BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT Rus',

Formation of Kievan Rus (839-878)

Rurik and the Varangian-Russian rule in Novgorod.

Based on the works of D.I. Ilovaisky and G.V. Vernadsky, as well as other historians of the 19th-21st centuries.

Thematic layout of Internet versionsauthor's works by A. Romanchenko.

Archontissa Olga. Drawing from an old book

All of us, studying the history of our Motherland, usually began with the pages telling about the calling of the Varangian princes led by Rurik to the Russian land, about Oleg’s campaign against Constantinople, etc. What happened before that? Where did the tribe of Slavs and Russians come from, which unexpectedly appeared in the 9th century in gigantic spaces from the Adriatic Sea to the Volga? Based on the analysis of ancient documents and archaeological discoveries,

DI. Ilovaisky made the statement that even in the prehistoric period there were three Rus: Dneprovskaya (Rus),

Novgorodskaya (Slavia) And

Slavia (Salau) on the Idrisi map (in the second circle from the left). Black and Azov Seas from above.

Tmutarakanskaya (Tamanskaya).

At one time, the Slavs and Rus' were pushed out of the South and from many Western lands by the Romans and their descendants, wild nomads, Tatars... Therefore, strengthening their borders and statehood in the 17th and XVIII centuries, Rus' was just returning to its ancestral lands - Kuban, the Azov and Black Sea regions, Crimea, the mouth of the Neva, the Dvina...

From the preface to the book by D.I. Ilovaisky"History of Russia. The beginning of Rus'."

DI. Ilovaisky (1832 - 1920) "History of Russia. The beginning of Rus'." 1996

Generation after generation, since childhood, we have become accustomed to repeating the fable about the calling of the Varangians as an immutable fact and robbing our ancestors of the glory of creating their state, which, according to the chronicle expression, they "acquired through great sweat and great labor". We repeated the legend about the Varangians for so long that we completely got used to it. We even feel some satisfaction in the fact that our history, unlike other peoples who had mythical times, begins with a famous year, a famous event and such an original event as the touching federation of the Slavic and Chud peoples sending an embassy overseas!

True, a second thought about the inability of our ancestors to organize somewhat overshadows this contentment.

I'll give you this famous words Russian initial chronicle under 862:

And they said: “Let’s look for a prince for ourselves who would rule over us and rule us according to the rules and the law.” We went overseas to the Varangians, to Rus'. Those Varangians were called Rus, just as others are called Swedes, and others are called Normans and Angles, and still others are Goths - like these. The Chud, Slavs, Krivichi and all said to Rus': “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." And three brothers were chosen with their clans, and took all of Rus' with them, and came first of all to the Slavs. And they established the city of Ladoga. And the eldest, Rurik, sat in Ladoga, and the other, Sineus, sat on White Lake, and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. And from those Varangians the Russian land was nicknamed. Two years later, Sineus and his brother Truvor died. And Rurik alone took all the power and came to Ilmen, and set up a city over Volkhov, and named it Novgorod, and sat down to reign here, and began to distribute to his husbands volosts and establish cities - for one Polotsk, for this Rostov, for another Beloozero. The Varangians in these cities are the Nakhodniki, and the indigenous people in Novgorod are the Slavs, in Polotsk the Krivichi, in Rostov the Merya, in Beloozero the whole, in Murom the Muroma, and Rurik ruled over them all.

After several works on our chronicle (Pogodin, Sukhomlinov, Obolensky, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, etc.), there is no doubt that the so-called Nestor's Chronicle in the form in which it has come down to us, there is the chronicle itself, which grew gradually and was subject to various editions. Writers were not always content with literal reproduction of the original, but often contributed their share of authorship; they shortened one thing, spread another, updated the language, inserted their own arguments, interpretations, and even entire episodes. At the same time, you should not lose sight of simple errors, typos, misunderstandings, etc. I will quote the famous words of Mnikh Lawrence: “Where I’m going to write, I described it, or rewrote it, or didn’t write it, honor God by correcting him by sharing, and don’t curse him.”.

That is why there was such a variety of lists that it is impossible to find two copies that are completely similar to each other.
The chronicle code has reached us in lists that do not go back earlier than the second half of the 14th century; No manuscripts of a single collection of chronicles have survived from the Kyiv period.
“Behold the tales of the bygone years, where the Russian land came from, who began the reign in Kyiv first” - these are the words with which our chronicle begins. This is talking about Kyiv, not Novgorod. Positive chronological data also place the beginning of our history in Kyiv. The first reliable fact entered into our chronicle from the words of the Byzantines is the attack of Rus' on Constantinople in 864-865, during the reign of Emperor Michael.

Here are the words of our chronicle: “Mikhail began to reign, beginning to be called Ruska land”. Norman theory gave them the meaning that it was from that time that our fatherland began to be called Russia. But inner, real meaning, agrees with positive events, the one that during the reign of Michael the name of Rus' became known for the first time, actually first attracts attention due to the Russian attack on Constantinople. Perhaps our chronicler or his copyist himself thought that Since then, Rus' began to be called Rus. The misconception is very natural, And it is impossible to transfer the demands of our time to Russian literate people of that era, that is, to expect from them erudition and criticism of their sources. For example, could they, reading the Byzantines, under the names of Scythians, Sarmatians, etc. recognize your Rus' in them?

“From here we’ll figure it out and put down the numbers.”- our chronicle continues. “And from the first summer of Mikhailov to the first summer of Olgov, the Russian prince, 29 years; and from the first summer of Olgov, still gray in Kiev, to the first summer of Igor, 31 years; and from the first summer of Igor to the first summer of Svyatoslavl, 33 years.” etc. In this chronological list, the beginning of Rus' is not from the calling of the Varangians, but from the era when Rus' was clearly, positively noted by Byzantine historians. Then the chronicler goes straight to Oleg. Where is Rurik? Why did such a remarkable person, the ancestor of the Russian princes, not receive a place in this chronology? Only one explanation is possible, namely: the legend about Rurik and in general about the calling of princes was entered into the annals in order to give some kind of beginning to Russian history, and was initially entered without a year; and subsequently artificially dated to 862.

According to the Tale of Bygone Years, having come to Rus', Rurik settled on Ladoga,

while Sineus took Beloozero under his control,

and Truvor - Izborsk.

We have seen that the supposed Rurik's brothers probably did not exist, but most likely he installed some of his relatives or followers in other cities as his governors or vassals. Having spent most of his life in the west, Rurik must have been well acquainted with the emerging feudal system and, apparently, was ready to apply its principles to his new possessions in Rus'. From this angle, the statement of the Joachim Chronicle regarding the organization of Northern Rus' under the rule of Rurik, known to us in Tatishchev’s summary, attracts attention. According to Tatishchev, “Rurik planted princes of either Varangian or Slavic origin in all cities, and he himself was known as the great prince, which equivalent to the Greek titles “archikrator” or “basileus,” and those princes were his vassals.” Greek titles are, of course, irrelevant here, since Rurik's ideas about suzerainty were copied according to the standards of the Western Empire, with which he was well familiar. You can compare the statements of Tatishchev and The Tale of Bygone Years. According to the latter, Rurik’s brothers, Sineus and Truvor, died two years after arriving in Rus'. After their death Rurik moved from Ladoga to Novgorod and built a castle there.“And Rurik took power, and gave away the cities with her husband, one Polotesk, another Rostov, another Belo-Ozero. And in that city the Varangians are the finders.” Busy organizing his new kingdom, Rurik apparently did not plan any campaign to the south. And yet, in the hope of facilitating such a campaign, the old Rus colony in Staraya Rus invited Rurik to Novgorod. They probably decided now to try to make their way south without the help of Rurik. From this point of view, we can approach the chronicler’s story about Askold’s campaign against Kyiv. At the beginning of the story we read the following: “And he had two husbands (Askold and Dir), not of his tribe, but of a boyar, and she asked the Tsar-city with her clan. And travel along the Dnieper...” Obviously, the initiative in this matter did not belong to Rurik, but to the two boyars themselves. The words “not of his tribe” should apparently be understood to mean “not from his Friesland retinue.” They went “with their family,” that is, with members of the Old Russian (Swedish) colony. According to the chronicler, Askold's goal was Constantinople, But it sounds more like the chronicler's own commentary than a record of fact. It is difficult to admit that in those days any Novgorodian could think about a campaign against Constantinople.

