Chud yes merya: the mysterious natives of the Russian Land. Strakhov, Valentin

“The Chud did it, but the measure measured the gates, roads and milestones ...”. These lines from a poem by Alexander Blok reflect the confusion of the scientists of his time about the two tribes that once lived in the neighborhood of the Slavs.

Chud

The mysterious people Chud fully justifies its name. The folk version says that the Slavs dubbed some tribes Chud, because their language seemed strange to them, unusual. In ancient Russian sources and folklore, there are many references to the “chud”, which “the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute”. They took part in Prince Oleg's campaign against Smolensk, Yaroslav the Wise fought against them: "and defeated them, and set up the city of Yuryev", legends were made about them, as about white-eyed miracles - an ancient people, akin to European "fairies". They left a huge mark in the toponymy of Russia, their name is Lake Peipus, Peipus coast, villages: "Front Chud", "Middle Chud", "Rear Chud". From the north-west of present-day Russia to the Altai mountains, their mysterious “wonderful” trace can be traced to this day.

For a long time, it was customary to associate them with the Finno-Ugric peoples, since they were mentioned where representatives of the Finno-Ugric peoples lived or still live.

But the folklore of the latter also preserved legends about the mysterious ancient people of the Chud, whose representatives left their lands and went somewhere, not wanting to accept Christianity.

Especially a lot about them is told in the Komi Republic. So they say that the ancient tract Vazhgort "Old Village" in the Udora region was once a Chud settlement. From there they were allegedly driven out by Slavic newcomers. In the Kama region, you can learn a lot about Chud: local residents describe their appearance (dark-haired and swarthy), language, and customs. They say that they lived in the middle of the forests in dugouts, where they buried themselves, refusing to obey the more successful invaders.

There is even a legend that “the miracle went underground”: they dug a large hole with an earthen roof on pillars, and they brought it down, preferring death to captivity. But not a single popular belief or chronicle reference can answer the questions: what kind of tribes were they, where did they go and whether their descendants are still alive.

Some ethnographers attribute them to the Mansi peoples, others to the representatives of the Komi people, who preferred to remain pagans. The most daring version, which appeared after the discovery of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta, claims that the Chud are ancient arias. But so far one thing is clear, Chud is one of the natives ancient Russia that we have lost.

Merya

Unlike Chud, Mary turned out to have a "more transparent history." This ancient Finno-Ugric tribe once lived in the territories of modern Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Tver, Vladimir and Kostroma regions of Russia. That is, in the very center of our country. There are many references to them, merya (merins) is found in the Gothic historian Jordanes, who in the 6th century called them tributaries of the Gothic king Germanaric. Like the Chud, they were in the troops of Prince Oleg when he went on campaigns to Smolensk, Kyiv and Lyubech, about which records have been preserved in the Tale of Bygone Years. True, according to some scientists, in particular Valentin Sedov, by that time, ethnically, they were no longer a Volga-Finnish tribe, but "half-Slavs." The final assimilation occurred, obviously, by the 16th century.

One of the largest peasant uprisings of Kievan Rus in 1024 is associated with the name of Merya. The reason was the great famine that engulfed the Suzdal land. Moreover, according to the annals, it was preceded by "immeasurable rains", drought, premature frosts, dry winds. For Mary, most of whose representatives opposed Christianization, this obviously looked like “divine punishment”.

At the head of the rebellion were the priests of the "old faith" - the Magi, who tried to use the chance to return to pre-Christian cults. However, unsuccessfully. The rebellion was defeated by Yaroslav the Wise, the instigators were executed or sent into exile.

Despite the meager data that we know about the Merya people, scientists managed to restore their ancient language, which in Russian linguistics was called "Meryansky". It was reconstructed on the basis of the dialect of the Yaroslavl-Kostroma Volga region and Finno- Ugric languages. A number of words were restored thanks to geographical names.

So it turned out that the endings "-gda" in the Central Russian toponymy: Vologda, Sudogda, Shogda are the heritage of the Meryan people.

Despite the fact that the mention of Merya completely disappeared in the sources back in the pre-Petrine era, today there are people who consider themselves to be their descendants. Basically, these are residents of the Upper Volga region. They argue that the Meryans did not dissolve over the centuries, but formed the substratum (underlying) of the northern Great Russian people, switched to the Russian language, and their descendants call themselves Russians. However, there is no evidence for this.

The ancient people mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind legends, toponyms and treasures. In the Urals, and in Siberia, and in the north of Russia, and even in the Altai, many legends say that an ancient people called Chud once lived in these places. Traditions about the Chud are most often told in places where the Finno-Ugric peoples live or used to live, therefore, in science it was customary to consider the Finno-Ugric Chud. But the problem is that the Finno-Ugric peoples, in particular the Komi-Permyaks, themselves tell stories about the Chud, calling the Chud a different people.

N. Roerich “Chud has gone underground”

When people who live here to this day came to these places, the Chud buried herself alive in the ground. Here is what one of the legends recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, tells: “... And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them, did not want to be enslaved by Christianity. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called the Peipus Coast. Sometimes it is also said that the Chud "went underground", and sometimes that she went to live in other places. But, leaving, the Chud left many treasures. These treasures are conspired, “cherished”: a covenant is imposed on them that only descendants can find them Chud people. Chudsky spirits in different guises (sometimes in the form of a hero on a horse, sometimes a hare or a bear) guard these treasures. What kind of people are these - “White-eyed Chud”, “Divy people”, “Sirts”? Why do they avoid contact with ordinary, "land" people?

Vladimir Konev "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain"

A lot of facts speak in favor of the fact that the "White-eyed Chud" is not a mythical people, it really exists, apparently, having somehow adapted to life underground. The stories of people who met with people from the mysterious people were recorded. The Russian scientist A. Shrenk talked with many Samoyeds, and this is what one of them told him: “Once,” he continued, “a Nenets (that is, Samoyed), digging a hole on some hill, suddenly saw a cave in which sirts. One of them said to him: "Leave us alone, we keep clear sunlight that illuminates your country, and we love the darkness that reigns in our dungeon ... ". Often lost hunters and fishermen meet with a tall gray-haired old man who leads them to a safe place and then disappears. locals they call him the White Old Man and consider him one of the underground inhabitants, occasionally coming to the surface.

In the Urals, stories about the Chud are more common in the Kama region. Traditions indicate the specific places where the Chud lived, describe their appearance (and they were mostly dark-haired and swarthy), customs, and language. From the language of the Chuds, legends even preserved some words: “Once a Chud girl appeared in the village of Vazhgort - tall, beautiful, broad-shouldered. Her hair is long, black, not braided. He walks around the village and beckons: “Come visit me, I cook dumplings!” There were ten people who wanted to, everyone went for the girl. They went to the Chudsky spring, and no one returned home, everyone disappeared somewhere. The same thing happened the next day. It was not because of their stupidity that people fell for the girl's bait, but because she possessed some kind of power. Hypnosis, as they say now. On the third day, the women from this village decided to take revenge on the girl. They boiled several buckets of water, and when the Miraculous girl entered the village, the women poured boiling water over her. The girl ran to the spring and wailed: “Odege! Odege! Soon, the inhabitants of Vazhgort left their village forever, went to live in other places ... "Odege - what does this word mean? There is no such word in any of the Finno-Ugric languages. What ethnic group was this mysterious Chud? Since ancient times, ethnographers, linguists, and local historians have tried to unravel the riddle of the Chud. There were different versions about who this weirdo is. Ethnographers-local historians Fedor Alexandrovich Teploukhov and Alexander Fedorovich Teploukhov considered the Ugrians (Khanty and Mansi) a miracle, since there is documentary information about the stay of the Ugrians in the territory of the Kama region. The linguist Antonina Semyonovna Krivoshchekova-Gantman did not agree with this version, because in the Kama region there are practically no place names deciphered using the Ugric languages; she believed that the issue required further study. Kazan professor Ivan Nikolaevich Smirnov believed that the Chud were the Komi-Permians before the adoption of Christianity, since some legends say that the Chud are “our ancestors”. latest version received the greatest distribution, and most ethnographers adhered to this version until recently. The discovery in the Urals in the 1970s and 80s of the ancient Aryan city of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta somewhat shook the traditional version. Versions began to appear that the Chud were the ancient Aryans (in a narrower sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, and in a broader sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans as a whole). This version has found many supporters among scientists and local historians.

If linguists have previously recognized that there are many "Iranisms" in the Finno-Ugric languages, then in last years an opinion appeared that the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages ​​have a very large common lexical layer. A version has appeared that the names of the rivers Kama in the Urals and Ganges (Ganga) in India have the same origin. It is not for nothing that in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions) there are geographical names with the root "gang": Ganga (lake), Gangas (bay, hill), Gangos (mountain, lake), Gangashikha (bay). It is not for nothing that geographical names in -kar (Kudymkar, Maikar, Dondykar, Idnakar, Anyushkar, etc.) cannot be deciphered in any way using local Permian languages ​​(Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak). According to legend, there were Chud settlements in these places, and it is here that bronze jewelry and other items are most often found, conditionally united by the name Perm animal style. Yes, and on the art of Perm animal style"Iranian influence" has always been recognized by experts.

