On the Mention of the Dnieper Varangians in the Context of the Legend of the Beginning of Kiev

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of the ethnic origin of the Varangians. According to an ancient legend preserved by the Russian sources of the second half of the 17th century, they had lived on the banks of the Dnieper before Kiev was founded. Taking into account archeological and linguistic data, the author provides justification for their East Germanic origin and approximate location on the map of the late antique ecumene. As a separate issue, the author considers the relation between the exodus of Kyi and his brothers from the north to the Varangian territories in the Dnieper region and the exodus of the bearers of the Kiev archaeological cultural antiquities to the Gothic lands of the Northern Black Sea region. The author substantiates the opinion about the existence of an East Slavic heroic song in the past, in which the ancient Goths of the realm of Ermanaric were mentioned as inhabitants of the lower reaches of the Dnieper long before the exodus of the Slavs. The article confirms some of the original evidence of a little-studied late chronicle topos (17th century) about Kyi the robber who founded the city of Kiev. The author puts forward the idea that not only did the Novgorod chronicler want to belittle Kiev, but he also tried to rework a certain folklore plot. According to the author, the lost heroic song referred to the Goths, whom the chronicler called the Varangians for a number of reasons. In the song, the Varangians inhabited the territory of the Lower Dnieper. This locus was the center of the Greuthungian realm of Ermanaric (ca. 350 – ca. 376), where its capital was located (it is identified with the settlement of Bashmachka). When analyzing the original excerpt from the legend about Kyi the robber, the author used the present-day data from archeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology, which lends undoubted novelty to this study.

Keywords

• varangians
• kiev
• kyi
• east germanic peoples
• goths
• slavs
• chernyakhov culture
• chronicles
• toponymy