Rus' (name)

This article is about Rus' as a name. For information about the Rus' people, see Rus' people.
"Name of Russia" redirects here. For the television programme, see Name of Russia (Russia TV).
Look up Русь in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Originally, the name Rus’ (Русь, Rus) referred to the people,[1] regions, and medieval states (ninth to twelfth centuries) of the Kievan Rus'. In the Western culture, it is better known as Ruthenia from the eleventh century onwards.[2] Its territories are today distributed among Belarus, Ukraine, and a part of the European section of Russia.

One of the earliest written sources mentioning the people called Rus' (as Rhos) dates back to year 839 in a Carolingian chronicle from Francia, the Annales Bertiniani; the Carolingians identified them as a Germanic tribe called the Swedes. According to the Kievan Rus' Primary Chronicle, compiled in about 1113, the Rus' were a group of Varangians, Norsemen who had relocated somewhere from the Baltic region (literally "from beyond the sea"), first to Northeastern Europe, then to the south where they created the medieval Kievan state.[3]

The modern name of Russia (Rossiya), which came into use in the 17th century, is derived from the Greek Ρωσία, which in turn derives from Ῥῶς, an early Greek name for the people of Rus'.[4] Rus' as a state had no proper name; by its inhabitants it was called rusĭskaja zemlja (русьская земля) – with rusĭskaja becoming russkaja in Modern Russian –, which translates as "Land of the Rus'". The word rusĭskaja is an adjective: the morpheme -ĭsk- corresponds etymologically to English -ish; -aja marks feminine adjectives (namely, zemlja, "land", is grammatically feminine in Slavic). In similar fashion, Poland is called Polska by its inhabitants, that is, Pol-sk-a, originally being the adjective Polish (land).

To distinguish the medieval "Rus'" state from other states that derived from it, modern historiography calls it Kievan Rus'. Its predecessor, the ninth-century Rus' Khaganate, is a somewhat hypothetical state whose existence is inferred from a handful of early medieval Byzantine and Persian and Arabic sources that mention that the Rus' were governed by a khagan.

Etymology

Further information: Rus' people
Sweden in the 9th century. Roslagen is located in Uppland the eastern part of the yellow area of Svealand.
  Swedes
  Geats

According to the most prominent theory, the name Rus', like the Finnish name for Sweden (Ruotsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (the rowing crews) or Roden, as it was known in earlier times.[5][6] The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish, Estonian, Võro and Northern Sami names for Sweden: Ruotsi, Rootsi, Roodsi and Ruoŧŧa.[7] It is remarkable enough that the local Finnic and Permic peoples in northern Russia proper use the same (Rus'-related) name both for Sweden and Russia (depending on the language): thus the Veps name for Sweden and Swedish is Ročinma / Ročin,[8] while in the neighboring Komi language the etymologically corresponding term Ročmu / Roč means already Russia and Russian instead.[9][10]

The Danish scholar Tor Karsten has pointed out that the territory of present-day Uppland, Södermanland and East Gothland in ancient times was known as Roðer or roðin. Thomsen accordingly has suggested that Roðer probably derived from roðsmenn or roðskarlar, meaning seafarers or rowers.[11] Ivar Aasen, the Norwegian philologist and lexicographer, noted Norwegian dialect variants Rossfolk, Rosskar, Rossmann.[12]

Early evidence

In Old East Slavic literature, the East Slavs refer to themselves as "[muzhi] ruskie" ("Rus' men") or, rarely, "rusichi." The East Slavs are thought to have adopted this name from the Varangian elite, which was first mentioned in the 830s in the Annales Bertiniani. The Annales recount that Louis the Pious's court at Ingelheim am Rhein in 839 (the same year as the first appearance of Varangians in Constantinople), was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor. The delegates included two men who called themselves "Rhos" ("Rhos vocari dicebant"). Louis inquired about their origins and learned that they were Swedes. Fearing that they were spies for their brothers the Danes, he jailed them. They were also mentioned in the 860s by Byzantine Patriarch Photius under the name, "Rhos."

Rusiyyah was used by Ahmad ibn Fadlan for Varangians near Astrakhan, and by the Persian traveler Ahmad ibn Rustah who visited Veliky Novgorod and described how the Rus' exploited the Slavs.

