Formation of the Old Russian State.
The formation of the Old Russian state was a process stretched out for centuries,
most importantly in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. By that time, East
Slavic tribes had occupied vast territories in modern Russia, which were recorded
in various annals. The most important tribal unions and the territories occupied
by them will be discussed below.
In the north, there lived the tribes of the Ilmen Slovenes; their territory was the
basin of Lake Ilmen and the River Volkhov, and the tribal centers were Ladoga
(modern name: Staraya Ladoga) and Novgorod. These, of course, were not the
only centers; these are the ones preferred to be mentioned by the archeologists.
Archaeologists have found quite a few abandoned or destroyed sites of the tribal
groups, which, for some reason, did not survive to this day; they did not appear
in the annals, and we do not know their names.
Vast territories to the west and south of the Slovenes were occupied by the
Kriviches; their settlements stretched from the Western Dvina and the upper
Dnieper to Lake Ilmen and Lake Chudskoe. The Kriviches tribal centers included
Pskov, Izborsk, Smolensk, and Polotsk, where the tribe known as the Polovchans
lived. These northerners settled in the basins of the Desna and Seim rivers, with
Chernigov as their capital. The Dregovichi inhabited the basins of the Pripyat
River, with their settlement at Turov. The Polyans lived in the middle of the
Dnieper River, near Kiev. To the west of the Polyans lived the Drevlyans, in the
area of modern Korosten. Large volumes of the Volyns settled on the Western
Bug, the Radimichs on the River Sozh, and the Vyatichs in the basin of the Upper
Oka. In the lower Dniester and Danube, the Tivers and Uliches tribes settled.
These were the largest of the tribal unions.
These East Slavic tribes controlled an extensive and important network of river
routes. This is what is commonly called the route "from the Varangians to the
Greeks," that is, the Neva, the Volkhov, the Dnieper, the Western Dvina, and a
part of the Volga Route, connected to the Caspian and Eastern trade routes. In the
eighth and ninth centuries, this network of river trade increased for a number of
reasons. The first one was the development of the eastern Slavs’ economy with
the opening of farming territories in the basins of various rivers and lakes by
Slavic farmers. The second reason was the closing of a number of old routes,
firstly to the Mediterranean, due to wars and unrest; merchants were forced to
look for safer, though longer, routes south.
Evidence that the river routes were increasing in importance is shown by the
appearance of greater numbers of luxury goods from the VIII–X centuries in the
territories of the Eastern Slavic tribes, specifically in the settlements along the
river routes. The number and volume of silver coin hoards and jewelry pieces
show the growing volume of trade in this period.
Since this increased trade required a greater level of organization, both for
security and to collect customs duties, as merchants passed through the various
territories, the Eastern Slavs had to develop new proto-state institutions. This new
level of organization formed the basis for the first state institutions in the Eastern
Slavic territories. The Eastern Slavic tribes had already gained a certain
experience of statehood through exposure to various cultural and tribal groups
during the Great Migration of Peoples—the Gothic, Hunnic, and Avar streams—
as well as during their interaction with Byzantium.
The beginnings of statehood formation were evident in the increased building
of towns, the formation of supra-tribal power structures, and the emergent power
of princes and druzhina. Growing cities played a big role in the lives of the
Eastern Slavic tribes as centers of tribal unions, market places, and trade. As a
rule, these towns were built in convenient places to control roads and river routes,
and as such, they could also perform several crucial functions. The first function,
of course, was defensive. Cities were fortified and provided security for the local
population and merchants. The second function was administrative. Since
questions of security were dealt with by the prince and his druzhina, cities became
centers for courts and princely power. Gradually, these administrative functions
expanded, and cities became centers of larger geographic states. Cities also
acquired religious functions as they were the safest places where tribal shrines
could be accumulated, attracting people to visit holy places with a lower risk of
being murdered or captured. They also developed into commercial hubs where
people could purchase things brought in from far away by the merchants as well
as sell goods made locally. Craftsmen began to settle in and around the city to
serve the various populations that congregated there. Thus, the city began to
combine a number of important functions for tribal life.
