Kyivan Rus' (with Dr. Vicki Grove)
The Rus' (or Kyivan / Kievan Rus' or Varangians) were Swedish Vikings active in Eastern Europe who still loom large in the early history and legend of Ukraine and Russia. Dr. Vicki Grove, Teaching Professor in Slavic and Nordic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, explains more.
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Great that you're doing this to dispel some of the myths that are currently surfacing around this history.
@History With Hilbert. Well, we could start with horned Viking helmets...that the Vikings didn't wear, lol. Honestly, where did Americans get that meme? I think it was Warner Bros cartoons from the '60s, Bugs Bunny saying it ain't over til the fat lady sings, and then they'd show a heavy set opera lady in a "Viking outfit" singing. And the Minnesota Vikings (American) football team logo didn't help, either, haha. .I honestly grew up thinking Vikings wore horn helmets.
@@asdfjkl7496 Wagner's 1876 opera Der Ring des Nibelungen is where it comes from.
@@asdfjkl7496 It's true that there are no archeological evidence that Vikings wore horned helmets. That said, it's interesting to note that some of the artworks by the pre-Viking society depict people with horns protruding from their head. Look up pictures of the Golden Horns of Gallehus from the early 5th century. While the Vikings may not have worn horned helmets themselves, perhaps horned people/creatures featured a part of their religious beliefs?
@@asdfjkl7496 it's not an American fabrication, I live in Sweden and people depict vikings with horned helmets here too
@@asdfjkl7496 remember the Hägar the horrible cartoon?
I've never clicked on something so fast. I tried looking up the history on this the other day, and there was so much information to read and sort through that it was quite impossible for me, unless I were to neglect my responsibilities to my children 😂 (with 3 young kids I have a very limited amount of time most days) I'm very grateful for historians and various other experts such as yourselves that take their time to sum things like this up and present it in an accessible way for those of us curious laypeople.
You so eloquently expressed my sentiments! Thank you. I love to listen to real experts talking about things that I cannot devote time to, but I want to know...
There is also a documentary called "the varangian rus" here on youtube from the 90s or so. Can recommend it.
Here's a good TL;DR: Asking if Kyivan Rus' was Russian or Ukrainian is like asking if the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne was French or German. It was the ancestor of both, in different ways.
I'm both Russian and Ukrainian. This is accurate imo, I've long been thinking this. And the language (or rather the languages plural) spoken there is closer to an older slavic language than any of the modern slavic languages, not Russian or Ukrainian.
I've used this same analogy with others! Glad to see I'm not alone :D
People constantly forget about Belarus, too, on both sides of the argument. But, I must say that Russian side is not very upfront on the matter. A lot of historical stories with slim evidence are commonly taught as fact, like Battle of Kulikovo Field which supposedly was battle which decided fate of Russian world against Mongol Empire. Also, people call medieval precursor to modern Russian Federation Muscowy. This is not an endonym, as they still called themselves Ruthenians, but it WAS used by medieval Ruthenians as well - over in Great Duchy of Lithuania and then Recz Pospolita. Ruthenian Voivodeship, in fact, covers parts of Western Ukraine, and parts of Poland that were until very recently considered Western Ukraine.
@@zaynesvarovsky2201 Russia is not Rus'. It is not called that in any Slavic language. It associates itself with Rus' to justify colonial treatment of Ukraine and Belarus - but they always tried to suppress our culture and dialects. Rus' was built on conquering different Slavic and non-Slavic peoples; we were always different, and there is no way Drygavichi are same as Ilmen Slavs, or Buzhany are same as Vyatichi. Russia itself has incredible ethnic diversity, even among Slavs - but it erases dialects, culture, and heritage. This is what "Soviet person" was, and it is what "Rossiyanin" is. And comparing historical spread of East Slavs to three-century-old colonisational project that is US Midwest is just an ignorant thing to say. This land has been my people's long before Midwest existed.
It's Swedish as well. The Rus' were Swedish vikings
A few pedantic remarks: 1) There was an independent Ukraine declared in 1918, but it did not survive for long. The trident was adopted then. 2) Ukraine was never, to my knowledge, a member of CIS, only an observer 3) I think Hrushevesky did not claim the "entirety of historical legacy of Kyivan Rus". If I remember correctly, he suggested that Ukraine, Belarus and Russia come from Galych-Volyn, Polotsk and Vladimir-Suzdal principalities respectively. 4) Most of the Rus principalities which were located on the territories of modern Ukraine first came under the control of the Duchy of Lithuania, which is not viewed as "oppressive", at least not in modern Ukrainian historiography. Then Polish came, and Ukrainian historiography is not kind to them. 5) Ukrainian have an easier time understanding Russian, because Ukrainians understand russian. Virtually all of the country's population is bilingual. 6) Russophone Ukrainians would say "Kiev" with a voiced "v", At least I have never met a Russophone Ukrainian, who "devoices" consonants at the end of the words - one of the peculiarities of the Ukrainian dialect of Russian. 7) "Kyiv" is a pain to pronounce for non-native speakers. There should be a "y" in the middle, like the first sound in "yoghurt". Here is the IPA, maybe someone can explain better [kɪjiu̯]
The first three characters of the IPA look just like how the word 'key' word be transcribed using the system Geoff Lindsey describes in his book English After RP. It doesn't sound like the stereotypical 'y' sound only because we only think of it making that sound at the beginning of words/syllables rather than at the end as well. Try recording yourself saying- 'key and then play it backwards.
Thank you for explanation! Just to clarify, I am a native Ukrainian speaker. I know how to pronounce "Kyiv", but I am not good enough at phonology to properly explain it.
