Normanism
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Normanism or Normanist theory (aka Norman theory), is a historiographical theory about the origin of Russian statehood and in particular of Kievan Rus. [1] It holds that Kievan Rus' was founded by Norse settlers, predominantly from Sweden, rather than by Slavs. Normanism is the most widely supported theory on the origin of the Rus', although it is controversial among Russian and Ukrainian historians.
Origins[edit]
The Normanist theory was largely developed by Theophilus Siegfried Bayer and his student Gerhardt Friedrich Müller, a pair of German scholars who worked at the Russian Academy of Sciences in the early eighteenth century. The papers De Varagis ('On the Varangians', 1729) and Origines russicae ('Russian Origins', 1736) were two of the most significant texts in first postulating this theory; however, the Normanist theory began drawing much more significant attention in 1749. In this year, Müller gave a lecture in which he stated that the Rurikid dynasty and the term "Russia" both originated from the Norse; this statement provoked such shock in his Russian audience that Müller proved unable to finish his speech.[2][3] This statement was highly controversial in Russia, so much so that a committee was formed to determine whether Müller's research was "harmful to the interests and glory of the Russian Empire".[4] Mikhail Lomonosov was one of the foremost scholars to take a firmly anti-Normanist approach during this period.[5]
Description[edit]
Normanist theory argues that the Rus' people, who founded Kievan Rus', were Norse settlers rather than Eastern Slavs.[6] Within this general description, the term "Normanism" covers a wide variety of specific beliefs about the degree of Norse influence on the Rus'; these beliefs range from the mainstream to the fringe.[1] The most widely accepted form of this belief holds that, while there was significant Scandinavian settlement in Russia in the early Rus' period, the Norse quickly assimilated into the existing Slavic culture of the region; for instance, while Rurik and many of his immediate successors had Norse personal names, Slavonic names came to predominate after the later tenth century.[7] Describing this rapid process of assimilation, F. Donald Logan has remarked: "in 839, the Rus were Swedes; in 1043 the Rus were Slavs".
Archaeological evidence for Normanism includes the grave goods of many high-status individuals, both men and women, who were buried along the Upper Volga in the ninth and tenth centuries. The material culture of these individuals, including the styles of their clothing and the design of their weapons and other metalwork, is predominantly in line with Scandinavian material culture.[8][9][10] Some tenets of Normanism are also bolstered by literary sources, such as the Annales Bertiniani, which in 839 mentions the Rus' describing themselves as "sueoni", or Swedes.[11]
Reception[edit]
After the initial controversy around Müller's theory, Normanism has come to be the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the Rus'.[2][12] However, mainstream scholarship has pulled back from some of Müller's more extreme claims. Eighteenth-century Normanist theories were generally tied to racialist claims that argued that the Slavs could not independently form a centralized government; this claim is largely discredited now, with the scholarly consensus instead supporting a more gradual, bidirectional synthesis of Rus' culture from its Norse and Slavic antecedents.[6][13]
In Russia and Ukraine, Normanism has been a more turbulent history. Despite the Slavophilic sentiments prominent in nineteenth-century Russian historiography, Normanism gradually gained ground even in Russia throughout that century; certain scholars, such as Nikolay Karamzin, were even proponents of Normanism themselves. Soviet historiography, however, took a strongly anti-Normanist stance, and so the twentieth century saw a high level of anti-Normanist scholarship published in the USSR.[5][13]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Normanism: What's in a Name?
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Serhii Plokhy, Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), chapter 1.
- ↑ Elena Melnikova, 'The "Varangian Problem": Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics', in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42-52 (p. 43).
- ↑ Pritsak, Omeljan, "The Origin of the Rus'", Russian Review, vol. 36, No. 3 (July 1977), pp. 249–273
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ohlobyn, Oleksander. "Normanist theory". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Zakharii, Roman (2002-11-13). The Historiography of Normanist and Anti-Normanist theories on the origin of Rus’ (PDF) (Thesis). University of Oslo. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ Omeljan Pritsak, "Rus'", in Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 555-56.
- ↑ Williams, Tom (28 February 2014). "Vikings in Russia". blog.britishmuseum.org. The British Museum. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ Wladyslaw Duczko, Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
- ↑ Jonathan Shepherd, "Review Article: Back in Old Rus and the USSR: Archaeology, History and Politics", English Historical Review, vol. 131 (no. 549) (2016), 384–405 doi:10.1093/ehr/cew104.
- ↑ Jonathan Shepard, 'The Viking Rus and Byzantium', , in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 496-516 (p. 497).
- ↑ Elena Melnikova, "The 'Varangian Problem': Science in the Grip of Ideology and Politics", in Russia's Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, ed. by Ray Taras (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42–52 (pp. 44–45).
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Sherman, Heidi M. "The Normanist Controversy". encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
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See also[edit]
- Seven Apostles of Bulgarian Orthodox Church
- Trilingual heresy
- Tsar
- Golden Age of Bulgaria
- Moscow, third Rome
- Byzantium After Byzantium
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