to the concentration of pre-Slavic hydronymics (the city itself stands on the Elda River, whose name goes back to the pre-Slavic language) and the Smelding tribe, may be associated with the pre-Slavic Baltic substratum and indicate some of the resulting cultural or, rather, dialectal differences between the northern and southern obodrit lands.

Since the 16th century, the idea of ​​the origin of the name Parhim from the name of the pagan god Parhun has been popular in Latin-language German works. After the Marshal in the 17th century, Bernard Latom, Konrad Dieterik and Abraham Frenzel wrote about him, who identified the Parkhim Parhun with the Prussian Perkunas and the Russian Perun. In the 18th century, Joachim von Westphalen also placed in his work the image of the Parkhim Parhun in the form of a statue standing on a pedestal, with one hand leaning on a bull standing behind it and holding a red-hot iron with lightning emanating from it in the other. The head of the Thunderer was surrounded by a halo in the form of a kind of petals, apparently symbolizing the sun's rays or fire, and at the pedestal there was a sheaf of ears and a goat. It is curious that even at the beginning of the last century, the German inhabitants of Parhim were very interested in the Slavic past of their city, and the image of the god Parhun, the patron saint of the city from the work of Westphalen, solemnly swept through the streets of Parhim at the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the city.

Parkun - god of thunder and patron saint of Parhim at the city's 700th anniversary celebration
III. Chrezpenians and the "Velet legend"
It was already briefly mentioned about the connection of the ethnonym Chrazpenyans with the toponyms and ethnonyms of the type “through + the name of the river” characteristic of the Balts. Simplified, the argumentation of the supporters of the "Balt" hypothesis boils down to the fact that ethnonyms of this type were characteristic of the Balto-speaking peoples and there are direct analogs (circispene), and the argumentation of the supporters of the "Slavic" version is that such word formation is theoretically possible and among the Slavs. The question does not seem simple, and both sides are certainly right in their own way. It seems to me that the map of ethnonyms of this type cited by A. Incomponent is in itself a sufficient basis to suspect a connection here. Since linguists very rarely use archeological and historical data in their research, it makes sense to fill this gap and check if there are any other differences in the culture and history of this region. But first you need to decide where to look.

Let it not seem strange, but the Chrazpenyan tribe itself will not play a role in this matter. The meaning of the ethnonym is quite definite and means “living across the [river] Pena”. Already in scholium 16 (17) to the chronicle of Adam of Bremen, it was reported that "the hijans and through-Penyans live on this side of the Pena River, and the Tollenzyans and Redaria - on the other side of this river."

The ethnonym “living across the Pena” was supposed to be an exo-ethnonym given to the Perepenians by their neighbors. Traditional thinking always puts itself in the "center" and no nation identifies itself in a secondary role, putting its neighbors first, does not "seem" to be someone else's neighbors. For those living north of Pena, the Chrazpenians should have been the Tollenzyans living on the other side of the river, and not themselves. Therefore, to search for other possible features of native speakers, the word formation of which shows close ties with the Balts, it is worth turning to the Tollenzyan and Redarii tribes. The capital of the Chrazpenians was the city of Demin, which stands at the confluence of the Pena and Tollenza rivers (this confluence was incorrectly called by Adam "the mouth"). The ethnonym Tollenzyan, repeating the name of the river, unequivocally says that it was they who were the direct neighbors of the Chrazpenians "across the Pena" and lived along the Tollense River. The latter takes its source in Lake Tollenz. Somewhere here, obviously, the lands of the redarians should have begun. Probably, all 4 tribes of the Khizans, Crespenians, Tollenzyans and Redarians were originally of the same origin, or they became close during the time of the great union of the Viltsy or Veletes, therefore, when examining the question of the Cherezpenians, it is impossible to ignore the “Velet legend”.

Resettlement of the tribes of the Khizans, Chezpenians, Tollenzyans and Redarians
The Viltsy were first mentioned in the Frankish annals in 789, during the campaign against them by Charlemagne. More detailed information about the Wilts is reported by the biographer of Charlemagne, Einhard:

After those disturbances were settled, a war began with the Slavs, whom we usually call the Viltsy, but in fact (that is, in their own dialect) they are called Velatab ...

A certain bay stretches from the western ocean to the East, the length of which is unknown, and the width does not exceed a hundred thousand steps, although in many places it is narrower. Many peoples live around it: the Danes, as well as the Sveons, whom we call Normans, own the northern coast and all its islands. On the east coast live Slavs, Estonians and various other peoples, among whom are the main velatabats, with whom Karl was at that time at war.

Both of Einhard's remarks seem to be very valuable, since they are reflected in other sources as well. The early medieval idea that the Slavs once had one "main" tribe with a single king, which later disintegrated, should definitely have come from the Slavs themselves and, obviously, have some kind of historical basis. The same "legend" is transmitted by Arabic sources completely unrelated to Einhard. Al-Bekri, who used for his description the not preserved story of the Jewish merchant Ibn Yakub who visited the south of the Baltic Sea, reported:

The Slavic countries stretch from the Syrian (Mediterranean) Sea to the ocean in the north ... They form different tribes. In ancient times, they were united by a single king, whom they called Maha. He was from a tribe called the velinbaba, and this tribe was notable among them.

Very similar to Al-Bekri and the message of another Arab source, Al-Masoudi:

The Slavs are from the descendants of Madai, the son of Yafet, the son of Nukh; all the tribes of the Slavs belong to it and adjoin it in their genealogies ... Their dwellings are in the north, from where they extend to the west. They are different tribes, between which there are wars, and they have kings. Some of them profess the Christian faith according to the Jacobite sense, while some do not have scripture, do not obey the laws; they are pagans and know nothing of the laws. Of these tribes, one had previously in ancient times power (over them), his king was called Majak, and the tribe itself was called Valinana.

There are various assumptions about which Slavic tribe corresponded to "velinbaba" and "velinana", however, it is usually not associated with the velet. Meanwhile, the similarity in all three descriptions is quite large: 1) phonetically similar name - velataba / velinbaba / velinana; 2) characterization as the most powerful Slavic tribe in antiquity; 3) the presence of a certain legendary ruler named Maha / Majak (another reading option - Mahak - brings both forms even closer together) in two of the three messages. In addition, it is not difficult to “find” the Slavic Velin tribe in the Middle Ages. The Chronicle of Adam of Bremen, so little analyzed on the subject of Slavic ethnonyms and simply rewritten without hesitation from the time of Helmold to the present day, it seems, can help find answers to many difficult questions.

Hijans and through-Penyans live even further, - wrote Adam - who are separated from the Tollenzyans and Redaries by the Pena River, and their city Demmin. Here is the border of the Hamburg parish. There are other Slavic tribes that live between Elbe and Oder, such as gavolians living along the river Havel, doksans, lyubushans, wilines, Stodorane and many others. The strongest among them are those who live in the middle of the redaria ... (Adam, 2-18)

I underlined the key words to make it clearer that Adam definitely did not know that many Baltic Slavic tribes had Germanic exo-ethnonyms and Slavic self-names. Gavolians and Stodorians were one tribe - German and Slavic versions of the same name. The name Doksan corresponds to the name of the Doksa River, located south of the Redaria. Lebushans were supposed to live in the vicinity of the town of Lebusch on the Audra. But other sources do not know the wilin. Particularly indicative in this regard are the letters of the Saxon kings, the Magdeburg and Havelberg bishoprics of the 10th century, listing the conquered Slavic provinces - all the lands between the Odra and the Elbe, to the north to Pena and not knowing the "Wilin provinces", in contrast to the provinces and tribes of the Redarians, Transpenians or Tollenzyans ... The similar name of the Slavs who lived in the south of the Baltic somewhere between the cheers and the Poles is also known from the chronicle of Vidukind of Corveysky, in the 69th chapter of the 3rd book, which tells how, after the destruction of Starigard, Vikhman “turned east, reappeared among the pagans and negotiated with the Slavs, whose name is Vuloini, so that they somehow involve Meshko in the war. " The Veletes were indeed hostile to Meshko and were geographically located just east of the encouraging ones, however, in this case, the Pomor tribe of the Volynians, as the prototype of Vuloini Vidukinda, would have been no less likely. Indirectly, this version is supported by other forms of writing this word in Vidukind's manuscripts: uuloun, uulouuini, and the popularity of Vidukindu veletov under the German form of the name Wilti. Therefore, here we will limit ourselves only to mentioning such a message, without involving it in the reconstruction of the “Velet legend”.

It can be assumed that the "Velins" of Adam, named by him among the Velet tribes, were not the name of a separate tribe, but the same ancient self-name of the Viltsy - the Velet. If both names were Slavic, then the meaning of both, obviously, had to be “great, big, huge, major”, which semantically and phonetically fits well with the Slavic legend about the “main tribe of Slavs” velatabi / velinbaba / velinan. At the same time, the hypothetical period of the "supremacy" of the Veletov over "all Slavs" historically could only have occurred until the 8th century. The premises of this period seem to be even more suitable during the time of the Great Migration of Nations and the moment of the separation of the Slavic language. In this case, the preservation of legends about a certain period of greatness of the Wilts in the epic of the Continental Germans also seems significant. The so-called Saga of Tidrek of Berne tells the story of King Wilkin.

There was a king named Vilkin, glorious for his victories and courage. By force and devastation, he took possession of the country that was called the country of the Wilkins, and now it is called Svitod and Gutaland, and the whole kingdom of the Swedish king, Scania, Skaland, Jutland, Vinland and all the kingdoms that belong to that. So far stretched the kingdom of Wilkin the king, as the country designated by his name. Such is the method of the story in this saga, that on behalf of the first leader his kingdom and the people ruled by him take the name. Thus, this kingdom was also called the country of the Wilkins on behalf of the king Vilkin, and the people of the Wilkinians, the people who live there - all this until the new people took dominion over that country, which is why the names change again.

Further, the saga tells about the devastation of the Polish (Pulinaland) lands and "all kingdoms to the sea" by King Wilkin. After which Vilkin defeats the Russian king Gertnit and imposes tribute on all his vast possessions - the Russian lands, the land of Austrikka, most of Hungary and Greece. In other words, in addition to the Scandinavian countries, Vilkin becomes the king of almost all lands inhabited by the Slavs since the era of the Great Migration of Peoples.

In the people who received their name from King Vilkin - that is, the Wilkins - the Germanic pronunciation of the Slavic Veletov tribe - Viltsy - is clearly recognizable. Similar legends about the origin of the name of the tribe on behalf of its legendary leader were indeed very widespread among the Slavs. Kozma Prazhsky in the XII century described the legend about the origin of Russians, Czechs and Poles (Poles) from the names of their legendary kings: brothers Rus, Chech and Lech. The legend about the origin of the names of the Radimichi and Vyatichi tribes from the names of their leaders Radim and Vyatko in the same century was recorded by Nestor in the Tale of Bygone Years.