The [-iu̯] bit is sufficiently troublesome to English-only speakers that it's probably best for them to check the Forvo website and look up > and listen to the Ukrainian recordings.
I don't think Ukraine was an observer either, just a "founding state" or whatever the term is.
Ukraine participated in CIS without being a member (if people cannot wrap their mind around it, I'll understand them). They did not ratify the charter.
This comment explains the difference between the two spelling Kyiv and Kiev. It's all about historical linguistics. The original word comes from an East Slavic dialect of the area. The word itself can be spelled , if we use the commonly accepted orthography for Old Slavic or if we use the Cyrillic based one, and it sounded pretty much like /kʉjew/. There were several other historic variant of the spelling the word but keep in mind that these spellings were not phonetic in their nature and often reflected various ways one word could have been spelled. It reminds English of the Middle English period when there could have been up to several possible ways of spelling a word. Then we have to take a look at several distinct phonetic changes that took place in what later bacame Ukrainian and what later became Russian. Ukrainian: 1. Following a process known as "the new yat", when a diphthong /ie/ narrowed and became /i/, the regular /e/ also tended to narrow towards /i/ in closed syllables, i.e. those that end with a consonant. 2. The original Proto Slavic vowels /ʉ/ and /i/, conventionally spelled like and using the aforementioned accepted Lating spelling or and using the Cyrillic based one, merged into /ɪ/. These two proceses give us modern Ukrainian pronunciation of /kɪjiw/. Now, about the actual spelling "Kyiv". It comes from the standard transliteration of the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet in which the word looks like . According to the rules of transliteration: К > K и > y ї > i (the letter denotes two sounds /ji/, by IPA standards, the /j/ is basically left out in the transliteration) в > v Russian: 1. the "new yat" never occured in what later became the base for modern Russian, thus leaving the intact. 2. The original Proto Slavic vowels /ʉ/ and /i/ didn't merge in Russian but another process occured. The /ʉ/ gradually shifted its place of articulation towards /i/ after velar consonants /g/, /k/ and /x/, thus giving us in transliteration. These two proceses give us modern Russian pronunciation of [ˈkʲi.jɨ̞f] / which reflects two other notable details, namely: a) vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, thus is not pronounced as it would be in a stressed syllable. b) final-obstruent devoicing, i.e. voiced consonants, in this case /v/, are devoiced when they are at the end of a word. In Ukrainian there is a slightly different process involved, i.e. denotes two possible allophones: /v/ and /w/~/u̯/, the latter occures before other consonants or at the ends of words. Now, about the actual spelling "Kiev". It comes from the standard transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet which is in the original spelling. According to the rules of transliteration К > K и > i e > e (the letter denotes two sounds /je/, by IPA standards, the /j/ is basically left out in the transliteration) в > v To sum it all up: both words come from the same root but reflect different paths the phonological systems of the two languages have undergone. P.S. I am a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics majoring in phonetics and phonology and a native speaker of both languages. Feel free to quote me on that and maybe like the comment so that other people, including dr. Crawford, have a piece of reliable info on the topic.
I coudn’t resist listening about Kievskaya Rus’ in English 😅 Хотя у меня конкретные флэшбэки на эту тему 😅
I found one part of the pronunciation confusing which was when Jackson mentioned that he’d heard something which sounds an awful lot like “Kijów” in Polish to my ears, but from Ukrainians. But when I’ve asked my Ukrainian friends (who live in Kyiv) about this, they’ve only returned puzzled expressions and sure enough say that they call it, “Kyiv” effectively like how it’s spelt in English. The former doesn’t seem as widely known as was implied in the video and I’m just wondering aloud about it here.
Thanks a lot! 🇸🇪
Regarding mutual intelligibility, as a Russian native speaker who is interested in languages: The languages are close enough for a Russian speaker to pick it up passively, at least as far as being able to understand it goes, both written and spoken. There are very tiny nuances in grammar and syntax, usually a Russian grammatical form would also be correct in Ukrainian, even if non-standard. In terms of vocabulary, Ukrainian has a bunch of polonisms and germanisms that Russian does not, and many terms while still being distinctly eastern slavic, are different from the words used in Russian, but if you know the roots and the phonetic correspondences, you get used to them quickly. Say, the word for "language" in Russian is "язык", whereas in Ukrainian it's "мова". However in Russian we have the word "молва" which means "speech", and in Ukrainian you can find the word "язик", which is "tongue" ("язык" also means "tongue" in Russian), and Ukrainian "розмова" means "conversation", whereas in Russian we would say "разговор" ("говорить" is "to speak/talk"), whereas "размолвка" is something like a quarrel in Russian (and I haven't heard that word in ages). Ukrainian vowels are shifted compared to Russian, e.g. "кот"-"кiт" ("cat"), "кит"-"кит" ("whale") ("и" in Ukrainian is closer to the Russian "ы", but not quite). One thing to keep in mind is that a fairly sizeable amount of Ukrainian speakers don't actually use "Ukrainian proper", but something that is called "surzhyk" which is, depending on who you ask and how it is spoken, can be anywhere from "a Ukrainian dialect" to "a Russian dialect", but linguistically I guess the most neutral way to describe it is a manifestation of the language continuum. A similar phenomenon exists in Belarusian as well, there it's called "trasyanka". Then there's Ruthenian which one might argue is a language (or group of languages) of its own, but I believe the common stance in Ukraine is that it is a dialect of Ukrainian (but don't quote me on that).