Why? Apparently because they ruled on behalf of Olom from his palace, which served as the ruler's residence. Under the date 6374 (866 AD) the Tale of Bygone Years records that Askold and Dir launched a campaign against Constantinople. From Byzantine sources we know that the first Russian attack on Constantinople was in 860, not 866. Therefore, we should assume that the fragment from The Tale of Bygone Years contains a chronological error of six years. As for the campaign itself, we do not think that Askold and Dir had a large enough army to undertake this campaign on their own. The Magyars, even if we assume that they agreed to let the Rus through the Lower Dnieper region, did not have ships and did not know how to fight a war at sea, so they could not provide any real support. You could expect help only from the Russian Kaganate in the Azov region. The campaign must have been undertaken by the joint efforts of Askold and Dir and the Russian Khaganate. Apparently, the Tmutarakan Kagan took the initiative in this matter. In any case, establishing a connection with the Tmutarakan Khaganate, as we suggested above,

Askold and Dir's campaign against Constantinople. Drawing from the Radziwill Chronicle, 15th century

was Askold's original goal, and he probably sent envoys to Tmutarakan soon after arriving in Kyiv. It was possible to get from Kyiv to the Azov coast by ship using steppe rivers and portages. One of these river routes was the path up the Orlu River (a tributary of the Dnieper), and from its upper reaches it was dragged to the tributaries of the Donets, and then down the Donets and Don. However, this path was blocked by the Khazars. Therefore, most likely, another route was used: up the Samara (the southern tributary of the Dnieper) and its tributary Volchaya, then dragged to Kalmius, and along it to the Sea of ​​Azov. There is little information about the situation in the Russian Kaganate in those years. As we have seen, the envoys from the Khaganate who arrived in Constantinople in 838 were not allowed to return and were sent to Germany. We do not know whether they managed to return to Tmutarakan along the roundabout route - from Ingelheim to Novgorod and so on. In any case, the detention of the envoys by the Byzantine emperor meant the severance of diplomatic relations between the Russian Khaganate and Byzantium, and this may have been the reason for the Russian raid on Amastris in 840 (or thereabouts),

if we assume that such a raid actually took place. There is no evidence of further Russian activity in the Black Sea between 840 and 860. While the supposed raid of 840 was aimed at Asia Minor, in 860 the Russians decided to attack Constantinople itself. It appears that the campaign of 860 was well prepared, and for it

the timing was right. The empire at this time was in the midst of a war with the Arabs. In 859, the latter inflicted a crushing defeat on the Byzantine troops, and the emperor himself barely managed to avoid capture. Beginning in the early spring of 860, the empire began intensively preparing its army for a new campaign against the Arabs, and in early June the emperor and his aide, the curopalate Bardas, led the Byzantine army into Asia Minor. This is exactly the case that the Russians were waiting for to attack Constantinople. It is unknown which route the Russians chose to deliver their fleet from the Cimmerian Bosphorus (Kerch Strait) to France. Iysky Bosphorus (Bosphorus Strait). Undoubtedly The Byzantines were taken by surprise without even a thought about the approach of the Russians, until their ships appeared in the Bosphorus Strait. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that the Byzantine fleet watched both the Crimean coastline and the coast of Asia Minor in order to prevent any active Russian actions, especially after the raid on Amastris in 840. Therefore, we have the right to think that The Russians appeared from a direction from which the Byzantines had never expected them. Perhaps they used a circuitous route through the Sea of ​​Azov and Northern Taurida to the mouth of the Dnieper; that is, they first crossed the Sea of ​​Azov, and then from its northern coast headed up the Berda River and down the Konskaya River, a tributary of the Dnieper. It is quite possible that in the area of ​​the lagoon formed at the confluence of the Konskaya into the Dnieper, below modern city Zaporozhye, the expeditionary forces of the Russian Kaganate reunited with the detachment of Askold and Dir, coming from Kyiv. The combined flotilla of Russian ships must then have sailed down the Konskaya and lower Dnieper into the Black Sea, and along it headed due south towards the Bosphorus. 18 June 860 united russian fleet, consisting of two hundred ships,

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09/01/2013 05:23

This material was intended as an attempt to answer the question of why our true history is hidden from us. A short historical excursion into the area of ​​historical truth should enable the reader to understand how far from the truth is what is presented to us as the history of the Russian people. In fact, the truth may shock the reader at first, as it did me, it is so different from official version, that is, lies. I came to many conclusions on my own, but then it turned out that, fortunately, there are already works of several modern historians of the last decade who have seriously studied the issue. Only, unfortunately, they, their works, are not known to the general reader - academicians and the authorities in Russia, well, they really don’t like the truth. Fortunately, there are interested ARI readers who need this truth. And today the day has come when we need it in order to answer - Who are we? Who are our ancestors? Where is the Heavenly Iriy, from which we must draw strength? V. Karabanov, ARI

FORBIDDEN HISTORY OF Rus'

Vladislav Karabanov

To understand why we need historical truth,

we need to understand why the ruling regimes in Rus'-Russia

a historical lie was needed.

History and psychology

Russia is deteriorating before our eyes. The huge Russian people are the backbone of the state, which decided the destinies of the world and Europe, under the control of crooks and scoundrels who hate the Russian people. Moreover, the Russian people, who gave the name to the state located on its territory, are not the owner of the state, are not the administrator of this state and do not receive any dividends from this, even moral ones. We are a people deprived of our rights in our own land.

Russian national identity is at a loss, the realities of this world are falling upon the Russian people, and they cannot even stand up, group themselves in order to maintain balance. Other nations are pushing back the Russians, and they are convulsively gasping for air and retreating, retreating. Even when there is nowhere to retreat. We are squeezed on our own land, and there is no longer a corner in the country of Russia, a country created by the efforts of the Russian people, in which we can breathe freely. The Russian people are so rapidly losing their inner sense of right to their land that the question arises about the presence of some kind of distortion in self-awareness, the presence of some kind of defective code in historical self-knowledge that does not allow relying on it.

Therefore, perhaps, in search of solutions, we need to turn to psychology and history.

National self-awareness is, on the one hand, an unconscious involvement in an ethnic group, in its egregor filled with the energy of hundreds of generations, on the other hand, it is the reinforcement of unconscious feelings with information, knowledge of one’s history, the origins of one’s origin. In order to gain stability in their consciousness, people need information about their roots, about their past. Who are we and where are we from? Every ethnic group should have it. Among the peoples of ancient times, information was recorded by folk epics and legends, among modern peoples, who are usually called civilized, epic information is supplemented with modern data and is offered in the form scientific works and research. This information layer, which reinforces unconscious sensations, is a necessary and even obligatory part of self-awareness for a modern person, ensuring his stability and mental balance.

But what will happen if people are not told who they are and where they are from, or if they tell them lies and invent an artificial story for them? Such people endure stress because their consciousness, based on information received in the real world, does not find confirmation and support in the ancestral memory, in the codes of the unconscious and images of the superconscious. The people, like people, seek support for their inner self in the cultural tradition, which is history. And, if he does not find it, this leads to disorganization of consciousness. Consciousness ceases to be whole and falls into fragments.

This is precisely the situation in which the Russian people find themselves today. His story, the story of his origin, is fictitious or distorted so much that his consciousness cannot focus, because in his unconscious and superconscious, it does not find confirmation of this story. It’s as if a white boy were shown photographs of his ancestors, where only dark-skinned Africans were depicted. Or, on the contrary, an Indian raised in a white family was shown to be the grandfather of a cowboy. He is shown relatives, none of whom he resembles, whose way of thinking is alien to him - he does not understand their actions, views, thoughts, music. Other people. The human psyche cannot stand such things. The same story is with the Russian people. On the one hand, the story is absolutely not disputed by anyone, on the other hand, the person feels that this does not fit with his codes. The puzzles don't match. Hence the collapse of consciousness.

Man is a creature that carries complex codes inherited from his ancestors and, if he is aware of his origin, then he gains access to his subconscious and thereby remains in harmony. In the depths of the subconscious, every person has layers associated with the superconscious, the soul, which can either be activated when consciousness possessing correct information helps a person gain integrity, or blocked by false information, and then the person cannot use his inner potential, which depresses him. This is why the phenomenon of cultural development is so important, or if it is based on lies, then it is a form of oppression.

Therefore, it makes sense to take a closer look at our history. The one that tells about our roots.

Somehow it turned out strangely that, according to historical science, we more or less know the history of our people starting from the 15th century. Since the 9th century, that is, from Rurik, we have it in a semi-legendary version, supported by some historical evidence and documents . But as for Rurik himself, the legendary Rus', which came with him, historical science tells us more conjectures and interpretations than real historical evidence. The fact that this is speculation is evidenced by the heated debate surrounding this issue. What is this Rus, which came and gave its name to a huge people and state, which became known as Russia? Where did the Russian land come from? Historical science, as it were, leads discussions. As they began to communicate at the beginning of the 18th century, they continue to do so. But as a result, they come to the strange conclusion that this does not matter, because those who were called Russia“did not have a significant impact” on the formation of the Russian people. This is exactly how historical science in Russia rounded off the question. That's it - they gave a name to the people, but who, what and why does not matter.

Is it really impossible for researchers to find an answer? Are there really no traces of the people, no information in the ecumene, where there are the roots of the mysterious Rus' that laid the foundation for our people? So Rus' appeared out of nowhere, gave its name to our people and disappeared into nowhere? Or were you looking poorly?

Before we give our answer and start talking about history, we need to say a few words about historians. In fact, the public has a deep misconception about the essence of historical science and the results of its research. History is usually an order. History in Russia is no exception and was also written to order, and given that the political regime here was always extremely centralized, it ordered the ideological construct that history is. And for the sake of ideological considerations, the order was for an extremely monolithic story, not allowing deviations. And the people - Rus spoiled a harmonious and necessary picture for someone. Only in a short period at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, when some freedoms appeared in Tsarist Russia, were there real attempts to understand the issue. And we almost figured it out. But, firstly, no one really needed the truth then, and secondly, the Bolshevik coup broke out. In the Soviet period, there is nothing even to be said about objective coverage of history; it could not exist in principle. What do we want from hired workers who write to order under the watchful supervision of the Party? Moreover, we are talking about forms of cultural oppression, such as the Bolshevik regime. And to a large extent the tsarist regime too.

Therefore, it is not surprising the heaps of lies that we encounter when looking into the story that was presented to us, and which, neither in its facts nor in its conclusions, is true. Due to the fact that there are too many rubble and lies, and other lies and their branches were built on these lies and fabrications, in order not to tire the reader, the author will focus more on the really important facts.

Past out of nowhere

If we read the history of Rus', written in the Romanov era, in the Soviet era and accepted in modern historiography, we will find that the versions of the origin of Rus', the people who gave this name to a huge country and people, are vague and unconvincing. For almost 300 years, when attempts to understand history can be counted, there are only a few established versions. 1) Rurik, a Norman king, who came to the local tribes with a small retinue, 2) Came from the Baltic Slavs, either the Obodrites, or the Vagrs 3) A local, Slavic prince 3) The story of Rurik was invented by the chronicler

Versions common among the Russian national intelligentsia also come from the same ideas. But in Lately The idea is especially popular that Rurik is a prince from the Western Slavic tribe of the Wagr, who came from Pomerania.