Leaving aside the question of how such legends corresponded to reality and noting only the characteristic nature of such a tradition of explaining the names of tribes by the names of their legendary ancestors, we emphasize once again the obvious common features of the ideas of different peoples about the velet: 1) domination over the "Slavs, Estonians and other peoples" on the coast Baltics according to Frankish sources; 2) domination over all Slavs during the reign of one of their kings, according to Arab sources; 3) the possession of the Baltic Slavic lands (Vinland), the occupation of Poland, and "all land to the sea", including the Russian, Central European and Balkan lands, as well as the conquest of Jutland, Gotland and Scandinavia under King Wilkin, according to the continental Germanic epic. The legend about King Wilkin was also known in Scandinavia. In the VI book of the Acts of the Danes, in the story of the hero Starkater endowed with Thor with the power and body of giants, Saxon Grammar tells how, after Starkater's journey to Russia and Byzantium, the hero goes to Poland and defeats the noble warrior Vasse, “whom the Germans -other record as Wilcze. "

Since the Germanic epic about Tidrek dating back to the era of the Great Nations Migration already contains the “Velet legend” and the form of “wilka”, there is every reason to suspect a connection between this ethnonym and the Wilts mentioned earlier by the ancient authors. Such an initial form could well have passed in the Germanic languages ​​into "wilzi" (however, in some sources, like the above-cited Vidukind, the Wiltsy are written exactly as Wilti), and in the Slavic languages ​​into "veleta". By itself, the ethnonym might not mean initially “great”, but due to the subordination of this tribe at some time to neighboring Slavic tribes and phonetic similarity with the Slavic “great”, they begin to be understood in this sense. From this "folk etymology", in turn, in later times, an even simpler Slavic form "velina" with the same meaning "great" could have appeared. Since the legends place the period of the Velin domination in the time immediately before the division of the Slavic tribes and ascribe to them domination also over the Ests, comparing these data with the Balto-Slavic hypotheses of V.N. Toporov, it turns out that the Velines and should have been the very “last Balto-Slavic tribe” before the division of the Balto-Slavic into branches and the separation of Slavic dialects “on the periphery”. Opponents of the version of the existence of a single Balto-Slavic language and supporters of the temporary convergence of the Baltic and Slavic languages ​​could also find confirmation of their views in the ancient epic, accepting the time of the Vilt's rule - the time of "rapprochement".

The name of the legendary ruler of “all Slavs” from the Velin tribe seems no less curious. Maha, Mahak / Majak - has many parallels in the ancient Indo-European languages, starting from the Sankr. máh - "great" (cf. the identical title of the supreme ruler of Mach in the ancient Indian tradition), Avestan maz- (cf. Ahura Mazda), Armenian mec, middle-upper German. "Mechel", middle lower German "mekel", old sak. "Mikel" - "big, great" (compare Old Scandal. Miklagard - "Great city"), to Latin magnus / maior / maximus and Greek μέγαζ. The German chroniclers also translate the name of the capital of the encouraged Michelenburg into Latin Magnopol, i.e. "great city". Perhaps the same ancient Indo-European root * meg'a- with the meaning “great” also goes back to the “strange” names of noble cheers - princes Niklot and Nako, priest Miko. In the 13th century, the Polish chronicler Kadlubek wrote in his chronicle a similar "tale" about the legendary ruler of the encouraged Mikkola or Miklon, from whose name the capital of the encouraged was named:

quod castrum quidam imperator, deuicto rege Slauorum nomine Mikkol, cuidam nobili viro de Dale [m] o, alias de Dalemburg, fertur donasse ipsum in comitm, Swerzyniensem specialem, quam idem imperator ibidem fundauelon. Iste etenim Mikkel castrum quoddam in palude circa villam, que Lubowo nominatur, prope Wysszemiriam edificauit, quod castrum Slaui olim Lubow nomine ville, Theutunici vero ab ipso Miklone Mikelborg nominabant. Vnde usque ad presens princeps, illius loci Mikelborg appellatur; latine vero Magnuspolensis nuncupatur, quasi ex latino et slawonico compositum, quia in slawonico pole, in latino campus dicitur

Kadlubek's messages need critical analysis, since, in addition to numerous early written and contemporary oral sources, they also contain a considerable amount of the chronicler's own fantasy. "Folk etymology" in his chronicle is a completely ordinary matter, they, as a rule, do not represent historical value. However, in this case, we can cautiously assume that the knowledge of the Slavic legend about a “great ruler” with a similar name, also recorded by Al-Bekri and Al-Masudi and included in the Germanic epic in newer, German form "Wilkin".

Thus, the name of the legendary ruler of the Velins, Makha, could simply be the "title" of the supreme ruler, who came from the "pre-Slavic language" and was preserved only in the early medieval Slavic epic and the names / titles of the Baltic-Slavic nobility. In this regard, it would be the same "pre-Slavic relic" as "pre-Slavic toponymy", while the very name of the tribe has already passed into the purely Slavic "veliny", and a little later, as its descendants diverge into different branches and the gradual loss of significance as a political force and the emergence of a new name "lutichi" for the union of four tribes, and completely went out of use.

Perhaps, for greater clarity, it is worth dividing the toponymy of the southern Baltic not into 3 (German - Slavic - pre-Slavic) layers, as it was done before, but into 4: German - Slavic - “Balto-Slavic / Baltic” - “Old Indo-European”. In view of the fact that the supporters of the "Baltic" etymologies were not able to deduce all pre-Slavic names from the Baltic, such a scheme at the moment would become the least controversial.

Returning from the “Velin legend” to the Chrazpenians and Tollensians, it is worth pointing out that it is the lands of the Tollensians and Redaries that stand out from the others in archaeological terms in two ways. In the area of ​​the Tollenza River, which, according to linguists, has a pre-Slavic name, there is a relatively large continuity of the population between the Roman period, the era of the Great Migration of Nations and the early Slavic time (sukovo-Dzedzi ceramics). The early Slavs lived in the same settlements or in close proximity to settlements that had existed here for hundreds of years.

Settlement of the Tollenz region during the Laten period

Settlement of the Tollens region during the early Roman period

Settlement of the Tollens region in the late Roman period


Settlement of the Tollenz region during the era of the Great Nations Migration


Late Germanic and early Slavic finds in the Neubrandenburg district:
1 - the era of the Great Nations Migration; 2 - early Slavic ceramics of the Sukov type;
3 - the era of the Great Nations Migration and ceramics of the Sukov type; 4 - Late Germanic finds and ceramics of the Sukov type
Already the Frankish chronicles report a large number of veletes, and this fact is fully confirmed by archeology. The population density in the Tollenskoe Lake area is astounding. Only for the period before 1981, in these places, archaeologists identified 379 settlements of the late Slavic period, which existed simultaneously, which is approximately 10-15 settlements per 10-20 square kilometers. However, the lands on the southern coast of Tollenskoye and the neighboring Lipetsk Lake (the modern German name of the lake is Lips, but the earliest letters mention the Lipiz form) stand out strongly even in such a densely populated region. On the territory of 17 square kilometers, 29 Slavic settlements were identified here, that is, more than 3 settlements per two square kilometers. In the early Slavic period, the density was less, but still sufficient to look "very numerous" in the eyes of neighbors. Perhaps the “secret” of the population explosion is precisely in the fact that the old population of the Tollenza basin was already considerable in the 6th century, when a wave of “Jedzi bitches” was added to it. The same circumstance could also determine the linguistic peculiarity of the Tollenzyans, in some features closer to the Balts than the Slavs. The concentration of pre-Slavic place names in the Velet regions seems to be the largest in eastern Germany, especially if we take into account the region of Gavola. Was this the ancient population between the rivers Pena, Gavola, Elba and Odra the same legendary viltas, or were they the carriers of Sukovo-Dziedzica ceramics? Obviously, some questions cannot be answered.

In those days, there was a great movement in the eastern part of the Slavic land, where the Slavs waged an internal war among themselves. Theirs are four tribes, and they are called Lyutichi, or Viltsy; of these, the Hizans and the Cross-Pennians, as you know, live on the other side of the Pena, while the Redaria and Tollenzyans live on this side. A great dispute began between them about primacy in courage and power. For the Redaria and Tollenzyans wanted to dominate due to the fact that they have the most ancient city and the most famous temple in which the idol of Redegast is exhibited, and they only ascribed to themselves the sole right of primacy, because all Slavic peoples often visit them for the sake of [receiving] answers and annual sacrifices.

The name of the city-temple of the Wilts of Retra, as well as the name of the pagan god Radegast, put researchers in a difficult position. Titmar of Merseburg was the first to mention the city, calling it Ridegost, and the god who was worshiped in him - Svarozhich. This information is quite consistent with what we know about Slavic antiquities. The toponymy in -gast, like the identical place names "Radegast", is well known in the Slavic world, their origin is associated with the personal male name Radegast, i.e. with quite ordinary people, whose name, for one reason or another, was associated with a place or settlement. So for the name of the god Svarozhich, you can find direct parallels in the ancient Russian Svarog-Hephaestus and Svarozhich-fire.

The difficulties of interpretation begin with the chronicle of Adam of Bremen, who calls the city-temple Retroy, and the god who was revered in it - Radegast. The last word, Radegast, is practically identical to Ridegost Titmar, so in this case it was more than once assumed that Adam was mistaken in taking the name of the city for the name of God. In this case, Adam should have taken the name of the tribe for the name of the city, since the spellings of Rethra and retheri in Adam are clearly too similar to each other to be explained by chance. The same is confirmed by other sources, for example, later letters, calling the entire district by the word Raduir (compare with the name of the Riaduros tribe in Helmold) or similar forms. Due to the fact that the redaria were never included in the Hamburg diocese, "native" for Adam, Titmar's message in this case really looks more reliable. However, Helmold stands in the way of resolving the issue by accepting Adam's mistake. A chronicler who is aware of the internal affairs of the emboldened and who has devoted most of his life to the Christianization of their lands quite unexpectedly calls Radegast the god of the “encouraging land” (in the narrow sense). It is extremely difficult to explain this by both confusion and lack of awareness - this message does not go back to the text of Adam, moreover, the very context of the remark indicates a completely different source of information, perhaps even one's own knowledge. In the same sentence, Helmold names the names of other gods - Alive among the Polabs and Pron in Starigard, also Chernobog and Sventovit. His other messages about Slavic mythology (about Chernobog, Sventovit, Pron, various rituals and customs) are quite rightly recognized as reliable and fit well with what is known about Slavic paganism. Could Helmold make such a gross mistake in one case, while all the rest of the information was conveyed to him reliably? And most importantly - why? After all, he should have known about paganism encouraged not from books, but from his own many years of experience.

But it is possible that all messages may be correct at once. The use of several different names at the same time for one deity is a widespread phenomenon among pagans, Indo-European parallels in this case, a solid list will be typed. So the "strange" similarity of the names of pagan gods with personal male names can even be called characteristic of the Baltic Slavs (cf. Svantevit, Yarovit with Slavic names in Svyat-, Yar-, and -vit). In our case, something else is more important. "Retra" / "Raduir" and other similar forms were supposed to be a real toponym on the border of the Redarians and Tollenzyans. It can be assumed that the name of the Redarians tribe goes back to this toponym, just as all other Lyutich tribes bore ottoponymic names: the Khizhans (in the city Tollense). The toponym Retra / Raduir itself, in this case, most likely, also had to be of "pre-Slavic" origin, which, in turn, would bring the famous city-temple of the Tollensians and Redarians closer to the equally famous city-temple of the Rugen Slavs Arkona, whose name also obviously more ancient than the Slavic languages ​​proper.