Fascinating. I was playing with Google Translate, looking at which languages used Latin or Cyrillic, and there was no Moldovan language. So I looked at Wikipedia, and in a census almost 2.7 million people said they spoke Moldovan, and 750 spoke Romanian. Apparently, Moldovan is the word for the Romanian language in Moldova. 750 people didn't get the memo! {:-:-:} _(Edited for Tyops)_
Very helpful, thank you!
@@SchmulKrieger sorry, but you seem to have a very vague idea of what you are talking about. > Alone the 7 cases vs. the 5 cases in Russian Russian has six recognised cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional), and while the vocative in its original form died out, it technically re-emerged in a slightly different form, as a rule of thumb removing the final vowel: say, the short form of my name "Рома" would be "Ром" if somebody were to call me. The original form of the vocative is preserved in phrases such as "боже мой" and the like. > Only around 60% of the vocabulary is shared with Russian 60-70 depending on how you count, but that is true for literary standards. In reality Ukrainians would often use words that are standard in Russian, or recognisable to a Russian speaker, depending on where the speaker is from (sometimes a lot of them, see Surzhyk). And then again, while some words do not exist in Russian proper, they are known to any speaker that does not live under a rock: дякую, побачити, тiкати and the like. > And Surzhyk is mostly Russian with Ukrainian accent which a lot of Russians confound with Ukrainian language This is just factually wrong.
Surzhyk is a mix of russian and Ukrainian, and I’ve known some Ukrainians to use the term to describe any kind of mix of the two. From my understanding, it’s generally not an appreciated form of speech if someone is expecting you to speak “pure” Ukrainian or “pure” russian. But also even when “parasite” words from russian enter Ukrainian, like using «да» instead of «так» or «та» for instance. It’s not considered a standardised language or dialect at all and often in russian films is known as a tool to dehumanise Ukrainians, they will portray surzhyk as “being Ukrainian” itself. Which simply isn’t true at all and is just meant to portray Ukrainians as barbarians in the eyes of russians who “can’t speak a real language.” Whereas in some Ukrainian films that are set in regions where surzhyk is spoken more, it is portrayed with more authenticity. Surzhyk is complicated and you will get a variety of complicated responses. But it is not Ukrainian and it is not russian.
This was a lot! Thanks all of you!
Around 37:00 Actually, there are quite a lot of Catholics in Ukraine, especially in the west. They’re around 10% of the total population. Mostly, they’re Byzantine Rite Catholics; that is to say, Catholics who belong to a Church that’s in full communion with Rome and agrees with the Catholic position on doctrinal matters, but also keep to the traditional liturgy and customs of the Greek influenced east. As for that kind of arrangement never happening before, that’s not true either. In total there are 23 Eastern Catholic churches today, covering most of the areas where non-Latin Christians live.
Thank you for this.
*Greek-Catholic I have literally translated that from Polish, to be fair.
In fact, in Central and Eastern Europe (and probably elsewhere as well), all Greek-Catholics were originally Orthodox Christians forced into accepting the religious rule of Rome for political reasons, by either the Poles or the Austrians during the XVII and XVIII centuries, according with whom occupied their lands at the time. As in most cases people opposed these conversions (sometimes violently - as it was in the case of my Transylvanian ancestors), concessions were made regarding liturgical language and Orthodox symbols and customs, and they could retain the Byzantine flavour of their faith.
It’s amazing how the Varangians were able to figure out the rivers and the land crossings between the rivers. They couldn’t just get in their boats in the Baltic and sail to Byzantium! They had to carry their boats long distances between rivers, often through heavy forest.
Thank you for this, Jackson. You have access to knowledge and knowledgeable people that most of us don't and you use it so benevolently.
Fantastic talk. Thank you both for providing us with this insight into a fascinating history.
Tusen takk for deres svært interessante og lærerike samtale! 😀
Tusen tack för ert väldigt intressanta och lärorika samtal! 🇸🇪 Då har vi först danska 🇩🇰 sen svenska 🇸🇪. Har vi någon norrman, islänning, kanske till och med en färöing? Några nordiska dialekter som skiljer sig från riksspråket? (Övdalsk "dalälvska" och jamska "jämtländska" från Sverige t ex) Några samiska? Och förstås, vår granne med sisu, finska?)
Någon mer nordbo som reagerar när en ukrainare säger "ja"? "Tak". Vi har lite olika stavning, men uttalet är detsamma. Tak, takk, tack.
@@annabackman3028 Ingen dansker her foreløpig. 🇳🇴
Always great guests, and a wonderful host. Very good dive into the history.
A very interesting discussion - it would be a pleasure to spend an afternoon listening to Professor Grove on the subject of Russian history - many thanks for this
Hi Dr. Crawford, lovely video and great discussion! I’ve been learning Ukrainian for three years now (my fifth language and first Slavic one) and I’ve always been interested in Norse culture. I want to learn Swedish and your videos make me feel like I could learn old Norse someday as well! I’m a bit disappointed that Dr. Grove seemed unaware of the large Catholic presence in modern Ukraine around 37:00! The “Uniate” church (Greek Catholic is the proper term) is still very much around today, and they’re about a tenth of the population of Ukraine. Their national anthem was in fact composed by a Greek Catholic priest. Also, as an Old Norse speaker, you might be pleased to know that the Ukrainian word meaning pleasant, handsome, or lovely is гарно (harno), which comes from Old Norse “herra”!
Excellent, informative discussion, thanks to both of you.
Amazing. Thank you for this.
Thank you truly, Dr Crawford, for this discussion with Dr Grove. Now I can forgive myself for not being able to sort this out on my own, despite 30 years of a layman’s interest. “It’s complicated,” indeed.
Don't feel bad. Hundreds of years of skirmishes between the Slavs, Skandinavians and Mongols is difficult to keep straight on one's head. It's fascinating, and exhausting. Lol
It is like watching one of those very serious movies that is so bad you can't figure out what the plot is, mostly because it could never be worth the amount of work.
