Ethnogenesis of Belarusians. Basic concepts of the origin of the Belarusian ethnic group

The process of formation of the Belarusian ethnic group is quite complex and contradictory. There is no consensus among scientists about the time of the appearance of Belarusians as an ethnic group, or about the ancestors of modern Belarusians. It is believed that the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians took place on the territory of the Upper Dnieper, Middle Podvina and Upper Ponemonye. Some researchers (Georgy Shtykhov, Nikolai Ermolovich, Mikhail Tkachev) believe that the Belarusian ethnic group existed already in the 13th century. Archaeologist Valentin Sedov believed that the Belarusian ethnic community developed in the 13th-14th centuries, Moses Greenblat - in the period from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

The emergence of Belarus as an ethnic territory and its East Slavic population is an integral part of the process of formation of the Belarusian people (ethnogenesis). It is impossible to answer numerous questions about the origin of Belarus without considering a number of problems of Belarusian ethnogenesis, without answering the question about the ancestors of Belarusians, the historical roots of our people.

Today, unfortunately, there is no common point of view among scientists in Belarus regarding the ethnogenesis of Belarusians. There are many different versions about where the Belarusians came from, where their ethnic roots are, within which state formations the formation of our nationality, our nation took place. The presence of several concepts of the emergence of Belarus and the origin of the Belarusian people is due to the complexity of the very process of formation of an ethnic territory and the methods of its study, the variety of sources, which very often are fundamentally different from each other Kucherenko E.I., Kucherenko M.E. Toponymy in local history work. M., 2008. pp. 131-142..

There are several fundamentally different concepts of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians:

Krivichi theory of the origin (ethnogenesis) of the Belarusian people. One of these theories of the origin of the Belarusian people is the Krivichi theory, formulated in basic terms in the second half of the 19th century and received significant development at the beginning of the 20th century in the works of a number of scientists, in particular the famous Belarusian historian and public figure Vaclav Lastovsky (1883-1938). V. Lastovsky argued that the formation of the Belarusian people is based on the traditional culture of one of the first East Slavic ethnic communities - the Krivichi tribe, which are the ancestors of the Belarusians. The scientist proceeded from the fact that the Krivichi were the most numerous community among the tribes on the territory of modern Belarus and occupied some lands beyond its borders. Moreover, it was on the territory of settlement of the Krivichi that such a state entity as the Principality of Polotsk was formed, which had a significant influence on the development of the rest of the Belarusian lands. V. Lastovsky also expressed the idea that it is more correct to call Belarusians “Krivichi”, and Belarus - “Krivia”. Despite a number of facts that testify in favor of this theory, its main position that the ancestors of the Belarusians are the Krivichi, and the ethnic territory of the Belarusian people was formed on the ethnic territory of the Krivichi, contradicts reality. The Krivichi and their ethnic territory (Krivia) disappeared in the middle of the 12th century, and the Belarusian ethnos and its ethnic territory had not yet been formed at that time. The controversy of this concept is also revealed in the fact that it cannot convincingly explain the emergence of the ethnic traits of the southern Belarusian population, since the Krivichi lived only in the northern and central parts of modern Belarus.

Famous Belarusian scientists Ya.F. Karsky and V.I. Pichet, who included in the ancestors of the Belarusians not only the Krivichi, but the Radimichi and Dregovich, to some extent overcame the one-sidedness of the Krivichi theory. However, they also did not take into account the important factor that there is no direct continuity between the Slavic tribes, on the one hand, and the Belarusians, on the other. The Dregovichi, Krivichi and Radimichi disappeared in the 12th century, and the all-Belarusian complex of language and culture had not yet been formed at that time.

Baltic theory of the origin (ethnogenesis) of the Belarusian people. There is another quite interesting and well-reasoned theory of the origin of the Belarusian people. This is the Baltic theory, which took shape in the 60s - early 70s of the XX century and connects the origin of the Belarusians with living on the territory of modern Belarus in the pre-Slavic Baltic period. One of the authors of this theory was the Moscow archaeologist, Doctor of Historical Sciences V.V. Sedov. He expressed the idea that the mixing of Slavs and Balts resulted in the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group, the originality of its culture and language. At the same time, the scientist argued, the Balts played the role of a substrate (substratum) in the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians. His theory V.V. Sedov argued with data from archaeological excavations that he conducted on the territory of Belarus and the Smolensk region. He found a whole range of jewelry, tools, and weapons that were characteristic of the Baltic culture and did not belong to the Slavs. Based on archaeological data by V.V. Sedov came to the conclusion that at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Iron Age, the Balts lived on the territory of the southeastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the upper reaches of the Don, including the Oka basin, and from the Dnieper region to the Kiev region. From the middle of the first millennium, the migration of the Slavs began. But they could not displace the Balts; moreover, the Balts took an active part in the ethnogenesis of the Slavic tribes, became part of them and adopted various dialects of their language. Thus, the main determining factor in the formation of the Belarusian ethnos, according to the Baltic theory, is considered to be the colonization by the Slavs of the territory located north of Pripyat, including the Upper Poneman region, the Upper Podvina region and the Dnieper region, their assimilation of the Balts, the impact of the Balts on the language and culture of the Slavic tribes. Proof of this is the fact that many elements of the language and culture of Belarusians have Baltic roots, for example, the worship of snakes and stones in the traditional religion of Belarusians, bast shoes of direct weaving, housing construction techniques, a number of sounds of Belarusian phonetics (hard “r”, “akanie” etc.).

