Do not chop off the roots of Russian culture
Reprint of the author's article from the magazine “Young Guard”, No. b, 1991, without editorial cuts. The article with the original title “How many millennia of Russian culture?” Was written for the holiday of the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia. In abbreviated form reprinted in the collection "Mythology of the ancient Slavs" and the journal "Russian thought", №1, 1991g.The echoes of the last chords were voiced by the ceremonial overture that crowned the Millennium Festival, the performance of which with unprecedented artistic power and brilliant skill immortalized their talent Yevgeny Svetlanov. Passed colorful jubilee celebrations, more recently unthinkable. Having begun powerfully with the theme of Russia, Christian consonances continue to roll through the pages of the press: “Christians and Communism”, “Christianity and Culture”, “Mercy and Compassion”, “Millennium of Baptism”, and in the media Orthodox figures have taken such a prominent place which are second only to imported video clips.
In addition, the flow of publications on the role of Christianization in cultural stories and state formation, fueled not only by readers' interest, captures all new publications.
One disturbing tendency seen in this stream not only does not allow to treat this process with satisfaction, but also causes the need to share with the readers concern. The fact is that, despite the diversity of shades, orchestrations, accents and intonations of sound, these articles and monographs repeat and propagate very close points of view, one spectrum of ideas - the spectrum based on the system of views of academician D. S. Likhachev. And such unity, as we have recently begun to think, can lead to unwelcome consequences.
What is wrong with unity, the usual opponents will object to me, if this point of view is correct? What is the use of discord and an abundance of opinions, if the truth is always the same and concrete? Its something you need to find, study and promote. But the fact of the matter is that the harmful point of view on the baptism of Russia, which is generally accepted through the efforts of the press, not only has significant conceptual flaws, but also contradicts many historical facts. This concept is most compact and convex expressed in D. S. Likhachev's article in the New World magazine (No. XXUMX, 6), but it can also be found in other publications that, including the Bulgarian ones, repeat, replicate the same same position and evaluation. Provisions and estimates unflattering for the most ancient Russian culture.
At all times, intensified propaganda of a unilateral view — without the opportunity to express other points of view in the process of formation — was an inevitable form of ideological violence. Despite the seeming diversity of opinions, the destructive violence of the whole look at our cultural past is clearly traced by the efforts of hired lovers of “revealing truth”. Therefore, it is important not only to give a different interpretation of the problem, but also to point out specific analytical flaws and historical inaccuracies in the system of distributed views on the situation of the Christianization of the Russian state and historical milestones of Russian culture.
Let's start with the main thing. From the unacceptability for Russian history, for the Slavic cultural antiquity of the provisions of D. S. Likhachev and the company about the 988 year as the initial date for all Russian and Slavic culture:
“Culture itself has no starting date. But if we talk about the conditional date of the beginning of Russian culture, then I, in my understanding, would consider the most reasonable 988 year. Do we need to delay anniversary dates in the depths of time? Do we need the date of the two millennia or the millennia and a half millennia? With our world achievements in the field of all types of arts, such a date is unlikely to raise Russian culture with anything. The main thing that world slavs have done for world culture has been done in the last millennium. The rest is only supposed values ”(D. S. Likhachev,“ NM ”, No. 6, p. 257).
In order to reinforce such a crucial character of the date of the act of Christianization, a picture of the awesome pre-Christian Slavic wretchedness is further drawn:
“Meanwhile, the desire to escape from the oppressive effects of loneliness among the sparsely populated forests, swamps and steppes, the fear of abandonment, the fear of terrible natural phenomena forced people to look for associations. Around were "Germans", i.e. people who did not speak an accessible understanding of the language, enemies who came to Russia "from the unknown", and the steppe bordering Russia was "an unknown country ..."? (p. 249).