As for the Rus, they live on an island ... that takes three days to walk round and is covered with thick undergrowth and forests; it is most unhealthy... They harry the Slavs, using ships to reach them; they carry them off as slaves and... sell them. They have no fields but simply live on what they get from the Slav's lands... When a son is born, the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says, "I shall not leave you with any property: You have only what you can provide with this weapon."[13]

When the Varangians arrived in Constantinople, the Byzantines considered and described the Rhos (Greek Ῥῶς) as a different people from the Slavs. In his treatise De Administrando Imperio, Constantine VII describes the Rhos as the neighbours of Pechenegs who buy from the latter cows, horses, and sheep "because none of these animals may be found in Rhosia". His description represents the Rus' as a warlike northern tribe. Constantine also enumerates the names of the Dnieper cataracts in both Rhos and in Slavic languages. The Rhos names have distinct Germanic etymology:[14]

According to the Primary Chronicle, a historical compilation attributed to the 12th century, Rus' was a group of Varangians who lived on the other side of the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia. The Varangians were first expelled, then invited to rule the warring Slavs and Baltic Finns of Veliky Novgorod:

The four tribes who had been forced to pay tribute to the Varangians - Chuds, Slavs, Merians and Krivichs drove the Varangians back beyond the sea, refused to pay them further tribute, and set out to govern themselves. But there was no law among them, and tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against the other. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to custom. Thus they went overseas to the Varangians, to the Rus. These particular Varangians were known as Rus, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans and Angles, and still others Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichs and the Ves' then said to the Rus, "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come reign as princes, rule over us". Three brothers, with their kinfolk, were selected. They brought with them all the Rus and migrated.

The earliest written mention of the word Rus' or Rus'ian/Russian appears in the Primary Chronicle under the year 912. When describing a peace treaty signed by the Varangian Oleg of Novgorod during his campaign on Constantinople, it contains the following passage, "Oleg sent his men to make peace and sign a treaty between the Greeks and the Rus', saying thus: [...] "We are the Rus': Karl, Inegeld, Farlaf, Veremud, Rulav, Gudi, Ruald, Karn, Frelav, Ruar, Aktevu, Truan, Lidul, Vost, Stemid, sent by Oleg, the great prince of Rus', and all those under him[.]"

It can be noted that none of the Rus' names listed are Slavic and few are likely to be Finnic; most or all are Germanic.

Later, the Primary Chronicle tells us, they conquered Kiev and created Kievan Rus'. The territory they conquered was named after them as were, eventually, the local people (cf. Normans).

However, the Synod Scroll of the Novgorod First Chronicle, which is partly based on the original list of the late 11th Century and partly on the Primary Chronicle, does not name the Varangians asked by the Chuds, Slavs and Krivichs to reign their obstreperous lands as the "Rus'". One can assume that there was no original mention of the Varangians as the Rus' due to the old list predating the Primary Chronicle and the Synod Scroll only referred to the Primary Chronicle if the pages of the old list were blemished.

Other spellings used in Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries were as follows: Ruzi, Ruzzi, Ruzia and Ruzari. But perhaps the most popular term to refer to the Rus' was Rugii, a name of the ancient East Germanic tribe related to the Goths. Olga of Kiev, for instance, was called in the Frankish annals regina Rugorum, that is, "the Queen of the Rugi."

In the 11th century, the dominant term in the Latin tradition was Ruscia. It was used, among others, by Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Cosmas of Prague and Pope Gregory VII in his letter to Izyaslav I. Rucia, Ruzzia, Ruzsia were alternative spellings.

During the 12th century, Ruscia gradually made way for two other Latin terms, "Russia" and "Ruthenia". "Russia" (also spelled Rossia and Russie) was the dominant Romance-language form, first used by Liutprand of Cremona in the 960s and then by Peter Damian in the 1030s. It became ubiquitous in English and French documents in the 12th century. Ruthenia, first documented in the early 12th century Augsburg annals, was a Latin form preferred by the Apostolic Chancery of the Latin Church.

From Rus' to Russia

In modern English historiography, Kievan Rus' is the most common name for the ancient East Slavic state (usually retaining the apostrophe in Rus', a transliteration of the soft sign, ь)[15] followed by "Kievan Rus'", "Kievan Russia", "ancient Russian state", and, extremely rarely, "Kievan Ruthenia". It is also called the Princedom or Principality of Kiev, or just Kiev.

The vast political state was subsequently divided into several parts. The most influential were, in the south, Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia and in the north, Vladimir-Suzdal and the Novgorod Republic. The southern part fell under Polish and Lithuanian influence; the northern part, under much weaker Mongol influence, went on to become a loose federation of principalities.

Patriarch Callistus I of Constantinople in 1361 created two metropolitan sees: the one called Great Rus' in Vladimir and Kiev and the other one called Little Rus' with the centers in Galich (Halych) and Novgorodok (Navahrudak).

There are claims - from Russian authors - that the names are not of Slavic origin[16]

By the 15th century, the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow had reunited the northern parts of the former Kievan Rus'. Ivan III of Russia was the first local ruler to be proclaimed "Grand Prince of all Rus'" (similarly, see Ivan I of Moscow and the Mongol invasion of Rus'). This title was used by the Grand Dukes of Vladimir since early 14th century, and the first prince to use it was Mikhail of Tver. Ivan III was styled by Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor as rex albus and rex Russiae. Later, Rus’ — in the Russian language specifically — evolved into the Byzantine-influenced form, Rossiya (Russia is Ῥωσσία (Rhōssía) in Greek).

