Rus' Khaganate

Rus' Khaganate (, ''Russkiy kaganat'', , ''Ruśkyj kahanat''), or Kaganate of Rus is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe between 830 and the 890s.

The fact that a few sparse contemporaneous sources appear to refer to the leader or leaders of Rus' people at this time with the word ''chacanus'', which might be derived from the title of ''khagan'' as used by groupings of Asian nomads, has led some scholars to suggest that his political organisation can be called a "k(h)aganate". Other scholars have disputed this, as it would have been unlikely for an organisation of Germanic immigrants from the north to adopt such a foreign title. Some historians have criticised the concept of a Rus' Khaganate, calling it a "historiographical phantom", and said that the society of 9th-century Rusʹ cannot be characterised as a state. Still other scholars identify these early mentions of a Rus' political entity headed by a ''chacanus'' with the Kievan Rus' state commonly attested in later sources, whose princes such as Vladimir the Great, () Yaroslav the Wise (), and perhaps Sviatoslav II of Kiev () and Oleg I of Chernigov () were occasionally identified as ''kagans'' in Old East Slavic literature until the late 12th century.

Mentions in documents

Overview

The word ''khagan'' for a leader of some groups of Rus' people is mentioned in several historical sources. According to Constantin Zuckerman (2000), these sources are divided into two chronological groups: three or four Latin and Arabic sources from 839 to 880 (which he labelled "1a, 1b, 1c"), while three Old East Slavic sources (labelled "2a, 2b, 2c") date from 200 years later in the 11th and 12th centuries, and are "fundamentally different". The Perso-Arabic (Islamic) sources mentioning a ''khāqān rus'' or ''Khāqān-i Rus'' all appear to follow a single common chain of tradition tracing back to the "Anonymous Note".
* (1a) The Latin ''Annales Bertiniani'' or "Annals of St. Bertin" (this part written by Prudentius of Troyes, who died in 861) mention certain men called ''Rhos'', whose king ('' rex'') they called ''chacanus'' or ''Chacanus'', visiting Frankish emperor Louis the Pious in Ingelheim in 839.

* (1b) The Latin '' Chronicon Salernitanum'' or "Salerno Chronicle" (anonymous 10th-century chronicle) reports of a diplomatic dispute in 871 between Carolingian emperor Louis the German and Byzantine emperor Basil I, in which Basil (in a letter now lost) appears to have claimed that ''chaganus'' is a title used amongst the Avars, Khazars and Normans; Louis replies he has heard of an Avar ''caganum'', but never of Khazar or Norman ones:

* (1c) The Arabic "Anonymous Note" dating from 870–880, which was reused by a number of Arabic and Persian writers, including the following:
** Ahmad ibn Rustah wrote 903–913 (or 920) in an Arabic-language book that the Rus' had a prince called ''khāqān rus'' or ''Khaqan-Rus''.
** ''Hudud al-'Alam'' (anonymous late-10th-century Persian-language geography text) refers to the Rus' king as "Khāqān-i Rus".
** Abu Saʿīd Gardīzī (died 1061), ''Zayn al-Akhbār'' (11th century), also referred to "Khāqān-i Rus".
* (2a) Hilarion of Kiev's 11th-century '' Sermon on Law and Grace'' mentions the title of ''kagan'' five times, and applies it to Volodimir I (Vladimir/Volodymyr "the Great") ), and his son Georgij, baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise ().
* (2b) A short inscription on the wall of Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv expresses a plea for divine deliverance for the (unnamed) "our kagan", possibly prince Sviatoslav II of Kiev (): "G-d, save our Kagan" (; ).
* (2c) ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign'' (12th century) calls Oleg I of Chernigov a ''kogan''. According to Donald Ostrowski (2018), 'the word ''kogan'' is referring to a specific ruler or just to a time when there were khagans.'

''Annales Bertiniani sub anno'' 839

The earliest claimed reference related to Rus' people ruled by a "khagan" comes from the Frankish Latin ''Annales Bertiniani'', which refer to a group of Norsemen who called themselves ''Rhos'' () and visited Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, around 839. Fearful of returning home via the steppes, which would leave them vulnerable to attacks by the Magyars, these Rhos travelled through the Frankish kingdom accompanied by Byzantine Greek ambassadors from the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus. When questioned by the Frankish king Louis the Pious at Ingelheim, they stated that their leader was known as ''chacanus'' (hypothesized to be either the Latin word for "khagan" or a deformation of Scandinavian proper name ''Håkan''), that they lived far to the north, and that they were Swedes (''comperit eos gentis esse sueonum'').