It is no secret that there are parallels in the mythology of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian peoples. In the legends of the ancient Aryans, memories of a semi-mythical ancestral home, located somewhere far north of India, have been preserved. The Aryans who lived in this country could observe amazing phenomena. There, seven heavenly sages-rishis move around the North Star, which the creator Brahma strengthened in the center of the universe above the World Mount Meru. Beautiful celestial dancers live there - Apsaras, shining with all the colors of the rainbow, and the sun rises and shines for six months in a row. The seven rishis are probably the constellation Ursa Major, and the apsaras are the embodiment of the northern lights, which struck the imagination of many peoples. In the myths of the Estonians, the northern lights are the heroes who fell in battles and live in the sky. AT Indian mythology only magical birds, including the messenger of the gods Garuda, can reach the sky. In Finno-Ugric mythology Milky Way, connecting north and south, was called the Road of Birds. There is also a similarity directly in the names. For example, the god among the Udmurts is Inmar, among the Indo-Iranians Indra is the god of thunder, Inada is the foremother; in the Scandinavian epic, Ymir is the first man; in Komi mythology, both the first man and the swamp witch bear the name Yoma; in Indo-Iranian mythology, Yima is also the first man; the name of the god is also consonant among the Finns - Yumala, and among the Mari - Yumo. "Aryan influence" penetrated even into the ethnonyms of the Finno-Ugric peoples: the Tatars and Bashkirs of the Udmurts, their neighbors, call the ethnonym "ar". So who was called a miracle in the Urals? If the Aryans, then the question again arises: why was there confusion with who should be considered a Chud, and why did the ethnonym Chud “stuck” precisely and only to the Finno-Ugric peoples? What is the relationship between the Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric peoples? Apparently, here we should recall the opinion of Lev Gumilyov, who believed that a new ethnos, just like a person, is born from two ethnos parents. Then it becomes clear why the legends call the Chud either “another people”, or “our ancestors”. ... And yet, what was the miracle girl screaming, doused with boiling water? Maybe the word "odege" is in the Indo-Iranian languages? If we open the Sanskrit-Russian dictionary, we will find there a word similar in sound - "udaka", meaning "water". Maybe she wanted to run to the Chudsky spring, the only place where she could escape?

In the PVL, Chud is mentioned among the peoples of the Afet tribe, i.e. among the peoples of midnight and western countries: “In Afetov, the Rus, Chud and all languages ​​\u200b\u200bare sitting: Merya, Muroma, Mordva, Zavolochskaya Chud, Perm, Pechera, Yam, Ugra, Lithuania, Zimigola, Kors, Letigola, Love. Lyakhov, and Prussians, wonder to sit down to the Varangian Sea. On the same sea, sit the Varazians to the east to the limit of Simov, along the same sea, sit to the west to the land of Agnyansky and to Voloshsky. In the annals, the Chud appears as a large people, localized in vast spaces: both on the Russian Plain in the Volga region, where “the Volga can go east, to part of Simov”, and in the Russian North as Zavolochskaya Chud, and on the South Baltic coast, on a par with Poles and Prussians, but up to the Varangians, who "sit" in the western corner next to the Jutland Angles.

In the commentary to the PVL, a characteristic of the annalistic Chud is given, which is accepted in modern science: “ chud- Estonian tribes. It is essential to note the role that the Chud played in public life Russia. According to the chronicler, the Chud, together with the Russians, drives out enemies, calls the princes to him: this means that the chronicler did not separate Russia from the Chud in the state destinies of the Russian land. The chronicler speaks of the participation of the Chud in Oleg's campaign against Tsargrad, and that Vladimir Svyatoslavich brought out the population from the Chud for the southern cities. The chronicle repeatedly mentions the boyar Chudin (1068, 1072, 1078), who took part in the compilation of Pravda Yaroslavova (see in the title: “Truth is lined with the Russian land, when Izyaslav, Vsevolod, Svyatoslav, Kosnyachko, Pereneg, Mikifor Kyyanin, Chudin, Mikula). In Novgorod, Chudintseva Street, Chudintsevy Gates are known. All this testifies to the close peaceful ties between the two peoples. PVL. Preparation of the text, translation, articles and comments by D.S. Likhachev / Edited by V.P. Adrianov-Peretz. 3rd edition. SPb., 2007.S. 383-384). With regard to the above explanation, the question immediately arises: what are these “Estonian tribes”?

But keeping in mind that in the same comments to the PVL regarding the expression “to the land of Agnyansky”, localized in the western corner of the Varangian / Baltic Sea, it is explained what it means to the “English” land, although even in school geography it is known that the Baltic Sea did not wash England, just on faith the comment about the miracle, born of modern science, cannot be accepted. It may turn out that the explanation “Chuds are Estonian tribes” has a scientific value adequate to the identification of the “Agnyansky land” with the “English land”. Therefore, given the importance of the issue, it is worth considering all the information about the Chud again.

There are many important toponyms associated with the name chud. A dense accumulation of them is detected in the Leningrad and Pskov regions, such as Lake Peipus, the villages of Chudskiye Zakhody and the Chudskaya mine, the village of Chudinovo, the village of Chutkovo near the Cherekha River, the village of Chutka, which in the 16th century. called Chudka, the village of Chudinkovo, the tract Chutkovskaya grove, the villages of Chudskaya Gora in both regions, etc. Toponyms with the name Chudskaya Gora occupy a special place, at least in terms of the vastness of their distribution area. So, Peipsi Mountain is known in the Perm Region near the Ozernaya River - “the Chud people dug in there”, as well as Peipsi Mountain in the Omsk Region on the left bank of the Irtysh, north of the Tara River. This Peipsi mountain is an outstanding archaeological monument of the Bronze Age (discovered relatively recently, in 1974). The appearance of the first inhabitants here is recorded in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. It has been suggested that this Peipus Mountain was a cult place for ceremonies in honor of deceased ancestors.

When comparing this brief overview of information about the Chud with the above definition of the Chud as “Estonian tribes”, the question again arises: what does the “Estonian tribes” have to do with it and what kind of “tribes” are they?

As already mentioned, many legends about Chud have come down to us. Here is a fragment of one of them. In Altai, the story of the Chud was recorded by Nicholas Roerich in 1924-28. According to his story, an elderly Old Believer led them to a rocky hill and, pointing to the stone circles of ancient burials, said: “This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, and as the white birch blossomed in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances for yourself. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give to all the people great science then Chud will come again, with all the treasures obtained ”( Roerich N.K. Heart of Asia // Selected. M., Soviet Russia. 1979. S. 178-198). N.K. Roerich's interest in the legends about Chud in Altai in the 1920s is not accidental. Ten years before that, in 1910-1913. he painted the picture “Chud went underground”, i.e. the historical fate of this ancient people already then occupied his attention.

There is no need to give here other legends about Chud - there are quite a lot of them, and therefore a discussion about them can be the topic of a separate work. The tasks of the cycle of articles about the Chud planned here are to show the fallacy of identifying the annalistic Chud as a Finno-Ugric people, to identify the origins of this delusion introduced into science, like Normanism, by the same Rudbeckianism, and to show the Chud as a carrier of IE. The Russian historiographic tradition, which kept information about the Indo-European roots of the Chud, existed until the 18th century, i.e. until the darkness of Rudbeckianist utopias thickened over Russian historical science. This is revealed upon careful reading. famous monuments, in particular, North Russian chronicles and literature.

Let us consider, as an example, such a monument as “The Chronographic Story about Slovena and Rus and the City of Slovensk”, published as an Appendix to the Kholmogory Chronicle at the end of the 16th century. (not being a part of it). The content of this monument is well known. It tells about the settlement of Russian ancestors in Eastern Europe, starting from 2409 BC. or from the summer of 3099 from the creation of the world. Then, according to the Legend, the clans of princes Sloven and Rus moved from "Euxinopont" to Prilmenye, where they and their descendants created a powerful state: "possessing northern countries and throughout Pomorie ", as well as -" to the limit of the Arctic Sea, along the great rivers Pechera and Vym", ... "beyond the high and impassable mountains in the country ... along the great river Obve ... There, take the beasts on the way, the recommended haze, that is, sable ".