There are a actually a bunch of “Eastern Catholic” churches which retain the liturgy and whatnot of Eastern Orthodoxy but are in Communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is actually the largest of these “eastern catholic” churches and in Western Ukraine there are a few Oblasts which are majority (>50%) Eastern Catholic.
This was very good, thanks!
This was a timely and enlightening discussion.
very interesting discussion. LANGUAGE, HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY everything. Thank you both.
On the subject of Catholicism, there are a number of rites under the umbrella of the Catholic Church who are in full communion with the Pope. The Latin rite is the best known, but there are I think 24 different liturgical rites recognized by the Vatican. These are divided between Eastern and Western rites. I think they used the Byzantine Rite in Ukraine, but I’m just a practicing Catholic who happens to know a Byzantine rite priest
Norse and Slavic languages share a common Indo-European dithematic name tradition. There are some shared elements of various ages, some ancient some more recent, others with semantic parallels. Every known Indo-European language except the Italic followed the same tradition.
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much, Drs. Crawford and Grove, for this discussion. It gives so much necessary context for understanding today’s political situation with Russia and Ukraine. But also, the history in itself is fascinating.
Glad that you covered Riuryk.
It seems that Varagians/Væringjar was also a male name. On the runestone Ög 111, Landeryd, Sweden it says: Væringʀ ræisti stæin æftiʀ Þialfa, broður sinn, dræng þann, eʀ vaʀ með Knuti. (Væringr raised the stone in memory of Þjalfi , his brother, the valiant man who was with Knútr.). Knuti is said to be Cnut the great.
Very satisfying stuff! Thanks for informing ignorant people like me, great guest.
Much appreciated.
Thank you both for such an interesting discussion and for sharing your knowledge. Edit: Jackson, I mean this in the most respectful and complimentary way, but you look like a black metal artist dressed up for a swanky event.
About Russian speakers in the Ukraine: isn't it so, that in the Soviet Union Russian was an obligatory language for everyone? So anybody over, say 35, could be considered a native Russian speaker, without being a native Russian, so to speak..?
Yes also the Ukrainian language was forbidden for centuries and allowed for a small period of time during the cultural appreciation during the Soviet Union and then again repressed and forbidden under Stalin. So everyone was forced to speak Russian and you had to speak Ukrainian in secret or in villages. The Centuries of discrediting the Ukrainian language as language of peasants and uneducated and the Russian language as educated and “city language” also is a great factor as to why many Ukrainians speak Russian. Due to business and propaganda. This changed a lot and ethnically a lot of people in the east of Ukraine and around the black sea in general (even in Russian territories) are Ukrainian. They were simply repressed. After centuries of suppression the Ukrainian language is flourishing again though it was greatly influenced
Not even over 35. Most young people from Central, Southern and Eastern Ukraine are also native russian speakers. They're usually bilingual. Western ukranians can easily understand and usually can kinda speak russian but they just don't do that at home. Also there's a thing called "суржик" (surzhik). Since the two languages are pretty close people start to mix them and use vocabulary and grammar from both languages in they're speech. I dunno if it counts as ukranian or russian. Also yeah, previous commentator was right about Black Sea ukranians. Other statements are controversial but it doesn't matter right now. There were a lot of ukranians in the russian region called Кубань (Kuban) but later they was assimilated and now pretty much no one except elders speak ukranian there. Same thing happens in Belarus, where majority of population are L1 russian speakers (they also have their own Surzhik which is called "Трасянка" (Trasyanka)). In Kazakhstan most of people can speak Russian at native or near-native level. Same in Moldova. People in other post-soviet countries often can speak Russian too, but not as good. The lowest knowledge of Russian I guess should be in Georgia, young people here cannot speak Russian at all.
Funny this would be the topic of today's video, as I coincidentally watched a couple weeks ago a two-hour video called "History of Ancient Rus" on the "Kings and Generals" KZhead channel. It was dizzying, all the battles for power, and how so many dudes wanted to attain for themselves the coveted title of Prince of Kiev, as Dr. Grove mentioned. Fascinating, though. And although a lot has happened in that region since then, learning about that period of history does shed a bit of light on why some things may be the way they are today, to some degree.
Tremendous refresher. Thank you! . The info and presentation made for a fuller understanding of the history of this area.. This is a primary concern in my life . Some of the stories sound almost Biblical.. Of course then we're in trouble. Religion and Myth. Just add blood and stir. But my interest in this site stems from several brief attempts to study Norwegian and Swedish languages.
Thank you.
Take a geographical map of Europe, turn it 15-20 degrees clockwise, and you can see huge rivers going right through the mentioned areas. 60-70 days travel from "top" to "bottom". Priest Thomas Frank and Moesgaard Museum has done a series on these travels specifically.