Different from other Slavic languages, in the specific case of the Russian language, russkiy (русский) refers to both the Rus' people and modern day Russians, rossiyskiy (российский), with no distinction (deliberately implying both being the same people with the same language - see Russification). In modern Polish the words being ruski (adj. of Rus', Ruthenian, the East Slavs from the historic Kievan Rus') which may equally refer to modern Belarusians, Ukrainians or both, or in a historical context to the people of Kievan Rus'; contrasted to rosyjski (Russian, native to what became of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, developed after the disintegration of the Kievan Rus'). Similarly in other Slavic languages, including modern Ukrainian: rus’kyy (руський) refers to Rus’ (Ruthenian), whereas rosiys’kyy (російський) refers to Russia.

From Rus' to Ukraine

Meanwhile, the southwestern territories of historical Rus' had been incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (whose full name was Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus' and Samogitia). The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as a whole, was dominated by Rus', as it was populated mainly by Rus', many of its nobles were of Rus' origin, and a descendant of Ruthenian, an East Slavic language, is the language of most surviving official documents prior to 1697 (excluding Polish).

The southern territories dominated by Lithuania have cognate names in Russian and Polish, respectively:

While Russian descendants of the Rus' called themselves Russkiye, the residents of these lands called themselves Rusyny or Ruskiye (Ruthenians).

The word "Ukraine" (ukraina) is first recorded in the 15th century Hypatian Codex of the 12th and 13th century Primary Chronicle, whose 1187 entry on the death of Prince Volodymyr of Pereyaslav (aka Volodymyr/Vladimir Monomakh) says “The Ukraina groaned for him”, ѡ нем же Оукраина много постона (o nem že Ukraina mnogo postona).[17] The term is also mentioned for the years 1189, 1213, 1280, and 1282 for various East Slavic lands (for example, Galician Ukrayina, etc.),[18] possibly referring to different principalities of Kievan Rus' (cf. Skljarenko 1991, Pivtorak 1998) or to different borderlands (Vasmer 1953-1958, Rudnyc’kyj and Sychynskyj 1949).

In 1654, under the Pereyaslav Agreement, the Cossack lands of the Zaporozhian Host were signed into the protectorate of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, including the Cossack Hetmanate of Left-bank Ukraine, and Zaporozhia. In Russia, these lands were referred to as Little Russia (Malorossiya). Colonies established in lands ceded from the Ottoman Empire along the Black Sea were called Novorossiya "New Russia".

In the final decades of the 18th century, the Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria dismembered the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in a series of partitions, and all of historic Rus', save for Galicia, became part of the Russian Empire.

During a period of cultural revival after 1840, the members of a secret ideological society in Kiev, the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, revived the use of the name Ukrayina for the homeland of the "Little Russian" people. They drew upon a name which had been used by 17th century Ukrainian Cossacks. It had earlier appeared on 16th century maps of Kiev and its local area (Kievan Rus'). Ukrayina was originally an Old East Slavic word for a "bordered land" or "a separated land parcel, a separate part of a tribe's territory",[19] attested as far back as the 12th century. See krajina for cognates.

In the early 20th century, the name Ukraine became more widely accepted, and was used as the official name for the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic, West Ukrainian People's Republic and Ukrainian State, and for the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Application of the name "Ruthenia" became narrowed to Carpathian Ruthenia (Karpats’ka Rus’), south of the Carpathian Mountains in the Kingdom of Hungary, where many local Slavs consider themselves Rusyns. Carpathian Ruthenia incorporated the cities of Mukacheve (Rusyn: Mukachevo; Hungarian: Munkács), Uzhhorod (Hungarian: Ungvár) and Prešov (Pryashiv; Hungarian: Eperjes). Carpathian Rus' had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary since 907, and had been known as "Magna Rus'" but was also called "Karpato-Rus’" or "Zakarpattya".

Alternate Anti-Normanist theories

A number of alternative etymologies have been suggested. These are derived from the "anti-Normanist" school of thought in Russian historiography during the 19th century and in the Soviet era. These hypotheses are considered unlikely in Western mainstream academia.[7] Slavic and Iranian etymologies suggested by "anti-Normanist" scholars include:

The name Rus' may have originated from the Iranian name of the Volga River (by F. Knauer, Moscow 1901), as well as from the Rosh of Ezekiel.[20] Prof. George Vernadsky has suggested a derivation from the Roxolani or from the Aryan term ronsa (moisture, water). River names such as Ros are common in Eastern Europe.[11]

The Russian linguist I.N. Danilevskiy, in his Ancient Rus as Seen by Contemporaries and Descendants, argued against these theories, stating that the anti-Normanists neglected the realities of the Ancient Slavic languages and that the nation name Rus' could not have arisen from any of the proposed origins.