According to the legend, the multi-thousand-year history of the people, who began to be called "Slovens and Russ" or Slovene-Russians, was interrupted in Prilmenye under the influence of various disasters and was naturally divided into several periods, specifically, into three periods. On the completion of the first or ancient period This story tells that after the lapse of time “the sent righteous wrath of God came to the Slovenian land, shattered the number of people in all cities and towns ... The people who left the void for the sake of escaping from cities to distant lands, ovia to White Waters, which is now called Belo Lake ... and also in other countries and being called by various names. Ovii packs on the Dunav to his former family, returning to the old-timer countries. And the great Slovenesk and Rusa will devastate to the end for many years ... ". Note that the Chud people are not mentioned within this ancient period.

The descendants of the Slavic Russians, after a while, returned to the land of their ancestors and began to revive it: “At some time, the Slavs came from the Dunav and brought up a lot of Scythian Bulgarians with them, and began to populate the cities of Slovenesk and Rusa.” Since Bulgarians are mentioned in this part of the Tale, this period corresponds to early medieval or over time from the 4th to the 7th centuries. This is also confirmed by the fact that in this part of the Tale, wars with the White Ugrians are mentioned, which are usually identified with the Huns: “... the White Ugrians came to them, and fought them to the end, and dug up their castles, and put the Slovenian land into final desolation” . The history of the Huns in Eastern Europe dates back to the period from the end of the 4th century to the end of the 7th century. Let us also note here that the name of the Chud is also not mentioned within the framework of this period in the history of the Slavonic Russians.

This name appears only in the third period of Slavic Russian history, in the chapter entitled " Second desolation of Slovenska» ( highlighted hereinafter by me - L.G.): “After a lot of time of this desolation, I hear the Scythian inhabitants about fugitives of slovenia about the land of their forefathers, as if it lies empty and not bregoma to anyone, and about this zhalishasi velmi and began to think in themselves, how would they inherit the land of their fathers. And paki came from the Danube many of them without number, with them the Scythians and Bulgarians and foreigners went to the land of Slovene and Russian, and sedosha packs near Lake Ilmerya and renewed the city in a new place, from old Slovensk down the Volkhov, like a field and more, and called Novgorod the Great. And he appointed an elder and a prince from his own family in the name of Gostomysl. Similarly, you put Rusu in the old place, and you renovated many other cities. And dispersed each and every one with his kind same from birth, and ini the same north, and ini the lopi, and ini the same Mordovians, and ini the same murama, and in the same name I will be called by different names. And so the country began to expand, it is great, and I am called by the common name. The son of the oldest prince of Novgorod Gostomysl, called young Slovenian, this depart from your father to Chud and tamo put up a city in your name above the river in a place called Khodnitsa, and called the city the name Slovenesk, and reigned in it for three years, and died. His son Izbor, this one named the name of his city and called Izborsk. This same prince Izbor died like a serpent. The land is Russian then overthrown the garments of lamentation and packs put on purple and fine linen, and besides, no longer a widow, complaining lower, but packs for this reason, and the children have grown and rested for many years with the wise Gostomysl ( PSRL, vol. 33. Kholmogory chronicle. Dvina chronicler. Publishing house "Science". L., 1977. S. 141-142).

Before analyzing what in this chapter, in my opinion, sheds light on the history of the Chud, let me remind you that the historicity of this Legend in relation to Russian history is denied by “academic science” under a well-known pretext: Russians simply cannot have such ancient history. AT recent times, however, one may encounter a reservation that the approximate time of the settlement of a significant part of the ancestors of the population of Eastern Europe or representatives of the branch R1a - Z280 coincides with the date of the Tale.

I.L. Rozhansky kindly shared information that representatives of the R1a haplogroup already lived at least in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, which became known from recently published data on fossil DNA from pile settlements with dates of 5120 ± 120, about 4500 and 2700-2400 years ago ( Chekunova E.M., Yartseva N.V., Chekunov M.K., Mazurkevich A.N. The first results of genotyping of indigenous people and human bone remains from the archaeological sites of the Upper Dvina / Archeology of lake settlements IV-II millennium BC: Chronology of cultures and natural and climatic rhythms. SPb., 2014. S. 287-294).

But, despite all this, the information of the Legend is still not taken into account when studying Russian history. Why? Because Russian history, in the blind eye of "academic science" cannot have ancient origins! Therefore, we abstract from "academic science" and consider those data that would confirm that the Legend contains historically verified information.

First of all, this, of course, is DNA genealogy data on the settlement of representatives of the haplogroup R1a in Eastern Europe, which can be conditionally called Proto-Slavs or ancient Slavs. This convention, as A.A. Klyosov, is determined by the fact that the descendants of representatives of the haplogroup R1a, in addition to Eastern Europe, are found in different parts of the world: they were found in a small number among the Irish, Belgians or Uighurs; in addition, according to various estimates, there are approximately 100-200 million Indian men with the haplogroup R1a. All of them are not Slavs, but all the listed peoples had common ancestors, hence their conditional name Proto-Slavs or ancient Slavs.

According to DNA genealogy, the Proto-Slavs or ancient Slavs moved to the Central Russian Plain approximately 4900-4600 years ago. About 4500 years ago, they began to diverge in different directions as legendary Aryans - to the south, through the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, to the Middle East (Mitannian Aryans) and the Arabian Peninsula; to the southeast, to Central Asia and further, after 500 years, that is, about 3500 years ago - to the Iranian plateau (Avestan Aryans).

After the departure of the Aryans to the east about 4500 years ago, the R1a-Z280 branch remained in Eastern Europe, to which the majority of modern ethnic Russians belong, respectively, according to my suggestion, the ancient Rus should be seen in this branch. These representatives of the R1a-Z280 branch or the ancient Rus, as well as that part of the Aryans that remained on the Russian Plain and joined the Rus, became the most ancient ancestors of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. Therefore, as emphasized by A.A. Klyosov, “Slavs”, “Aryans”, “Scythians” are basically the same people, one kind, but different historical eras. They are related by direct inheritance within the genus R1a. The resettlement of R1a representatives on the Russian Plain is the initial milestone of our history, we must count from it. And it is precisely this boundary that is indicated in the Legend of Slovenia and Rus.

Secondly, in addition to the results of research in the field of DNA genealogy, the existence of the most ancient polity of the Rus, spread over vast territories from “Euxinopont” to the “limit of the Arctic Sea” and “throughout Pomorie”, as well as in the Trans-Urals and Siberia “beyond high and impassable mountains ... along the great river Obve…”, is confirmed by my historical research in the field of ancient Russian sun worship. In particular, they show that toponyms with stem cola- like a sunbeam they outline a gigantic territory from the Kola Mountains in the North Caucasus to the numerous Kolo-mountains on the Kola Peninsula, as well as from Kolobrzeg and Kolyvan in the Baltic to Kolyvan in Altai,.

Here it is important to remember that in the Russian oral tradition the name “Sunflower kingdom” / “Sun kingdom” / “kingdom under the Sun” (i.e. the kingdom under Kola) has been preserved, which is easily superimposed on the indicated territory and indicates that the giant ancient the polity of Slavic-Russian sun-worshippers was created by them in a multi-ethnic environment that united representatives of the Indo-European and Altaic language families on the basis of a single sacred tradition (in other words, connecting different nations within the framework of the common faith) - sun worship, which was the "calling card" of the carriers of IE. Therefore, probably, the name of the most ancient polity of the Slavonic Russians was not chosen by the name of the title, i.e. most large ethnic group, and by the name of their great god - the Sun. In the Russian oral tradition, the image of the Sunflower Kingdom found an amazing rootedness and up to the 16th century. acted as a popular synonym for the Russian state ( see, for example, Veselovsky A.N. The legend of the beauty in the tower and the Russian epic about the Sunflower Kingdom // Journal of the Ministry of National Education. SPb., April 1878. C. 183-238. The article contains references to “Songs collected by P.N. Rybnikov”, published in four parts. Petrozavodsk, 1861-1867. III. pp. 319-328).

To this we can add that the "northern countries" of the princes of Sloven and Rus with "Pomorie" were united by and. Science knows about the deep archaism of these cults. Toporov and Ivanov pointed to such an attribute of Perun as a club, which showed similarities with the vajra - the club of Indra. In addition, the content of the cult of Perun and even his very name echoes the name and elements of the cult of the Vedic deity of the thundercloud and rain Parjanya. The time of the emergence of the cult of Perun the Thunderer, taking into account such attributes as stone arrows (“thunder arrows” in the Old Russian tradition), weapons made of bronze, etc., can, in their opinion, be dated “the beginning of the heroic era of the settlement of the Indo-Europeans, apparently from the end III millennium BC ( Ivanov V.V., Toporov V.N. East Slavic Perun (b) in connection with the reconstruction of the Proto-Slavic, Baltic and European texts about the thunder god // Research in the field of Slavic antiquities. M., 1974. S. 4-30).

As you can see, there is quite enough data for historical verification of the ancient period of the history of the Slavic Russians in Eastern Europe from the middle to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. or the first period, according to the "Tale of Slovenia and Rus". But as noted above, the Chud people have not yet been mentioned within this ancient period, so let's move on.