The combination of these two complementary provisions - "world achievements in the field of all types of art" - after the 988 act of the year - and the terrifying wildness and barbarism of pre-Christian misery - is further emphasized in the following text by continuously opposing the "barbarism" of the Rus with the "chaotic heap" of "all kinds of cults and idols ”and“ highly organized religion with a high culture ”. This should convince the reader that “the anniversary date” at once “introduced Russia into the family of European nations on completely equal grounds” (p. 252), “separated Russia from Mohammedan and pagan Asia” (p. 257), “allowed Russia not to start literature and continue it ”,“ we have high painting and high applied art ”,“ statehood ”, etc.
A very familiar conglomeration of ideas. Are there not similar theses of the thugs M. V. Lomonosov, struggling with ideas about the “introduction” of statehood from the outside and the barbarity of the Slavic:
“This is so wonderful that if Mr. Miller could depict a living calm, he would have made Russia only a poor people, which even the most despicable people are not represented by any writer” (“IPP”, p. 461). And further: "That the Slovenian people were in the present Russian limits before the birth of Christ, it can be indisputably proved."
As far as this does not correspond to the views expressed above by D. S. Likhachev, one can judge by his phrase:
"... in the I century, the Eastern Slavs did not exist yet - they had not yet formed a single nation."
This is a cheating lie. Without even touching the Proto-Slavonic community of the III — II millennia BC. e., referring to the same territorial area from the Oder to the Don and the Baltic zone, without considering the formation of the Slavs in the I millennium BC. э. on the same lands, it can be said with certainty that in the 1st century there was a single Slavic people, not yet divided into Western, Eastern and Southern, but a single ethnicity of the Venetians - Slavs, so named after the cult of Venus-Lada and left throughout Europe toponymic traces from Lada to Swiss “ladins”: Vienna, Hungary, Venev, Venice, Ventspils, Vänern, Vincennes, Venlo, Veneto, Ladenburg (they need to add the same root, read differently in other stories: Geneva, Ian, Genoa), but remained in Russian, the original roots were preserved: crown, vein , Wedding, ritual of "dowry" beater, wife, woman. This ancient Slavic root entered the European languages together with the words: “genius”, “genius”, “genome”, “genetics”, “generation”, “venous”, “ventilation”, and the ancient sacred books of the Persians are called “Vendidad”. It was under this name - “Wends”, just in the I century, when they were allegedly absent, the Roman historian Pliny of the Slavs mentions, not dividing, for the time being, the Western - “Wends” and Eastern Slavs of antiquity - “Ants”. Moreover, Venus in Ancient Rome was revered as the progenitor of the Roman people, and Rome was founded by the Trojan Aeneas, who escaped after the defeat of Troy. The syllable Aen in the Latin spelling of Aeneas - Aenea should be read as Ven (Ven) according to the laws of Aryan linguistics, and we get Venus’s reading for Aeneas Son of Venus, Venes for Aeneadaes, and Veneda for Virgil’s Aeneid. ". Similarly, the “temple” will sound like - “vedes” (aedes), “air” will be “fan” (aeg), and the famous Latin “ether” (aether) will turn out to be “wind”, “evaluate” - “vestiably”, etc. etc. And now we will no longer be surprised why according to the “ancient Roman ax there will be a“ ax ”from the Slavic verb“ sich ”, and the shepherd will be“ pastor ”from the Slavic verb“ mouth ”, the Latin“ oculist ”from the word“ eye ”, and“ justice ”- from the words“ mouth, charter ”. This is the oldest (Trojan) layer of interethnic complex Latin language for interlingual communication. After realizing the fact that the roots of the language imply that the history of Rome is a difficult part of our history, it becomes clear why the Latin verbs can be heard in absolutely Russian: “twirl”, “will”, “see”, “Orati” (plow ), "Dwell." And re only words. When we compare the "archaic carpet pattern" of the Eneolithic of the Proto-Slavs (V millennium BC. O.) from the excellent and delicate works of Academician B. N.