Danilevskiy further argued that the term followed the general pattern of Slavic names for neighboring Uralic peoples—the Chud', Ves', Perm', Sum', etc.—but that the only possible word that it could be based on, Ruotsi, presented a historical dead-end, since no such tribal or national name was known from non-Slavic sources. "Ruotsi" is, however, the Finnish name for Sweden.[21] Danilevskiy shows that the oldest historical source, the Primary Chronicle, is inconsistent in what it refers to as the "Rus'": in adjacent passages, the Rus' are grouped with Varangians, with the Slavs, and also set apart from the Slavs and Varangians. Danilevskiy suggests that the Rus' were originally not a nation but a social class, which can explain the irregularities in the Primary Chronicle and the lack of early non-Slavic sources.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Rus People"
  2. ↑ Encyclopedia of Ukraine
  3. ↑ Duczko, Wladyslaw (2004). Viking Rus. Brill Publishers. pp. 10–11. ISBN 90-04-13874-9. Retrieved December 1, 2009.
  4. ↑ Milner-Gulland, R. R. (1997). The Russians: The People of Europe. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 1–4. ISBN 9780631218494.
  5. ↑ Benedikz, Benedikt S (2007-04-16). "The Varangians of Byzantium". ISBN 978-0-521-03552-1.
  6. ↑ The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text Translated by O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor ISBN 0-910956-34-0
  7. 1 2 "Russia," Online Etymology Dictionary
  8. ↑ "Зайцева М. И., Муллонен М. И. Словарь вепсского языка (Dictionary of Veps language). Л., «Наука», 1972.
  9. ↑ Zyri͡ansko-russkīĭ i russko-zyri͡anskīĭ slovarʹ (Komi - Russian dictionary) / sostavlennyĭ Pavlom Savvaitovym. Savvaitov, P. I. 1815–1895. Sankt Peterburg: V Tip. Imp. Akademīi Nauk, 1850.
  10. ↑ Русско–коми словарь 12000 слов (Russian – Komi dictionary, Л. М. Безносикова, Н. К. Забоева, Р. И. Коснырева, 2005 год, 752 стр., Коми книжное издательство.
  11. 1 2 Samuel Hazzard Cross; Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, eds. (1953). The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (PDF). Translated by Samuel Hazzard Cross; Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Mediaeval Academy of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 0-910956-34-0. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
  12. ↑ Ivar Aasen, Norsk Ordbog, med dansk Forklaring, Kristiania 1918 (1873), p.612
  13. ↑ Ahmad ibn Rustah, according to National Geographic, March 1985
  14. ↑ H.R. Ellis Davidson, The Viking Road to Byzantium (Allen & Unwin, 1976), p. 83
  15. ↑ Echoes of glasnost in Soviet Ukraine, by Romana M. Bahry, p. viii
  16. ↑ Vasmer, Max (1986). Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language. Moscow: Progress. p. 289..
  17. ↑ PSRL , published online at Izbornyk, 1187.
  18. ↑ PSRL, published online at Izbornyk, 1189, И еха и Смоленьска в борзѣ и приѣхавшю же емоу ко Оукраинѣ Галичькои [галицкои] (I exa i Smolen’ska v borzě i priěxavšju že emu ko Ukraině Galičkoi [galickoi]), 1213, и всю Оукраиноу (i vsju Ukrainu), 1280, города на Въкраини [оукраинѣ] (goroda na Vъkraini [ukraině]), 1282, село на Въкраиници [вокраиници] именемь Воинь, (selo na Vъkrainici [vokrainici] Imenem’ Voin’).
  19. ↑ http://litopys.org.ua/pivtorak/pivt12.htm
  20. ↑ For the most thorough summary of this option see, Jon Ruthven, The Prophecy That Is Shaping History: New Research on Ezekiel's Vision of the End. Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2003, 55-96. ISBN 1-59160-214-9
  21. ↑ Ruotsi - Wikipedia (FI)

References

  • "How Rusyns Became Ukrainians", Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), July 2005. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
  • "We Are More 'Russian' than Them: a History of Myths and Sensations", Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), January 27 – February 2, 2001. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
  • "Such a Deceptive Triunity", Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), May 2–8, 1998. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
  • Hakon Stang, The Naming of Russia (Oslo: Meddelelser, 1996).
  • Y. M. Suzumov. Etymology of Rus (in Appendix to S. Fomin's "Russia before the Second Coming", available on-line in Russian.)
  • P. Pekarskiy. Science and Literature in Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. (St Petersburg, 1862)
  • S. M Solovyov. History of Russia since the Ancient Times. (Moscow, 1993)
  • E. Nakonechniy. The Stolen Name: How the Ruthenians became Ukrainians. (Lviv, 1998)
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