The beginning of the next or second period in the history of the Slavic Russians, according to the Legend, can be attributed to the end of the 4th century, as noted above. Therefore, in relation to the first centuries of our era, preceding given period, it can be assumed that, at least in Priilmenye, they were a continuation of the period of desolation of “great Slovensk and Rusa”, when people left either to the north/northeast (“Belo ezero”) or to the south (to the Danube). According to DNA genealogy, in the last centuries BC - the first centuries of our era, representatives of the haplogroup N1c1 migrated to Eastern Europe from the Trans-Urals, i.e. Finno-Ugric peoples and those who today are the Balts.

According to A.A. Klyosov, carriers of the parental genus N1 came from Southern Siberia along the northern geographical arc through Northern Ural and further to Eastern Europe up to the Baltic. Along this migration trajectory, they left descendants everywhere, among which, for example, the Yakuts, then the peoples of the Urals, and so on to the Baltic states. Representatives of the haplogroup N1c1 went to Eastern Europe as two different streams and different times. The first flow of N1c1 came to Eastern Europe about 2500-2000 years ago, its representatives adopted the IE language already in Europe and became the ancestors of the current Baltic peoples. And the second stream reached Finland 2000-1500 years ago and preserved the languages ​​​​of the Uralic language group,.

But as it clearly follows from the DNA genealogy data, both migration flows of representatives of the haplogroup N1c1 came to Eastern Europe, already mastered by its inhabitants - representatives of R1a, i.e. Aryans and ancient Rus. However, it can be assumed that the resettlement of the first stream of migrants - the future Balts - fell on the period of prosperity of the power of the Slavic Russians or the Sunflower Kingdom, when the princes of the Slavic Russians "possessed the northern countries and throughout Pomorie", as well as up to the Siberian regions "along the great river Obve". From which it follows logically that the migrations of the future Balts to Eastern Europe took place within the framework of one polity, or, in modern terms, within the framework of one power. Hence, the desire of the first trans-Ural settlers to adopt the “titular” language and culture also seems natural. The following is also clear: pestilence came as the wrath of God in Priilmenye, which caused an outflow of the population from the center, but Pomorie, apparently, was not affected, so the population of the South Baltic, remaining in place, could preserve both the archaic IE and ancient sacred traditions.

The resettlement in the first centuries of our era of certain groups of Finno-Ugric peoples to the north of Eastern Europe coincided with a period of desolation, which is indirectly confirmed by the story of Tacitus about the "Fenns", in whom it is customary to see the Saami / Lapps, who are considered one of the first Finno-Ugric settlers in the north of Eastern Europe. Europe. Tacitus' disdainful description hints at the fact that the "Fenns" during Tacitus' time retained their hunting way of life, which they also lived in the Trans-Urals. For a Roman, everyone who is not wrapped in a toga or not dressed in armor is pathetic and miserable: “The Fenns have amazing savagery, miserable squalor; they have no defensive weapons, no horses, no permanent roof over their heads; their food is grass, their clothes are skins, their bed is earth; they put all their hopes on arrows, on which, due to a lack of iron, they plant a bone tip. The same hunting provides food for both men and women; for they follow their husbands everywhere, and claim their share of the booty. And small children have no other shelter from the wild beast and bad weather, except for a hut that is somehow woven from branches and provides them with shelter; here come back Fenns of mature age, here is a haven for the elderly. But they consider this a happier lot than to exhaust themselves with work in the field and toil at building houses and tirelessly think, moving from hope to despair, about their own and other people's property: careless in relation to people, careless in relation to deities, they have reached the very difficult - not to feel the need even in desires.

The conservation of the hunting way of life among the first Finno-Ugric settlers was clearly facilitated by the desolation of the region, since the descriptions of the migrations of the Slavic Russians usually included stories about the creation of cities by them. Each of the three periods in the history of the Slavonic Russians in the Tale of Slovene and Rus begins with such descriptions.

With this, we turn to the consideration of the story about the history of the Slavic Russians in the 4th-7th centuries. Here it should be noted right away that in addition to the Tale, information that such a period was in Russian history is also present in other sources, namely, in the Novgorod Chronicle of Joachim (NIL), in addition, in the works of the early medieval German epic - the High German poem " Ortnit" and in the Saga of Tidrek of Bern (Tidreksaga), recorded in Norway around 1250, but composed, as it says, according to ancient German prose tales and songs.

Tidreksagu and the poem "Ortnit" were studied by such major epic scholars as A.N. Veselovsky and S.N. Azbelev. Tidreksaga conveys an epic heritage dating back to the events of the 5th century BC. - the wars of the Huns led by Attila and the Goths led by Theodoric. This saga aroused the interest of Russian researchers because the Russian knight Ilya and the Russian king Vladimir appeared in it ( Azbelev S.N. Oral history in the monuments of Novgorod and the Novgorod land. SPb., 2007. S. 37).

In the NIL and in the saga, emphasized S.N. Azbelev, both the name of the Russian prince (or king) Vladimir and the time of his reign are the same - a historical stage of extreme significance: Prince Vladimir was the ruler of Russia at the time when it was subjected to invasions by the Huns: “This was, obviously, the era of maximum tension of the people’s forces,“ epic time”, which was to leave a deep mark in the people's memory. The saga calls Vladimir the king. The use of this term here is justified: the territory subject, according to the saga, to the epic Vladimir, included lands from sea to sea, stretching far to the east (in which, by the way, the data of the saga and the NIL are consistent) and, apparently, exceeded the size of the later Kievan state 10th century This explains the interest in Vladimir and Rus in Tidreksag, main topic which, it would seem, allowed them not to be mentioned" ( There. pp. 38-40).

Azbelev recalls that Veselovsky, defining the conditions most favorable for the emergence of a folk epic, characterized them as “going into history” and named among them such events as the Trojan War, the migration of peoples, the struggle against the Saracens, which was displayed in the Old French epic, the struggle against the Tatars -Mongol yoke in Russian history. According to Veselovsky, the struggle against the Tatars overshadowed another, more ancient struggle, which was the basis of the most ancient epic.

“This more ancient struggle,” according to Azbelev, “is comparable in scale and intensity to the struggle against the Golden Horde ... the “entry into history” of the ancient Russian ethnos should, obviously, be correlated not with the vocation of Rurik, but with the great migration of peoples. This was manifested not only in the fact that, according to their typology and a number of specific features, some plots and characters of epics gravitate back to the 3rd-4th centuries. In the Russian epic, echoes of the social structure characteristic of those times and the really grandiose inter-ethnic cataclysms that took place at that time, fateful for the peoples who withstood these historical trials, are visible. It is significant that more than one Tidreksaga displayed major military clashes in which the Huns and Russians participated ( There. pp. 47-48).

Very interesting in the context of this article is the criticism that S.N. Azbelev subjected the opinion established in science that the historical prototype of the epic prince Vladimir and the Russian king Vladimir from Tidreksagi served as Kyiv prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich (980-1014). Azbelev draws attention to the fact that the narrations of Tidreksagi about the deeds of Vladimir have no correspondence in the annalistic biography of St. Vladimir. In addition, modern studies of the main collections of epics have established that the patronymic name "Vseslavich" dominated as the patronymic of the epic prince Vladimir. Veselovsky analyzed the genealogy of the Russian characters in the saga and found that the name of Vladimir's father in the saga also corresponded to the name Vseslav. Thus, Azbelev concludes, the epic prince of Russia Vladimir Vseslavich corresponds in Tidreksag to the king (prince) Vladimir Vseslavich - it was he who served as the first prototype of the epic prince Vladimir ( There. pp. 44-46, 56).

These conclusions of Azbelev are of particular interest for the article, and here's why. The epic prince Vladimir was nicknamed, as you know, Vladimir the Red Sun. And taking into account the above conclusions, this nickname did not mean at all a manifestation of the affectionate attitude of the people towards him (they say, you are our sun, a golden fish!), but marked his confessional characteristic - sun worship, i.e. a system of pre-Christian beliefs dating back to the tradition of the Sunflower Kingdom. And Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich went down in history as a Saint, i.e. as the Baptist of Russia and as a conductor of Christianity. It is clear that they were two different historical figures who belonged to different eras Russian history, and the people's memory distinguished them, but historical science, starting from the Enlightenment, began to mix two historical figures into one. And the reason for this is clear: modern science has beaten itself to the conclusion that Russian history could not have had a period older than the ninth century.

And a little more about the people's memory. Azbelev, studying the works of the Russian oral tradition, cites a record of the answer of the Russian messenger in Rome, Dmitry Gerasimov, made in 1525 by Pavel Iovius Novokomsky (Paolo Giovio) to the question whether the Russians had “any news passed from mouth to mouth from their ancestors about Is there any recorded recollection of this people, who a thousand years before us overthrew the empire of the Caesars and the city of Rome, having previously subjected them to all sorts of insults? According to the transmission of Jovius, Azbelev continues, Gerasimov “answered that the name of the Gothic people and King Totila was glorious and famous among them and that for this campaign many peoples had gathered together and mainly Muscovites before others. Then, according to him, their army increased from the influx of Livonians and Volga Tatars, but they were all called Goths because the Goths, who inhabited the island of Iceland or Scandinavia (Scandauiam), were the instigators of this campaign "( There. S. 49).