''Chronicon Salernitanum''

Thirty years later, in spring 871, the eastern and western Roman Emperors, Basil I and Louis II of Italy, quarrelled over control of Bari, which had been besieged by Arabs. The Byzantine Emperor sent an angry letter to his western counterpart, reprimanding him for usurping the title of emperor. He argued that the Frankish rulers are simple '' reges'', while the imperial title properly applied only to the overlord of the Romans, that is, to Basil himself. He also pointed out that each nation has its own title for the supreme ruler: for instance, the title of ''chaganus'' is used by the overlords of the Avars (''Avari''), Khazars (''Gazari''), and " Northmen" (''Nortmanni''). To that, Louis replied that he was aware only of the Avar khagans, and had never heard of the khagans of the Khazars and Normans. The content of Basil's letter, now lost, is reconstructed from Louis's reply, quoted in full in the '' Chronicon Salernitanum'' ("Salerno Chronicle"). According to Dolger, it indicates that at least one group of Scandinavians had a ruler who called himself "khagan", but Ostrowski (2018) countered: 'The letter of Louis II to Basil I states specifically that the Northmen do not have a khagan. From that, the non-extant letter of Basil I has been thought to have stated that the Northmen had a khagan, but we do not know that. (...) Besides, even if Basil's letter did assert that the ruler of the Northmen was called a khagan, that testimony is negated by the statement of Louis II that their ruler is not called a khagan.'

Arabic-Persian sources

Ahmad ibn Rustah, a 10th-century Persian Muslim geographer, wrote that the Rus' khagan ("khāqān rus") lived on an island in a lake. Constantin Zuckerman comments that Ibn Rustah, using the text of the Anonymous Note from the 870s, attempted to accurately convey the titles of all rulers described by its author, which makes his evidence all the more invaluable. Ibn Rustah mentions only two khagans in his treatise—those of Khazaria and Rus.

''Hudud al-'Alam'', an anonymous geography text written in Persian during the late 10th century ( 982–983), refers to the Rus' king as "Khāqān-i Rus". The unknown author of ''Hudud al-Alam'' relied on several 9th-century and 10th-century sources. Abu Said Gardizi, an 11th-century Persian Muslim geographer, mentioned "khāqān-i rus" in his work ''Zayn al-Akhbār''. Ibn Rustah, the ''Hudud al-Alam'' and Gardizi all copied their information from the same late 9th-century source.

Zuckerman (2000) argued that Ya'qubi, '' Kitab al-Buldan'' ("The Book of Countries", 889–890), also has a relevant passage. In a legendary story about a siege of the Tsanars in the Caucasus in 854, mention is made of "the overlords (''sahib'') of the Byzantines (''al-Rum''), of the Khazars, and of the Slavs (''al- Saqaliba'')", which Zuckerman connected with a supposed Rus' ''khagan''. According to Zuckerman, Ibn Khordadbeh and other Arab authors often confused the terms Rus and Saqaliba when describing Caspian expeditions of the Rusʹ in the 9th and 10th centuries. But Ibn Khordādbeh's '' Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' does not mention the title of "khagan" for the ruler of Rus'.

Old East Slavic sources

The three later Old East Slavic sources mentioning a ''kagan'' ( Hilarion of Kiev's 11th-century '' Sermon on Law and Grace'', and the 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv inscription) or ''kogan'' (the 12th-century ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign'') have generally been understood to refer to the ruler of Kievan Rus'. According to Halperin (1987), the title ''kagan'' in the ''Annales Bertiniani sub anno'' 839, Hilarion's ''Sermon'', and in ''The Tale of Igor's Campaign'' all apply to "the ruler of Kiev". He agreed with Peter B. Golden (1982) that this reflected Khazar influence on Kievan Rus', and argued that the use of a "steppe title" in Kiev 'may be the only case of the title's use by a non-nomadic people'. Halperin also found it "highly anomalous" that a Christian prelate like Hilarion would 'laud his ruler with a shamanist title', adding in 2022: "The Christian ethos of the sermon is marred by Ilarion's attribution to Vladimir of the Khazar title ''kagan'', which was definitely not Christian."