So how then to regard the "living in the forest", attributed to all Slavs? Will we really find out if we believe that there is nothing for us to look for before 988 of the year, “to delay anniversary dates into the depths of time”? And this is now, when everyone, even the most unknown people, is looking for its roots somewhere in the conquered Roman Empire or is trying to produce its own language from Latin or Sanskrit, puffing up the cheeks from every matched Sanskrit word? And at this time to talk about his people, who gave the root basis, apparently, to these two languages of ancient culture (Latin, Sanskrit, yes, perhaps, Greek) - “we don’t need dates of two thousand years or one and a half thousand years”, cutting off the path to the knowledge of antiquity, the origins of their culture, depriving us of the Ryazan faces of Aphrodite of Cnidus (Venus) of the Praxitele, depriving the language of the Vedas and Avesta (in which the French "Nyabyastsi" are translated as "clouds"), depriving our "Indo-European gray hair", in which it is Slavic culture apparently played a role binder fundamental ancient rod? Such a position looks at least reactionary. And why? For what? Who needs it? What can a self-denying, oppressive self-consciousness of the people give a national culture?
Lomonosov thought differently: “... It would not be reprehensible to the glory of the Russian people if it’s too late to put its origin and name and to discard the old, what other kings of honor and glory are looking for,” and read it important to prove by disputing the smallest Millerov historical inaccuracy , reducing the glory and dignity of Russians, proving the Russian origin of the names of the Dnieper rapids in ancient Greek sources, conducting complex linguistic studies from the mouth of the Nemeny-Rusa to the Black Sea Rossolan, showing the Russian character speech Varangian Rus.
The second. The main feature of the Slavic pantheon as a whole is the complete identity of Indo-European, Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman. [Most of the states and empires of antiquity were pagan: Great Rome, Ancient Egypt, Persia, etc., while the adoption of Christianity by the strong Moravian power of the Slavs led to its disintegration. The Judaization of the Khazars led to the same result. In Russia, statehood was formed on the basis of agriculture and the monopolization of trade, and even before Christianization. Ancient Rome, with its synthetic - from many tribes - religion, is a vivid example of the fact that "unification", which supposedly "could not be realized by paganism", is a mistaken and illusory idea. (Note auth.)] Obvious for the researcher successive identification lines Perun - Zeus-Jupiter - Torr (Tour) and Venus - Lada - Aphrodite - Praia-Frey. The image of the bull - the thunderer of Jupiter, Indra, Tyr (Thuringia, Turkey) clearly echoes the Russian term for the fighting bull - Tur and other ancient echoes (Buy-Tour Vsevolod, commander, etc.). However, there is a note. D. S. Likhachev classifies Perun among the Finno-Finnish deities. This is a clear and gross error. Apparently, “and in our annals are not without fictions between truth,” as M. V. Lomonosov wrote. The ethnic group of Finno-Finns (Hungarians, Finns, Estonians) is complex, mixed in character after invasions. However, linguistic features that distinguish them from the Slavic-Balts family also arose as a result of Hun, Hungarian, Dzungarian (i.e., West Mongol) raids. Therefore, the distinctive features of the Aryan mythology and pantheon should these Mongolian peoples coincide. And indeed, in the epic we find Karelians and Estonians instead of one Thunderer Perun, two other deities: Pikne - lightning and Eike - thunder. Such a distinction is characteristic of the Mongolian notions, especially since the second name for Pikne - KYUE is consonant with the Mongol Huhe-dei. And the Lithuanians, who managed to partially preserve the ancient Slavic vocabulary, Perkunas (Perun) was a thunderer and the supreme god, as well as the Varyagruses. The supremacy of Perun was imposed on us by the princes by force, and why? After all, in Rome and Greece, Jupiter and Zeus headed the pantheon of gods? Why did the rule of Perun have to be enforced by force, if he was already in the pantheon of the Rus in the form of a third-rate thugs? After all, if it were a question of the “chaotic aggregate,” the accession of Perun to the throne would go as smoothly as in the Great Rome and Ancient Greece of Jupiter and Zeus. This is an important turning point for understanding the peculiarities of the Slavic pantheon. And here we must agree with academician B. N. Rybakov, who, analyzing the change of the Aryan (Iranian) name of the introduced god Semargl among the Rus to the Slavic name of Pereplut (he is also the ancient Greek Plutos - the god of wealth and agricultural abundance, son of Demeter), wrote:
“The new designation was not a neologism, since this word, in all likelihood, dates back to a very long-standing Eneological community of Indo-European tribes (not yet divided into later branches).”