The main source for constructing all versions is “The Tale of Bygone Years” (hereinafter PVL). A few meager lines have given rise to countless interpretations that revolve around several of the above versions. And all known historical data are completely ignored.

What’s interesting is that somehow it turns out that the entire history of Rus' begins in 862. From the year that is indicated in the “PVL” and begins with the calling of Rurik. But what happened before is practically not considered at all, and as if no one is interested. In this form, history looks only like the emergence of someone public education, and we are not interested in the history of administrative structures, but in the history of the people.

But what happened before that? The year 862 almost looks like the beginning of history. And before that there was a failure, almost emptiness, with the exception of a few short legends of two or three phrases.

In general, the history of the Russian people that is offered to us is a history that has no beginning. From what we know, we get the feeling that the semi-mythical narrative began somewhere in the middle and halfway through.

Ask anyone, even a certified historian-specialist in Ancient Rus', or even an ordinary person, as for the origin of the Russian people and their history before 862, all this is in the realm of assumptions. The only thing that is offered as an axiom is that the Russian people descended from the Slavs. Some, seemingly nationally minded representatives of the Russian people, generally identify themselves ethnically as Slavs, although the Slavs are still more of a linguistic community than an ethnic one. This is complete nonsense. It would also look ridiculous, for example, if people who speak one of the Romance languages ​​- Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian (and its dialect, Moldavian) discard the ethnonym and begin to call themselves “Romanes”. Identify yourself as one people. By the way, the gypsies call themselves that - Romals, but they hardly consider themselves and the French to be fellow tribesmen. The peoples of the Romance language group are different ethnic groups, with different destinies and having different origins. Historically, they speak languages ​​that have absorbed the foundations of Roman Latin, but ethnically, genetically, historically and spiritually, this different peoples.

The same applies to the community of Slavic peoples. These are peoples who speak similar languages, but the fates of these peoples and their origins differ. We will not go into detail here, it is enough to point out the history of the Bulgarians in whose ethnogenesis the main role was played not only and perhaps not so much by the Slavs, but by the nomadic Bulgarians and local Thracians. Or the Serbs, like the Croats, take their name from the descendants of the Aryan-speaking Sarmatians. (Here and further, I will use the term Aryan-speaking, instead of the term Iranian-speaking used by modern historians, which I consider false. The fact is that the use of the word Iranian-speaking immediately creates a false association with modern Iran, in general , today, quite an eastern people. However, historically the word Iran itself, Iranian, is a distortion of the original designation of the country Arian, Aryan. That is, if we talk about antiquity, we should use the concept not Iranian, but Aryan). The ethnonyms themselves are presumably the essence of the names of the Sarmatian tribes “Sorboy” and “Khoruv”, from which the hired leaders and squads of the Slavic tribes came. The Sarmatians, who came from the Caucasus and the Volga region, mixed with the Slavs in the area of ​​the Elbe River and then descended to the Balkans and there they assimilated the local Illyrians.

Now as for Russian history itself. This story, as I have already indicated, begins, as it were, from the middle. In fact, from the 9th-10th century AD. And before that, in established tradition, there was a dark time. What did our ancestors do and where were they, and what did they call themselves in the era of Ancient Greece and Rome, in the ancient period and during the period of the Huns and the great migration of peoples? That is, what they did, what they were called and where they lived directly in the previous millennium is somehow inelegantly kept silent.

Where did they come from, after all? Why do our people occupy the vast space of Eastern Europe, by what right? When did you appear here? The answer is silence.

Many of our compatriots have somehow become accustomed to the fact that nothing is said about this period. In the minds of the Russian national intelligentsia of the previous period, it seems to not exist. Rus' follows almost immediately from the Ice Age. The idea of ​​the history of one’s own people is vague and vaguely mythological. In the reasoning of many, there is only the “Arctic ancestral home”, Hyperborea, and similar matters of the prehistoric or antediluvian period. Then, more or less, a theory was developed about the Vedic era, which can be attributed to a period several thousand years BC. But in these theories we do not see a transition to our history itself, a transition to real events. And then, somehow immediately, passing a couple of millennia, virtually out of nowhere, Rus' appears in 862, the time of Rurik. The author in no way wants to enter into controversy on this issue and even in some ways divides the theories according to the prehistoric period. But in any case, Hyperborea can be attributed to the era of 7-8 thousand years ago, the era of the Vedas can be attributed to the times of the 2nd millennium BC, and maybe even earlier.

But as for the next 3 millennia, the times directly adjacent to the era of the creation of the historical Russian state, the time of the beginning of a new era and the time preceding the new era, practically nothing is reported about this part of the history of our people, or false information is reported. Meanwhile, this knowledge provides the keys to understanding our history and the history of our origin, respectively, our self-awareness.

Slavs or Russians?

A common and undisputed place in the Russian historical tradition is the approach that Russians are primordially Slavic people. And, in general, almost 100% there is an equal sign between Russian and Slavic. What is meant is not a modern linguistic community, but rather a historical origin of the Russian people from ancient tribes identified as Slavs. Is it really?

What’s interesting is that even ancient chronicles do not give us grounds to draw such conclusions - to deduce the origin of the Russian people from Slavic tribes.

Let us cite the well-known words of the Russian initial chronicle for the year 862:

“We decided to ourselves: let’s look for a prince who would rule over us and judge by right.” I went across the sea to the Varangians to Russia; for all I know, I called the Varangians Rus, as all my friends are called Ours, my friends are Urman, Anglyans, friends of Gate , tako and si. Decided by Russia Chud, Slovenia and Krivichi: “all our land is great and abundant, “but there is no outfit in it: let you go and reign over us.” And the three brothers were chosen from their generations, girding all of Rus', and they came; the oldest Rurik sede in Novegrad; and the other is Sineus on Beleozero, and the third is Izborst Truvor. From those the Russian land was nicknamed Novugorodtsy: they are the people of Novugorodtsi from the family of Varangian, before Slovenia."

It is difficult to learn something new, but in these chronicles, in different versions, one important fact can be traced - Rus named as a certain tribe, people. But no one considers anything further. Where did this Rus' then disappear to? And where did you come from?

The established historical tradition, both pre-revolutionary and Soviet, assumes by default that Slavic tribes lived in the Dnieper region and they are the beginning of the Russian people. However, what do we find here? From historical information and from the same PVL, we know that the Slavs came to these places almost in the 8th-9th centuries, not earlier.

The first completely incomprehensible legend about the actual foundation of Kyiv. According to this legend, it was founded by the mythical Kiy, Shchek and Khoriv, ​​with their sister Lybid. According to the version given by the author of The Tale of Bygone Years, Kiy, who lived on the Dnieper mountains together with his younger brothers Shchek, Khoriv and sister Lybid, built a city on the right high bank of the Dnieper, named Kiev in honor of his older brother.

The chronicler immediately reports, although he considers it implausible, a second legend that Kiy was a carrier on the Dnieper. So what is next!!! Cue is named the founder of the town of Kievets on the Danube!? These are the times.

“Some, not knowing, say that Kiy was a carrier; At that time, Kyiv had transportation from the other side of the Dnieper, which is why they said: “For transportation to Kyiv.” If Kiy had been a ferryman, he would not have gone to Constantinople; and this Kiy reigned in his family, and when he went to the king, they say that he received great honors from the king to whom he came. When he was returning, he came to the Danube, and took a fancy to the place, and cut down a small town, and wanted to sit in it with his family, but those living around did not let him; This is how the Danube residents still call the settlement - Kievets. Kiy, returning to his city of Kyiv, died here; and his brothers Shchek and Khoriv and their sister Lybid died immediately.” PVL.

Where is this place, Kievets on the Danube?

For example, in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron it is written about Kievets - “a town which, according to Nestor’s story, was built by Kiy on the Danube and still existed in his time. I. Liprandi, in his “Discourse on the ancient cities of Keve and Kievets” (“Son of the Fatherland”, 1831, vol. XXI), brings K. closer to the fortified city of Kevee (Kevee), which is described by the Hungarian chronicler Anonymous Notary and which was located near Orsov, apparently in the place where the Serbian city of Kladova is now (among the Bulgarians Gladova, among the Turks Fetislam). The same author draws attention to the fact that, according to Nestor, Kiy built K. on the way to the Danube, therefore, perhaps not on the Danube itself, and points to the villages of Kiovo and Kovilovo, located about 30 versts from the mouth of Timok. »

If you look at where present-day Kiev is located and where the above-mentioned Kladov is with nearby Kiovo at the mouth of Timok, then the distance between them is as much as 1 thousand 300 kilometers in a straight line, which is quite far even by our times, especially by those times. And what, it would seem, is common between these places. We are clearly talking about some kind of insinuation, substitution.

Moreover, the most interesting thing is that Kievets really was on the Danube. Most likely, we are dealing with traditional history, when settlers, moving to a new place, transferred their legends there. In this case, Slavic settlers brought these legends from the Danube. As is known, they came to the Dnieper region from Pannonia, pressed in the 8th-9th centuries by the Avars and the ancestors of the Magyars.

That is why the chronicler writes: “When the Slavic people, as we said, lived on the Danube, the so-called Bulgarians came from the Scythians, that is, from the Khazars, and settled along the Danube and were settlers in the land of the Slavs.” PVL.

In reality, this story with Kiy and the glades reflects ancient attempts not so much to tell as to distort real facts and events.