The interest of Paul Jovius in the memoirs of the Goths in Russian historical tradition was quite understandable: after all, at that time Gothicism flourished in the countries of Northern Europe, and the bickering between Italian humanists and German-speaking thinkers about the role of the Goths in Western European history was gaining momentum. Mentions in the story of Gerasimov "Muscovites", Tatars and Livonians in relation to the 5th century. do not violate its plausibility, since often in reports about ancient times the names of peoples and places were used in the form in which they were known at the time in which the narrator belonged.

So, the information about the second stage of the history of the Slavic Russians of the 4th-7th centuries, briefly given in the Legend, is confirmed by a number of other sources: the NIL, the works of the early medieval German epic and, finally, the Russian oral tradition, reflected in the story of the Russian messenger in Rome Dmitry Gerasimov about the Goths and how their presence in Eastern Europe has been preserved in popular memory. The early medieval period in the history of the Slavic Russians ended by the end of the 7th century. the fact that the Huns "... fought them to the end, and dug up their castles, and put the Slovenian land into final desolation."

A new revival of the history of the Slavic Russians after overcoming devastation and desolation as a result of wars with the Huns can, logically, be attributed to the 8th century. Then, “according to the many times of this desolation ... having come from the Danube, many of them without number, with them the Scythians and Bulgarians and foreigners went to the land of Slovenia and Russia, and sedosh packs near Lake Ilmerya and renewed the city in a new place ... ". Only in this part of the story does the Chud appear, which came to Priilmenye along with everyone “from the Danube”.

And here I would like to highlight two important moments. The first is the unconditional polyethnicity of the described society. The second is a fairly clear picture of the socio-political structure of this society, based on the branched structure of princely power. Both of these points help to clarify the place of the Chud in the polity of the Slavonic Russians.

Let me dwell on the second point first. In the context of this article, it is interesting to pay attention to the fact that the "fugitives of Slovenia" return from the Danube to the lands of "their forefathers", and from their family they elect the supreme prince-ruler: "... And having appointed an elder and a prince from his own generation in the name of Gostomysl…”, after which “ ...spread each other with their kind according to the latitude of the earth, and ovii gray-haired in the fields and swamped the clearing, that is, Poles, ovi Polochans of the river for the sake of Polota, ovii mazovshane, ovii zhmutyanya, and also buzhane along the river Bug, ovii dregovichi, ovii krivichi, ovii chyud, Ini Merya, Inii the Drevlyans, and Inii Morava, Serbs, Bulgarians same from birth...».

The phrase “spreading each other with his family” echoes the phrase from the PVL: “... and I live each with their own family and in their places, owning the skin of their family” ( PVL. SPb., 2007. P.9). AND I. Froyanov, in one of his works, quite rightly noted that in this context of the chronicle, the term “clan” should not be understood as a structural unit of a tribal community and that this term concealed a princely family, a princely dynasty ( Froyanov I.Ya. Rebellious Novgorod. SPb., 1992. S. 74). I fully share this point of view, which I wrote about in one of my first publications on the problems of the genesis of the ancient Russian institute of princely power ( Grotto L. How did Rurik become a great Russian prince? Theoretical aspects Genesis of the Old Russian Institute of Princely Power // History and Historians. 2006. Historiographic Bulletin. M. "Nauka", 2007. S. 87).

In general, it should be noted that I.Ya. Froyanov is one of the few modern scholars (if not the only one!) who defends the existence of the institution of ancient Russian princely power before the calling of Rurik and points out that “Slovenes had their own princes, whose power was constant. ... The idea of ​​the Novgorod princes as an institution grafted from outside should be rejected ... The Ilmen Slovenes had their leaders (princes) even before the arrival of the Varangians. Their institutionalization of power followed the same path as that of other ancient peoples known to ethnographic science ( Froyanov I.Ya. Decree op. pp. 60-62). But Normanists, who today make up the vast majority of science among workers and workers in the Russian university and academic system, are immune to such considerations. Their denial of the princely institution of power in Russian history before the arrival of Rurik is one of the strongholds of the creed of Normanism.

However, the phrase of the Legend that Gostomysl was staged " from his own generation”as an elder and a prince, testifies precisely to the establishment of an institution of supreme power based on the ancestral hereditary principle of transferring power through the male line. Thanks to this institution, the community acquired the character of a socio-political organization capable of providing people with the necessary living conditions even in vast territories: I am called by the common name».

Thus, the “elder and prince” Gostomysl headed a community of many clans that had their own princes, but under the rule of the princely family of Slovenia. However, the relative position of local princely families relative to the supreme power and relative to each other, as a rule, changed in time and space, so the phrase “And spreading each with his family across the breadth of the earth ...” could hide not only the vastness of the territory, but also the variability of the structure of the community. For some time, the local princely families of Polyans, Polochans, Mazovshans, Zhmuds, Buzhans, Dregovichs, Krivichis, Chuds, Marys, Drevlyans, etc. could be subject to the “elder and prince”, but in some periods they were not, which , apparently, and was reflected in the PVL when we read that the Drevlyans had their own princedom, “and the Dregovichi had their own, and the Slavs had their own in Novgorod”, i.e. some princely families could leave the community, or vice versa, new princely families could be included in it.

But let us now concentrate on the question of what place the Chud occupied in the structure of the Slavic-Russian polity. In the list of those clans that, after the second desolation of Slovenian "came from the Danube", returned "to the land of their fathers", the Chud is named on a par with the Dregovichi and Krivichi, i.e. included in the very core of the Slavic-Russian tribes and clearly remained as such throughout the entire time until the calling of Rurik and his brothers. In addition, the Legend informs about the closest connection of the Chud with the leading princely family of Slovenes in the story that the son of the supreme ruler Gostomysl, “called young Sloven, this departed from his father to Chud and tamo put up a city in your name above the river in a place called Khodnitsa, and called the city the name Slovenesk, and reigned in it for three years, and died. His son Izbor, this prenamed the name of his city and called Izborsk.

It seems that the two noted moments contained in the Tale: the inclusion of the Chud in the known Slavic tribes without any reservations and the control of the Chud by the Slovene princes - can be taken as the initial milestones on the path of reconstructing the history of the Chud people as a bearer of IE. I believe that over time, the historical identification of other chronicle peoples, for example, such as Merya and Murom, who were allegedly “assimilated” by the Slavs and therefore “disappeared” from history, should also be rethought. Modern research will help to clarify which of the annalistic ethnic groups were "foreigners", and which "of the same kind" Slovene-Russian princes. But more on that later in future posts.

Now I want to turn to the results of research on the historical identification of the chronicle Chud as a carrier of IE, obtained by Russian scientists back in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Chud as a carrier of IE was defined by the largest Russian linguist, paleographer, literary historian, Slavist A.I. Sobolevsky (1856-1929), and he came to this conclusion at the end of his creative way, considering the problem from the pinnacle of colossal scientific experience. I will give an excerpt from his work “The Name of the Rivers and Lakes of the Russian North” - one of his recent works, where A.I. Sobolevsky also wrote about miracles. This work presents the works of other Russian scientists, who also challenged the established mid-nineteenth centuries in Russian science, the postulate of the Chud as a Finno-Ugric people. Therefore, I considered it legitimate to simply quote a large fragment from Sobolevsky's article:

“The comparisons made by us of the names of the rivers and lakes of the Volga region, the Kama region and the Russian north, in general and in parts of these names, lead us to the conclusion that we are dealing with the words of the same Indo-European language, the language that belonged to the autochthon of the eastern and central Europe and a significant part of Central Asia - to the dolikocephalic Scythian people.