In other words, the Slavs could have survived an earlier Indo-European pantheon with primary cosmological connections, not burdened with deification of events and their own heroes, where the throne was not yet captured by thunderbirds, as in Rome and Greece. And indeed, such traces we find:
“According to the testimony of the chronicles of Procopius of Caesarea ... Hemoldt, the biographer of Otto ... the most ancient Slavs believed in the One God, calling him the Supreme, Heavenly God, god of gods. It is also clear from Nestor that the Slavs of the Russians had an idea of a higher being, presumably presumed to be a god, the god of the ALL-HOLDER, and distinguished him from the god Perun and other minor deities. The Slavs honored in him the Father of Nature and the Lord of the World, who is ruled by his will by destinies, who is kept by everyone, he was worshiped by the Lord of the sky, the source of divine power and called the GREAT God, OLD God or PRAGUE. Other gods were believed by the Slavs as originating beings from the supreme god. His works, the powers that depend on him between him and the world, are strong by his power, and that not all are equally holy. From the entire revision of the fabulous Slavic beings, it appears that the Slavs recognized the single god "Almighty", the Creator and Father of Creation, who with his own wisdom, all-creating love (fair) created the original existence. "
Further in the source it is said that this being contained in itself the opposite of the male and female nature: “the first was expressed by light (the Spirit), the second by matter ...”. “The creature closest to God is LIGHT. The creature "Svetlo" appeared on Earth and embodied in the human race "(" Essay on Old Slavonic Fable or Mythology ", Lviv, 1860). Further in the source there is a reference to the Ipatiev Chronicle, which makes it possible to outline some of the links of the Russian pantheon: "WELD - Father of Light", his son "BAREBODY - hedgehogs called the Sun", "revered in Russia under the name Dazhbog, Khors or the Sun", "Svarozhich" .
According to the Vedas, “Svar”, “Suar” is the Sun (this term goes back to the most sacred, mystical and secret name of the Sun as a god - “Ball” (V = h)), which was the only supreme deity in pre-Greek Greece, we have a secret term hackneyed to denote a geometric figure), that is, these Indo-Iranian utterances (“Svar”, “Svarog”) date back to the 9th — 6th centuries BC. e., and the "ball" in general to the XXI-XVII BC. er Just those very 1500-2500 years, which our culture, it turns out, do not need to look at all. And why? So that a complex cosmological system, not inferior to Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, to pass off as "a chaotic conglomeration of cults and idols"? Pantheon of monotheism, in which other gods are manifestations of the supreme, who honor you honor the Supreme, to present as superstitions of forest Papuans, who were clogged with fear, "fear of terrible natural phenomena" in the forests? Moreover, in comparison with other systems, in the Russian pantheon the Spirit of Light is resurrected as God's hypostasis, found only in the primary undistorted Vedas and in the Aryan Iran, and later in Orthodoxy, reviving the Trinity: God the Father - the Creator of the Universe, Son and Holy Spirit.
From here follow two conclusions.
first. The Millennium Festival of Christianity should be viewed as a higher cultural Rubicon, as a festival of the return of monotheism, natural to Slavs, partially lost in battles, tragedies and wanderings. As a celebration of the revival of the trinity in a new, returned form. As the acquisition of the Solar faith again, “We, the Slavs, are each grandsons of God,” that is, the grandsons of the Sun. In the ancient icons of Christ we see: "I am the light." Myth and religion is not only a form of perception of the universe, but also the self-expression of the people. And there are no ideas that are more in tune with the spirit of the Slavs than the perception of the world as a struggle between two principles - Good and Evil, and the Universe - as a harmonious unity with man.