“After the destruction of the pillar and the division of the peoples, the sons of Shem took the eastern countries, and the sons of Ham took the southern countries, and the Japhethites took the west and the northern countries. From these same 70 and 2 languages ​​came the Slavic people, from the tribe of Japheth - the so-called Noriks, who are the Slavs.

After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where the land is now Hungarian and Bulgarian. From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat." PVL

The chronicler clearly and unambiguously says that the Slavs lived in territories other than the lands of Kievan Rus, and are alien people here. And if we look at the historical retrospective of the lands of Rus', it is clear that they were by no means a desert, and life has been in full swing here since ancient times.

And there, in the Tale of Bygone Years, the chronicle conveys to the reader information about the settlement of the Slavs even more clearly. We are talking about movement from west to east.

After a long time, the Slavs settled along the Danube, where the land is now Hungarian and Bulgarian (more often they point to the provinces of Rezia and Norik). From those Slavs the Slavs spread throughout the land and were called by their names from the places where they sat. So some, having come, sat down on the river in the name of Morava and were called Moravians, while others called themselves Czechs. And here are the same Slavs: white Croats, and Serbs, and Horutans. When the Volochs attacked the Danube Slavs, and settled among them, and oppressed them, these Slavs came and sat on the Vistula and were called Poles, and from those Poles came the Poles, other Poles - Lutichs, others - Mazovshans, others - Pomeranians

Likewise, these Slavs came and settled along the Dnieper and were called Polyans, and others - Drevlyans, because they sat in the forests, and others sat between Pripyat and Dvina and were called Dregovichs, others sat along the Dvina and were called Polochans, after the river flowing into the Dvina , called Polota, from which the Polotsk people took their name. The same Slavs who settled near Lake Ilmen were called by their own name - Slavs, and built a city and called it Novgorod. And others sat along the Desna, and the Seim, and the Sula, and called themselves northerners. And so the Slavic people dispersed, and after his name the letter was called Slavic.” (PVLIpatiev list)

The ancient chronicler, whether it was Nestor or someone else, needed to depict history, but from this history we only learn that not very long ago Slavic clans moved to the east and northeast.

However, for some reason we don’t find a word about the Russian people from the chronicler PVL.

And we are interested in this Rus- the people, which is with a small letter, and Rus', the country, which is with a capital letter. Where did they come from? To be honest, PVL is not very suitable for the purpose of finding out the true state of things. We find only isolated references there, of which only one thing is clear: Rus there was and it was the people, and not some individual Scandinavian squads.

Here it must be said that neither the Norman version of origin Rus' neither Western Slavic is satisfactory. Hence there are so many disputes between supporters of these versions, because when choosing between them, there is nothing to choose. Neither nor the second version allows us to understand the history of the origin of our people. But rather confusing. The question arises, is there really no answer? Can't we figure it out? I hasten to reassure the reader. There is an answer. In fact, it is already known in general terms, and it is quite possible to form a picture, but history is a political and ideological tool, especially in a country like Russia. Ideology here has always played a decisive role in the life of the country, and history is the basis of ideology. And if the historical truth contradicted the ideological content, then they did not change the ideology, they adjusted the history. That is why the traditional history of Rus'-Russia is largely presented as a set of false statements and omissions. This silence and lies have become a tradition in the study of history. And this bad tradition begins with the same PVL.

It seems to the author that there is no need to slowly lead the reader to true conclusions regarding the past Rus'-Russia-Russia, consistently exposing the lies of various historical versions. Of course, I would like to build a narrative, creating intrigue, gradually leading the reader to the correct conclusion, but in this case it will not work. The fact is that avoiding historical truth has been the main goal of most historians, and the piles of untruth are such that hundreds of volumes would have to be written, refuting one nonsense after another. Therefore, here I will take a different path, outlining our actual history, along the way explaining the reasons for the silence and lies that determined the various “traditional versions”. It must be understood that, with the exception of a short period at the end of the era of the Romanov Empire and our present day, historians could not be free from ideological pressure. Much is explained, on the one hand, by a political order, and on the other, by the readiness to fulfill this order. In some periods it was fear of reprisals, in others it was a desire not to notice the obvious truth in the name of some political hobbies. As we delve deeper into the past and reveal the historical truth, I will try to give my explanations

The degree of lies and the tradition of diverting from the truth were such that for many readers the truth about the origin of their ancestors would be a shock. But the evidence is so indisputable and unambiguous that only a stubborn idiot or a pathological liar would dispute a completely clear truth.

Even at the end of the 19th century, it was clearly possible to state that the origin and history of the Rus people, the Rus state, that is, the past of the ancestors of the Russian people, is not a mystery, but is generally known. And it’s not difficult to build a historical chain of times to understand who we are and where we come from. Another question is that this contradicted political guidelines. Why, I will touch on this below. Therefore, our history never found its true reflection. But sooner or later the truth must be presented.

Goths

Indeed, Russian history does not begin in 862, but is a continuation of the history of a strong and powerful people, because a powerful state could not appear on this vast land out of nowhere or by the force of small Norman squads from Scandinavia, and especially from the completely mythical Baltic Oudrites. There was a real basis here, on our historical land, and it was the German Gothic tribes who lived in the territory that later began to be called Russia. Their names have been preserved in history, both under the general name of the Goths, and under the tribal names - Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Burgundians and others. Then these tribes became known in Europe, but they came from here.

When historians throw up their hands about the fact that it is not known what was there in Eastern Europe in the territory that later became Kievan Rus, as if suggesting that it was a wild, sparsely populated land, they are at the very least disingenuous or simply lying. The entire territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea was already an integral part of the settlement of the Gothic tribes from the end of the 2nd century AD, and from the 4th century a powerful state existed here, known as the state of Germanaric. The Gothic tribes and the Gothic state located here were so strong that they could challenge the Roman Empire. There is more than enough evidence of this. In the 3rd century AD For 30 years, the empire was shaken by a war that went down in history as the Scythian War, although Roman historians call it the Gothic War. The war was waged from the territory of the Northern Black Sea region, which the Greeks called Scythia, and inhabited by tribes of Gothic origin. That is, the Goths advanced from those territories that we today consider South Russian. The scale of this war can be judged from numerous testimonies from chroniclers.

The war began with the destruction by the Goths of Greek cities subject to Rome in the Northern Black Sea region. Archaeologists clearly trace traces of the beginning of the Scythian War. At this time, the Greek colony of Olbia at the mouth of the Southern Bug and the Greek colony of Tire at the mouth of the Dniester, which was a stronghold of the Romans in the region, were destroyed.

Then large-scale military operations unfolded on the territory of the Roman Black Sea provinces - Moesia and Thrace, as well as Macedonia and Greece.

The Roman chronicler Jordan, himself a Goth by origin, in his history “On the Origin and Deeds of the Goths,” written in the 6th century AD. reports the number of Goths participating in the campaign against the Roman provinces in 248. The instigators were Roman legionnaires dismissed from service and therefore defected to the Goths: “The warriors, seeing that after such labors they were expelled from military service, the outraged resorted to the help of Ostrogotha, the king of the Goths. He received them and, fired up by their speeches, soon brought out - to start a war - three hundred thousand of his armed people, with the help of numerous tajfals and astrings; there were also three thousand carp; These are extremely experienced people in war, who were often hostile to the Romans.”

This is how the Roman chronicler Dexippus, in a retelling by George Sincellus, describes the campaign of the Goths in 251, when they took Philippopolis: “The Scythians, called Goths, having crossed the Ister River under Decius (Decius Trajan or Decius - Roman Emperor in 249-251, author), devastated the Roman Empire in large numbers. Decius, having attacked them, as Dexippus says, and exterminated up to thirty thousand of them, was nevertheless struck by them to such an extent that he lost Philippopolis, which was taken by them, and many Thracians were killed. When the Scythians were returning home, this same God-fighter Decius attacked them along with his son at night near Avrit, the so-called Forum of Femvronius. The Scythians returned with many prisoners of war and huge booty,..."

The city of Philippopolis, now Bulgarian Plovdiv, was a very large commercial and administrative center. The Goths destroyed there, as another Roman chronicler Ammianus Marcellinus reports, citing contemporaries, about 100 thousand people.

Then the Goths, in the same campaign in 251, defeated the army led by Emperor Decius near Abritto (now the Bulgarian city of Razgrad) . Emperor Decius drowned in a swamp while fleeing.

As a result, the next Roman emperor, Trebonian Gall, entered into a treaty with the Goths on terms humiliating for Rome, allowing them to take away captured prisoners and promising annual payments to the Goths.

Another time the Goths invaded the Roman provinces was in 255 AD, invading Thrace and reaching and besieging Thessalonica in Greece. Like the last time, according to Roman historians, the Goths left with rich booty.

Let me remind you that they carried out raids from their lands in the Northern Black Sea region and retreated there with the booty.

In 258, the Goths, having built a fleet, made a naval expedition along the Western coast of the Black Sea, while the other part moved along the coast. They reached the Bosphorus and crossed there to Asia Minor. They captured and devastated a number of large and rich Roman cities in Asia Minor - Chalcedon, Nicaea, Cius, Apamea and Prus.

The next invasion, also crowned with success, was carried out by the Goths in 262 and 264, crossing the Black Sea and penetrating the internal provinces of Asia Minor. A major naval campaign of the Goths took place in 267. The Goths, along the Black Sea, reached Byzantium (future Constantinople) with 500 ships. The ships were small vessels with a capacity of 50-60 people. A battle took place in the Bosphorus, in which the Romans managed to push them back. After the battle, the Goths retreated a little back to the exit from the Bosphorus into the sea, and then, with a fair wind, headed further to the Sea of ​​Marmara and then took ships to the Aegean Sea. There they attacked the islands of Lemnos and Skyros, and then dispersed throughout Greece. They took Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Argos.