Traditions about this people - Chud - still live in the Russian north. In the counties of the Arkhangelsk province. Kholmogorsky and Shenkursky, closest to the Northern Dvina, tell how desperately the Chud defended itself from the Russians and how it was defeated and exterminated. They give one detail. Chud lived in pits; dug pits were covered with roofs on pillars; earth and stones were laid on the roofs. In the Nikolsky district of the Vologda province. They remember the "filthy" people who hid in pits covered with earth. In the Vyatka province. as if there are traces of chud in local names. Eastern Finns - Cheremis, Votyaks, Permyaks, Zyryans consider themselves not autochthonous, but newcomers to places that were previously occupied by another people - Chud. Their traditions, with remarkable agreement, draw Chud pits: these are depressions dug in the ground and covered with a wooden roof, on which earth was poured. ... In the "Russian-Scythian Etudes" ... we cited the observations of A.P. Bogdanov that dolichocephaly were buried in the mounds of the provinces of Yaroslavl (counties of Yaroslavl, Rostov, Mologa), Tver, Vladimir, Moscow. The same A.P. Bogdanov identified the skulls from the shores of Lake Ladoga, delivered to him by A.A. Inostrantsev, and from the Borich district of the Novgorod province., from the excavations of Peredolsky, as belonging to dolichocephalic skeletons. N.M. Maliev, having examined 20 skulls from the Ananyevsky burial ground of the Chistopol district of the Kazan province, found that they belonged to dolichocephals. The same scientist, having examined the “Bulgarian” skulls extracted from Babiy Hill near the ancient Bolgar, came to the conclusion that these skulls “have the most similarity with the kurgan skulls of the Moscow province., belong to the type of long-headed, have the same head index, also strongly developed in height. It is quite natural “to assert that in the east of Russia, on the Kama and the Volga, in the Bolgars, a long-headed tribe lived in antiquity, similar in its anatomical structure and, perhaps, genetically related to the tribe that inhabited the central strip of Russia.” Maliev's data, according to anthropologists, "confirm the dolichocephaly of the primitive inhabitants of the (Russian) East." We said above that we will not dwell on Chudi. But on one detail of her life, about which legends speak, it is not superfluous to say a few words. Chud, according to legend, lived in pits covered with roofs with superimposed earth. In the "Russian-Scythian Studies" we cite Mela's words about the contemporary inhabitants of Taurida, the Scythian Satarchs, and, among other things, the following: "Digging dwellings in the ground, they live in caves or dugouts." Another valuable evidence relates to the area where the Scythians also lived in ancient times. In the “Description of the glorious rivers of the Irtysh”, compiled around 1675, Spafariy says: “And on the right side, down the Irtysh River, between Tara and the Salt Lakes, there is Lake Baraba and near that lake and further near the Tomsk city is called the Baraba volost; and in that Baraba volost live the Tatars, who previously paid yasak to the great sovereign and Ablai-taisha, and now they pay only the great sovereign. And those Tatars speak Kalmyk and Tatar, and they have a dwelling - they dig cellars in the ground; and they have princes, and dug out towns; and all sorts of animal trades are hunted.

The current Finns of the Russian north and the Volga region - Ostyaks, Permyaks, Votyaks, Cheremis - still retain the use of something similar to the Chud pits, as can be seen from the stories of I.N. Smirnova. In one of his works, he says: “In the Lugovaya side in the garden or on the threshing floor of the cheremisin, you can find a small conical building made of thin poles, towering over a rather deep pit. At present, this building serves as a barn, a dryer for sheaves ... There was a time when this building was more important - it served as a dwelling for a person. It is an exact copy of the West Finnish kota, which Finnish poetry says was the first dwelling. There are hints that the cat once served its primary purpose on the Volga as well, among Arab travelers who visited Volga Bulgaria. Ibn-Dasta says that the neighbors of the Bolgars climb into pits for the winter, over which rise roofs lined with earth, resembling roofs Christian churches". In another work, I.N. Smirnov says: “This is how Dobrotvorsky describes the ancient Permian dwelling, according to the words of the Permians: “many dug their dwellings in the ground, closing it from above with rods and poles. There was no floor in such dugouts; hay was spread on the ground for sleeping. The caves were heated with the help of a "tepliny", which was laid out in the middle of the pit ... Dugouts usually broke out in a high place, somewhere on the river bank, on a hillock in the middle of the forest. The nature of such underground dwellings has been preserved among the Permians and now even in those huts that are arranged for foresting. Dobrotvorsky himself saw the remains of such dwellings in the form of pits on the mountain bank of the Letka River. They are also seen in large numbers in the Vologda province; there they meet in groups of 10-15, representing entire disappeared villages.

Western-Finnish. cat, Cher. where- undoubtedly the offspring of ancient Iranian. and Scythian. kata, to which *cat- in Rekta, Ohta etc. and pols. and Little Russian. hut.

Obviously, the Finns in antiquity, and then the Tatars, having occupied the territory of the Chud, took advantage of its cultural experience. But of course, in the Cheremis or Permyak construction, we have no right to see a copy of the dwelling of the ancient Chud - the Scythians of the Far North.

A few more words about miracles. We may have a trace of one of her customs, which is now with the former neighbors of the Chuds in the far north ... hands and feet. Of the peoples of Europe, they know the tattoo of the limbs of the Voguls. Here is what the Russian scientist traveler N.V. Sorokin: “I will mention the so-called Vogul tamga. Most Voguls (both male and female) have various patterns on their arms (above the hand) and legs, consisting of dark blue dashes, squares and dots. Depending on the combination of these figures, either crosses or quadrangles with rays in all directions are obtained, etc. This body tattoo, as far as I was able to find out, has various reasons. In most cases, young women or girls decorate themselves with it for the sake of coquetry ... Men, on the other hand, have a slightly different goal. During the hunt, wandering through the forests of the Urals, the Vogul from time to time carves on the trunks of trees the patterns that he has on his arms or legs, and since each family has its own tamga, any hunter walking through the forest and noticing the cuttings on the trees, can be safely sure that a Vogul from such and such a family passed through these places ... ".

... We know that the Vogulichi, once a numerous and warlike tribe, occupied the north-east of Europe, descending south below Vyatka and Perm. Anthropologically representing a mixture of two or more peoples, they, apparently, are descendants of the Chud - to a certain extent. By the way, they (and the Ostyaks) are dolichocephalic...

An excellent connoisseur of Cheremis, born among them, I.N. Smirnov says: “The country in which the Cheremis finally settled was not a desert when they appeared in it. The main waters of the territory from the Volga to Vyatka were known to man long before the beginning of the Cheremis colonization. All of them have names that do not correspond in composition to the Cheremis ones ... From the fact that the Votyak names are small rivers, it can be concluded that the Votyaks, like the Cheremis, found the region ... already with traces of a person. A variety of names that are inexplicable neither from the Cheremis nor from the Votyak language ... still cannot be explained from the living Finnish dialects and belong, judging by the similarity or even identity, to the people who occupied a vast space from the meridian of Moscow to the meridian of Perm "...

N.M. Maliev reports: “Mordva of the Samara province. Belongs to two varieties of this tribe - Moksha and Erze. Differing from each other in language and clothing, they differ from each other, although with difficulty, in their external appearance. physical features. In general, the Mordva represents the population from mixed types. Between them there are both brunettes and blondes; However, among the Mokshas there are more subjects with white skin, with blond or red hair and blue eyes, in a word, typical Finns, while the Yerzyans have darker skin, dark hair, large beards. According to N.M. Malieva, Mordovians are known in the Samara and Simbirsk provinces. "by its physical stature" and differs "from other puny tribes of the Finnish tribe by its strength of physique." “Mordovians are a strong, healthy, broad-shouldered people, with a highly developed bone and muscle system” ... “Places near the Tarnoga, which flows into Kokshenga from the left side, according to legend, are memorable for the attack of some unbaptized monster. Tradition claims that the inhabitants of the seven volosts of Koksheng, having heard about the approach of the enemy, gathered to pray at the churchyard of the Shendinsky volost ... The black Chud approached ... The Chud overcame ... broke into the churchyard and robbed the church treasury in the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. In our opinion, the legend refers to the raid of the Cheremis. It distorted this name into a black miracle.

“In the huge bend formed (by Kama), ... enclosing parts of the Glazovsky, Slobodsky and Okhansky counties, amazingly monotonous legends are heard everywhere about the Chud who was here, who disappeared completely without a trace when the Russian tribe appeared. You meet a lot of Chud settlements, on the site of which in most cases there are Russian villages with a Finnish-Permyak ending -va. But there are settlements in a deserted area, overgrown with dense forests. You find a significant amount of predominantly copper, iron, and occasionally silver gizmos, debris, etc. peculiar, characteristic miracle work. In the Perm and far from it Sloboda district, these copper finds are similar to both appearance, and by the chemical composition of the metal, which indicates that the Chuds of the Perm, Vyatka and, probably, Vologda provinces belong to the same era, to the same tribe, with the same life habits and historical past ”... N.M. Maliev gives information about the appearance of the Voguls living along the Lozva River: “the color of the skin is different, some are swarthy, others are lighter; there are quite a few who are completely blond. The hair on the head is long, black or blond, soft; I saw only one very curly, and it was blond ... The color of the eyes is gray, blue, brown ... ".