Hilarion's '' Sermon on Law and Grace'' mentions the word ''kagan'' () throughout the text, a total of five times.
# и похвала каганоу нашемоу влодимероу, ѿ негоже крещени быхом ("And: an encomium to our kagan Volodimer, by whom we were baptized.")
# великааго кагана нашеа земли Володимера, вънука старааго Игоря, сына же славнааго Святослава ("the great kagan of our land Volodimer, the grandson of Igor' of old, and the son of the glorious Svjatoslav.")
# каганъ нашь Влодимеръ ("Volodimer, our kagan")
# Съвлѣче же ся убо каганъ нашь и съ ризами ветъхааго человѣка ("So our kagan cast off his clothing")
# Паче же помолися о сынѣ твоемь, благовѣрнѣмь каганѣ нашемь Георгии ("And furthermore, pray for your son, our devout kagan, Georgij";). Georgij was the baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise, who reigned in Kiev at the time and was Hilarion's patron.

A colophon preserved in a 15th-century manuscript, at the end of a set of works usually attributed to Hilarion, adds one more mention: Быша же си въ лѣто 6559 (1051), владычествующу благовѣрьному кагану Ярославу, сыну Владимирю. Аминь. ("These things came to pass in the year 6559 (1051), during the reign of the pious kagan Jaroslav, the son to Volodimer, Amen.")

Absence in other contemporary sources

The absence of any ''khagan'' in the following sources has been taken by several scholars as evidence indicating either that there had never been a Rus' khaganate (Tolochko 2015, Ostrowski 2018), or that it must have disappeared by 911 (Zuckerman 2000), probably already before 900 (Golden 1982).
* The '' Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' ( 870) written by Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh does mention the Rus' as important traders, but does not mention a title of a Rus' ruler in his chapter "Titles of the rulers of the Earth", where only the Turks, Tibetans and Khazars are said to be ruled by ''khaqans.'' If the Rus' had a ''khaqan'' at the time, the author would have been expected to mention it, but he did not. Ibn Khordadbeh's book is a notable exception amongst the Arabic-Persian sources in mentioning the Rus', but not a ''khaqan''; more generally, his information also does not appear to stem from the same source (possibly the now-lost book written by Jayhani) used by others such as Ibn Rusta and Gardizi.
* The ''Primary Chronicle'' (an anonymous Rus' chronicle completed 1110) does not mention the title of ''khagan'' anywhere, for example in the three Rus'-Byzantine treaties of 907, 911, and 944.
* The ''Risala'' of Ahmad ibn Fadlan (written in Arabic, documenting his visit to Kievan Rus' around 922) calls the monarch of the Rus' a ''malik'' (Arabic for "king"), not a ''qagan'', even though it does say that 'the king of the Khazars scalled a Qagan'.
* '' De Ceremoniis'' (a Greek book on ceremonial protocol at the Byzantine court from the 950s) meticulously documents the titles of foreign rulers, but when it deals with Olga of Kiev's reception at the court Constantine VII in 945, it does not call her a ''khagan'', but an ''archon'' (Greek for "ruler").

Dating

The dating of the Khaganate's existence has been the subject of debates among scholars and remains unclear. Paul Robert Magocsi and Omeljan Pritsak (Ukrainians) date the foundation of the Khaganate to be around the year 830.Pritsak, ''Origin of Rus', passim.'' According to Magocsi, "A violent civil war took place during the 820s. ... The losers of the internal political struggle, known as Kabars, fled northward to the Varangian Rus' in the upper Volga region, near Rostov, and southward to the Magyars, who formerly had been loyal vassals of the Khazars. The presence of Kabar political refugees from Khazaria among the Varangian traders in Rostov helped to raise the latter's prestige, with the consequence that by the 830s a new power center known as the Rus' Kaganate had come into existence." Whatever the accuracy of such estimates may be, there are no primary sources mentioning the Rus' or its khagans prior to the 830s. Omeljan Pritsak noted that the leader of those Kabars was Khan-Tuvan.Pritsak, ''Origins of Rus' ''1:28, 171, 182.