In another extant passage from the chronicler Dexippus, he describes the siege methods used by the Goths during one of their other campaigns in the Roman provinces of Asia Minor: “The Scythians besieged Sida - this is one of the cities of Lycia. Since there was a large supply of all kinds of shells within the city walls and many people cheerfully got to work, the besiegers prepared their vehicles and brought them to the wall. But the residents had enough of this: they threw down from above everything that could hinder the siege. Then the Scythians built wooden towers, the same height as the city walls, and rolled them on wheels to the very walls. They sheathed the front of their towers either with thin sheet iron, tightly nailed to the beams, or with leather and other non-combustible substances.”

And in 268, inspired by victories, the Goths, already on 6 thousand ships (!), which had gathered at the mouth of the Dniester, launched a campaign against the Roman provinces. The Byzantine historian Zosimus writes about this: “Meanwhile, part of the Scythians, very pleased with the previous raids of their relatives, together with the Heruli, Peevians and Goths, gathered on the Tire River, which flows into the Pontus Euxine. There they built six thousand ships, on which they loaded 312 thousand people. After this, they sailed down the Pontus and attacked the fortified city of Toma, but were repulsed from it. The campaign continued overland to Marcianople in Moesia, but even there the barbarian attack failed. Therefore, they sailed further by sea under a good wind.” But this time the Goths fail due to defeat and epidemic.

Why is all this presented here, the reader may ask? And then, so that you can take a close look at the events of that era and understand the scope of military operations against the leading world power, which was then Rome. Year after year, the Goths send hundreds of thousands of warriors and thousands of ships on their expeditions to the Roman provinces. The Goths make deep raids and invade the depths of the empire. This is not possible if the Goths did not have serious rears where they come from - from the Black Sea region and the interior lands along the Dnieper and Don. To ensure such a scale, the Gothic power must have a huge internal population in its lands, which supplies hundreds of thousands of soldiers, arms them, equips them with everything necessary for long campaigns, and also builds thousands of ships and military vehicles. And it doesn’t matter that the ships are small, for 50 people, to create 6 thousand such ships at that time requires the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people over several months. Someone must feed these people at this time, feed their families and somehow compensate for their efforts. Such coordination is only possible for the state.

And it is also clear that such a population should be located inland to the north of the Black Sea coast. Up the Dnieper and Don. This means that we have the involvement of vast territories adjacent to the Northern Black Sea region, and these territories were already inhabited at that time by a large number of people consolidated under a single command, that is, states or proto-states.

The land of this state, as Jordanes reports, is located in Scythia and is called Oium. Jordanes describes the exodus of the Goths from Scandinavia and their arrival in Scythia: “From this very island of Scandza, as if from a workshop [making] tribes, or rather, as if from a womb [giving birth] to tribes, according to legend, the Goths once came out with their king named Berig. As soon as they got off the ships and set foot on land, they immediately gave the place a nickname. They say that to this day it is still called Gotiskanza.

Soon they advanced from there to the places of the Ulmerugs, who were then sitting along the shores of the ocean; There they camped, and, having fought [with the Ulmerugs], drove them out of their own settlements. Then they subjugated their neighbors the Vandals 65, adding them to their victories. When a great multitude of people grew there, and only the fifth king after Berig ruled, Philimer, the son of Gadarig, he decreed that the army of the Goths, together with their families, should move from there. In search of the most convenient areas and suitable places [for settlement], he came to the lands of Scythia, which in their language were called Oium."

We can quite definitely glean the size of the territory that was under the control of the Gothic state and its approximate contours not only from chronicles, but also from the vast archaeological material that modern researchers have accumulated. In addition, there is also toponymy and comparative analysis data.

First, let's look at the chronicles and historical evidence. The same 6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes, who served the Romans, reports information about the period of the most prominent Gothic king, Germanaric. We are talking about the middle and second half of the 4th century AD: “After the king of the Goths, Geberich, retired from human affairs, after some time the kingdom was inherited by Germanaric, the noblest of the Amals, who conquered many very warlike northern tribes and forced them to obey his laws. Many ancient writers compared him in dignity with Alexander the Great. He conquered the tribes: Goltescythians, Tiuds, Inaunxes, Vasinabronks, Merens, Mordens, Imniskars, Horns, Tadzans, Atauls, Navegos, Bubegens, sorcerers.”

There are different opinions regarding the peoples listed by Jordan and conquered by Germanaric. But basically, when analyzing the names of these peoples, historians give the following interpretation of the names of the listed peoples, under Goltescythians refers to the peoples of the Urals, under the names horns And tadzans should be understood Roastadjans, which means those who live on the banks of the Volga, under imniskars beekeepers should be understood as Meshchera, who were called that in Rus', and by merens And mordens – modern Meryu and Mordovians.

In another passage, Jordanes mentions the conquest of the Veneti tribes by Germanarich, saying that they are known under the names of Veneti, Antes or Sklavini. We are most likely talking about lands in the Pannonia region, where the Slavs then lived.

In the subsequent part of his work, Jordan, continuing the list of Germanaric’s conquests, writes: “With his intelligence and valor, he also subjugated the tribe of Estonians, who inhabit the remotest coast of the German Ocean. He thus ruled over all the tribes of Scythia and Germany as property.”

Regarding the Estonians, I think no special explanation is needed to understand that we are talking about the Baltic coast, inhabited by the ancestors of the Estonians.

And if you now look at geographical map, then a picture emerges of the huge Gothic state of Germanarich, stretching from the south from the Black Sea coast, to the Baltic coast in the north, and from the Urals and the Volga region in the east, to the Elbe in the west. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this power was one of the most extensive and powerful states of that era. And again, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that these lands are very similar to the territory of already historical Rus', which is passing into Russia.

This state existed 500 years before the arrival of Rurik. Returning to the picture that worthless historians give, describing the lands of Rus' as wild, starting, in general, with the notorious Nestor, we clearly see that this is a complete lie, here it was far from a wild desert.

The historical evidence of chroniclers about the space in which the Gothic state spread out is confirmed by extensive archaeological material and preserved material evidence.

The material culture of that era, which archaeologists call Chernyakhovskaya, and which dominates the same space from the Baltic to the Black Sea and from the Volga region to the Elbe, is defined as the culture belonging to the Goths and related tribes, which have already been mentioned - the Vandals, Gepids, Burgundians and etc.

How developed the state that existed in this territory was can be judged by the monumental Serpentine (Trajan) ramparts - hundreds of kilometers of earthen fortifications 10-15 meters high and up to 20 wide. The total length of the defensive ramparts located from the Vistula to the Don, to the south Kiev in the forest-steppe is about 2 thousand kilometers. In terms of the volume of work, the Serpentine Shafts are quite comparable to the Great Wall of China.

The topic, of course, was under the strictest taboo, and until a certain point, official historians shrugged their shoulders regarding the time of creation and the creators of the Serpent Shafts. It is interesting in this regard the revelations of the director of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Boris Aleksandrovich Rybakov, whose institute was supposed to answer this question - “The Serpentine Shafts are one of the greatest and the most interesting riddles ancient history of our Motherland. Unfortunately, they were completely undeservedly forgotten by archaeologists, and recently no work has been carried out on them.”(Newspaper “Trud”, 08/14/1969) So, it’s a mystery, but no work is being done to solve the riddle.

It was apparently strictly forbidden to answer an important question, so the famous Ukrainian mathematician A.S. undertook to conduct detailed studies of the shafts. Bull.

While examining the shafts, A.S. Bugai discovered in them coal from burnt logs, the age of which was determined by radiocarbon dating. Based on the data obtained, A. S. Bugai dates the ramparts to the 2nd century. BC. – 7th century AD . The map of the shafts he published shows the dates of radiocarbon analysis in the places where coal samples were taken. A total of 14 dates are recorded for nine shaft lines within 150 BC. – 550 AD, including two dates – II-I centuries. BC, one each - II and III centuries, six - IV century, two - V century. and two - VI century. If we evaluate the obtained definitions objectively, then the shafts date back to the 2nd century. BC e. – VI century AD(Book by M.P. Kucher. Serpentine Shafts of the Middle Dnieper. Kyiv, Publishing house Naukova Dumka, 1987)

Somehow, official science missed the mathematician’s research at some point. They were confused, however, and preferred not to particularly advertise the results, because related questions and corresponding conclusions immediately arose, which categorically did not suit not so much the scientists as their masters from the political leadership of the country.

If we summarize the dating results obtained, then the main time of construction of the Serpentine Shafts is the 2-6th century AD. That is, the time when the Gothic state existed here. The volume of excavation work, as experts estimate, is about 160-200 million cubic meters of soil. All shafts at the base had wooden frames, which served as the base of the shaft. Indeed, such work can only be carried out if there is serious state center and a centralized plan.

Now a few words regarding archaeological data. It is clear that Soviet scientific managers, such as Academician Rybakov, had a clear instruction not to categorically remember any such people, which they generally did with obvious success. “Success” is evidenced by the fact that no one in the country had heard of any Goths or Germans in Ancient Rus'. All finds, all their systematization was based on the fact that the data of chronicles and archeology were attributed to anyone, but not to the Goths or Germans. However, objective data inexorably accumulated. And already in our time a book was published by St. Petersburg archaeologist M.B. Shchukin, which is called “The Gothic Way”, in which the author summarized archeological data regarding the presence of Gothic material culture in the territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea (see Shchukin M.B. The Gothic Way (Goths, Rome and Chernyakhov culture). - St. Petersburg .: Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University, 2005.)