With a more detailed comparison of both sanctuaries, this state of affairs even seems logical. Retra's location has never been established. The descriptions of the city-temple, which was owned simultaneously by the Redaria and the Tollenzyans, allows one to search for it on the border of the two tribes, in the area of ​​Lake Tollenskoe and to the south of it. Just where there is a significant continuity between the Slavic and pre-Slavic archaeological cultures and later the highest population density per square kilometer in eastern Germany. It is worth noting that the connection between the "main temple" and the concept of the "main tribe" is also known for another significant Baltic-Slavic tribe - the Rugen Slavs. At first glance, it may even seem that their descriptions by Helmold contradict his own descriptions of the Redarians and Retra:

Among the many Slavic deities, the main one is Svyatovit, the god of the heavenly earth, since he is the most convincing in answers. Next to him, they worship everyone else, as it were, as demigods. Therefore, as a sign of special respect, they are in the habit of sacrificing to him every year a person - a Christian, whom the lot will indicate. From all Slavic lands, established donations are sent for sacrifices to Svyatovit (Helmold, 1-52).

In fact, both Arkona and Retra are simultaneously assigned the role of the main cult center of “all Slavs”. At the same time, other criteria are also found for the Rügen Island and the Tollensa Basin. Despite the insignificance of the "pre-Slavic" toponymic layer on the island, the name of the sanctuary - Arkona - belongs here to the pre-Slavic relics. In contrast to the Redarians and Tollenzyans, the continuity between the Slavic population of the early Middle Ages and the "aborigines" who lived here in the first half of the 1st millennium AD. here it is poorly visible in archeology, but it is very clearly manifested according to archaeobotany data. Studies of soil samples taken in the GDR at the same time in many different places in Rügen gave a completely unexpected result - the continuity in farming and cattle breeding showed 11 out of 17 diagrams. In comparison with other regions of eastern Germany, this is a lot, and Rügen shows in this regard the greatest degree of continuity between the population of the first and second half of the 1st millennium AD.

Succession map on Rügen
Archeology: X - Sukov-type ceramics;
circle - ceramics of the Feldberg type; square - possible or supposed fortresses of the era of the VPN
Palynology: black triangle - a gap in agricultural activities;
black circle (large) - continuity in agricultural activities;
black circle (small) - continuity in pastoralism

Succession map in eastern Germany
At the same time, Rügen, like the south of Lake Tollenskoe, has an unusually high population density. In the Life of Otto of Bamberg (12th century), the island is called "very populous", but archaeologically fewer ancient Slavic settlements are known here than on the continent. The latter circumstance may be explained simply by the fact that fewer excavations were carried out here, due to the peculiarities of the island itself (mainly the rural population, the absence of industry and large construction projects, while a considerable share of archaeological finds on the continent became known as a result of construction work carried out at the site, the construction of new roads, gas pipelines, etc.). At the same time, on Rügen there are indications of an even higher population density than on the continent, but for different qualities. Conducted in the 1990-2000s. interdisciplinary studies of the medieval population of Rügen revealed a large concentration of Slavic place names per sq. km ( Reimann H., Rüchhöft F., Willich C. Rügen im Mittelalter. Eine interdisziplinäre Studie zur mittelalterlichen Besiedlung auf Rügen, Stuttgart, 2011, S. 119).

Rügen


Comparison of population density in different regions of northeastern Germany.
Plau-Goldberg Region (South Mecklenburg)


Comparison of population density in different regions of northeastern Germany.
Gadebusch region (western Mecklenburg)
Returning to the connection between cult centers and pre-Slavic relics, it is worth noting that the high degree of continuity of the “main tribes” with the older population, the correspondence of their political centers to the “main temples” with possibly “pre-Slavic names” is not the only thing that connects Arkona and Retra or Rügen and the Tollenza basin. The functions of the "main temples" in the social and political life of the Baltic Slavs, the supreme role of the priesthood among the Redarians and Rugen Slavs when the princes are subordinate to the priests, as well as the descriptions of the cults and rituals themselves are almost identical. All the most important political decisions were made in the "main temple" by means of fortune-telling based on the behavior of a white horse dedicated to the deity. Significance was attached to whether the horse would hit the obstacle when it was carried through the rows of crossed spears stuck into the ground and with which leg. On the basis of this, the will of the gods was determined by the priest and transmitted to the princes and people in the form of a decision on some issue or undertaking. It should be noted that in the Middle Ages, in addition to the Baltic Slavs, such rituals were also described among the Baltic tribes. Simon Grunau reports in his chronicle that the Prussians dedicated a white horse to their gods, on which mere mortals were not allowed to ride, almost literally repeating the words of Saxon Grammar about the white horse dedicated to Sventovit. Also, the dominant position of the priesthood was characteristic, in addition to the Baltic Slavs, for the Balts. One can recall the words of Peter of Duisburg about the Prussian high priest Kriv, who was for a pagan the same as the Pope was for Catholics.

It is curious that the very names of the gods of the Baltic Slavs attract attention by the complexity of their etymologies. If in some of them, such as Pron, Porenute, Tjarneglof or Flinze, it is possible to accept the distortion in the German-speaking environment, then the explanations of the names of Porevit, Rugivit, Pitsamar, Podaga or Radegast are already causing considerable difficulties. The problematic of the latter case has already been briefly mentioned above, to which one can only add that the explanation of the "strangeness" of these names by mere distortion looks unconvincing against the background of the fact that other names of the gods of the Baltic Slavs are conveyed by the same sources phonetically quite accurately and "recognizably" even in modern Slavic languages, for example, Svantevit, Chernebokh, Zhiva, Svarozhich. Perhaps the explanation for all these circumstances is that places of worship, sanctuaries, as well as traditions and rituals in general, were the most conservative aspect of pagan life. While material culture, technical innovation and fashion were widely borrowed from neighbors and changed, in terms of religion, the situation was diametrically opposite.

The lack of knowledge of any written monuments of the Slavs before the adoption of Christianity, apparently, suggests that tradition and knowledge could be sacralized and transmitted in the priestly environment only orally. If the priestly estate was the only carrier of knowledge, possessing a kind of "monopoly" in this area, then this state of affairs really should have ensured the dominant position of the priests in society, making them simply irreplaceable. Oral transmission of knowledge, however paradoxical it may seem, through sacralization could contribute to the "conservation" of the ancient language. The closest and most well-known example of this kind can be called the Indian tradition, in which the priestly class preserved and "preserved" the most ancient Vedic language precisely due to oral transmission and isolation. Preservation of "pre-Slavic relics" among the Baltic Slavs precisely in connection with the most important cult centers and priesthood in this case would look quite natural and logical. One can also mention the comparison by some researchers of the name of Arkona with the Sanskrit Arkati - "to pray" and the Old Russian "arkati", used in the "Word of Igor's Host" in the sense of "to pray, to appeal to a higher power" ( Yaroslavna cries early in Putivl on the visor, arkuchi: “O Wind, Sail! What, sir, are you forcibly weaving?).

Preservation of this word in only one written source in this case can represent a very interesting case due to its source, specificity. "The Lay of the Shelf" is obviously the only literary source written by a pagan and therefore preserved a lot of "relics" and expressions unknown elsewhere. If we accept a single origin for Arkona, Skt. and others-russ. "Arkati", known in Old Russian and used only by "experts in pagan antiquity", then this could be considered as an indirect confirmation of my assumption of the connection of "pre-Slavic relics" with pagan cults and priesthood. In this case, it may turn out that much of the "non-Slavic" in the toponymy of the southern Baltic could also originate from the language of the ancestors of those same Slavs, which in other Slavic languages ​​had previously fallen out of use due to several centuries earlier adoption of Christianity and significant "monopolization" of writing by Christians with this time. In other words, to represent the analogy of the “conservation” of the language of the Rig Veda and the Avesta by the castes of Indian and Iranian priests.

However, regardless of how correct this guess turns out to be, in our case it is more important that the alleged "relics" of the Baltic Slavs in the religious and social sphere find the closest parallels again in the traditions of the Baltic-speaking tribes, and any possible borrowings in this regard among the Germans, it is not observed. Whereas Germanic names quite often penetrated the names of the Baltic nobility, among the names of gods venerated in the “centers of succession” in sources reliable in this regard (the only exception is the very specific and ambiguous message of Orderic Vitaly).

Perhaps another "relic" of the Baltic Slavs was the tradition of trepanation. Complex operations on the skull are known from several Slavic medieval cemeteries in eastern Germany from:

1) Lanken-Border, on the island of Rügen


2) Uzadel, in the south of Lake Tollensko, on the border of the Redarians and Tollenzyans (the supposed area of ​​Retra)

3) Zantskov on the Pena (3 km from the capital of Trans-Pennya Demmin), symbolic trepanation

4) Alt Bukov, in the lands "cheer in the narrow sense"
The fifth example is from Siksdorf, in the lands of the Lusatian Serbs. So, four out of five trepanations were found in the territories of the speakers of the Northern Lechite dialects, however, a possible connection with the "pre-Slavic population" is shown by a find in Luzhitsa. Trepanation was found by Siksdorf, and it is worth noting that the craniotomy was widely known among the "pre-Slavic" population of these regions of the late Great Migration Period: such finds of the 4th-6th centuries. are known from Merseburg, Bad Sulza, Niederrosla, Stesen ( Schmidt B. Gräber mit trepanierten Schäden aus frühgeschichtlicher Zeit // Jschr. Mitteldt. Vorgesch., 47, Halle (Saale), 1963).

Map of craniotomy finds in eastern Germany
(white - the Slavic period; black - the era of the Great Nations Migration)

Craniotomy of the 4th-6th centuries from Merseburg, Bad Sulza and Stesen

Craniotomy of the 4th-6th centuries from Stesen and Merseburg
In this case, indications of the social status of the "owner" of trepanation are available only for trepanation from the Uzadel burial ground in the lands of the redaria. The body of the deceased with trepanation was buried in a spacious house together with the burial of a "warrior" - a man in whose grave a sword was put. At the same time, the owner of the trepanation himself did not have a weapon - only a knife, which was traditionally invested in both male and female burials of the Baltic Slavs of the late period. Obviously, the difference in funeral rites among the Baltic Slavs should have been associated with the social status of the deceased. For example, in the same Uzadel burial ground, a chamber burial with a rich inventory, a sword, dishes and, apparently, even a "prince's scepter" is known.