Golden (1982) and Zuckerman (2000) concluded that if a Rus' khaganate had existed, it must have disappeared before 900, as references to a Rus' khagan are last recorded in the 880s, and do not return until the 11th century. Various possible reasons for its disappearance have been suggested. The ''Primary Chronicle'' describes the uprising of the pagan Slavs and Chudes (Baltic Finns) against the Varangians, who had to withdraw overseas in 862. The ''Novgorod First Chronicle'', whose account of the events Shakhmatov considered more trustworthy, does not pinpoint the pre-Rurikid uprising to any specific date. The 16th-century ''Nikon Chronicle'' attributes the banishment of the Varangians from the country to Vadim the Bold. The Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Braychevskiy labelled Vadim's rebellion "a pagan reaction" against the Christianization of the Rus'. A period of unrest and anarchy followed, dated by Zuckerman to 875–900. The absence of coin hoards from the 880s and 890s suggests that the Volga trade route ceased functioning, precipitating "the first silver crisis in Europe".

After this economic depression and period of political upheaval, the region experienced a resurgence beginning in around 900. Zuckerman associates this recovery with the arrival of Rurik and his men, who turned their attention from the Volga to the Dnieper, for reasons as yet uncertain. The Scandinavian settlements in Ladoga and Novgorod revived and started to grow rapidly. During the first decade of the 10th century, a large trade outpost was formed on the Dnieper in Gnezdovo, near modern Smolensk. Another Dnieper settlement, Kiev, developed into an important urban centre roughly in the same period.

Possible locations

The location of the purported khaganate, more specifically the residence of the supposed ''khagan'', has been actively disputed since the late 19th century. Sites proposed by scholars have included the following:
* The Middle Dnieper including Kiev (Kyiv): Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1904, the Kievan ''khagan'' being Slavic), Alexander Vasiliev (1946, the Kievan ''khagan'' being Varangian-Swedish), Boris Rybakov, Lev Gumilev, Mikhail Artamonov (1940, the Kievan ''khagan'' being Slavic), Alexander V. Riasanovsky (1962, the Kievan ''khagan'' being Slavic), Anatoly Novoseltsev, Aleksandr Nazarenko, , Charles J. Halperin (1987).
* The Lower Dnieper near the Black Sea: Vasilii G. Vasil’evskii (1915; the ''khagan'' being Khazar).
* The Sea of Azov ( Tmutarakan): George Vernadsky (1940).
* "Southern Rus'": Julius Brutzkus (1935, the ''khagan'' being Khazar).
* the Middle Don and the Siverskyi Donets basin: E. S. Galkina (2002).''Галкина Е. С.'
Тайны Русского каганата
— М., 2002.
* The interfluve of the Middle Don and the upper Oka to the Middle Dnieper: , Peter Benjamin Golden.
* The Upper Volga region: Simon Franklin & Jonathan Shepard (1996, one of 4 options).
** Rostov: Paul Robert Magocsi (2010), Lawrence N. Langer (2021, one of 3 options).
* The Volkhov river region: Aleksey Shakhmatov, Sergey Platonov, Vasily Bartold, Omeljan Pritsak, Constantin Zuckerman, Dmitry Machinsky, .
** Rurikovo Gorodische (Holmgard) near Veliky Novgorod: Jonathan Shepard (1995), Simon Franklin & Jonathan Shepard (1996, one of 4 options), Lawrence N. Langer (2021, one of 3 options).
** Lake Ilmen: Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e (1915), Imre Boba (1968).
** Staraya Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg): Simon Franklin & Jonathan Shepard (1996, one of 4 options), Lawrence N. Langer (2021, one of 3 options).
** Staraya Russa.
* The land of the Chud: Ernst Kunik (1844).
* East Sweden (Birka): Simon Franklin & Jonathan Shepard (1996, one of 4 options), Ildar Garipzanov (2006, it was an (East) Swedish ''kongur'' named '' Håkan'' who may have operated in North Rus', but without permanent residence)
* ''Nowhere'': Oleksiy Tolochko (2015), Donald Ostrowski (2018).