From an article by V.N. Mainov "The First Anthropological Exhibition in Moscow": "... two skulls from the barrows of the Podolsk district of the Moscow province., which aroused considerable interest, since they are contradictory with their long heads to generally accepted opinions" ... "In the Moscow province. ... about the 9th century we meet a very characteristic long-headed people, anthropologically very similar to the kurgan tribe of the kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Minsk lips ... The kurgan tribe in particular densely populated the Podolsky, Moscow, Bronnitsky districts "... "The greatest interest from the entire craniological collection is several skulls found by prof. Foreigners in the trench of the new Syassky canal and undoubtedly belonged to representatives of the Stone Age "... "In the Olonets province. excavations were carried out by Barsov in the Lodeynopol district ... Skulls here also turned out to belong to the long-headed type ”...“ The northern ancient cemeteries were studied by Zenger ... We have before us two types: Chudsky, rather purely brachycephalic and stone Zolotitsa (from the village of Nizhnyaya Zolotitsa, Arkhangelsk province.), apparently striving to declare dolichocephalic. What people these last skulls belonged to is still covered in the darkness of obscurity, although everything makes us assume that before the Finns, some kind of mezatykephalic tribe passed through northern and western Russia ”... “Prof. Samokvasov exhibited his collection of long-headed skulls of the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk province ... The Sudzhansky tribe was closest to the Moscow tribe ... Sharp dolichocephals during the Kurgan period reached south to the limits of the current Kursk lips. ”...

Spacious Western Siberia By the names of its rivers, lakes, mountains, it is undoubtedly connected with Russia. ... The Russians brought their legends about Chud to Siberia. They owe their origin to the names of the Chud grave, the Chud mine (in Altai), etc. About miracles as owners of rich graves in the Tobolsk province. say the documents of 1669, published by P.P. Pekarsky in Izvestiya R. Archeologist. General, vol. V.

A.F. Likhachev in the report "Scythian elements in the Chud antiquities of the Kazan province." says “a wonderful analogy of the Ananyevsky barrow (Vyatka province.): on the one hand, with the Chud barrows in Siberia, and on the other with the barrows in southern Russia, is a reason to rank this monument among the miraculous Scythian ones. ( Sobolevsky A.I. Names of rivers and lakes of the Russian north. M., 1927).

So, the Volga region, the Kama region and the Russian North, according to Sobolevsky and his colleagues, were inhabited by speakers of the Indo-European language - the language of the autochthonous population of Eastern Europe, which Sobolevsky calls Scythian (“until a more suitable term is found,” he explains at the beginning of the article) and to which treated chud. To continue the study of the question of the Chud people as a carrier of IE, it is necessary to take into account such a feature as the change of the name of the people during migrations, which is also noted in the Legend, and is noted throughout the story, starting from the ancient period, which diverging different countries, tribes "nicknamed by various names."

This feature also applied to miracles. In legends and in other works of oral history, the chronicle chud appeared under a different name, and work with this name provided additional material for studying the problem. This material will be presented in the second part of the article.

Lydia Groth,
Candidate of Historical Sciences

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N. K. Roerich. Chud underground

The Chud tribe is one of the most mysterious phenomena in our country. His story has long been overgrown with secrets, epics and even rumors, both quite plausible and completely fantastic. Not much is known about this tribe to judge from this information about the full history of its representatives, but quite enough to produce the most incredible stories. Scientists and researchers have tried and are trying to unearth the evidence of that era, to decipher that wonderful world, full of mysteries, which the Chud tribe gave us.

The Chud tribe is sometimes compared to the Mayan tribe of the American Indians. Both those and others suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only memories. In official history, the term "Chud" is considered the ancient Russian name of several Finno-Ugric tribes. The very name of the tribe Chud' is also not entirely clear. It is commonly believed among the people that the representatives of these tribes were so named for their incomprehensible language, which they spoke and which other tribes did not understand. There is an assumption that the tribe was originally Germanic or Gothic, which is why they were called Chud. In those days, "Chud" and "Alien" were not only of the same root, but also had the same meaning. However, in some Finno-Ugric languages, one of the mythological characters was named Chud, which also cannot be discounted.

This tribe, which suddenly disappeared, is mentioned in "", where the chronicler directly tells: " ... the Varangians from overseas imposed tribute on the Chuds, Ilmen Slovenes, Merya and Krivichi ...". However, everything is not so simple here either. For example, the historian S.M. Solovyov made an assumption that the inhabitants of the Vodskaya valley of the fifth part of the Novgorod Land were called a miracle in the Tale of Bygone Years - Vod. Another mention dates back to 882 and refers to Oleg’s campaign: “ ... went on a campaign and took with him a lot of warriors: Varangians, Ilmen Slovenes, Krivichi, all the Chud and came to Smolensk and took the city ...«.

Yaroslav the Wise undertook a victorious campaign against Chud in 1030: "and defeated them, and established the city of Yuryev." Subsequently, it turned out that they called a miracle whole line tribes, such as: Ests, Setu (Pskov Chud), Vod, Izhora, Korels, Zavolochye (Zavolochskaya Chud). In Novgorod, there is Chudintseva Street, where noble representatives of this tribe used to live, and in Kyiv - Chudin Dvor. It is also believed that names were formed on behalf of these tribes: the city of Chudovo, Lake Peipsi, the Chud River. AT Vologda region there are villages with names: Front Chudi, Middle Chudi and Back Chudi. Currently, the descendants of Chud live in the Penezhsky district of the Arkhangelsk region. In 2002, Chud was included in the register of independent nationalities.

Of particular interest, in addition to historical, is folklore, in which the tribe appears as Chud White-eyed. Strange epithet " white-eyed“, which the representatives of the Chud were dubbed, is also a mystery. Some believe that the white-eyed monster is from what lives underground, where there is no sunlight, while others believe that in old days gray-eyed or blue-eyed people were called white-eyed. The white-eyed Chud, as a mythological character, is found in the folklore of the Komi and Saami, as well as the Mansi, Siberian Tatars, Altaians and Nenets. In a nutshell, the white-eyed Chud is a lost civilization. Following these beliefs, the legendary white-eyed Chud lived in the north of the European part of Russia and the Urals. In the descriptions of this tribe, descriptions appear as about people of short stature who live in caves and deep underground. In addition, chud, choud, shud - a monster, and meant a giant, often a cannibal giant with white eyes.

One of the legends, which is recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, reads: “ And when other people began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called - Chudskoy shore". The mistress of the copper mountain, the tale of which was told to us by the Russian writer Bazhov P.P., is considered by many to be one of the very Chud.

Judging by the legends, a meeting with representatives of the White-eyed Chud, who sometimes appeared out of nowhere, came out of the caves, appeared in the fog, could bring good luck to some, and misfortune to others. They live underground, where they ride dogs, graze mammoths or earthen deer. The mythical representatives of the white-eyed Chud are considered good and skillful blacksmiths, metallurgists and excellent warriors, which can be compared with the belief of the Scandinavian tribes, who also have short stature, are good warriors and skilled blacksmiths. Chud white-eyed (they are orphaned, sihirtya) can steal a child, cause damage, scare a person. They can suddenly appear and just as suddenly disappear.

Evidence of missionaries, researchers and travelers has been preserved about Chud earthen settlements. For the first time, A. Schrenk spoke about Sirt in 1837, who discovered the Chud caves with the remains of a certain culture in the lower reaches of the Korotaikha River. Missionary Benjamin wrote: The Korotaikha River is remarkable for its abundance of fisheries and Chud earthen caves, in which, according to Samoyed legends, Chud once lived in ancient times. These caves are ten miles from the mouth, on the right bank, on the slope, which since ancient times in Samoyed was called Sirte-sya - “Chudskaya Mountain". I. Lepekhin wrote in 1805: “ The entire Samoyed land in the Mezen district is filled with abandoned dwellings of the once ancient people. They are found in many places: near lakes, on the tundra, in forests, near rivers, made in mountains and hills like caves with openings like doors. In these caves they find furnaces and find fragments of iron, copper and clay household items.". V.N. Chernetsov, who wrote about Chud in his reports of 1935-1957, where he collected many legends. In addition, he discovered Sirtian monuments in Yamal. Thus, the existence of a tribe that actually existed in these places once is documented. The Nenets, whose ancestors witnessed the existence of a mysterious tribe in these places, claim that it went underground (into the hills), but did not disappear. And until now, you can meet people of small stature and with white eyes, and this meeting most often does not bode well.

After the Chud went underground, after other tribes came to their lands, whose descendants live here to this day, they left many treasures. These treasures are charmed and, according to legend, only the descendants of the Chud itself can find them. These treasures are guarded by Chud spirits, which appear in a variety of guises, for example, in the form of a hero on a horse, a bear, a hare, and others. Due to the fact that many would like to penetrate the secrets of underground inhabitants and take possession of untold riches, some are still taking various steps to find these caches full of gold and jewelry. There are a huge number of legends, tales and tales about daredevils who decided to search for miracle treasures. All, or most of them, end, alas, deplorably for the main characters. Some of them die, others remain crippled, others go crazy, and others go missing in the dungeon or caves.