A few words on the topic of Greek-rite Catholicism, that was a bit skipped over in the interview. The term "Greek Catholicism", "Greek-rite Catholicism" or "Byzantine-rite Catholicism" refers to the previously Orthodox churches (in the sense of national churches as organizations, not just buildings) that split off from Orthodoxy and accept the supremacy of Pope in Rome (so, they become Catholic) while maintaing Orthodox customs, rituals, the lithurgical calendar (Julian, as opposed to Gregorian used by Roman Catholics), the veneration of Orthodox saints, the possibility for priests to be married, etc. There are Greek Catholic churches in many European countries - Ukraine is not an exception, but the Greek Catholicism in Ukraine and Poland is the biggest of them. And as with many other historical processes it can be interpreted from at least two perspectives. One, more favourable to Poland, is that when after Union of Lublin in 1569 the lands of the nowadays Ukraine came under the Polish rule, it created a question of how to integrate Ukrainian nobles and priests into the Commonwealth system (the union of Poland and Lithuania was called the Commonwealth of Both Nations). To the people back then it seemed difficult to accept that they can be treated as equals while having a different religion. So they came up with the idea of Greek Catholicism as a sort of a compromise: the new church was Catholic, so it belonged to the same religious and cultural hierarchy, but it maintained Orthodox customs, making it easier for people to transition (in fact, many common people might have not even noticed any change in their parish). So, in 1596, the Union of Brześć was signed and on paper all Orthodox parishes on the Commonwealth lands were now Greek Catholic. But in practice it was a complete transition of Ukrainian Orthodoxy to Catholicism. It was a split. The "disunites", Ukrainians who opposed the union, almost immediately started to organize and already in 1620 there was again a network of Orthodox churches in the Kiyv voivodeship. In 1633 they were legalized and from this moment there were both legal Greek Catholic and Orthodox churches in Ukraine. From the other perspective, more negative to Poland, all this was a case of a divide and conquer strategy of the Polish king and nobility. Those of Ukrainian high class who converted did that because it gave them privileges and better access to the Commonwealth throne. The union coincided with Polish settlement further east and polonization of cities. Speaking a bit anachronistically, it was a severe blow to Ukrainian national identity and was used much later on by those who claimed Ukraine was not a real country but "a borderland" ("u kraja" - pol. "at the border"). For the next centuries the high culture of Ukrainian lands became polonized, and later, as the Commonwealth weakened and Russia grew in power, russianized. The Ukrainian culture was considered backward and rural - even after Orthodoxy got an upper hand again because of Russia (because now it was Russian Orthodoxy). In the same time, the part of the population that opposed the Union of Brześć, became more anti-Polish, and indirectly that helped later Cossack uprisings and destabilized the Commonwealth in the 17th century. The eastern part of Ukraine eventually split up, but instead of becoming independent, it was quickly added to the growing Russian empire. The wars weakened the Commonwealth which in time also became influenced by Russia. Until this day we can find many arguments between Polish and Ukrainian people about our common history, mainly along the lines of who did what to whom.
I'm seriously saving this to come back to a million times over in the future. This is so different from the propaganda that was crammed down my throat as a kid.
What country are you from
@@johnndamascene Belarus
@@KseniyaKArt Thanks
You mention that the shared history between Sweden and Denmark has had less violent implications. This is certainly true for the ninteenth century pan-Scandinavian movement that aimed to unify the area in the wake of the unifications of Italy and Germany. It fizzled out and eventually led to the balkanisation of Scaninavia as rather than Denmark joining the union Norway left it. But if we're talking about the unified Scandinavian state from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century it was plagued by near constant uprisings until its eventual dissolution. Of course during the fifteenth century feudal loyalty was more important and national identity was less so for these conflicts. But it doesn't ring entirely true to me to claim that these matters of shared history, identity and language were all that much more peaceful than the east slavic ones.
I think Sweden and Denmark has the world record of most wars against each other in history so yea, not so peaceful.. even though it's so now.
@@DamienThorn999 Yes that is true, the only two countries that come close to the number of conflicts Denmark and Sweden has is England and France.
Very interesting! I’m glad this wasn’t a Russia bashing exercise, and very interesting about the princess slaughtering her opponents!
this topic was deeply explored by prof. Pritsack ,explaining origin of word "Russ" after name of dutch trade company whose interests on the trade route were represented by the Vikings
Hi, Kievian Rus is a very interesting topic, thank you for bringing it up and I hope it is not for the last time! I am not an expert but I think I can give some hints regarding the discussed topics: - Russian name "Rossiya" comes from the Greek language. Its use is linked to the fall of Constantinople and the claim that Moscow is the Third Rome (hence the Tsar title, or double-headed eagle in the Russian coat of arms). I believe it became official around the XVI century. - Western Rus was conquered mostly by Lithuania, but Lithuanian princes adopted the title of Grand Dukes (similarly to Moscow) and the Ruthenian language (from Ruthenia - the Latin name of Rus) became official in Lithuania until the end of the XVII century. - There is a dispute between historians what was the relationship between the pagan dukes of Lithuania (they adopted western Christianity in the late XIV century) and orthodox Ruthenians. After the fall of Kyiv in 1240, four major centres of power grew on the Rus territory and claimed direct inheritance: Vladimir-Moscow in the north-east (the direct ancestor of Russia, under the strongest Mongol control), the Novgorod Republic in the north (later conquered by Moscow but played a huge role in the Baltic trade of Hansa or fights with the Teutonic Knights), Lithuania in the west and centre (which later united with Poland and was incorporated into Russia in the late XVIII century) and the Kingdom of Halych-Volhynia in the south-west (divided between Lithuania, Poland and Hungary in XIV century). The latter one is the source of many Ukrainian national symbols, like the blue-yellow colours. - In general, the Lithuanian Ruthenian language used in Poland-Lithuania was closer to the folk language and influenced by Polish, while Moscow Ruthenian language was built more on the canvas of Church Slavonic. As a reminder: the (Old) Church Slavonic language is based on Slavic dialects from Macedonia and already in late Kievian Rus times it was not understood well by the commoners. Thus, Ukrainian and Polish share more common vocabulary than Ukrainian and Russian. Meanwhile, Russians and Bulgarians can understand each other much easier than Bulgarians and Ukrainians or Poles. - From my experience, Russians and Ukrainians that were rarely exposed to each language have a hard time understanding each other. But, as the Russian language has a strong presence in Ukraine, it is more probable that a Ukrainian person just knows a bit of Russian. This may cause the asymmetry you were mentioning. Cheers!
