The Rus‘ were an early medieval group, who lived in a large area of what is now Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries, and are the ancestors of modern Russians and other related Slavic peoples.
Kievan Rus – a powerful East Slavic State dominated by the city of Kiev. It Shaped in the 9th century it went on to flourish for the next 300 years.
The empire is traditionally seen as the beginning of Russia and the ancestor of Belarus and Ukraine.
Monument to Prince Vladimir the Great ruler who christianised Kievan Rus
According to author C. J. Adrien and the traditional account presented in The Russian Primary Chronicle, it was founded by the Viking Oleg, ruler of Novgorod from about 879.
Russian historiography states Prince Oleg (882-912 ) was the first ruler to start uniting East Slavic lands into what has become known as Kievan Rus‘.
Primary sources for the early societal structure, culture, and activities of the Rus are practically non-existant. They did not leave any writings behind for us to find, until the embassy of the missionary Anskar to Birka in the mid-9th century.,
The Rus were, as far as we can tell, as active in raiding and foreign trading as the Danes, if not more. The people they attacked—chiefly those in Finland, then Slavs further East—were not literate like those the Danes terrorized, which further explains why sources are so sparse about their early activities.
The earliest mention of the people called the Rus traveling outside of Sweden may be found in the Annals of Saint Bertin, in which it is written that a group of traveling Rus visited the court of Louis the Pious, Emperor of the Carolingian Empire, as part of a larger group of envoys from the Byzantine Empire.
The Rus’ arrival was marred by the fact that Anskar had already visited and returned from Birka (though this was not yet explicitly chronicled), and his testimony about the Swedes led the emperor to distrust his unexpected guests.
How the Rus got their name is also somewhat of an enigma. Like the name “Viking” itself, the name Rus has several possible sources.
In the Annals of Saint Bertin, and indeed in several other sources, they are referred to as the “Rhos” which has led historians to hypothesize a connection with their tribal home of Roslagen. Others think the name was given to them by the Finns, who today still call the Swedes Ruotsi, a word meaning, “those who row.”
Again, there is no certainty as to the true origins of the name, but it is the name they would lend to one of the most powerful nations in modern history, Russia.
If the second origin theory of the name Rus is correct—the theory tying it to the Finnish word Ruotsi—the name Russia may actually mean “the land of those who row.”
There are also Arabic sources which chronicled embassies by eastern scholars to visit the Rus, and who refer to them as such. They also referred to the Vikings as Majus, but this was a name they tended to use in the West, in Al–Andalus (Spain).
The sources are used sparingly and carefully where the Rus are concerned because academics are not entirely certain that they were referring to Vikings.
To some scholars their writings are somewhat unreliable because observations that were made are not consistent with what we know about Viking Age Scandinavians from both written and archeological sources.
But, even if there is a kernel of truth in the Arabic writings, it underscores an easy and prevalent awareness of the Rus in the east, as well as proof of enduring contact.
In 1929, the archeologist Birger Nerman discovered the remnants of a colony in Latvia of Swedish origin.
His conclusions were that the colony had existed since the mid 7th century and likely had formed as a result of the expulsion of one third of the inhabitants of Gotland due to famine.
The discovery was the Viking equivalent of the discovery of the city of Troy, whose existence belonged to mythology until its discovery by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870.
Birger’s discovery has proved paramount to help piece together the narrative of the early activities of the Rus in the East. The colony he discovered, known as the Grobin Colony, uncovered significant evidence in the form of burial mounds directly linking the inhabitants there to the Swedes of Gotland.
Among the artifacts were picture stones in the shape and style of the Gotland stones, and further artifacts found within the burials were also of the style and construction known to have been common in Gotland.
What is most interesting about the site is the progression of types of burials found. The oldest burials contained women, indicating that the colony had begun precisely as that, a colony.
The younger of the burials, dating to the late 8th century, contained men with the typical weaponry of the day, indicating a change in the colony’s demographics where the ambitions of the Rus shifted toward traveling east for raids and trade rather than settlement on the Eastern Baltic.
Grobin is not an isolated archeological find. Distinctly Scandinavian artifacts have also been found in Ladoga, which date back to the mid-8th century.
The achievements of the Rus in the east were among the most impressive of their day.
From the establishment of their first colonies on the shores of the Baltic and Lake Ladoga, they established trade routes that made use of the complex interweave of river networks present in the eastern steppes.
From there, they established trade with the Byzantines. Among the goods they brought were honey, wax, amber, blubber, furs, walrus tusks, and most importantly, slaves.
They traded these goods for silver, and from an Arabic coin minted in 786 (it says so on the coin) at Ladoga, we understand that trade between the Rus and the East was already well established by the end of the 8th century.
This stands in contrast to the Danes and Norwegians whose exploits had barely begun by this period.
Massive hordes of Arabic silver coins found in Sweden and Gotland over the years are evidence of how extensive their trade was.