Burial in the "house of the dead" of a man with trepanation and a man with a sword
The device of the domina and the attachment of a sword to one of the deceased in this case could also indicate an "unusual" and exalted position in the society of both deceased. The connection between them is not entirely clear, as is whether they were buried at the same time. The discovery of the cremation ashes of a child in the same house (both male burials were inhumations) may indicate its use as a “family crypt”. However, recognizing the complete speculativeness of such judgments as a possible interpretation, it would be very cautious to assume the burial of the priest and his "bodyguard". As parallels, one can cite reports of a special, select army of 300 horsemen who guarded Arkona, and numerous reports in medieval sources about the ritual following of the noble dead to another world of their servants.

Unfortunately, the problem of craniotomy among the Slavs is extremely poorly studied. There is no clarity either about the source of the tradition, or about the exact area of ​​its distribution. In the Slavic period, craniotomy is known in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, however, these cases require clarification due to the possibility of the influence of "nomads" who also had similar customs. In the case of the Slavs of eastern Germany, however, a local origin of the tradition seems more likely. Successful craniotomy in the south of the Baltic has been widely known since the time of the megalithic culture, and despite the fact that they are thousands of years apart from the Slavic period, it is hardly worth underestimating the possibilities of preserving traditional culture. On the contrary, the emergence of such technologically complex operations “suddenly”, without any prerequisites for that, and even independently of each other in several places at once, seems unlikely. The obscurity of trepanation in some "links of the chain" between the Slavs and the oldest population of eastern Germany can be explained by a variety of reasons, for example, if trepanations were associated with estates - the custom of cremating representatives of this social stratum at certain periods.

Finally, it remains only to note that the search for "pre-Slavic relics", in whatever sense this expression is understood - "Proto-Slavic", "Balto-Slavic", "Baltic", "East Germanic", "Old Indo-European", etc. - seems to be a very promising and important line of research. Due to the fact that the Baltic Slavs have been studied until now practically only in Germany and almost all scientific literature about them is in German and is difficult to access in Eastern European countries, their cultural characteristics remain little known to specialists, both Baltists and Slavists. Until now, comparisons of both the language and the archaeologists and ethnography of the Baltic Slavs were of only a single character, therefore further work in this direction and coordination between the relevant specialists could provide, as it seems to us, very rich material and help to clarify many "dark" issues of history ancient Europe.

Not so long ago, the author's abstract of the monograph "Anthropology of the Ancient and Modern Balts", R.Ya.Denisova, 1973, came into his hands. The monograph introduces new for that time data on the anthropology of the ancient population of Central and Eastern Europe, space from Laba to Dnieper. The work is still relevant today, including shedding light on the structure of the ancient population of these territories and revealing a number of aspects of the origin of the Slavic population.

The full version of the abstract can be found page by page or in PDF (51 MB), below I will summarize the key points of this study.

Brief synopsis

Mesolithic, up to 4 thousand BC

In the Mesolithic era, the population of the Eastern Baltic is represented by a dolichocranic anthropological type with a medium-high, medium-wide face with a slightly weakened horizontal profile. The craniological series of this type does not differ in homogeneity, and as a result of statistical analysis, two groups of features are identified in it, which differ in the cranial index, height and degree of profiling of the upper part of the face.

The first group is characterized by a sharp dolichocranium, a large longitudinal and small transverse diameter of the skull, a medium-wide high, visibly profiled face with a strong protrusion of the nose. The second group - dolicho-mesocranial with a wide and medium-high face and weakened profiling - finds analogies in the turtles from the South Oleniy Island burial ground (southern Karelia) and differs markedly from the Mesolithic samples of Central Europe.

The sharply dolichocranial Caucasian type of the Mesolithic population of the Baltic region with a medium-wide face and protruding nose is genetically related to the Caucasian anthropological types of the synchronous population of the northern regions of Central and adjacent regions of Eastern Europe - in Ukraine, in the east and north of Germany, and in the west of Poland. These tribes, moving from the southwest or southeast to the north, gradually settled in the Eastern Baltic.

Early Neolithic, 4–3 thousand BC

In the Early Neolithic, in the territory of the Eastern Baltic within the Narva archaeological culture, there are two Caucasoid types, which differ only in the degree of profiling of the upper part of the face and the height of the face. The continuous existence of the dolicho-mesocranial type is stated, at least from the Mesolithic, most of the skulls are already represented by the dolichocranial type.

A comparative analysis of material from the territory of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe shows that in the northern part of Europe there are two anthropological complexes characteristic of northern Caucasians. The first is a dolichocranial (70) species with a medium-high (70 mm) wide (139 mm) face in the Narva culture of Latvia, the Sredniy Stog culture in the Ukraine, funnel-shaped cups of Poland, in the series from the Ladoga Canal, and Europoid turtles of the Oleneostrovsky burial ground. The second is characterized by a tendency towards dolichl-mesocranium with a large width of the skull, a wider and taller face, and a weaker protruding nose. This type finds analogies in the Ertebelle culture in northern Germany and the Dnieper-Donetsk culture. Both northern European species are similar to each other and differ sharply from the southern European forms of the Danube circle in their large face width. The border between the northern and southern types runs along the southern periphery of Ertebelle, comb ceramics in Poland, and Dnieper-Donetsk in Ukraine.

The entire space from the Laba to the Dnieper, regardless of species, in the 4–3 thousand BC. reveals a dolichocranial broad-faced type, which is successive in this territory with respect to the Mesolithic.

Late Neolithic, 3–2 thousand BC

Anthropological series from the territory of Latvia, represented by bearers of comb-and-pit ceramics, constitute the Late Neolithic of the Baltics. In general, this population belongs to the mesocranial type with a medium-high face, weakened horizontal profiling and weakened protrusion of the nose.

In the craniological series, statistical analysis reveals two complexes: the first is characterized by a tendency towards dolichocrania, a tall face and strong profiling, the second - mesocrania, a medium-wide medium-high face with a weakened profiling and a weakened protrusion of the nose. The second complex bears a resemblance to mestizo skulls from South Deer Island, differing from them in a weaker degree of facial profiling.

The local type of comb-pit ceramics was presumably formed on the basis of dolichocranial skulls of the Narva culture and the mesocranial type with weakened profiling from the Western Ladoga area.

Fatyanovo tribes, 1800–1400 BC.

The anthropological type of carriers of the Fatyanovo archaeological culture is characterized by hyperdolichocrania with a medium-wide, highly profiled, medium-high face and a strongly protruding nose.

The Fatyanovo culture series finds the closest similarity with the Vislo-Neman and Estonian battle-ax culture, forming a single complex with them: large longitudinal and medium transverse diameters, a relatively wide, strongly profiled face with a strongly protruding nose. In the 2nd millennium BC. this complex is widespread in the Volga-Oka interfluve and the Eastern Baltic. The next circle of closest morphological analogies from Central and Eastern Europe for the Fatyanovites is the population of the synchronous Corded Ware cultures in East Germany and the Czech Republic, which differ from the Fatyanovo complex in a slightly narrower face. The third circle is the cords of Poland and Slovakia, which, in addition to a slightly narrower face, are distinguished by a tendency towards mesocracy. The similarity of the entire dolichocranic broad-faced population of this period from the Oder to the Volga and the Dnieper is beyond doubt.

The hyperdolychocanic population is recorded in the Baltic region three times: in the Mesolithic, Early and Late Neolithic. However, this does not mean the genetic continuity of this type in a given territory, since the area of ​​its distribution during these periods was much wider. We can only state with confidence that within the framework of the Fatyanovo culture, an anthropological type was formed, which remained characteristic of the Eastern Baltic region and the Volga-Oka interfluve over the next 3 millennia.

The Bronze Age, 1500–500 BC.

In the Bronze Age, there are two anthropological types on the territory of the Baltic States: the first is sharply dolichocranial with a narrow (129 mm), high and highly profiled face, the second is mesocranial with a wider and less profiled face. The second anthropological type genetically dates back to the late Neolithic, and the first, narrow-faced, has been recorded since the 12th century. BC. and has no local analogies either in the Neolithic or in the Mesolithic, since the Proto-Balts of this territory - the Fatyanovo, the battle axes of Estonia and the Vislo-Neman cultures - were characterized by a relatively wide and medium-high face.

The closest analogies among the synchronous population are found among the Balanovians of the Middle Volga region, the lace-mongers of Poland and East Germany, however, there is not enough data to unequivocally substantiate the genetic relationship of these narrow-faced types.

1st and 2nd millennium AD

After the turn of the eras, three anthropological types are recorded in the Baltics. The first - the broad-faced dolichocranic type with small variations is characteristic of Latgalians, Samogitians, Yatvingians and Prussians. The second type, the narrow-faced (zygomatic diameter: 130 mm), is found exclusively among the aukšaits, as well as the Finnish-speaking Livs. A narrow face was not typical for the Baltic tribes of the 1st and 2nd millennia AD. and the Aukshites should be regarded as tribes of a different origin. The third, mesocranial type with a wide, weakerly profiled face and a weaker protruding nose, is represented by the Latgals of the 8th – 9th centuries.

In the anthropological series of the first half of 2000, the diversity of characters on the territory of Latvia alone is so great that it is comparable or even surpasses the diversity among the Eastern Slavs. Dominant in this territory in the 10-12 and 13-14 centuries. is the dolichocranial type with a medium-high wide face, dating back to the Latgals of the previous period, the second in importance is the mesocranial type with a weakened profiling and protrusion of the nose, which is characteristic of the Livs, the third - the narrow-faced type, gravitating towards dolichocracy, is characteristic of the Livs of the lower reaches of the Daugava and Gauja, the eastern coast The Gulf of Riga, as well as for the eastern regions of Lithuania.

Epoch-making volatility

The analysis of epoch-making changes showed that the sharply dolichocranial massive anthropological type with a very large longitudinal, medium transverse, large height diameters of the cerebral section of the skull, a high, wide and strongly protruding nose is an ancient form on the territory of the Baltic. This sharply dolichocranic type has undergone significant changes over the course of 6 thousand years.

Summary

1. During the Mesolithic and Neolithic period, the forest and forest-steppe zones of Central and Eastern Europe from the Odra to the Volga show a population related to its origin, which is characterized by dolichocrania and a wide medium-high face. The morphological complex of this population differs markedly from the neighboring southern European and laponoid forms, and its differentiation begins to manifest itself noticeably only starting from the 2nd millennium BC.

2. The North European broad-faced dolichocranic type during the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze periods has a much wider geography of distribution than the anthropological type of Proto-Balts, formed on its basis, and cannot be associated with the Balts alone. The influx of this type of population into the Eastern Baltic begins in the Mesolithic and continues until the Bronze Age.

3. The anthropological complex, strongly similar to the previous one and widespread in the forest and forest-steppe zones of Europe, is the dolichocrane type with a wide medium-high face, with a weakened profiling in the upper part of the face and a sharp profiling in the middle, which is already recorded in the Mesolithic era.

4. The Protobalt dolichocranic relatively broad-faced morphological complex unites the population of the battle-ax culture of Estonia, the Wislo-Neman and Fatyanovo cultures. This complex dates back to the turn of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC. formed in the Eastern Baltic as a result of an influx of population from more western and southern regions, and remains characteristic of the Balts over the next 3 millennia.