It is often said of the kings sagas found in Heimskringla penned by Snorri Sturluson that they were written specifically to legitimize the rule of kings or dynasties. It would not be surprising that the saga of Rurik was written with the aim of legitimizing the rule of his dynasty
Thx
When did Dr Jackson Crawford get a microphone?
When he started rapping in old norse...
Very interesting and on point! Those first Scandinavian names in their slavicized form such as Oleg and Olga, Igor...have been preserved in Russia, Ukraine and other slavic countries to this day. I wonder if Vladimir too has a connection to Waldemar/Valdemar
Supposedly that name went the other way and is a slavic import into Scandinavia. Something that seems reasonable since the name has a meaning in slavic languages but not in germanic languages.
@@danvernier198 It does have meaning in germanic languages - wald is power/rule/brightness and mar is fame i.e. powerful famous ruler.
@@alexlarsen6413 It's a pretty muddled etymology, but I think what is clear is that both the germanic and slavic sources have a lot of overlap.
There were supposedly Anglo-Saxon refugees from the Norman Conquest who were allowed by the Byzantines to settle in Crimea in return for military service
It's also interesting that the letter ж highly resembles the rune hagaliz. Is there a correlation in your opinion?
could you please talk about Poland's Mieszko the First's Viking guards?
If anyone wants to go deeper in history of Kyivan Rus', I recommend articles of Dr. Oleksii Tolochko. It would be great to listen to a podcast with him as a guest.
Or just write to Sergiy Plohy)) for Kozak history and more modern stuff.
Thank you for this episode. Explaining the shared history does help understand both why Russia lays "claim" to Ukraine AND how Ukraine holds to their autonomy. Also, I had read in an article, decades ago, that the Rus were Vikings, but never learned more than that. Now I have a clearer picture of that piece of history.
perhaps dr grove is referring to the Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Church which is incredible similar to the orthodox church. The Byzantine recognize the catholic pope in Rome, Italy as the head of the church.
It would be nice if you could get a Slavic linguist expert as a guest. She was, as she said, lost on those questions. The recent Ukrainian history and religious makeup questions were also answered incorrectly.
Damn great job summing up 1000 years of history on the geographical area of Ukraine amazing job Vicki
I have noted chronicles of a slavic/germanic tribe who may have given birth, so to speak, to these Scandinavian and Rus cultures, thereby cementing later relationships with France(Anne of Kiev) or Sweden (Ingegerd Olafsdottir - perhaps a similar root in names Sweden and Suebi?) The tribe is referred to as Herminone (earmeenoonay) and claim decendancy from one named Ymir(eemeer) which I notice in the name Vladimir as well. I truly have not thought very much on this, but request information or direction to aim my curiousity.
I really appreciate this and I would like to send you a message at some point about my interest and efforts involving my desire to promote the repatriation of ancient artifacts from private collections.
The info on some points: ' Glagolitic alphabet' was mostly developed/polished by Saint Jerome (author of Vulgate De viris illustribus Chronicon), alphabet itself much older and was native to St. Jerome language,... Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia requested that Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch Photius send missionaries to evangelize his Slavic subjects, when Cyril and Methodius came to the region and modernise it later on ... which got eve more modernised later on with Cyrillic alphabet in Bulgarian Empire and later finalized and spread by disciples Kliment and Naum in the Ohrid and Preslav schools of Tsar Boris I of Bulgaria as a simplification of the Glagolitic alphabet which more closely resembled the Greek alphabet.
One fun anecdote in the Primary Chronicle that Dr. Grove glossed over about the adoption of Christianity is that, according to the Christian monks telling the story, his choice was influenced by Islam's prohibition of alcohol vs. Christianity's prohibition of polygamy. He declares "drinking is a pleasure for all Rus', one without which we cannot live." And though this is likely to be invented after the fact, it's funny to think that this was the official version of the events cultivated by the church and ruling princes.
For the point made at 47:47 , I read the Wikipedia page on Russian phonology at some point in the recent past (for God knows why) and I remember when talking about Russian's aggressive vowel reduction, it mentioned that most other Slavic tongues don't do this, even closely related ones, and it explicitly used Ukrainian as an example.
The same vowel reduction process does happen in Belarusian, but it's reflected in spelling. Hence the difference between the old fashioned (for both English and Russian) name "Belorussia" vs "Belarus".
This is great... I've just sent the link to all my Russian language students!
What are the odds, I'm reading the primary chronicle right now!
32:07 Technically, both Belarus and Ukraine are founding members of the UN, and thus at least during 1945 considered independent Soviet republics by both Stalin and the western allies.
This explains stuff that I am now ashamed to have had wrong, and spread, for at least a decade. Aside from all of that, also just very interesting! As a note, the Austro-Hungarians also had a similar thing, that was them basically expanding on the Polish thing, with the churches. Greek Catholic Church is the term we have for that from the Austrian Emperors, allowing their subjects in those regions to not be heretics. Little odd in retrospect that the Austrians got Lviv, and Galicia/Halych out of the Poland deal, lands full of Orthodox Eastern Slavs, when Russia got like central Poland, and Lithuania. Coulda traded parts of Poland, and the Ukraine and both ended up happier, one would think.
Another Scandinavian connection is Ingegerd Olofsdotter, the princess daughter of the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung. Ingegerd married Jaroslav I and became an important saint in the Orthodox Church.