Second. The Russian pagan pantheon contains the same gods as the other Indo-European systems: Greece, Rome, Iran, and Egypt. In it we find and Poseidon, and Demeter, and Ra, and Mars, and Varun. He is not inferior in terms of versatility and organization to the most perfect systems of pagan empires, reflecting the best aspects of Iranian - dual knowledge of the World through the struggle between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Evil, the multiplicity of manifestations of the divine essence in the Vedic system and the dialectical nature of Old Indian: spirit and body, sky and earth, light and darkness, etc. Of course, one cannot deny that knowledge of our system is still far from knowledge and clarity. The agony of her resurrection can be traced back to B. Rybakov's “Paganism of the Ancient Slavs” with a multiplicity of versions, readings and comparisons. Perhaps we are dealing with the features of the premedical system, especially if one has in mind monotheistic features that unite deities as manifestations of the highest, a split of entities and complexity of connections, and also the representation of Lada not only as the wife of the Solar God, but also as the Supreme's love for the human race. Therefore, the opposition of Christianity and Russian antiquity is artificial and erroneous. And the use of the term “Judeo-Christianity” is not only erroneous, but also malicious, because Christianity manifested itself as an opposition to the dominance of Judaism in the Mediterranean and Greece, as a protest against its self-interest, and destroyed this system. “Once it has arisen, religion always retains a certain stock of ideas inherited from former times, since tradition is a great conservative force in all areas of ideology in general,” wrote Engels. Therefore, when we read that in order to create Zora-Astrism, the revival of the cults of the Gods of Good and Light: Mithras, Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda), the Solar religion among the “Aryans” who inhabited Iran at that time, it was necessary to restore religious ideas against the dominant thunderbolts, the question arises The primary source of the religion of the Almighty, the Trinity and the Struggle of Light and Darkness, whose bearers will be the Essenes a century later in the Jerusalem caves, preaching separation with impiety and communicating with the Jews around them only through commerce. And then the Christians, armed with these ideas and the prophecies of the teachers, will begin the struggle for world consciousness. It is clear that the Essenic apocrypha, which are not yet revered for canonical texts, in particular “The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness”, are also part of the same fragments of the primary system of beliefs, and when we read: “When the sons of Krivda are fenced, impiety will move away from righteousness, as darkness recedes before the light; and how smoke is scattered - and there is no more of it, so the Sun, which is the established order of the World ... ", we recognize in this paragraph from the Book of Secrets that bridge that connects the ancient monotheistic Slavic views, their Sunny pantheon with the system of Christian ideas. In the ancient world, Christianity was a true revolution, restoring not just monotheism, but a completely different God - the God of Goodness, Light and Equality.
Some features of the Slavic pantheon make it possible to take a fresh look at the history of mankind. It is known that among the Slavs the god of war was Perun, and not Mars (that is, More, Morok), like the Romans. The semantic equivalent of Mars is the Babylonian Marduch, the ancient Indian goddess of evil Mara, the Slavic Mor, Moroc and Moroz, the Georgian common name of the god is h-Mertz (presumably), Estonian Maradus, which left significant traces in the toponymy of Europe and Asia: Marseille, Mariupol, Marovic, Marburg , Merv, Morshansk, Margiana, Morocco and Mary. In Russian, this is the theme of death and darkness: pestilence, darkness, death, smerd, haze, dirtying, confusion, wrinkle, face, fooling, filth, scum, dead. In ancient Greece, the terrible Mora, with splitting of functions and after mixing with other pantheons, remained only a dream: Mor-theos or Morpheus - one of the hundred sons of the god Hypnos, and his role as the master of destinies, shares ("meros", i.e. measure) lot, fate - passed to the whole team "Moir" ("Moyros"), Estonian Maradus closer to this function of measure and fate was different for each person. In the Russian language, this concept of quota and measure remained from antiquity: measure, measure, integument, “measured by fate”, merezhka, etc. From this spectrum it becomes clear that Mars was rather a symbol of death and destruction, while as for the smash-thunderbolder, the victory cult is more characteristic weaponhitting the enemy. Weapons of celestial victories, the reflection of which shines above the human abuse. This is Indra’s magic club and its rainbow-bow (Pa-arc, arc of the sun of Ra and the oldest name of the Volga - Ra, according to A.N. Afanasyev). This is the weapon of the solar god Horus, who strikes the god of dark and destructive forces of Set (Typhon), and the weapon of Apollo, who strikes the serpent Python, and smashes arrows of Zeus, Jupiter, and Perun (noted in Czech glosses in 1202) .). Their cults are characterized by an oath on a weapon: “And Olga ... according to Russian law, swear by her weapon and Perun”.