5. In addition to the two indicated similar morphological species, two different types are recorded in the Eastern Baltic region. The first appears here in the late Neolithic - it is a mestizo type with a weakened laponoid, which is associated with the Protophinian population. Since the 12th century. BC. the second type is recorded - a narrow-faced dolichocranial, uncharacteristic for this territory and later distributed exclusively among aukšaits and livs of the lower reaches of the Daugava, Gauja and the eastern coast of the Gulf of Riga. The narrow-faced type finds the closest analogies in the synchronous population of the Middle Volga region, East Germany and Poland, but its origin in the Eastern Baltic region remains unclear.

Anthropological maps of the modern population of the Baltics

Anthropological composition of the modern population of the Baltics:
1. Western Baltic broad-faced type
2. Western Baltic narrow-faced type
3. East Baltic type
4. Mixed zone

Zygomatic diameter values ​​in the modern European population

Appendix 1. Anthropology of the Fatyanovites' substratum

In the chapter on the Fatyanovo tribes, R. Ya. Denisova assumes the existence of a local Protophinian substrate with a characteristic Laponoid anthropological complex. However, according to the results of the analysis of the Fatyanovo craniological series covering 400 years, the author states the complete absence of a foreign substrate, but only a violation of the correlation between individual signs in the general craniological series.

As for the foreign component, no traces of laponoid influence were found in the Fatyanovo population, which assimilated the carriers of the Volosovo culture. The Late Volos population completely fits into the anthropological complex characteristic of the more western regions, which became the starting point of the movement of the Fatyanovites. Moreover, the Fatyanovo settlements are fixed over the Volosov ones. This suggests that the Fatyanovo people show a common and very close origin with the population of the Volosov and Upper Volga cultures, despite the fact that they are newcomers to the Upper Volga region. The areas of the Upper Volga, Volosovskaya and Fatyanovskaya cultures are indicated on the map:

The anthropological similarity of the Fatyanovo tribes with the population of the Upper Volga and Volosov cultures was later ascertained by T.I. Alekseeva, D.A. Krainov and other researchers of the Neolithic and Bronze of the forest belt of Eastern Europe.

The Caucasoid component in the population of the Volosovo culture is genetically linked to the northwestern territories of Europe. We have been observing a certain "Mongolization" of the population of the forest belt of Eastern Europe since the Neolithic era, with the arrival of the culture of pit-comb pottery on this territory.

Obviously, the Volosovites belonged to the ethnic group of northern Caucasians, descendants of the population of the Upper Volga culture, which is the basis of the Volosov culture.

Perhaps the Fatyanovtsy fell partially into the kindred environment of the descendants of the northern Indo-Europeans and only at a later time were surrounded by hostile tribes.

The era of the Bronze of the forest belt of the USSR. M., 1987.

6. The supposed proto-Finnish substratum is absent in the population of the Fatyanovo culture. The substratum for the coming Fatyanovites was a population with a very similar anthropological type. The influence of the anthropological type with a softened laponoid in this area has been clearly felt since the late Neolithic, but is rather weak.

Appendix 2. Anthropological type of the Mesolithic era

In the chapter "Anthropological composition and genesis of the Mesolithic population of the Eastern Baltic" R. Ya. Denisova examines the Mesolithic series from the Zveinieki burial ground. In general, this series is characterized by a large longitudinal, small transverse diameters of the skull, a medium-high, medium-wide face with a high nose bridge, a strong protrusion of the nose, and a somewhat weakened horizontal profiling in the upper facial region.

After statistical processing of the series, the author identifies two sets of features in it. The first complex is characterized by the correlation of a sharp nose protrusion, a large longitudinal diameter and a high face. The second is a tendency to dolicho-mesorania, a wider face with a weakened profiling and a weaker protrusion of the nose. Based on a comparison of the second complex of characters with the series from the Oleneostrovsky burial ground, R.Ya.Denisova suggests that this morphological complex is mestizo and is associated with the northeastern regions of Europe.

In the late Neolithic era, in the Eastern Baltic and the forest zone of Eastern Europe, a mestizo population will indeed appear, the anthropological type of which is characterized by features of "softened laponoid": mesocranium, weakened face profiling and nose protrusion, wide medium-high face. This population will spread within the comb-pit pottery cultures and is usually associated with the Protophinian tribes.

However, the question remains about the genetic relationship of the Mesolithic population of the forest zone of Eastern Europe - with weakened profiling in the upper facial section - and later carriers of the comb-pit pottery cultures that appear on this territory in the Neolithic. Were the populations of the two periods related, or were the Mesolithic and Late Neolithic populations genetically different types?

A clear answer to this question was given by T.I. Alekseeva and a number of other scientists who, using extensive anthropological material, showed that an anthropological complex with a weakened profiling of the face in the Mesolithic era is very widespread in Europe and is found in the Northern Balkans, in southern Scandinavia, forest and forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe. The flattening of the frontal-orbital region is recognized as an archaic Caucasoid trait that has nothing to do with the laponoid type.

A combination of some flattening in the upper facial region and strong profiling in the middle part of the face is noted in most of the Neolithic East European groups of the forest and forest-steppe belt. These features characterize the population of the Baltic, Volga-Oka and Dnieper-Donetsk regions. Geographically, this area almost coincides with the area of ​​distribution of carriers of such a combination in the Mesolithic.

In most foreign craniological series, there is no data on the horizontal profiling of the facial part of the skull, but the similarity in other features is so great that there is no doubt about the genetic relationships of carriers of this Caucasian, I would say, somewhat archaic type, widespread in Europe and even for its outside.

VP Alekseev, who measured the angles of horizontal profiling on turtles from the Vlasats burial ground (Yugoslavia), showed that the combination of a flattened frontal-orbital region with significant profiling of the facial region in the middle part is also characteristic of them [Alekseev, 1979].

The era of the Bronze of the forest belt of the USSR. M., 1987.

The most common combination in the Mesolithic is a combination of dolichocracy with large facial sizes, flattening in the nasomalar and sharp profiling in the zygomaxillary region of the facial region, with a strong protrusion of the nose. Judging by anthropological analogies and archaeological data, the origins of this type are associated with the northwestern regions of Europe.

Ancient population of Eastern Europe // Eastern Slavs. Anthropology and Ethnic History. M., 2002

7. The anthropological complex with a weakened profiling of the upper part of the face and a strong profiling in the middle part, prevailing among the Neolithic population of the forest and forest-steppe zones of Eastern Europe, is not associated with the laponoid type, and assumptions about its mestizo origin are groundless. This complex shows continuity in the Mesolithic, and later exists along with the mestizo population of comb-pit ceramics that came in the Neolithic.

Written mentions

The first written records of tribes living in the territories adjacent to the southern coast of the Venedian (now Baltic) Sea are found in the essay "On the Origin of the Germans and the Location of Germany" by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (), where they are named esthyi(lat. aestiorum gentes). In addition, Herodotus mentions the people of Budina, who lived in the upper reaches of the Don between the Volga and the Dnieper. Later, these tribes of the Estyians were described under different names in the writings of the Roman-Ostrogothic historian Cassiodorus (), the Gothic historian Jordan (), the Anglo-Saxon traveler Wulfstan (), the North German chronicler Archbishop Adam of Bremen ().

The current name of the ancient tribes living in the territories adjacent to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea is balts(it. Balten) and Baltic language(it. baltische Sprache) as scientific terms were proposed in the German linguist Georg Nesselmann (-), a professor at the University of Königsberg, instead of the term Leto-Lithuanians, the name is formed by analogy with Mare Balticum(White Sea) .

Historical settlement

Vyatichi and Radimichi

It is believed that the Balts took part in the ethnogenesis of the Vyatichi and Radimichi. This is evidenced by the characteristic decorations - neck torcs, which are not among the common decorations in the East Slavic world of the 12th century. Only in two tribes (Radimichi and Vyatichi) did they become relatively widespread. An analysis of the Radimich neck grivnas shows that the prototypes of many of them are in the Baltic antiquities, and the custom of their widespread use is due to the inclusion of the Baltic aborigines in the ethnogenesis of this tribe. Obviously, the distribution of neck grips in the Vyatichi area also reflects the interaction of the Slavs with the Golyad Balts. Among the Vyatichi jewelry there are amber jewelry and neck torcs, not known in other ancient Russian lands, but having complete analogies in the Letto-Lithuanian materials.

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Notes (edit)

Literature

• Balts - BDT, Moscow 2005. ISBN 5852703303 (volume 2)
• Valentin Vasilievich Sedov "The Slavs of the Upper Dnieper and the Moor". - Science, Moscow 1970.
• Raisa Yakovlena Denisova - Zinātne, Riga 1975.

Links

• http://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/22864

An excerpt characterizing the Balts

There was a deadly silence all around. There was nothing else to look at ...
Thus died a gentle and kind queen, who until the very last minute managed to stand with her head held high, which was then so simply and mercilessly taken down by the heavy knife of the bloody guillotine ...
Pale, frozen like a dead man, Axel looked out the window with unseeing eyes and, it seemed, life flowed out of him drop by drop, painfully slowly ... which he loved so much and selflessly ...
- My poor ... My soul ... How did I not die with you? .. It's all over now for me ... - still standing by the window, Axel whispered with dead lips.
But for him everything will be "over" much later, after some twenty long years, and this end will, again, be no less terrible than that of his unforgettable queen ...
- Do you want to look further? Stella asked quietly.
I just nodded, unable to say a word.
We saw another, raging, brutal crowd of people, and the same Axel stood in front of it, only this time the action took place many years later. He was still the same handsome, only now almost completely gray-haired, in some kind of magnificent, very highly significant, military uniform, he still looked the same fit and slender.

And so, the same brilliant, smartest man stood in front of some half-drunk, brutalized people and, hopelessly trying to shout them down, tried to explain something to them ... But none of those present, unfortunately, wanted to listen to him ... Poor Axel's stones flew, and the crowd, inflating their anger with disgusting curses, began to press. He tried to fight them off, but they knocked him to the ground, began to trample him brutally, tore off his clothes ... And some big guy suddenly jumped on his chest, breaking his ribs, and without hesitation, he easily killed him with a blow to the temple with a boot. Axel's naked, disfigured body was piled to the side of the road, and there was no one who at that moment would want him, already dead, to pity ... There was only a rather laughing, drunken, excited crowd ... which just needed to be thrown onto someone -that his accumulated animal anger ...
Axel's pure, long-suffering soul, finally freeing itself, flew away to unite with the one that was his bright and only love, and waited for him for so many long years ...
So, again, very cruelly, Stella and I ended up with an almost unfamiliar, but so close, man named Axel, and ... the same little boy who, having lived only some short five years, managed to accomplish an amazing and unique feat in his life, of which any adult living on earth could honestly be proud ...
- What a horror! .. - I whispered in shock. - Why is it so?
“I don’t know ...” Stella whispered softly. - For some reason, people were then very angry, even angrier than animals ... I looked a lot to understand, but did not understand ... - the baby shook her head. “They didn't listen to the mind, they just killed. And for some reason they destroyed everything beautiful too ...
- But what about Axel's children or his wife? - Recovering after the shock, I asked.
“He never had a wife - he always loved only his queen,” said little Stella with tears in her eyes.