Kiev

Soviet historiography, as represented by Boris Rybakov and Lev Gumilev, advanced Kiev as the residence of the khagan, assuming that Askold and Dir were the only khagans recorded by name. Mikhail Artamonov became an adherent of the theory that Kiev was the seat of the Rus' Khaganate, and continued to hold this view into the 1990s. Halperin (1987) also stated that the 839 ''Annales Bertiniani'' reference to a Rus' ''chacanus'' is to "the ruler of Kiev". Some archaeologists have countered that there is no material evidence of a Norse presence in Kiev prior to the 10th century. Troublesome is the absence of hoards of coins which would prove that the Dnieper trade route – the backbone of later Kievan Rus' – was operating in the 9th century. Based on his examination of the archaeological evidence, Zuckerman concludes that Kiev originated as a fortress on the Khazar border with Levedia and that only after the Magyars departed for the west in 889 did the middle Dnieper region start to progress economically.

Volkhov river sites

A number of historians, the first of whom was Vasily Bartold, have advocated a more northerly position for the khaganate. They have tended to emphasize ibn Rustah's report as the only historical clue to the location of the khagan's residence. Recent archaeological research, conducted by Anatoly Kirpichnikov and Dmitry Machinsky, has raised the possibility that this polity was based on a group of settlements along the Volkhov River, including Ladoga, Lyubsha, Duboviki, Alaborg, and Holmgard (modern Rurikovo Gorodische). "Most of these were initially small sites, probably not much more than stations for re-fitting and resupply, providing an opportunity for exchange and the redistribution of items passing along the river and caravan routes". If the anonymous traveller quoted by ibn Rustah is to be believed, the Rus of the Khaganate period made extensive use of the Volga route to trade with the Near East, possibly through Bulgar and Khazar intermediaries. His description of the Rus' island suggests that their center was at Holmgard, an early medieval precursor of Novgorod whose name translates from Old Norse as "the river-island castle". The First Novgorod Chronicle describes unrest in Novgorod before Rurik was invited to come to rule the region in the 860s. This account prompted Johannes Brøndsted to assert that Holmgard-Novgorod was the khaganate's capital for several decades prior to the appearance of Rurik, including the time of the Byzantine embassy in 839. Machinsky accepts this theory but notes that, before the rise of Holmgard-Novgorod, the chief political and economic centre of the area was located at Aldeigja-Ladoga. However, Nosov (1990) stated that archaeological evidence recovered at Rurikovo Gorodische puts the '' terminus post quem'' for the hill-fort's establishment decades later: dendrochronological analysis showed that trees used in construction at the site were felled between the years 889 and 948, and radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples collected from a ditch at the site of "Holmgard" trace back to 880(±20).

Islands in fringe theories

According to one fringe theory, the Rus' khagan resided somewhere in Scandinavia or even as far west as Walcheren. In stark contrast, George Vernadsky believed that the khagan had his headquarters in the eastern part of the Crimea or in the Taman Peninsula and that the island described by Ibn Rustah was most likely situated in the estuary of the Kuban River.Vernadsky VII-4. Neither of these theories has won many adherents, as archaeologists have uncovered no traces of a Slavic-Norse settlement in the Crimea region in the 9th century and there are no Norse sources documenting "khagans" in Scandinavia.

Etymological issues

''Rhos'' and Rus'

The Russian anti-Normanist Stepan Gedeonov (1876) was the first historian to suggest that the ''Rhos'' ambassadors mentioned in the ''Annales Bertiniani sub anno'' 839 were Swedes in the diplomatic service of a Rusʹ (''Rhos'') khagan (''chacanus''), and thus that there was Rus' khaganate, and that these Rus' people were Slavic. Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen (1877) instead concluded "that ''Rhos'' was the Greek designation for the Scandinavians or Northmen, who in this case happened to be Swedes." According to Ukrainian historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky (1904), the ''Rhos'' envoys were "northern Germanic", but in the service of a "Rus' khagan", that was to be identified as the Slavic Rus' prince of Kiev. Vasil’evskii (1915) thought the ''Rhos'' were an indigenous people living near the mouth of the Dnieper into the Black Sea, and that the ''khagan'' was their Khazar master. Still others presume a Rus' khagan reigning over a state, or a cluster of city-states, set up by Rus' people somewhere in what is today European Russia and Ukraine as a chronological predecessor to the Rurik dynasty and Kievan Rusʹ. The region's population at that time was composed of Slavs, Turkic, Baltic, Finnic, Hungarian and Norse peoples. The region was also a place of operations for Varangians