It is interesting to compare the solar victor of the darkness of Horus (Goros, Oriya) with the Slavic (Iranian) Horse and George the Victorious defeating the Serpent - the personification of the forces of Darkness and Evil. It becomes clear why the Jupiter and Zeus Golovniks, occupying the supreme solar throne, transferred their “weapon” functions to Mars and Ares, but this did not happen to the Slavs, because Perun did not have time to establish himself on the supreme throne, the solar cultures lived for a long time, especially Yarilo (Varuna , Uran, Svar) with the annual holiday Yar - Morok (summer - winter, life - death), (English Year - year, German Jahr [yar] - year). And Morok did not become our god of war, like Mars in Rome.
But now the solar throne has returned to the sunny Christ, bypassing the capture of it by the thunderers who remained secondary to us.
I do not consider myself to be a supporter of the pseudo-Marxist tendency to seek a reflection of life in mythology. [I do not share, for example, the point of view of O. M, Freudenberg, who considered, say, a parable about the entry of Christ (Myth and Literature of Antiquity, p. 503 — 511) to Jerusalem on a donkey by expressing the local rite of copulating a woman with a donkey on a sacred stone. (Two notes by O. M. Freudenberg: a) “The ancient Semites donkey was a sky deity, but at the same time a totem, that is, a tribe deity. In addition to Judah and Issihar, the donkey-tribes were Sehem, Hamar and others. ”, B)“ Plutarch reports that the ancient Egyptians worshiped the deity Typhon or Seth: the darkest and most destructive forces of nature were personified in him. This Typhon had its iconic conformity in the Donkey. And this Typhon appeared to be the destroyer and the evil enemy of his brother Osiris, the god of light and benevolence ”(p. 459). In all religions, the functions of myth were deeper, more complex, more ideological than the reflection or fixation of the characteristics of material life. (Note auth.)] However, I believe that the study of the mysterious collapses of pantheons, changes in ritualism, revolutions and wars in the celestial sphere will help to understand many historical cataclysms and ethnological phenomena.
Here, for example, what V. Soloukhin saw in the Christian icon of St. George the Victorious: “Retribution is one of the most understandable and exciting feelings of a person’s spirit. The monster is omnipotent, hundred-headed, predatory and hated. Every day it eats up the beautiful girl, destroys the pure human soul. And there seems to be no governing, no deliverance, but a young man appears in a fluttering red cloak on a dazzling white horse and raises a spear that is irresistible. Retribution! What could be fairer than this feeling! ”
It is appropriate to note that the British honored George, both before and after the adoption of Christianity. This avenger to the god of evil, Seth, carries his red cape through Egypt, the Copts, and through pre-Christian Bulgaria, and this image is a reflection of both heavenly and earthly coups.
From the above it follows that the state of the Slavic pantheon before the adoption of Christianity did not allow for the idea of a primitive “randomness of cults”, such as worshiping “mysterious forces of nature”, or totemicity like “mother walrus” or “crocodile children”, and represented the form of a pan-European system with an emphasis on supremacy solar gods, similar to the ancient Indo-Iranian cosmogony and, judging by some signs, perhaps even more primary.