And then, suddenly, a flash flashed in my head - I understood who Stella and I had just seen and for whom we were so deeply worried! ... It was the French queen, Marie Antoinette, about whose tragic life we ​​very recently (and very briefly!) took place in a history lesson, and the execution of which our history teacher strongly approved, considering such a terrible end very "correct and instructive" ... apparently because he taught us "Communism" mainly in history .. ...
Despite the sadness of what had happened, my soul rejoiced! I just could not believe in the unexpected happiness that fell on me! .. After all, I have been waiting for this for so long! .. This was the first time when I finally saw something real that could be easily verified, and from such a surprise I almost squeaked from the puppy delight that gripped me! .. Of course, I was so happy not because I did not believe in what was constantly happening to me. On the contrary, I always knew that everything that was happening to me was real. But apparently I, like any ordinary person, and especially a child, still sometimes needed some, at least the simplest, confirmation that I am not yet going crazy, and that now I can prove to myself, that everything that happens to me is not just my sick fantasy or invention, but a real fact, described or seen by other people. That is why such a discovery was a real holiday for me! ..
I already knew in advance that as soon as I returned home, I would immediately rush to the city library to collect everything I could find about the unfortunate Marie Antoinette and I would not rest until I found at least something, at least some fact that coincides with our visions ... I found, unfortunately, only two tiny little books, which described not so many facts, but this was quite enough, because they fully confirmed the accuracy of what I had seen with Stella.
Here's what I was able to find then:
the Queen's favorite person was a Swedish count named Axel Fersen, who loved her wholeheartedly and never married after her death;
their farewell before the count's departure for Italy took place in the garden of the Little Trianon - the favorite place of Marie Antoinette - whose description exactly coincided with what we saw;
a ball in honor of the arrival of the Swedish king Gustav, held on June 21, at which all the guests for some reason were dressed in white;
an attempt to escape in a green carriage, organized by Axel (all the other six attempts to escape were also organized by Axel, but none of them, for one reason or another, failed. True, two of them failed at the request of Marie Antoinette herself, since the queen did not she wanted to run alone, leaving her children);
the beheading of the queen took place in complete silence, instead of the expected "happy riot" of the crowd;
a few seconds before the executioner's blow, the sun suddenly came out ...
The Queen's last letter to Count Fersen is almost exactly reproduced in the book Memoirs of Count Fersen, and it almost exactly repeated what we heard, with the exception of just a few words.
Already these small details were enough for me to rush into battle with tenfold strength! .. But that was only later ... And then, in order not to seem funny or heartless, I tried my best to pull myself together and hide my delight about my wonderful " enlightenment ". And to allay Stellino's sad mood, she asked:
- Do you really like the queen?
- Oh yeah! She is kind and so beautiful ... And our poor "boy", he suffered so much here too ...
I felt very sorry for this sensitive, sweet little girl who, even in her death, was so worried about these completely alien and almost unfamiliar people, as many people do not worry about their relatives ...
- Probably in suffering there is some share of wisdom, without which we would not understand how precious our life is? - I said uncertainly.
- Here! Grandma says that too! - the little girl was delighted. - But if people want only good, then why should they suffer?
- Maybe because without pain and trials, even the best people would not really understand the same good? - I joked.
But Stella for some reason did not take it as a joke at all, but said very seriously:
- Yes, I think you're right ... Do you want to see what happened to Harold's son next? - already more cheerful she said.
- Oh no, perhaps no more! - I begged.
Stella laughed happily.
- Do not be afraid, this time there will be no trouble, because he is still alive!
- How - alive? - I was surprised.
Immediately, a new vision appeared again and, continuing to surprise me indescribably, it turned out to be our century (!), And even our time ... A gray-haired, very pleasant person was sitting at the desk and thinking about something with concentration. The whole room was literally packed with books; they were everywhere - on the table, on the floor, on the shelves, and even on the windowsill. A huge fluffy cat was sitting on a small sofa and, not paying any attention to the owner, was concentrating on washing with a large, very soft paw. The whole atmosphere created the impression of "scholarship" and comfort.
- Is that - he lives again? .. - I did not understand.
Stella nodded.
- And this is right now? - I did not calm down.
The girl again confirmed with a nod of her cute red head.
- Harold must be very strange to see his son so different? .. How did you find him again?
- Oh, exactly the same! I just "felt" his "key" the way my grandmother taught. - Stella said thoughtfully. - After Axel died, I looked for his essence on all the "floors" and could not find it. Then I looked among the living - and he was there again.

We would have acted wrong if, speaking about the ethnic composition of the Old Russian state, about the formation of the Old Russian nationality, we limited ourselves only to the Eastern Slavs.

In the process of folding the Old Russian nationality, another took part, non-Slavic, population of Eastern Europe... This refers to Merya, Muroma, Meschera. all, goliad, vod, etc., unknown to us by name, but traced through archaeological cultures, tribes of the Finno-Ugric, Baltic and other languages, which over time completely or almost completely became Russified and, thus, can be considered the historical components of the Eastern Slavism. Their languages, when crossed with Russian, disappeared, but they enriched the Russian language and replenished its vocabulary.

The material culture of these tribes also contributed to the material culture of Ancient Rus. Therefore, although this work is devoted to the origin of the Russian people, nevertheless, we cannot but say at least a few words about those ethnic formations that, over time, organically became part of the "Slovenian language in Rus", the Eastern Slavs, or experienced his influence and entered the sphere of ancient Russian culture, Old Russian state, into the sphere of his political influence.

Together with the Eastern Slavs, obeying their leading role, they acted as the creators of the ancient Russian statehood, defended Russia from the "Iakhodniks" - the Varangians, Turkic nomads, Byzantines, Khazars, the troops of the rulers of the Muslim East, "set up" their lands, took part in the creation of the "Russian Truth ", Represented Russia at the diplomatic embassies.

Tribes, creators of the ancient Russian statehood, together with the Slavs

"The Tale of Bygone Years" lists the peoples who give tribute to Russia: chud, measure, all, muroma, cheremis. Mordovians, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Lithuania, Zimigola, Kors, Noroma, Lib (Livs) The Nikon Chronicle adds the Meshche to the tributaries of Russia, making it a special tribe.

It is unlikely that all of these tribes were true tributaries of Russia already at the time of the formation of the Old Russian state. In particular, placing among the tributaries of Russia yam (em) and lib (livs), the chronicler had in mind the current situation, that is, the end of the 11th - the beginning of the 12th centuries.

Some of the tribes listed were not so organically connected with the Russians and Russia (Lithuania, Kors, Zimigola, Lib, Yam) as others assimilated by the Slavs (Meria, Muroma, all). Some of them subsequently created their own statehood (Lithuania) or stood on the eve of its creation (Chud) and formed in the Lithuanian and Estonian nationalities.

Therefore, basically, we will focus only on those tribes that were most closely associated with the Eastern Slavs, with Russia and the Russians, with the Old Russian state, namely: Merya, Muroma, Chud, Vse, Goliad, Meschera, Karelians.

The tribes of the Volga region and the Baltic states were by no means savages. They traveled a difficult and peculiar path, learned bronze early, mastered agriculture and cattle breeding early, entered into trade and cultural ties with neighbors, in particular with the Sarmatians, moved on to patriarchal clan relations, learned property stratification and patriarchal slavery, and got acquainted with iron.

Balts, Baltic tribes

The tribes of the Baltic languages ​​from the earliest antiquity, accessible to linguistic analysis, inhabited Ponemane, the Upper Dnieper, Pooch and the Volga regions and most of the course of the Western Dvina. In the east, the Balts reached the Moscow, Kalinin and Kaluga regions, where in ancient times they inhabited interlaced with the Finno-Ugric peoples, the aborigines of the region. Baltic hydronymy is widespread throughout this territory. As for archaeological cultures, the cultures of hatched ceramics, which apparently belonged to the ancestors of the Lithuanians (the western part of the Upper Dnieper region), the Dnieper, Verkhneokskaya, Yukhnovskaya (Posem'e) and, as some archaeologists believe (V.V.Sedov, P.N. Tretyakov), somewhat specific Milogradskaya (Dnieper region, between Berezina and Ros, and Nizhniy Sozh). In the southeast of this territory, in Posemye, the Balts coexisted with the Iranians, who left the so-called ash-pan culture. Here, in Posemye, there are toponymy and Iranian (Seim, Svapa, Tuskar), and Baltic (Iput, Lompa, Lamenka).

For the culture of the Balts, farmers and cattle breeders, ground-based buildings with a pillar structure are characteristic. In ancient times, these were large, long houses, usually divided into several living quarters of 20-25 m2 with a hearth. Later, the dwelling of the Balts evolved, and the old long multi-chamber houses were replaced by small quadrangular posts.

In the middle part of Belarus during the Early Iron Age and until the middle of the 1st millennium AD. NS. settlements with hatched ceramics were widespread. At first, these settlements were distinguished by the complete absence of defensive structures, and later (IV-V centuries AD) they were fortified with powerful ramparts and deep ditches.

The main occupation of the inhabitants of these settlements was slash farming (as evidenced by sickles, stone graters, the remains of wheat, millet, beans, vetch, peas), combined with cattle breeding (finds of bones from horses, cows, pigs, rams) and developed forms of hunting.

Various domestic crafts (mining and processing of iron, casting of bronze, pottery, spinning, weaving, etc.) reached a high level of development.

Everywhere the Balts were dominated by a primitive communal system with a patriarchal clan organization. The main economic and social unit was a large patriarchal family, that is, a family community. Its dominance was due to the very type of economy. Slash farming required communal, collective labor. The presence of fortified settlements in the middle of the 1st millennium AD NS. speaks of the beginning process of accumulation and property stratification and the wars associated with it. Perhaps patriarchal slavery already existed.

The culture of hatched pottery finds a complete analogy in the culture of the settlements (pilkalnis) of the Lithuanian SSR, whose population was undoubtedly ancient Lithuanians.

The settlement of the Slavs in the lands of the Baltic-speaking tribes led to the Slavization of the latter. As once in Poochye and adjacent regions the ancient Indo-European languages ​​of the Fatyanovites and tribes close to them were absorbed by the Finno-Ugric, and then the Finno-Ugric speech was replaced by the Baltic, so in the 7th-9th centuries. the Baltic languages ​​of the Yukhnovites and others gave way to the language of the Eastern Slavs. Slavic culture was layered on the ancient culture of the Balts. The culture of the Vyatichi was layered on the East Balt Moschinskaya culture, the Krivichi culture on the culture of hatched ceramics, the Old Lithuanian culture, the Northerners on the Yukhnovo and East Balt culture. The contribution of the Balts to the language and culture of the Eastern Slavs is very great3. This is especially typical for the Krivichi. It is no coincidence that the Lithuanians have preserved legends about Great Krivi, about the high priest Kriv Krivyto. In Latvia, near the town of Bauska in Zemgale until the middle of the 19th century. lived crooked. They spoke the Western Finno-Ugric language, close to the Vodi language. In the middle of the XIX century. they were completely assimilated by the Latvians. It is characteristic that there were a lot of East Slavic features in the women's clothing of the Krivins ...