He writes about the legendary miracle and Roerich in his book The Heart of Asia. There he describes his meeting with the Old Believer in Altai. This man took them to a rocky hill where the stone circles of ancient burials were located and, showing them to the Roerich family, told the following story: This is where Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight and how it bloomed White birch in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. You can see their former entrances for yourself. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns and people from Belovodye come and give great science to all the people, then Chud will come again, with all the treasures they have obtained". A year earlier (1913) of these events, Nicholas Roerich, being an excellent artist, painted the painting “Chud went underground.” Be that as it may, the mystery of the Chud tribe still remains open. official history in the person of archaeologists, ethnographers, local historians, ordinary tribes are considered a miracle, for example, Ugrians, Khanty, Mansi, who did not differ in anything special and left their habitats due to the arrival of other tribes on their lands. Others consider the Chud White-Eyed - a great people who have the gift of magic and magic, who live deep in caves and underground cities, which from time to time appear on the surface to warn people, warn, punish or protect their treasures, hunters who never will decrease.

« “But somewhere, even now,” says Vasily, “the Lapps believe not in Christ, but in “chud.” There is high mountain from where they throw deer as a sacrifice to the god. There is a mountain where a noid (sorcerer) lives, and deer are brought to him there. There they are cut with wooden knives, and the skin is hung on poles. The wind shakes her, her legs move. And if there is moss or sand below, then the deer seems to be walking. Vasily met such a deer more than once in the mountains. Just like alive! Scary to watch. And it’s even more terrible when in winter fire sparkles in the sky and the abysses of the earth open up, and miracles begin to come out of the graves.«

The ancient people mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind legends, toponyms and treasures.

In the Urals, and in Siberia, and in the north of Russia, and even in the Altai, many legends say that an ancient people called Chud once lived in these places. Traditions about the Chud are most often told in places where the Finno-Ugric peoples live or used to live, therefore, in science it was customary to consider the Finno-Ugric Chud. But the problem is that the Finno-Ugric peoples, in particular the Komi-Permyaks, themselves tell stories about the Chud, calling the Chud a different people.

N. Roerich "Chud went underground"

When people who live here to this day came to these places, the Chud buried herself alive in the ground. Here is what one of the legends recorded in the village of Afanasyevo, Kirov Region, tells: “... And when other people (Christians) began to appear along the Kama, this monster did not want to communicate with them, did not want to be enslaved by Christianity. They dug a large hole, and then cut up the posts and buried themselves. This place is called the Peipus Coast.

Sometimes it is also said that the Chud "went underground", and sometimes that she went to live in other places. But, leaving, the Chud left many treasures. These treasures are conspired, “cherished”: a covenant has been imposed on them that only the descendants of the Chud people can find them. Chudsky spirits in different guises (sometimes in the form of a hero on a horse, sometimes a hare or a bear) guard these treasures.
What kind of people are these - “White-eyed Chud”, “Divy people”, “Sirts”? Why do they avoid contact with ordinary, "land" people?

Vladimir Konev "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain"

A lot of facts speak in favor of the fact that the "White-eyed Chud" is not a mythical people, it really exists, apparently, having somehow adapted to life underground. Recorded stories of people
met with people from the mysterious people. The Russian scientist A. Shrenk talked with many Samoyeds, and this is what one of them told him: “Once,” he continued, “one Nenets (that is, Samoyed), digging a hole
on some hill, he suddenly saw a cave in which the Sirts lived. One of them said to him: “Leave us alone, we shun the sunlight that illuminates your country, and love the darkness that reigns in our dungeon…”.

Often lost hunters and fishermen meet a tall gray-haired old man who leads them to
a safe place and then disappears. Locals call him the White Old Man and consider him one of the underground inhabitants, occasionally coming to the surface.

In the Urals, stories about the Chud are more common in the Kama region. Traditions indicate the specific places where the Chud lived, describe their appearance (and they were mostly dark-haired and swarthy), customs, and language. From the language of the Chuds, legends even preserved some words: “Once a Chud girl appeared in the village of Vazhgort - tall, beautiful, broad-shouldered. Her hair is long, black, not braided. He walks around the village and beckons: “Come visit me, I cook dumplings!” There were ten people who wanted to, everyone went for the girl. They went to the Chudsky spring, and no one returned home, everyone disappeared somewhere. The same thing happened the next day. It was not because of their stupidity that people fell for the girl's bait, but because she possessed some kind of power. Hypnosis, as they say now. On the third day, the women from this village decided to take revenge on the girl. They boiled several buckets of water, and when the Miraculous girl entered the village, the women poured boiling water over her. The girl ran to the spring and wailed: “Odege! Odege! Soon, the inhabitants of Vazhgort left their village forever, went to live in other places ... "

Odege - what does this word mean? There is no such word in any of the Finno-Ugric languages. What ethnic group was this mysterious Chud?

Since ancient times, ethnographers, linguists, and local historians have tried to unravel the riddle of the Chud. There were different versions of who the Chud was. Ethnographers-local historians Fedor Alexandrovich Teploukhov and Alexander Fedorovich Teploukhov considered the Ugrians (Khanty and Mansi) a miracle, since there is documentary information about the stay of the Ugrians in the territory of the Kama region. The linguist Antonina Semyonovna Krivoshchekova-Gantman did not agree with this version, because in the Kama region there are practically no place names deciphered using the Ugric languages; she believed that the issue required further study. Kazan professor Ivan Nikolaevich Smirnov believed that the Chud were the Komi-Permians before the adoption of Christianity, since some legends say that the Chud are “our ancestors”. The last version was the most widespread, and most ethnographers adhered to this version until recently.

The discovery in the Urals in the 1970s and 80s of the ancient Aryan city of Arkaim and the "Country of Cities" of Sintashta somewhat shook the traditional version. Versions began to appear that the Chud were the ancient Aryans (in a narrower sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, and in a broader sense, the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans as a whole). This version has found many supporters among scientists and local historians.

If linguists have previously recognized that there are many “Iranisms” in the Finno-Ugric languages, then in recent years an opinion has appeared that the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages ​​have a very large common lexical layer. A version has appeared that the names of the rivers Kama in the Urals and Ganges (Ganga) in India have the same origin. It is not for nothing that in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions) there are geographical names with the root "gang": Ganga (lake), Gangas (bay, hill), Gangos (mountain, lake), Gangashikha (bay). It is not for nothing that geographical names in -kar (Kudymkar, Maikar, Dondykar, Idnakar, Anyushkar, etc.) cannot be deciphered in any way using local Permian languages ​​(Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak). According to legend, there were Chud settlements in these places, and it is here that bronze jewelry and other items are most often found, conditionally united by the name Perm animal style. And experts have always recognized the “Iranian influence” on the art of the Perm animal style itself.

It is no secret that there are parallels in the mythology of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian peoples. In the legends of the ancient Aryans, memories of a semi-mythical ancestral home, located somewhere far north of India, have been preserved. The Aryans who lived in this country could observe amazing phenomena. There, seven heavenly sages-rishis move around the North Star, which the creator Brahma strengthened in the center of the universe above the World Mount Meru. Beautiful celestial dancers live there - Apsaras, shining with all the colors of the rainbow, and the sun rises and shines for six months in a row. The seven rishis are probably the constellation Ursa Major, and the apsaras are the embodiment of the northern lights, which struck the imagination of many peoples. In the myths of the Estonians, the northern lights are the heroes who fell in battles and live in the sky. In Indian mythology, only magical birds, including the messenger of the gods Garuda, can reach the sky. In Finno-Ugric mythology, the Milky Way, connecting north and south, was called the Road of Birds.

There is also a similarity directly in the names. For example, the god among the Udmurts is Inmar, among the Indo-Iranians Indra is the god of thunder, Inada is the foremother; in the Scandinavian epic, Ymir is the first man; in Komi mythology, both the first man and the swamp witch bear the name Yoma; in Indo-Iranian mythology, Yima is also the first man; the name of the god is also consonant among the Finns - Yumala, and among the Mari - Yumo. "Aryan influence" penetrated even into the ethnonyms of the Finno-Ugric peoples: the Tatars and Bashkirs of the Udmurts, their neighbors, call the ethnonym "ar".

So who was called a miracle in the Urals? If the Aryans, then the question again arises: why was there confusion with who should be considered a Chud, and why did the ethnonym Chud “stuck” precisely and only to the Finno-Ugric peoples? What is the relationship between the Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric peoples? Apparently, here we should recall the opinion of Lev Gumilyov, who believed that a new ethnos, just like a person, is born from two ethnos parents. Then it becomes clear why the legends call the Chud either “another people”, or “our ancestors”.

... And yet, what was the miracle girl screaming, doused with boiling water? Maybe the word "odege" is in the Indo-Iranian languages? If we open the Sanskrit-Russian dictionary, we will find there a word similar in sound - "udaka", meaning "water". Maybe she wanted to run to the Chudsky spring, the only place where she could escape?