Drawing conclusions from the results of archaeological data regarding the 4th-5th centuries AD, Shchukin writes: “It was by this time that a vast territory, from Eastern Transylvania to the headwaters of the Pela and Seima rivers in Kursk region Russia, on an area not much smaller than the whole of Western and Central Europe, turned out to be covered with a dense network of settlements and burial grounds, surprisingly uniform in their cultural appearance.”(Shchukin M.B. Gothic Way p. 164 ) . We are talking about the monuments of the so-called Chernyakhov culture, known to archaeologists, which dominates the area from the Baltic to the Black Sea. This culture, as Shchukin convincingly proves, quite obviously corresponds to the settlements of the Goths (although they are trying to attribute it to anyone, even the Slavs, who came 500 years later, only to cross out the Goths). A significant amount of data has been accumulated about this culture, which allows us to build a clear picture of the settlement of the Goths, their trade and cultural contacts.

Regarding the density of monuments of the Chernyakhov culture, Shchukin reports: “Traces of the Chernyakhov settlements sometimes stretch for several kilometers. It seems that we are dealing with a certain, very large population, and the population density in the 4th century. slightly inferior to the modern one.” ( there)

Regarding the quality of objects of the Chernyakhov culture, Shchukin, summarizing the opinion of archaeologists, gives the following assessment: “These are, of course, products of highly qualified craftsmen, sometimes achieving perfection; their creation of masterpieces of applied art is, of course, a manifestation of the “high technologies” of that time. We will not find such a set of forms for this period either among the potters of antiquity or in the Barbaricums of Europe.”(ibid.)

Summarizing the archaeological data, we can safely say that in the territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea, in the territory that we now perceive as the historical territory of Rus', there was a serious center of civilization that had signs of political, cultural and economic unity.

The Scandinavians have preserved epic works about this time. Here it is necessary to recall that the Goths are an East German people, close to the Scandinavian branch of the Germans - the Swedes, Danes, and Icelanders. The Swedes themselves also come from Germanic and Gothic tribes. The Hervör Saga, recorded in the 13th century, speaks of the country of Gardarik and Reidgotland, and the capital of Arheimar on the banks of the Dnieper. It also talks about the battle with the Huns. All this corresponds to historical data, because it was there on the territory of the Gothic power, the future Rus', that the Goths encountered the nomadic Huns, against whom they built the Serpentine Ramparts.

What is interesting about Russian folk tradition Memories of Germanarich's power have been preserved, which gives us further reason to link this story with the Russian one.

All of the above about the country of the Goths, located between the Baltic and the Black Sea, is only a small fraction of the existing materials and data on this topic, and I will address them in more detail in subsequent chapters.

From ready to russian

Now, perhaps, we should move on to the main question, what does the power of the Goths have to do with the people? Rus, to historical Rus', to Russia and to the current Russian people. The most direct. And here, in fact, there are no mysteries for a long time. True, from the side of the so-called historical science, official, it is believed that there is ambiguity, however, in fact, these are not mysteries, but only silence or outright lies. Probably, as happens with many things, in this case we have the largest falsification in history.

Indeed, there is no doubt about the information reported by Eastern and Western chroniclers, merchants, and travelers of that time about the “Rus” people, with the official dating according to which they called Rus with Rurik only in 862 to Novgorod, either from Denmark, or from the lands of the Baltic Wagrians. Let's start with the fact that Novgorod itself, as has already been proven, was founded at least 50 years later. Large-scale trips undertaken Rus, territories that Rus occupies, trade operations and embassies, which Rus organizes, there was no way a handful of aliens could do it. Moreover, a lot of things, again according to officialdom, they should have done earlier than they arrived according to the official dating. And at the same time it is clear that Rus These are not Slavs, as official historians are trying to portray.

Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who reigned from 945 to 959, in his essay “On the Administration of the Empire” in the chapter “On the dews departing with monoxyls from Russia to Constantinople” reports the names of the Dnieper rapids in Russian and Slavic, calling the Slavs pactiots of the Rus “The Slavs, their paktiots, namely the Kriviteins, Lenzanins and other Slavinians...”. What is not clear here, what are the difficulties? Paktiots means subordinate allies, and judging by the names of the tribes, we are talking about the Krivichi and Lusatian tribes, then living in the upper reaches of the Dnieper. The Byzantines could perfectly distinguish the Rus from the Slavs. Well, the names of the rapids themselves in Russian - “Ess(o)upi”, (O)ulvorsi, “Gelandri” “Aifor” “Varouforos” “Leandi” “Strukun”, as all researchers admit, have obvious Germanic roots.

In fact, the most probable, and most likely the only correct version of the origin of the ethnonym Rus put forward back in the 19th century by the dean of the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw, Professor A. S. Budilovich. At the 8th Congress of Archaeologists in 1890, he read a report where he outlined an explanation of the origin of the ethnonym. The epic nickname of the Goths, Hreidhgotar, is known, for which the more ancient form Hrôthigutans ("glorious Goths") has been restored. He both historically and ethnologically connected Rus' with the Goths, and its name with the Gothic basis hrôth, “glory.” If we translate the transcription, it sounded like hrös with a German umlaut, where the sound ö is something between Russian е and о, and in Russian it sounded like ryus with a soft “s” at the end and the first aspirated sound х, which is in the Slavic language missing and therefore lost. Actually we have an exact match rus or grew up, which in Slavic sound was reproduced with a soft “s” like Rus' or grow up. Rus, grew up, this is a self-name coming directly from Gothic. And this is absolutely logical - Rus continues the history of the ancient Gothic state, the people of Gothic origin, but in the next historical period.

The modern historian Egorov in his work “Rus and Rus' Again” writes: “So, not the legendary, but the historical state of Reidgotaland was created in the 3rd century AD. Black Sea Goths, who called themselves and are known to us in foreign language transmission as: hros / hrus, ros / rus, rodi, ‛ρω̃ς. On East Slavic soil, the aspiration [h] that was absent in the Old Russian language inevitably had to disappear, and [θ] should have moved similarly to the Greek language into [s]: → → ros/rus. Therefore, it can be justifiably stated that linguistically transformation in Old Russian language ethnonym Greuthungi in Russia it’s quite natural.”(V. Egorov “Rus and Rus' again”)

This is how the mystery was revealed. And everything falls into place, for the history of Kievan Rus naturally follows from the previous history of the Goths, which in turn follows from the ancient history of Scythia. It is immediately clear where the people Ros, Rus, Eros come from in the early medieval chronicles of Byzantine and Arab authors of the 6th and 7th centuries. And another question is resolved, which baffled even the Normanists, the question of where so many Varangians came from in Rus' that they gave it a name, a name for the people, constituted the ruling layer of the ancient Russian state and filled its considerable army that went on formidable campaigns. It was impossible for so many people to migrate from Scandinavia overnight. Indeed, it couldn't. Everything is very simple, the Varangians-Russ have lived here from time immemorial, and the state has been here from time immemorial. And then, the people of Rus' became the basis of Kievan Rus, its state-forming people, and Kievan Rus itself was the heir to the state of the ancient Goths.

Just like the Goths, who subsequently took other names and went down in history under them - Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Gepids and so on, so here in Eastern Europe they adopted a new ethnonym, which became known to us as Russian.

Nestor talks about the fact that the Slavs and Rus' are different peoples, and about the secondary role of the Slavs in the PVL when describing the campaign of the Prophetic Oleg to Constantinople in 907, when Oleg orders the distribution of the sails: “And Oleg said: “look for the (sails) pavolochiti (thick embroidered silk) of Rus', and the word kropiinnyya (cheap silk)...".

Indeed, people Rus already present in chronicles from the 6th–7th centuries. The Syrian chronicler known as Zechariah of Mytilene contains a passage about the Eros people. The Rus are mentioned by the 10th century Arab historian, At-Tabari, in the History of Prophets and Kings, when describing the events of 644. The ruler of Derbent, Shahriyar, writes to the ruler of the Arabs: “I am between two enemies: one is the Khazars, and the other is the Rus, who are enemies of the whole world, especially the Arabs, and no one knows how to fight them except the local people. Instead of paying tribute, we will fight the Russians ourselves and with our own weapons and we will hold them back so that they do not leave their country.”

In the 9th-10th centuries, eastern chroniclers report that the Rus organized a series of campaigns in the Caspian Sea. In 884, according to the information of the 13th century historian Ibn Isfandiyar in the “History of Tabaristan”, it is said that during the reign of the Emir of Tabaristan Alid al-Hasan, the Rus attacked the city of Abaskun in the Gulf of Astrabad (the southern part of the Caspian Sea, now modern Iran). In 909 and 910, a Russian fleet of 16 ships again raided Abaskun. In 913, 500 ships entered the Kerch Strait and, having ascended the Don, with the permission of the Khazars, they then crossed to the Volga and, descending along it, entered the Caspian Sea. There they attacked the Iranian cities of the Southern Caspian - Gilan, Deylem, Abaskun. The Rus then moved to the west coast and launched attacks in the territory of Shirvan (modern Azerbaijan). Then we went up the Volga to Itil to return. The Khazars, having received part of the spoils, decided to destroy the weakened army of the Rus. The pretext was revenge for the murdered Muslim co-religionists. The Khazar cavalry attacked on a portage from the Volga to the Don. According to information, about 30 thousand Rus were destroyed. Five thousand managed to escape. The next campaign took place in 943/944. The city of Berdaa was taken by the forces of a 3,000-strong detachment led by Helgu.

And again we see the same ships and the same tactics as during the Scythian wars against the Roman Empire.