The third. We now turn to the historical situation preceding the 988 year, turning in the cultural history of Russia. Above, we have already quoted the gloomy picture of pre-Christian Russian savagery, drawn by paid detractors - the leitmotiv of the concept of “civilizing role”, “familiarizing with Europe”, etc. In this picture, almost every position is untrue, therefore it will have to be disproved, based on specific facts, and not “asserting themselves only on some guesses,” as Mikhail Vasilyevich wrote, “which are very careless and reprehensible.”
Let's start with the historical environment and neighbors. I quote: “The Germans were all around, that is, people who did not speak an accessible understanding of the language, enemies who came to Russia“ from the dark ”, and the steppe bordering on Russia is“ an unknowable country ... ”” ( 249). This is written about the era when the Slavic sea poured up to the borders of present-day France. The sea of a single ethnos, who spoke almost the same language, has not yet been spoiled either by German, or Avar, or Mongol invasions. A little later, these invasions made Europe for many centuries a country of savagery, the plague and the cult of the power of weapons. “Slaven language does not originate from Greek, nor from Latin, nor from any other; consequently, it itself already consists of the most ancient times, and numerous of these Slavic peoples spoke in the Slavonic language before the birth of Christ ”(M. V. Lomonosov. Selected philosophical works. HIPL, 1950, p. 468).
Leipzig was then called Lipsky (Lipetsk) and was the center of Slavic Lusatians, whose descendants still live there. Dresden was Drozdyanami, Meissen - Mishnah, Marzeburg - Mezhibor, and inhabited all these lands - nishane, milchane, sadlichane, decane and Hutichi, and in the north the famous Brandenburg was Branibor, the center of the extensive Slavic principalities that were conquered and slaughtered by the Germans only in the middle XII century. This is all within the borders of present-day Germany, not to mention Poland. Further south, up to Chervona (Red) Rus, which became part of the state of Russia in 981, stretched the Great Moravian Slavic state united by the Prague Principality. Even further south were the lands of the Ugrian Slavs, which are still called Ukrainians Ugorshina, and then Vysehrad and Novgorod, the Furnaces, which later became Pest, stood on the banks of the Danube. This area of Hungary until the 1400 — 1600's was called Novograd. The Hungarians (the Dzungars, the Uigurs) conquered and began to enslave this country only in the 10th century. And further south was Wallachia, Serbia and the Bulgarian kingdom. Even Austria (Ostria) had not yet undergone to this time a deep Germanization, there were more Slavic princes, the city of Svetla (Tsvetl) Rakousy, etc.
But, perhaps, the Russ then did not know, “in fear of abandonment” hiding behind the trees as a result of the “oppressive effects of loneliness”, that there are Slavic brothers around, and not “Germans”? Or "... the fear of terrible natural phenomena" prevented them from leaving the "lightly populated forests, swamps and steppes"? Not! The history testifies that the picture was quite different from what these frightening tales draw to us:
“In the summer of 6477 (969 g). To Svetoslav, to his mother and to his boyars: (Attention! Before the baptism of Russia there are 20 years. What is 20 years is easiest to understand: 1917 and 37 or 37 and 57). Not like there is a life in Kiev, I want to live in Pereyaslavtsi on the Danube, that is, that is, in the middle of my land, that all good things come together: from Grek gold, wine, wine and vegetable varieties, from Chech, from Ugre srebro and komoni ... ”. It is written in The Tale of Bygone Years, the source available. So, they knew in the Russian state about the Great Moravian state and about Ugorschina. Traded and communicated. Tale of the "Germans" does not pass. Even four centuries later, after deepening the stratification of the Slavic languages, the Zaporozhians, under Polish-Lithuanian occupation, sent troops to the Czech Republic to help the Hussites in fighting with the armor of European knighthood.