One of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe is the city of Ladoga, nowadays
known as Staraya Ladoga in Leningradskaya oblast. According to the
dendrochronological analysis, the city of Ladoga was already settled by the
middle of the eighth century. In 839, the Bertinian annals detailed the arrival of
the ambassadors of the Ross people’s Kagan (a tribal leader) to Ingelheim to see
the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious. This is considered the first written
mention of any statehood in Russia. From this, we can see that the Rus had a kind
of state-like organization whose ruler used the eastern title Kagan, which may
indicate contacts with the Huns and Avars as well as more recent contacts with
the Khazars.
Undoubtedly, military threats from neighbors were an important catalyst for
the formation of the Eastern Slavic states. Obviously, the rich trade routes the
Slavs occupied could not stay unmolested by the neighbors. In the north, the
Scandinavians tried to dominate the trade, forcing the Ilmen Slovenes and the
neighboring Finno-Ugrians to pay tribute to them. In the south, the powerful
Khazar Kaganate took control of the Volga trade route and, through forced
payment of tribute by the Radimichs, Polyans, and other East Slavic tribes, tried
to take control of the Dnieper trade route as well.
All this activated processes of unification among the East Slavic tribes and
their neighbors to ensure their own security. Around 859, according to the Tale
of Bygone Years, the Ilmen Slavs and their Finno-Ugric neighbors expelled the
Vikings and stopped paying tribute to them. In order to ensure peace with the
Vikings and to create a more powerful defensive structure, a Viking prince was
appointed as a military leader and arbiter. And in 862, Rurik and his clan came to
Ladoga, and, after 864, he transferred the capital of this emerging state to a new
city he founded called Novgorod.
The question of Rurik’s origin and that of the Russ, whom he led, remains a
matter of historical debate. There are two main hypotheses. The first is the
Norman theory: Rurik and the Russ came from the territory of Denmark or
Sweden. Lately, however, more and more arguments have been made against that
idea. Some historians believe that Rurik and the Russ came to Ladoga from the
territory of modern Mecklenburg, that is, from the Polabian Slavs. Various
sources, including archaeological ones, testify to the active movement of the
Polabian Slavs along the Baltic Sea to the areas of Ladoga and Ilmen. Another
theory, less popular now, supports the idea that Rurik and his people came from
the Azov-Black Sea area. This Taurian version of the origin of Russia says that
the Russ’s homeland was the Taman and Kerch peninsulas of Crimea, that is, the
future Tmutorakan Princedom.
Whoever Rurik was or wherever he came from, he was able to strengthen the
independence of the tribes that called him to power. This allowed his successor,
Oleg the Prophet, to take an important step in the formation of the Old Russian
state. In 882, Oleg captured Kiev. The possession of Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk,
and Kyiv by Rurik's successors after this date allowed them to unite huge
resources and take under their control the entire trade route from the Varangians
in the north to the Greeks in the south, as well as the most important ways to
Western Europe along the Pripyat and Bug rivers.
Those parts of the road that remained outside the control of the princes of Kiev
and Novgorod had only dependent value. For example, the prince of Polotsk
controlled the route along the Western Dvina, an alternative route to reach the
Baltic. However, if the merchants, going along the Western Dvina, wanted to
trade with Byzantium, they still could not do so without going through Kiev.
Thus, Oleg concentrated in his hands tremendous power, which gave him and his
successors great opportunities for further development and increased their
defensive resources. For this reason, many researchers consider 882 to be the date
of the united Old Russian state’s creation.
The next stage in the development of Old Russian statehood began with the
measures undertaken by Princess Olga in the second half of the 940s. Her aim
was to regulate the efficient collection of tribute along the trade routes, and her
son crushed the Khazar Kaganate in 964-67, eliminating a major rival for
dominating the region. It was the Khazars who levied tribute from a significant
portion of the Eastern Slavic tribes and who claimed control over the Dnieper
waterways. The Chronicler of the XI-XII centuries praised pagan prince
Svyatoslav for these campaigns because, without the defeat of the Khazar
Kaganate, the Christianization of Russia, the major event in the author’s opinion,
would not have happened. This process, which stretched over many years,
marked the completion of the Old Russian state’s formation.