In general, historians have always noticed that among ancient authors the people rus is perceived as autochthonous, although it was known that the Slavs came to the Dnieper region in the 7-9 centuries. In the 19th century Ilovaisky wrote “ already in the second half of the 9th and in the first 10th centuries the Arabs knew Rus'Howa numerous, strong people, whose neighbors were the Bulgars, Khazars and Pechenegs, who traded on the Volga and in Byzantium. Nowhere is there the slightest hint that they consider Rus' not a native, but an alien people. This news is completely consistent with the campaigns of Russovto the Caspian Sea in the first half of the 10th century, with campaigns that were undertaken by several tens of thousands of warriors." (Ilovaisky D.I. The Beginning of Rus' (“Research about the beginning of Rus'. Instead of an introduction to Russian history.”) It was, in general, clear that there could not be any autochthonous Slavs in the Crimea and the Black Sea region.

Ilovaisky writes there: “Bishop Liutprand of Cremona was twice ambassador to Constantinople in the second half of the 10th century and mentions the Russes twice. In one case he says: “In the north of Constantinople live the Ugrians, Pechenegs, Khazars, Russians, whom we otherwise call the Nordmans, and the Bulgars, their closest neighbors.” Elsewhere, he recalls his stepfather’s story about the attack of Igor’s Rus' on Constantinople and adds: “This is northern people, which the Greeks call Russians due to their external quality, and we call them Nordmans based on the position of their country."

We can safely assume that the Bishop of Cremona knew well the subject of which he spoke.

For clarity, we can cite several excerpts from numerous chronicles, notes and chronicles that baffled followers of the official versions.

“In former times there were many Gothic tribes, and there are many of them even now, but the largest and most significant of them were the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths and Gepids, formerly called Sarmatians, and the Melanchlenians. Some authors called them getae. All these peoples, as has been said, differ from each other only in names, but in all other respects they are similar. All of them are white in body, have brown hair, tall and good-looking.....” Procopius, “War with the Vandals”, book 1, 2.2

The modern historian V. Egorov, who has already been mentioned here, gave an accurate assessment of the PVL (“Tale of Bygone Years”) as a source of misconceptions and insinuations: “Centuries passed, but its status as a chronicle was not shaken by either obvious inconsistencies in its own chronology or obvious discrepancies with “foreign” sources, neither a contradiction to the objective data of archeology, nor outright fantasy, which was bashfully omitted and kept silent even by the primary historians who canonized it. This status for PVL is still preserved, although sometimes it seems that the absolute majority of our contemporaries involved in history treat it, to put it mildly, with distrust. But due to the inertia of tradition and corporate unity of interests, historians never dared to say directly that our queen is naked. Only the bravest of them allowed themselves to hint at the indecent appearance of this high-ranking person, sometimes even very expressively, as, for example, the historian D. Shcheglov did back in the century before last: “ Our chronicle, or, more precisely, our saga about the beginning of the Russian state, included in the subsequent chronicle, knows what did not happen, and does not know what happened ».

From Odin to Kievan Rus

In this way we can try to build a sequence of historical events.

At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, the Gothic tribes, or rather a significant part of them, and their relatives - the Vandals, Gepids, Burgundians, etc., took action to return to their historical homeland - the Black Sea steppes, from which they were taken away 200 years ago leader Odin (Odin's exodus to the north, presumably in the 1st century BC, is another episode of Gothic history, which was substantiated by Thor Heyerdahl . - « The source on which Thor Heyerdahl was based was the “Saga of the Ynglings,” created by the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Strulson - here is the testimony of the scientist himself: “The “Saga of the Ynglings” tells in some detail about the land of the Aesir, located in the lower reaches of Tanais, as it was called in ancient times Don River The leader of the Aesir in ancient times was a certain Odin, a great and wise leader who mastered the arts of witchcraft. Wars with the tribes of the neighboring Vanir people during his time took place with varying degrees of success: the Aesir either won or suffered defeat. For me, this proves that Odin was not a god, but a man, because gods cannot lose. In the end, the war with the Vanir ended peacefully, but the Romans came to the lower reaches of Tanais, and the Aesir, weakened by long wars, were forced to retreat to the north.

I carefully read the sagas and calculated that thirty-one generations passed from Odin to the historical figure - Harald Fairhair (10th century). Everything agrees: the Romans conquered the northern Black Sea region in the 1st century BC. In addition, I was simply amazed when I learned that the Aesir and Vanir tribes were real peoples who inhabited these places BC! And when I looked at the map of the lower reaches of the Don and saw the word “Azov”, I simply could not read it otherwise than “As Hov”, because the ancient Norse word “hov” means a temple or a sacred place!” (Quoted by A. Gaisinsky The unknown history of Rus'. Three components).

Therefore, returning to their ancient homeland, having landed in the Baltic Pomerania at the beginning of the 2nd century, the Goths, by the end of the 2nd century AD. reached the Northern Black Sea region and settled there. Along the way, the Goths settled and asserted their control over territories from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Most likely, their fellow tribesmen still remained in the Black Sea region, who had not once gone north with Odin.

By the beginning of the 3rd century, the Goths already had a semblance of a center and came into contact with outposts of the Roman Empire. By the middle of the 3rd century, the Scythian (Gothic) wars with Rome broke out, which lasted 30 years and as a result of which both sides suffered heavy losses. By the 4th century, the Gothic power had regained its potential. The area of ​​control included Sarmatian, Ugric and Slavic tribes. By the time of Germanarich, towards the end of the 4th century, the Gothic power of Reidgotland had reached the peak of its power. The population of the country, which can be conditionally called Gothic Rus', is numerous and numbers in the millions. A small number of Goths accept Arianism.

And during this period, at the end of the 4th century, a new terrible enemy appeared from the steppe, from the East - the Huns. Germanarich, who is 110 years old, at this time has a conflict with the Roxalan tribe, because of a young wife from this tribe. ( Based on the name of the Roksalan tribe, some have built a whole version about the tribe of Rus Slavs, etc. Unfortunately, there could not be any Slavs there, Roks-Alans, can mean Alan tribe, and if in another extant version - Rosso-mons, then by the root of Mona or mana - that is, people in Gothic, then this is more likely a Gothic tribe . The plot was reflected in the sagas, the girl’s name was Sunilda, and her brothers, who wounded Germanarich, were called Sar and Ammius, which is clearly not similar to Slavic names ). Perhaps the Gothic power collapsed due to the enmity that arose. Meanwhile, the Huns inflicted a series of defeats on the Goths, split into hostile camps. The country is devastated and defenseless. After the death of Germanarich, part of the Goths went to the West. Later they carried out the complete defeat of the Western Roman Empire and founded a number of states in Europe, giving rise to a new era in the West. The other part of the Goths submitted to the leader of the Huns, Attila.

Then, over the course of 2 centuries, the Goths who remained on the territory of Reidgotland restored their potential. During this time, some of them adopted another ethnonym ros/rus, perhaps by the name of some tribe. Most likely, the descendants of the Sarmatians and Alans living in this area were integrated with the Goths. At this time, the integration of Finno-Ugric peoples into the Gothic area continued. In the 8th-9th century, the integration of the Slavs began, who moved from the Danube to the Dnieper, from the oppression of aggressive nomads - Avars, Magyars. The Slavs, immigrants from the West, apparently make up 20-25% of the population of the area under Gothic influence. The Khazars began to control part of the territory of Gothic Rus'. By the 8th-9th century Rus has accumulated potential for assembly. Integrated Slavs who moved into the area Rus', under their protection, became involved in the economic and military activities of the Russian princes, and later, by the end of the 10th century, adopted the ethnonym Rus. In the 10th century, the Slavic language began to be widely used for communication due to increased trade.

However, the military-political elite was Rus. It is worth recalling the list of names in the text of the 911 treaty with the Byzantine emperor given in the PVL: “We are from the Russian family - Karls, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudy, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Fost, Stemid - sent from Oleg, the Grand Duke of the Russians...”. As you can see, these are all German names.

At the end of the 10th century, in 988, as a result of the treaty Prince of Kyiv with Byzantium, Kievan Rus officially adopted Byzantine Christianity. Clergymen from Bulgaria poured into rich Rus', bringing books, written and linguistic culture based on the Church Slavonic language, that is, the Bulgarian language. Intellectual activity, which is concentrated in monasteries, correspondence, everything is conducted in Bulgarian. As a result, Church Slavonic becomes the administrative language, in fact Bulgarian language. Without participation in church ceremonies, that is, without knowledge of the Bulgarian language, access to positions is excluded. The Slavic language is already used by a third of the population of Kievan Rus - Slavs by origin, and was already partly the language of communication. Under such administrative conditions, there is a rapid decline in the use of the Gothic language Rus'(especially since due to fears of turning to Arianism, the Gothic alphabet and language are prohibited by the Byzantine church). By the end of the 11th century, the population completely switched to a language with a Slavic base. Then, in the 13th century, during the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, a significant part of the elite, who preserved the memory of their past, was destroyed. The ancient centers of the most compact habitation were destroyed Rus'- Azov-Black Sea Rus' - Korsun, Tmutarakan Principality, etc. The remnants flee north. Under control Orthodox Church, which has received privileges, there is a complete erasure of historical memory and trampling down the remnants of the Gothic past of Rus', since, according to Orthodox ideologists, this may contribute to the trend of transition to Catholicism. The Church considered the fight against Catholicism to be the most important thing. In the 15-16 centuries, family books and records preserved in princely houses, which could preserve the memory of the non-Slavic past of Rus', were successively destroyed. By the 16th century, the process of erasing memory seemed to be completed. But the roots still remained. Both in the soul and in everyday life.