There are a couple things i would add to this topic. As mentioned in a video, word "Rus" comes (most likely) from Norse word for oarsman. But it certainly came to slavic languages through finno-ugric form "ruotsi"(there is lingustic explanation to this, but I'm not a linguist). And keep in mind that of 4 or 5 tribes that invited Rurik only 2 were slavic, other 2 or 3 were finno-ugric. About scandinavians on these territories. There are archaeological signs that there were scandinavian colonies on the Route from the Varangians to the Greeks way before Rurik. At least since the end of 8th century. Now on the matter of "Invitation". First we should understand a simple fact that "rule" of an early-medieval king is not the same as "rule" of his late medieval collegue. Early germanic "kings" century were mostly war chieftains (with some sacral functions). So it totally makes sense to invite a capable warlord with his retinue to protect you and to lead your tribe in raids and wars against neighbours. Second. Primary Chronicle (in Russian " letopis' ") is nor a history book nor just a compilation of tales. At least it wasn't when it was written. As any other letopis' it was intended for internal use only. Why it was written? Who knows now? There are some theories but it doesn't matter now. Can't see how it could be used for legitimization of Rurikids. There were mentioned names of early Rurikids. That is also an interesting subject. Name Rurik is clearly comes from Norse HRÆREKR. This name probably has two ancient germanic roots: HRŌÞIZ and RĪKIJAZ. Former means something linked to glory or fame. So. After Igor/Ingvarr we have a ton of Rurikids with root "slav" in their name. This root has exactly the same meanings, for example as in Russian word "slava" -- "fame, glory, renown". About fines for cutting off a finger and harming a beard. It makes total sense because harming a beard is an act against one's masculinity. Surely a big no-no in traditional society.
@@Utgardaloki76 yup, my bad, I used a western form of the name. Well, at least I didn't use Rodrigo.
33:00 I'm polish and I can confirm that Ukraina might mean something similar to "at the border". in old Polish U is at and kraj or krai is a border (nowadays it usually means country though, but it's sometimes used as an edge) whereas krai-na is "a land" - at least nowadays
Same in Russian. Край (kraj) means border, edge. But it also means land or region.
Ukrahina simply means homeland, simple as that. Borderland would be Okrajina (which was never recorded or mentioned). The interpretation Borderland was popularized by Soviet later Russian propaganda to diminish Ukrainian identity and pride, for they wanted to russify Ukraine
But don't forget about other use of "u". I can say I'm "u kogoś" (at somebody's house) Considering Polish complicated history it's difficult to be 100% sure what did it originally mean. Our most popular national eulogy is directed to Lithuania. "Lithuania, my fatherland!" written in Polish of course
Name with the "Krajna" extension was in practice used for parts or regions of certain land.
3:50 According to archeological excavations, Novgorod was founded no earlier than the 10th century, and Rurik is a mythological figure, because his personality is not mentioned anywhere else except in the "tale of bygone years", which dates back to the 12th century
I'd love to hear you talk about Gammalsvenskby in Ukraine.
And its connection to Swedish speaking Estonia
0:46 What about us Belarusians :( We still exist and also trace part of our roots back to the Rus.
Askold and Dir are believed to be one person by some people. Basically, Dyre the Stranger.
Did Vladimir adopt Christianity after 1054? I didn't catch any dates for this, only that the chronicle covers a period that goes a little past the Great Schism of 1054. I cringed when she laughed off the division of Christian Churches with, "Somehow they accepted the Pope but they're still Eastern Orthodox." That's embarrassing for someone who's supposed to be a scholar of a People and culture. There's more than one Uniate Church. It might be a complicated history, but all history is complicated. With religion being such an important part of this current conflict, including the Soviet suppression of religion, I'd think it's something to try to understand. I'd also think it's important to listen to the people of the regions included in what we're calling "Ukraine." Granting the history of the varieties of cultural and linguistic peoples, it seems to me that it's good to ask what those people want. And in that, the answer seems obvious in what the people of the regions voted for. 🤷🏼♀️
Is there a technical definition of the difference between "language" and "dialect" that I ought o accept?
Is there any connections between Kyiv/Kiev in Ukraine and Khiva in Uzbekistan?
The link to the Primary Chronicle PDF didn't work for me, but this one did: www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a011458.pdf
24:15 Cyrillic alphabet is created on the Balkan peninsula however. That's a whole different Slavic language subgroup and countries. And Glagolitic writing on icons is very very rare. Mostly we see peculiar Cyrillic fonts
27:00 Eastern Slavic languages diverged in the Middle Ages (13-16 century iirc).
In fact... the current Danish queen is a descendant of Vladimir the great - via Ingeborg of Kiev - and thus Rurik.
I think one thing to keep in mind was that the Christianity to which Prince Vladimir converted was simple an Eastern form of Christianity. He converted in the 800s (someone correct me on this chronological fact) which was well before the Great Schism of 1054. When Prince Vladimir converted, he put himself under the direct spiritual authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was still in communion with the 4 other patriarchs, among whom was the Pope of Rome. There had yet to be the distinctions between Eastern and Western Christianity. Before 1054, everyone in the East was Catholic ie. universal and everyone in the West was Orthodox ie. right-teaching.
Prince Volodymyr*
Sviatoslav was borrowed into Swedish as Svante.
Yes, it all checks out :) I'll allow myself to copy my concise early history of the Rus and Kiev from another Dr.Crawford-initiated thread: By the time Rurik settled in Novgorod up north, Kiev had already been an important Polanian trading post on the way from the Varangians to the Greeks. The city was in tributary dependency to the Khazar empire, but Rurik's lieutenants Askold and Dyr took the protection racket over. They did it without respect though, so Rurik's relative Oleg offed the two and handed the city over to Rurik's son Igor. And so the famiglia moved down to Kiev. BTW, Igor's son Sviatoslav (who expanded the family business significantly) moved the court again down to the Danube mouth, but it didn't stick, so the Rurikovichi kept their HQ in Kiev.