Yatvyagi. Cultural and linguistic connection between the Balts and the Slavs

Cultural and linguistic connection between the Balts and the Slavs due to either the ancient Balto-Slavic community, or long-term neighborhood and communication. Traces of the participation of the Balts in the formation of the Eastern Slavs are found in funeral rites (eastern orientation of the burial, snake-headed bracelets, special scarves, stabbed with fibulae, etc.), in hydronymy. The process of Slavization proceeded quickly, and this was due to the ethnocultural and linguistic proximity of the Slavs and Balts. There were Slavic tribes close to the Balts (for example, the Krivichi), and Baltic tribes close to the Slavs. Such a tribe, apparently, were the Yatvyags (Sudavs), who lived in Ponemane and Pobuzhie, who lived in Ponemane and Bug, and were related to the Western Baltic-Prussians, whose language, it is believed, had much in common with Slavic and was a transitional form between the Baltic and Slavic languages.

Stone mounds Yatvyagov with burnings and burials are not found either among the Eastern Balts or among the Slavs. The treaty between Russia and Byzantium, concluded by Igor, is mentioned among the Russian ambassadors of Yatvyag (Yavtyaga) 4. Apparently, Goliad also belongs to the Western Balts. Ptolemy speaks about the Baltic Galindas. Under 1058 and 1147 the chronicles speak of the goliad in the upper reaches of the Porotva (Protva) River 5. In addition to goliad, the islands of the Balts have survived for the longest time in the Ostashkovsky district of the Kalinin region and in the Eastern Smolensk region.

During the formation of the Old Russian state, the process of assimilation of the Balts by the Slavs on its territory was basically completed. Among the Balts, the dolichocranic, broadly and medium-faced racial type prevailed, apparently light-pigmented, which became part of the Slavic population as a substrate.

It should also be noted that in the indigenous lands of the Baltic tribes, where the Baltic languages ​​have survived, there is a very strong influence of the Russian language and Russian culture. In the eastern part of Latvia, Latgale, archaeologists find many things of Russian origin dating back to the 9th-12th centuries: dishes with wavy and ribbon ornaments, Ovruch pink slate spinning wheels, silver and bronze twisted bracelets, brooches, beads, pendants, etc. In the material culture of Eastern Lithuania X-XI centuries. much in common with ancient Russian culture: the type of potter's wheel, wavy pottery ornament, sickles of a certain shape, wide-blade axes, common features of the funeral rite. The same is true for Eastern Latvia. The great influence of Russians on their neighbors - Latvians - is evidenced by a number of borrowings from the Russian language (namely, borrowings, and not a consequence of the Balto-Slavic linguistic community or proximity), indicating the spread in the Eastern Baltic of elements of a higher culture of the Eastern Slavs (for example, dzirnavas - millstones, stikls - glass, za- bak - boot, tirgus - bargaining, sepa - price, kupcis - merchant, birkavs - berkovets.puds - pood, bezmen - steelyard, etc.). The Christian religion also penetrated into the ranks of the Latvian tribes from Russia. This is evidenced by such borrowings from Russian in the language of Latvians as baznica - goddess, zvans - bell, gavenis - fasting, fasting, svetki - Christmastide6. Such borrowings in the Latvian language as boyars, virniks, slaves, smerds, churchyards, orphans, squads, are evidence of the great influence on the Latvians and Latgalians of the socio-economic and political system of Ancient Rus. According to the testimony of Henry of Latvia, Russian princes have long been taking tribute from the years (Latgalians), Selonians and Livonians7.

Chud tribe

In a vast area, the Eastern Slavs coexisted with various Finno-Ugric tribes, which later became Russified. Some of them retained their language and their culture, but were the same tributaries of the Russian princes as the East Slavic tribes.

In the extreme northwest, the neighbors of the Slavs were the chronicle " chud". Chudya in ancient Russia was called the Baltic Finno-Ugric tribes: the Volkhov Chud, which represented people from various tribes attracted by the great waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks", Vod, Izhora, all (except for Belozersk), Estonians6. Once, in the time of Jordan, the Balts were called Aists (Ests). Only with the passage of time this name was transferred to the Finno-Ugric peoples in Estonia.

In the second half of the 1st millennium AD. NS. the eastern Slavs came into contact with the Estonian tribes. At this time, slash farming and cattle breeding prevailed among the Estonians. The primitive tools of agricultural labor - a hoe, a hoe and a ralo - were replaced by a plow. The horse began to be widely used as a draft force. Collective burials in the form of stone graves several tens of meters long with separate chambers dominated in the 1st-5th centuries. n. e., are replaced by individual Gogils. Fortified settlements appear, which testifies to the decay of primitive communal relations. An important role in this process was played by the influence of their eastern neighbors, the Slavs, on the Estonians.

Relations between the Estonians and the Eastern Slavs were established long ago, at least not later than the 8th century. n. e., when mounds and hills of Krivichi and Ilmen Slovenes appear in the southeast of Estonia to the west of Lake Pskov. They penetrate into the territory of the distribution of Estonian stone graves. In the Slavic burial mounds found in Estonia, some objects of the material culture of Estonians are found.

The revolution in the technique of slash farming among the Estonians is almost connected with their contact with the Slavs. Apparently, the plow, which replaced the primitive one-toothed wheel, was borrowed by the Estonians from the Slavs, since the very term denoting it is in the Estonian language of Russian origin (sahk - coxa, sirp - sickle). Later borrowings from the Russian language in Estonian speak of the influence of the culture of Russia on the Estonians and are mainly associated with craft, trade, writing (piird - reed, varten - spindle, look - arc, turg - bargaining, aken - window, raamat - book, etc. etc.).

At the Otepää settlement ("Bear's head" of Russian chronicles), dating from the 11th-13th centuries, there is a lot of Slavic ceramics, jewelry, arrowheads typical for Russian lands.

Slavic burial mounds were found along the Narova. All this predetermined subsequently the entry of the southeastern part of Estonia into the Old Russian state. In some places in the southeast of Estonia, the Slavic population was assimilated by the Estonians over time, but all of southeastern Estonia became part of the Old Russian state. The saga about Olaf Trigvasson tells that the messengers of Prince Holmgard (Novgorod) Vladimir collect tributes in Estonia. Yaroslav puts the city of Yuriev (Tartu) in the * land of Chudi (Estonians). Chud participated in the campaigns of Oleg and Vladimir, the chudin Kanitsars, Issevi and Apubskar took part in the conclusion of the treaty between Russia and Byzantium during the time of Igor. "Russkaya Pravda" Yaros-Avichey, along with the Russians, "set up" the Russified chudii Minula, the thousand of the city above. "The Tale of Bygone Years" is known for his brother Tuky. Vladimir "recruited" soldiers and settled them in the border fortifications erected against the Pechenegs, not only from among the Slavs: Slovens, Krivichi, Vyatichi, but also Chudi. There was Chudintseva Street in Novgorod. Finally, from among the Chudi - Estonians, Belozerskaya Chudi or Vodi came those kolbyagi who in Russia play about the same role as the Varangians9.

Vod tribes, all and Izhora

To the east of the Estonians, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, lived the Vod (vakya, waddya). The so-called "zhalniks" are considered to be monuments to the Vodi, which are group burial grounds without embankments, with stone fences in the form of a quadrangle, oval or circle. The most ancient burials with collective burials are accompanied by quadrangular fences. Zhalniki are found in different parts of the Novgorod land in combination with Slavic mounds. Their burial inventory is peculiar, but there are many things typical of Estonians, which testifies to the Vodi belonging to the group of Estonian tribes. At the same time, there are many Slavic things. Vodskaya pyatina of Novgorod is a memory of the vodi10.

Archaeologists consider the burial mounds near Leningrad (Siverskaya, Gdov, Izhora) with multi-beaded temporal rings, necklaces made of cowrie shells, etc. as monuments of Izhora. In terms of socio-economic development, the farmers of Vod and Izhora are close to the Estonian estates.

The whole played a significant role in the history of the population of Eastern Europe. "The Tale of Bygone Years" reports that "on the Beleozero to graze all", but, apparently, all moved to the east from the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. She settled the entire inter-lake area of ​​Ladoga, Onega and Beloozero, Pasha, Syas, Svir, Oyat, went to the Northern Dvina. Part of the vesti became part of the Karellivites (Ladoga area), part - into the Karelian people (Prionezhye), and part took part in the formation of the “Chudi-Zavolotskaya”, that is, the Komi-Zyryan (Podvinye).

The Vesi culture is generally homogeneous. Vesi owns small mounds of the southeastern Ladoga area, located singly or in numerous groups. Material culture characterizes the whole as a tribe that was engaged in the XI century. slash farming, cattle breeding, hunting, fishing and beekeeping. The primitive communal system and patriarchal clan life were preserved. Only from the middle of the XI century. large kurgan groups are spreading, which speak of the formation of a rural community. Plowshares from plows speak of a transition to arable farming. The weight is characterized by ring-shaped and eso-terminal temporal rings. Gradually, more and more Slavic things and monuments of Christian worship are spreading among the villages. Russification is going on. The whole is known not only to the "Tale of Bygone Years", but also to Jordan (vas, vasina), the chronicler Adam of Bremen (vizzi), the Danish chronicler of the 13th century. Saxon Grammar (visinus), Ibn-Fadlan and other Arabic-speaking writers of the 10th century. (visu, isu, vis). The descendants of the Vesi are seen in the modern Vepsians11. Names such as Ves-Egonskaya (Vesyegonsk), Cherepo-Ves (Cherepovets) are in memory of Vesi.

The Vepsians, numbering 35 thousand people, are now the most numerous of the peoples mentioned in the chronicles, assimilated by the Slavs. Izhora has 16 thousand people, Vod - 700, Livs - 500 people. Curonian. that is, the Corsi of the Tale of Bygone Years, who are Balts in their language (according to some researchers, Latvianized Finno-Ugrians), recently had only 100 people12.

It is difficult to trace the history of the Karelians in the period preceding the formation of the Old Russian state and at the initial stages of its history. The Tale of Bygone Years does not speak about the Karelians. At that time the Karelians lived from the coast of the Gulf of Finland near Vyborg and Primorsk to Lake Ladoga. The bulk of the Karelian population was concentrated in the northwestern Ladoga area. In the XI century. part of the Karelians came to the Neva. This was Izhora, Inkeri (hence Ingria, Ingermanlandia). The Karelians included part of the Vesi and Volkhov Chudi. "Kalevala" and very few archaeological finds characterize the Karelians as farmers who used slash farming, cattle breeders, hunters and fishermen who lived in separate stable clans. The social system of the Karelians bizarrely combined archaic (remnants of matriarchy, the strength of the tribal organization, worship of the deities of the forest and waters, bear cult, etc.) and progressive features (accumulation of wealth, war between clans, patriarchal slavery).