To understand why we need historical truth, we need to understand why the ruling regimes in Rus'-Russia needed historical lies. After all, as is clear, by the end of the 19th century there was already a certain clarity.

In fact, despite the fact that the truth has been erased for a millennium, this past, even leaving archeology aside, is present with us. And in what we use every day and in what makes its way to us from the depths of the subconscious.

You can cite a lot of words that have been preserved in the Russian language from the Gothic base.

think - goth. domjan "to judge"

debt - goth. dulgs "duty"

sword - Gothic mēkeis

bread - Gothic hlaifs

barn - Gothic hlaiw

banner - hrungō

boiler - katils

dish/dish, - Gothic. biuÞs "dish"

buy - kaurōn “to trade

kusiti (hence Russian: tempt) - Gothic. kausjan "to try";

interest (interest, growth) - Gothic. leiƕa “loan, loan”, leiƕаn “to lend”

flattery “cunning, deception” - Gothic. lists "trick"

cattle - Gothic skatts "state"

salt - goth salt "salt"!}

glass - gothic stikls "cup"

vineyard - Gothic weinagards "grapevine"

Also, the most important words related to military affairs came to us from Gothic helmet, armor,knight, regiment, With social relations prince, hetman, ataman, guest, with a house hut,gates, hut, with church affairs church, fast, with land cultivation plow and many more words included in the basic conceptual apparatus associated with home, food and war. Just words bread, salt mean that these almost main concepts in human everyday life came to us from this past. Despite the fact that the Bulgarian language was harshly enforced, the most important words of the modern Russian language were left to us from Rus'. Although some of the words ended up in other Slavic languages, apparently during the reign of Germanaric. Now hundreds of such words are known, the origin of which is easily determined, but there are still a lot of words whose etymology is confusing, and among which there is probably a huge layer that we inherited from Rus'.

The loss of a language, the transition to another language base due to administrative influence or some historical events, is not something out of the ordinary. The German-speaking Franks began to speak the language of the conquered Gauls, who had previously switched to corrupted Latin, now French. The Celts of Ireland switched to English, and the Slavs of Pannonia, 95% of whom were completely switched to the language of 5% Magyars, Hungarians. This happens in history.

However, let's continue with the roots. There are others interesting points reflecting the surviving elements of historical memory.

If you pay attention to the history of the Cossacks, they firmly understood their connection with the history of the Goths and Sarmatians. Even in the 16th century, among the Cossacks, the memory of the Gothic past, reflected in their names, was preserved. Here is what the famous Cossack historian of the early 20th century, Evgraf Savelyev, writes: “In the 5th century, Priscus mentions Aspar among the Alanian leaders, one of whose sons was called Erminarik, which name is identified with the name of the Gothic leader of the same time Ermanarik. Consequently, the name Ermi, Christian Ermiy 46), Erminarik, or Ermanarik, was not alien to the ancient Royal Scythians, i.e. Black Bulgarians, or Alano-Goths. The ancient original form of this name is Herman, or Geriman (German), i.e. a man from the ancient sacred Gerros (Ger-ros); hence the diminutive versions of this name: Germanik, Germinarik, or Erminarik, Ermanarik, Ermik, and the magnifying version in the popular pronunciation is Alano-Gotov, i.e. Azov Cossacks, Ermak...”

As you know, Ermak was from the so-called Azov Cossacks. Here is another “riddle” that all sorts of academics have been going around, which, as it turned out, has an answer for a long time. Evgraf Savelyev further directly calls Ermak a goth.

We must also remember the Novgorod ushkuiniks who remembered their origins from Rus' They also preserved ancient Germanic names, such as Aifal Nikitin, a famous Novgorod boyar of the 15th century, ataman of the Ushkuy freemen.

Well, it would not be superfluous to recall the history of the Cossack campaigns against Istanbul and the shores of Asia Minor. They repeat the tactics and routes of the Gothic sea campaigns of the Scythian wars. The prefect of Cafa, Emiddio Dortelli d'Ascoli, in 1634, characterized the Cossack plows (gulls, oaks) in battle: “If the Black Sea has always been angry since ancient times, now it is undoubtedly blacker and more terrible due to the numerous seagulls that devastate the sea and land all summer. These seagulls are long, like frigates, can accommodate 50 people, and row and sail.”

The seagulls are the same monoxyls that the Goths used to attack Byzantine cities - the monoxyls also accommodated 50 soldiers. Here are literally a few episodes of Cossack campaigns - In 1651, 900 Donets on 12 large plows entered the Black Sea and attacked the Turkish city of Stone Bazaar near Sinop. They took 600 prisoners and many slaves. On the way back, three large merchant ships carrying wheat to Istanbul were captured and sunk.

The following year, a thousand Donets on 15 plows, led by Ataman Ivan the Rich, again broke into the Black Sea, devastated the shores of Rumelia and visited Istanbul, taking rich booty. On the way back, I caught up with the Cossacks Turkish squadron from 10 galleys, but the Cossacks defeated her.

In May 1656, atamans Ivan Bogaty and Budan Voloshanin, on 19 plows with 1,300 Cossacks, plundered the Crimean coast from Sudak to Balykleya (Balaklava), then crossed the Black Sea and tried to take Trabzon in Turkey by storm. The attack was repulsed, and then the atamans plundered the smaller city of Tripoli. On August 18, the Cossacks, after a 3-month campaign, returned to the Don with rich booty, from where three days later a new batch of those wishing to annoy the Tatars and Turks emerged on the same plows. One part of them attacked Azov, and the other immediately headed to the coast of Crimea, where Temryuk, Taman, Kafa and Balakleya were devastated.

So it wasn’t just names that reflected the past.

Not only among the Cossacks, but also in the people's memory, images of Ancient Rus' were preserved. The great Russian poet and writer Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin drew his amazing stories from his nanny, Arina Rodionovna. This has always aroused interest in its origins. Unfortunately, literary scholars puzzled over where the Russian peasant woman got such images from, and they came up with the idea that she was supposedly a “Chukhonka,” that is, a Karelian or Izhorian. Recent studies of metric books prove that her ancestors were Russian. That is, Arina Rodionovna was the bearer of the Russian folk oral tradition, which reflected Gothic Rus', its stories and images. Therefore, we meet there something that the Slavs could not have had. These are the stories Rus', who lived on the shores of the Russian Sea, what is now called the Black Sea. “An old man lived with his old woman. At the very blue seas" - This is how "The Tale of the Old Man and the Goldfish" begins. Anyone who has been to the Baltic understands that no matter how much one wants to call this sea blue, at the same time there is, as the song says, “the bluest in the world – my Black Sea.” And if you carefully look at the plots, the names of the heroes - Chernomor and 33 heroes emerging from the sea, Tsar Saltan, Guidon, Ruslan, Rogdai, Farlaf, then images of the Varangians, sea warriors arise, which reflect a special world. This world is not like the landscapes of the forests near Moscow; there is not even a hint of Slavicism in it. And this world fits surprisingly well into our consciousness as a national epic. Pushkin, a great artist, could read the ancient images of Gothic Rus' and embody them in his works.

Another famous story about Kashchei the Immortal is preserved in Russian fairy tales, and which no other nation has. As the researchers figured out, the plot is based on the story of Germanarich. For people of that era, when life expectancy was not long, a king who was 110 years old was perceived as immortal. Indeed, what could a 70-year-old man say to his grandchildren when he, as a young man, remembered the old Germanarich? In the real past, Germanarich also married a young girl. This is how, in folk tradition, we find a connection with our past.

Now readers probably have a question about who we should consider ourselves to be - German Goths, Slavs, Sarmatians or Finno-Ugric peoples. In fact, the question is not posed correctly, therefore, none of the answers are acceptable. We are Russians, descendants of all these peoples who are intertwined in historical destiny. But if we put the question differently, whose heirs are the Russian people, whose land, whose history, whose glory we are inheriting - the answer is clear, we are the heirs of Rus', and through them, the heirs of the GLORIOUS GOTHS. And we have no other options, when we realize, then we will awaken.

Another question arises: what was the interest of the ruling classes of Russia in hiding the true history of the Russian people? More than one monograph can and should probably be written on this issue, but I will try to answer briefly. The fact is that the designation of the Goths and Germans as historical ancestors, the presence of Gothic Rus' made our people and their elite equal to the free peoples of Europe, many of whom traced their origins to the Goths. In such a situation, it was in no way possible to build an eastern despotism. This is an important and even key point. It is impossible to force a person to put up with his slave position if he knows that he is a descendant of free people. Therefore, in tsarist historiography the Cossacks were persistently declared to be the descendants of runaway slaves.

Before unfinished chapters

This work, of course, is only a small review, and in my opinion it requires continuation. Much has been left behind the scenes in order to more fully build our story. And the name of Prince Vladimir’s mother, whom Nestor called Malferd – that is, Malfrida. And about the beautiful Gothic maidens from “The Tale of the Regiment.” And the history of Azov-Black Sea Rus'. Relationship with other Gothic clans. And the epic of the Nibelungs. And the history of Russian princes. And the participation of the Sarmatians. And consider DNA genealogy.

But the main thing that is needed is to sort out issues related to the faith of our ancestors, to the pantheon of Gods. Perun, Veles, Semargl, what Heavenly powers have we inherited......

But due to the importance of the topic, I decided not to wait for the end of the work and give general information in this material.

The work will continue. Maybe I'll try to make a film.

In this situation, you, the reader, can take part and at the same time express your opinion at your own discretion. Write about your donation to [email protected], and we will include you in our mailing list. If there are enough funds, a book will be published and it will be sent to you.

P.S. On the evening of Wednesday, January 9, there will be a discussion of this material on ARI Radio and it will be possible to discuss the topic and answer your questions.

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