There was a thought it was named after the Ross family name
Thanks. Waldemar is a common Name in Germany and Sweden.
ROsssia - with an O - is a Greek modification. The original old Russian pronunciation was RUs', with a U.
Btw the adjective "Russian" (ethnicly or culturally) is "russkiy" with an u. There is another word "rossiyskiy" which is derived from the word for Russia "rossiya" and means "Russian" but more like "Russia's", so related to the state and not the ethnos.
A few comments, I think the word väring is connected to the word värna om, värn as in defense. Varangir guard I have been told refers to fara gir, danger turn, a watchout in the viking ship. I dont know. I dont think that Roslagen or the Ros are derived from the the word row. Roslagen is a part of the Upplandish cultural sphere and there was usually a genetiv s used to define a place, like in Sothebys. The land was called Roden and Roslagen as in the difference between Danmark and Danelagen The Central region of Uppland, Tiundaland old dialect is related to north Norwegian and English as they used to live in Scandinavia. The ethnical difference in Scandinavia is north /south not east /west. The southern scandinavian like gothic is not related to english or north norwegian as far as I can tell. The swedes are a mystery. Was it a scythian tribe that immigrated as yngligaätten tells us and was Svea rike a religious construction including the Ros and Goths. Probably, since the Goths as fearsome warriors wouldnt have peacefully surrendered.
January 6th was Little Christmas. My mother was Slovak. The three kings were put in the nativity..
Having ao Norse and Jewish-Slavic blood , this has always interested me. Especially now with the current situation...😟💙💛Thank you💜
What is your background ?
We're called "Reuthenian," which I think is a Latinate variation of Rus (somehow?) We practice very much like Russian Orthodox, but we recognize the Pope as the final authority of our church and agree with Rome in fundamental theological matters.
There are Arab and Indian churches that acknowledge the primacy of the Pope while retaining an essentially Orthodox liturgy.
for a moment i thought they said farengi......like from star trek...oarsmen...might it not mean those governed by the law of the sea, and not that law of the soil...
Great, the current issues faced by Ukrainian people reminded me that I don't know much about the Kyivan Rus
I'd argue that it may have been the tribes that were loosing out in the internal power struggles that invited the Russ.
The Duran has been doing analyses of the situation. They do Livestreams, and each of the gentlemen posts commentary on their own channels - Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris. They're both Greek, but there latter lives in London, England.
also, they spread russian propaganda talking points.
I'm sure everything you disagree with is Russian propaganda, maybe we get a lot of American propaganda in Western media have you ever thought of that ?@@joucahayne1627
Word *Ukraine* to describe the territory where roughly is modern Ukraine is first mentioned in 12th century. In a more modern meaning of the word, with people calling themselves Ukrainian, that started from 16th century.
"My name is ibn fadlan and i was sent as ambassador to the land of the volga bulgars"
I am as a resident of eastern Ukraine ,where native poplation take its roots from nomadian kumans mixed with Slavs and Crimean Greeks, and in our mix we have something like common apearence, but many people in Kyiv region have their own. Main features are : high stature , stong body, blue eyes and blond hair. It caught my eye long before I saw some kind of historical context
The Ukrainian language is closer to Belarusian 84%, Polish 70%, Slovak 68% and up to 4th place russian 64%. Ukraine - Україна can be written like this "у країні" which means in the country, it is not the borderlands but the country.
Damn, Jackson out here looking like John Wick.
Great video as well.
Thank you 💛💙
The Lithuanians & especially the Polish nobility were very Catholic and pushed Polonization/ Catholicism (certainly religion at 1st & maybe culture and language at least later). There were elites (or those who wanted to be or to elevate themselves) who converted to Catholicism and some adopted Polish. To make it easier for some to unite with Rome, a new rite was developed whereby much of the rituals/customs and even much of the liturgy was retained but they were under authority of Pope in Rome - the name Uniate came to be associated with it. So it wasn’t still Eastern Orthodox as she said. There was a major Cossack rebellion against Poland because of these attempts to force religious change on them. The Uniates & Roman Catholics didn’t fare well under the Russians & later Communists who gained control over their lands.
Hello, Dr. Crawford. Is there any chance you could please write down (type) what I think could be Old Norse at the beginning of the 'Rune trailer - E3 2000 | Game Archives' or slightly clipped version (my personal atmospheric favorite) in the 'Rune E3 2000 Release Uncut Movie/Trailer' video found on KZhead? The speaking starts at about 20 seconds in both videos and is only two sentences (second sentence is unfortunately slightly clipped in the second video). I've always loved this and have been interested in trying to replicate it. I just thought having it written down would help me with learning the proper pronunciation/vocabulary, syntax, etc. Thank you for your time if you are able to help.
Lol
autism
27:15 I dont quitely understand why west sub-brench of slavic langues shows Czech and Slovac are more close to Polish while east sub-brench doesnt do the same for Ukrainian and Belarusan.
8:35 Wow, that Slavicization looks like evidence that Russian Old Norse had a "light" /l/ rather than a dark one. I don't know if that's news
The two of you have excellent discussions. Not sure your US-UK analogy works. The US has tried the violent takeover of Canada at least twice (three times if you count the Fenians) and there was that whole business with the War of Northern Aggression. US citizens were allowed to financially support the breakup of the United Kingdom with the War for Irish Independence. Not sure the War with Mexico over Texas qualifies under this analogy but it is out there if anyone thinks it fits.