Karelians not mentioned among the tributaries of Russia. And, apparently, because Karelia has never been a volost of Novgorod, but its constituent part (like Vod and Izhora), its state territory. And, as such, it, like Obonezh, was divided into churchyards.

The Tale of Bygone Years, the Charter of Svyatoslav Olgovich in 1137, Swedish sources (chronicles, descriptions, etc.) testify that the em (from the Finnish hame), who lived in the 9th-12th centuries. in the southeastern part of Finland and in the north of the Karelian Isthmus, was at that time (at least in the XI-XII centuries) a tributary of Russia. It is no coincidence that in the modern Finnish language - Suomi, formed on the basis of a mixture of two dialects - sumi and emi (tavastov), ​​the word archakka, that is, Russian quitrent, means tribute. And in Ancient Russia quitrent and lessons meant tribute 13.

The Baltic tribes were greatly influenced by the Eastern Slavs and Russian culture. And the farther to the east, the more and more this influence was. From the moment it became part of the Old Russian state, it became decisive. This is evidenced primarily by the vocabulary of the language of all the Baltic Finno-Ugrians and "Balts, where there are a lot, especially in the east, borrowings from the language of the Eastern Slavs related to the economy, political life and culture.14 Dictionary borrowings indicate that trade, statehood, Christianity were brought here, to the northwest, by the Russians.

Speaking of racial types, it should be noted that on the territory of Chudi, Vodi, Izhora, Vesi, Karelian, Emi, the Caucasian long-headed racial type prevailed, as a rule, broad-faced, although there were representatives of other Caucasian racial tzhyuvs. But the further to the east, the more often the apparently dark-colored uralolaponoid racial types were encountered.

If the Baltic Finno-Ugrians for a long time have preserved and preserved their language, culture, linguistic and ethnographic features to the present, then the Volga and Kama Eastern Finno-Ugric tribes, such as the Merya, Muroma, Meschera, the whole Belozerskaya, and maybe some others, whose names have not reached us, have become completely Russified.

Tribes of Merya, Muroma

The ancestors of the chronicle Mary, Muroma and other eastern Finno-Ugric tribes belonged to the so-called “ancient settlements of the Dyakova type” with ground houses and flat-bottomed mesh or textile ceramics, widespread in the interfluve of the Volga and Oka rivers, the Upper Volga region and Valdai. In turn, the Dyakovo settlements with mesh (textile) ceramics grew out of various cultures of round-bottomed pit-comb ceramics that belonged to hunters and fishermen of the forest belt of Eastern Europe of the Neolithic era.

Dyakov's fortified settlements were replaced by their unfortified settlements in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. NS. The Dyakovites were mainly cattle breeders. They bred mainly horses that knew how to get their food under the snow. This was very important, since it was difficult to prepare hay for the winter, and there was nothing to do with it - there were no braids. Horse meat was eaten like mare's milk. In the second place among the Dyakovites was the pig, in the third place - cattle and small ruminants. Fortified settlements were located mainly near rivers, on river headlands, near pastures. It is no coincidence that the "Chronicler of Pereslavl Suzdal" calls the Finno-Ugrians "horse feedmen". Livestock was in the clan property, and the struggle for it led to intergeneric wars. The fortifications of the clergy's settlements were intended to defend the population during such inter-clan wars.

In second place after cattle breeding was slash and hoe farming, which is evidenced by the finds of grain graters and sickles. Hunting and fishing were also important. They played an especially important role in the economy of the Belozerskaya Vesya. Iron products are not common, and among them, knives should be noted first. Lots of bone products. There are specific Dyakovsky Georgians.

On the "middle and lower reaches of the Oka, in the southern regions of the Western Volga region, the Gorodets culture was widespread. Being very close to the Dyakov culture, it differed from the latter by the predominance of ceramics with matte prints and dugouts instead of ground dwellings.

"The Tale of Bygone Years" places the Merya in the Upper Volga region: "Merya is on the Rostov Lake, and the Merya is on the Kleshchina Lake" 15. The area of ​​mery is wider than the outlined chronicle. The population of Yaroslavl and Kostroma, Galich Mereny, Nerl, lakes Nero and Plesheevo, the lower reaches of Sheksna and Mologa were also Meryans. Meru is mentioned by Jordan (merens) and Adam of Bremen (mirri).

Meri's monuments are burials with corpse burnings, numerous female metal adornments, so-called “noisy pendants” (openwork images of a horse, pendants made of flat wire spirals, openwork pendants in the form of a triangle), men's belt sets, etc. temporal wire rings in the form of a sleeve at the end where another ring was inserted. In the male burials, Celtic axes, archaic eye-axes, spears, darts, arrows, bits, swords, knives with a humped back were found. Ribbed vessels dominate in ceramics.

Numerous clay figurines in the form of bear paws made of clay, bear claws and teeth, as well as references to written sources, speak of a widespread bear cult. Specifically Meryan are human figurines-idols and images of snakes, testifying to a cult different from the beliefs of the Finno-Ugric tribes of the Oka, Upper and Middle Volga.

Many elements of material culture, peculiarities of pagan beliefs, laponoid racial type, toponymy, more ancient Finno-Ugric and later proper Ugric - all this suggests that the Merya was a Ugric tribe in language, Prikamsk in origin. Ancient Hungarian legends tell that next to Great Hungary lay the Russian land of Susudal, that is, Suzdal, a city founded by Russians on the site of settlements with a non-Slavic population.

The settlement of Bereznyaki, located not far from the confluence of the Sheksna and the Volga at Rybinsk, can be associated with the merey. It dates back to the 3rd-5th centuries. n. NS. The Bereznyaki settlement is surrounded by a solid fence of logs, wattle fence and earth. On its territory there were eleven buildings and a corral for cattle. In the center stood a large log house - a public building. The living quarters were small houses with a hearth made of stones. In addition to them, there was a grain barn, a smithy, a house for women who were engaged in spinning, weaving and sewing, a “house of the dead”, where the remains of the dead, burned somewhere on the side, were preserved on the site16. The dishes are smooth, hand-sculpted, of the late Dyakian type. Primitive sickles and grain grinders speak of slash farming, but it did not prevail. Cattle breeding prevailed. The settlement was a settlement of a patriarchal family, a family community. The weights and dishes of the Dyakovo type and, in general, the Late Dyakovo implements of the Bereznyaki settlement testify to the ethnic composition of its population. The type of settlement itself speaks for this, which finds a complete analogy in the old houses of its neighbors - the Udmurts, the same Finno-Ugric language as the Merya.

Mary owns the Sarskoe settlement, located 5 km from Lake Nero on the site of an ancient settlement of the 6th-5th centuries, similar to the settlement of Bereznyaki. At the Sarsk settlement, objects similar to those from the Bereznyaki settlement were also found (large temple wire rings, Celtic axes, etc.). On the other hand, many things bring the material culture of the inhabitants of the Sarsk settlement closer to the Mordovians and Murom. Sarskoe settlement in the IX-X centuries. was already a real city, handicraft and trade center, the predecessor of Rostov.

In terms of the level of development of social relations and culture, the Merya stood above all the other Finno-Ugric tribes assimilated by the Slavs. At the same time, a number of data confirm the influence of the Slavs on the Merya, its Russification. The abundance of cremations, a ritual not typical for the Eastern Finno-Ugric tribes, the penetration of Slavic things (ceramics, bronze items, etc.), a number of features in the material culture of the Mary, related to it with the Slavs - all this speaks of its Russification. Only the toponymy of the Upper Volga region (Merskie stans, Galich Mersky or Kostroma) remained in memory of the measure, in some places, according to Sheksna and Mologa, the bilingualism of its population was at the beginning of the 16th century.

As well as the Merya, the Meshchera and Muroma, the inhabitants of the Oka, were completely Russified. They own the burial grounds (Borkovsky, Kuzminsky, Malyshevsky, etc.) with numerous tools, weapons, ornaments (torcs, temporal rings, beads, plaques, etc.). There are especially many so-called “noisy suspensions”. These are bronze tubes and plates, hinged from small rockers. They were abundantly decorated with hats, necklaces, dresses, shoes. In general, a lot of metal products are found in the Murom, Meshchera and Mordovian burial grounds. In Muroma, a female headdress consisted of arcuate cords and a belt entwined with a bronze spiral. The braids were decorated with dorsal pendants and temple rings in the form of a shield with a hole in one side and an end with a curved shield. Murom women wore belts and shoes, the belts of which were covered with bronze clips at a height of 13-15 cm from the ankle. Muroma buried her dead with her head to the north.

The monuments of the Meshchera are traced worse. Their characteristic features should be considered decorations in the form of hollow figures of ducks, as well as a funeral rite - the meschera buried her dead in a sitting position. The modern Russian meschera is the Russified Erzya Mordovians. The modern Tatars - Mishars (Meshcheryaks) 18 are the Turkized Ugric Meshchera (myaschayar, mozhar). 18. Murom and Meshchera quickly became Russified. The penetration of the Slavs into their lands, on the Oka, began a long time ago. There are a lot of Slavic things, including temple rings (Vyatichsky, Radimichsky, Krivichsky), as well as Slavic burials. Slavic influence is felt in everything. It grows stronger from century to century. The city of Murom was a settlement of Murom and Slavs, but in the XI century. its population has become completely Russified.

The Russification of the Meri, Murom, Meshchera, Vesi was not the result of conquest, but of the peaceful and gradual resettlement of the Slavs to the east, centuries-old neighborhood, mutual enrichment of culture and language, and as a result of crossing, the Russian language and Russian culture spread 19.

Mordovian tribe, Erzya

The influence of the Eastern Slavs was also experienced by the Mordovians, especially Erzya, in whose land Slavic things and the Slavic rite of corpse burning, along with the Slavs themselves, appear in the VIII-IX centuries. In turn, in the lands of the Slavs, especially the northerners and Vyatichi, Mordovian things are spread (anklets, special fasteners - syulgams, wire rings, trapezoidal pendants, etc.].

The spread of the rite of corpse burning among the Mordovians suggests that Russians lived nearby for a long time, who assimilated part of the Mordovian population. Apparently, the name Erdzyan, Russian Ryazan, originated from the Mordovian tribal name Erzya. In the Mordovian lands back in the XIII century. there was Purgasov Rus.

Among the tributaries of Russia, The Tale of Bygone Years also names the mysterious Noroma (Nero, Narova), in which some researchers see Latgalians, and others Estonians who lived along the Narova River, Lib (Liv, Livs), a small southern Baltic Finno-Ugric tribe that lived on the shores of the Baltic Sea, which was strongly influenced by the Balts, as well as “skim ... perm, cave”, living in the “countries of the midnight”. The list of tributaries of Russia in the "Tale of Bygone Years", mentioning lib, chud, kors, muroma, mordovians, cheremis, perm, pechera, covers the Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes that lived from the Gulf of Riga to the Pechora River, from the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland to the forest-steppe strips of the right bank of the Volga.