Now about the "unknown" "omission". At that time, in this “steppe zone bordering Russia”, the nomads conducted two major powers: Byzantium and Khazaria. It was Khazaria who sent the hordes of the Pechenegs here, set them against the Hungarians who had migrated to the area and forced them into Europe.
The Arabs called the Hungar - “badjgard”, that is, the Bashkirs, hence the legend about the Ural and Volga origin of the Finno-Ugric tribes roamed for a long time in literature. This Khazaria informed the Arab caliphate that it was protecting the Muslim world from the Rus, and repeatedly sent nomadic hordes to Russian cities. Joseph reported that the Kaganate controls the river routes - delays the Russians, “arriving by ships” along the Volga.
Apparently, having dealt with this “ignorance”, having passed through “Hell,” in 965, Svyatoslav delivered a death blow to the kaganate: “In the summer of 6473. Ida Svyatoslav on the Kozars: having heard Kozars, Ididos with their prince Kagan and got bored, and having fought, defeated Svyatoslav Kozar and the city of them and Bela Vezha taking. ”
And two more facts. The first campaign of the Russians on ships to the Caspian Sea was recorded by sources one hundred years before the victory of Svyatoslav, and two hundred years before it the mighty Sassanid Empire of the Persians could not take Constantinople: they did not have fleet! And in 913, according to Masudi, on 500 ships across the Kerch Strait, the Don and the Volga, the Russes, passing through the entire Caspian Sea, attacked the Arabs who then occupied Azerbaijan and Iran, blood poisoning the Sun religion there and forcefully spread Islam. This campaign, at first very successful, ended unsuccessfully, since on the way back the Muslim mercenary guard of the Khazar Kagan treacherously attacked the Rus, and in a three-day bloody battle, the Rus were defeated. But the very fact of the campaign is so contrasted with stories about pre-Christian savagery and limited geographical horizons that one can only marvel at how all this can be performed in a friendly choir by our scientific and public press.
In an effort to focus on the main issues of the formation of Russian culture and statehood in the time of frontier, we deliberately removed from the circle of issues under consideration such topics as “the beauty of worship” [Ostensibly seduced Slavs when choosing a religion. (Note auth.)], And in fact, without understanding this, it is impossible to understand neither schismatics, nor Dukhobors, nor the typically Slavic slogans of the Hussites: “God in the soul” and “Reason is stronger than dogma.” We do not touch either the connection between the Cyrillic alphabet and the Proto-Slavic syllable letter, nor Lomonosov's works on the advantages of the Greek alphabet over Latin, although all this also needs to be discussed. And all this has been done so that, having considered the background of the Russian people and state before the adoption of Christianity, weigh the political and cultural implications of this step. Yes, it was the state, because there was already established statehood by this time, and this act itself was also a state one. After all, it is from these positions that the significance of the Christianization of Russia as a spiritual holiday increases: the return of faith corresponding to the spiritual outlook of the Russian people, the curse of self-interest and greed, the announcement of these defective souls as a form of spiritual crime punishable by heaven, a hymn of fraternal community, as opposed to spiritual disunity and helplessness implanted by the forces of evil.
Yes, the Millennium salutes died down, reviving interest in the true history of the people and their spiritual life. There will be a period of reflection and discussion of historical, cultural, moral aspects, as well as “delusions stuck in the general courses of the history of the USSR and other semi-official publications,” as academician D. S. Likhachev correctly writes. Only here the main misconception that is stuck there is his own position about pre-Christian savagery and “barbarism”, repeated by the many-voiced literary choir. This is the myth, which contrasts Europe’s “enlightened” already with the barbaric Asiatic Slavs, it’s a fairy tale that culture was introduced in a ready-made, established form, and not vice versa, that Slavic culture laid the foundation of all European civilization, as it really was. And we must understand that such provisions humiliate not only our people, but also the Christian Church, as one of the forms of its world view. I hope this article will help readers navigate the search for a point of reliance on their past that our people now need. The past, which every Russian, every Slav, is rightly proud of.
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