The sheer volume attests to a long term relationship between Sweden and the Byzantines, and one which endured several centuries.
In spite of great influence of Byzantine legislation on the contemporary world, and in spite of great cultural and commercial ties between Byzantium and Rus‘, the Russkaya Pravda (Russian Law Book )bore no similarity at all to that of the Byzantine Empire.
Moreover, the absence of capital and corporal punishment rather reflects the Norse way of thought.
From here, the story of the Rus shifts focus.
The Russian Primary Chronicle, which tells of the early foundations of the modern country of Russia, tells of an event whereby the Slavs invited the Rus to rule over them.
According to the account, the Slavs admitted to being unable to rule themselves, and so resorted to asking the Rus, considered strong leaders, to establish law and order.
Therefore, the event commonly dubbed “The Invitation of the Rus”.
The Yaroslav’s Law comprised legal regulations of feudal law along with the archaic regulations that could be traced back to the primitive communal system.
According to a popular theory, it was promulgated in order to settle a conflict between Konstantin Dobrynich, a posadnik (mayor) and the Varangian population of the city.
To scholars it the is most important collection of old Ukrainian-Rus’ laws and an important source for the study of the legal and social history of Rus’-Ukraine and neighboring Slavic countries, because it was compiled in the 11th and 12th centuries on the basis of customary law.
Russkaya Pravda – It could be translated as both “Russian Truth” and “Russian Justice” and while researchers say the latter one is probably more accurate, this early legal code of Kievan Rus heavily relied on what was considered truthful or fair at the time.
The original texts have never been found, however, this code was discovered by the historian Vasily Tatishchev in one of the Novgorod chronicles in the 18th century.
About thirty years later, in 1767, the first annotated edition of the code was published.
Since then, more than 110 extant copies dating from the 13th to the 18th centuries have been discovered in various chronicles and compilations.
The Russkaya Pravda (RP) comes in three editions: the Short Edition (Kratkaya), the oldest of all ; the Vast Edition (Prostrannaya), the most comprehensive; and the Abridged Edition (Sokrashchennaya), the most controversial.
Pravda Rus’skaya’s legal regulations reflected the evolution of the social relations in the Rus‘ of the 11th-13th centuries.
Common law, Knyaz legislation, and legal proceedings represented the basis of Russkaya Pravda (RP) .
The Short Edition contains two apparently distinct parts, called by researchers Pravda Yaroslava (Yaroslav’s Law, ca. 1017), otherwise known as Drevneyshaya Pravda (the Oldest Justice) of Yaroslav the Wise.
“Pravda Yaroslavichey” increased responsibility of a given community for killing soldiers, privileged servants or a representative from the low-ranking administration.
The articles of this section carefully define and defend the interests of princes, government officials, and private property.
The varying fines for murder (see vyra), depending on the victim’s social rank, point to a differentiated society.
Most norms of the short redaction are devoted to the protection of life, health, and property.
It provided severe punishment for arson, deliberate cattle mutilation, and collective encroachment on rich people’s property.
After the 1113 Riot in Kiev, an exorbitant interest law was introduced that limited financial operations of moneylenders.
Believed to have been compiled in the second half of 11th century, Russkya Pravda provides legal guidance to the most common crimes and disputes of the time, with murder and inheritance contests topping the list.
The concept of equality before the law did not exist.
In fact, the perceived gravity of crime and subsequent punishment greatly depended on the social status of the individuals involved.
A peasant killing a person of privilege would incur double the punishment that a silver-spooned individual would be subjected to if they were to kill a peasant.
The code distinguishes between involuntary manslaughter and premeditated murder.
This particular care for intention led to greater punishment for crimes that cause insignificant bodily harm, yet brought about shame.
For example, hitting an enemy with the blunt side of a sword was considered a greater insult than actually impaling him, because that would mean the enemy wasn’t seen as an equal.
Cutting a person’s finger off was less of a crime than pulling his hairs off, which ranked as an ultimate put-down.
While the code was void of abstract concepts such as property and possession, it provided a solid framework for the protection of one’s belongings.
Its authors attempted to list all possible threats to one’s property, with robbery, arson and horse-stealing considered some of the most galling crimes.
The code included the concept of excessive self-defense – killing a thief caught red-handed was considered different from attacking him a few days after the theft.
The age of the criminal didn’t matter – a child was subjected to the same punishment as would be his father of grandfather.
Being drunk during the crime had a mitigating effect, malice was an aggravating circumstance.
Finding witnesses was critical to proving one’s guilt. Material evidence played the same role as testimonies obtained under torture.
Breach of contract was also punishable and easily proved with the help of witnesses who had to be present when deals, mostly oral, were struck.
Unlike many contemporary codifications, for example the Salic law, Russkya Pravda lacked capital punishment.
Yet many historians believe that it did exist in the form of blood feud.
Even the most grievous crime was considered a sort of economic insult that could be compensated by blood revenge or the payment of reimbursement, known as “vira”, to the prince and the victim.