Despite the significant argumentation of the Baltic concept, a number of scientists have found many controversial points in the statement that the separation of the Belarusian ethnic group from other groups of the Slavic population is mainly due to the influence of the Balts. The significant influence of the Balts on the formation of the Belarusian people, their culture, language, and the isolation of Belarusians from other East Slavic peoples - Russians and Ukrainians Sharukho I.N. are cast into doubt. Belarusians in the anthropological and ethnic space // Pskov regional journal. 2008. No. 6. P. 145..

Another concept of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians is also controversial - the Old Russian concept. One of its theorists was our fellow countryman - associate professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy M.O. Koyalovich (1828-1891), who defended the pan-Slavist concept of Russian history and believed that the Russian people consisted of three parts: Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians. According to this theory, the Krivichi, Radimichi, Dregovichi, as well as other East Slavic tribes changed ethnically even before the formation of the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Initially, the East Slavic ethnic communities were replaced by a common East Slavic community, and their ethnic territories formed Kievan Rus, which was the predecessor of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.

Today this theory is disputed by many scientists, a minority of whom deny the existence in the past of a common East Slavic community - the Old Russian people. Indeed, there are many questions that this theory does not answer. In essence, the chronological framework of the existence of such a nationality (formed in the 9th-10th centuries, disintegrated in the 12th century) on the territory of Belarus is not confirmed by factual material. In a simplified way, the theory also explains the path of the emergence of Belarus from the ethnic territory of Ancient Rus'; it does not take into account the complexity of the methods and ways of forming a new ethnic territory, the impact on this process not only of evolution, but also of diffusion phenomena of culture and language, and name. The statement that the collapse of the Old Russian people was influenced by the process of disappearance from the political map of Kievan Rus and the formation on its territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Muscovite state, as well as the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars and the Crusaders, is also not convincing. But after all, the ancestors of modern Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians lived together in one state, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, during the 13th-18th centuries, but the process of completing the formation of the ancient Russian nationality was never carried out. This may mean that each of the peoples identified above followed its own historical path. What brought them together, of course, was the Old Russian language, common cultural features, a common ethnic self-name (Russians, Rus, Rusyns), and a single Orthodox religion.

There is also a “Finnish” concept put forward by the writer Ivan Laskov. According to it, the ancestors of the Belarusians were the Finno-Ugrians. The concept was formed on the basis of the presence of a significant number of ancient Finno-Ugric hydronyms on the territory of Belarus (for example, Dvina, Svir). Nowadays, however, it is believed that the Finno-Ugrians were the substrate not of the Belarusians, but of the Balts.

1. The concept and characteristics of an ethnic group.

2. Formation of signs of the Belarusian ethnic group

Ethnography, ethnogeography, ethnolinguistics, anthropology, etc., ethnogenesis, ethnos, ethnic group, subethnic group, ethnic territory, ethnic culture, ethnic identity, ethnic language, mentality, material culture, Banzer culture, Korczak-type culture, etc., Indo-Europeans, Slavs, Balts, Germans, Romans, Greeks, etc., Dregovichi, Krivichi, Radimichi.

The history of mankind is several million years old. The first people most likely emerged from the animal world in East Africa. This process is associated with the beginning of the manufacture of tools. The main material for a long time was stone, mainly flint, which is why the first and longest era in human history is called the Stone Age. Human settlement on the planet lasted for millions of years, and on the territory of modern Belarus, the first people may have appeared in the Middle Paleolithic era (Mousterian). This is supported by the finds of Mousterian tools near the villages of Podluzhye in Chechersk, Kleevichi in Kostyukovichi and Abidovichi in Bykhovsky districts.

In the Upper (Late) Paleolithic era, people undoubtedly already lived on the territory of Belarus. In the Stone Age, people lived in extreme conditions where they had to make incredible efforts to survive, with an average life expectancy of 20 years. The existence of human groups was directly influenced by climatic conditions, among which glaciations occupied a special place, as a result of which people were forced to leave already developed regions or even die.

The most ancient inhabitants of Belarus were engaged in driven hunting for large animals: mammoth, cave bear, woolly rhinoceros. Animals were used for food, bones were used to make tools and amulets-decorations, they were used for the construction of dwellings and fuel, animal skins were used in the construction of dwellings and as clothing. Another occupation was gathering: everything that was edible was eaten: wild fruits, roots and leaves, insects, etc. Man learned to fish quite early. The economy was carried out collectively: only by united efforts could the human collective resist powerful animals and unfavorable natural factors. Human existence was facilitated by stone tools: pointed points, burins, scrapers, and hand axes. The stone was processed using other stones, bones, and horn. Man used a variety of processing techniques: upholstery, chipping, impact and squeezing retouching, sawing, drilling, etc. Slowly but steadily there was a process of improving the technique and technology of processing tools, which led to the creation of more advanced and productive tools. Tools made of wood, bone and horn were also used. Near the town Krasnoselsky, Volkovysk district, explored a unique complex: mines for the extraction of flint and workshops for making tools from it (the mines were developed at the end of the Neolithic - Bronze Age).

Gradually, man gained experience and made numerous discoveries: he became acquainted with the beneficial properties of fire, and then with the method of producing it artificially, mastered house-building and clothing making, invented combined tools (an axe, bows and arrows), learned to make dishes from clay, etc.

The accumulated knowledge led man to the development of productive types of economy: agriculture and cattle breeding, which appeared on the territory of Belarus at the end of the Neolithic. The first fields were cultivated with wooden sticks and hoes, and barley and other grains were cultivated. The first domesticated animal was the dog, then cattle, small cattle, pigs and horses. New productive economies coexisted with traditional hunting, gathering and fishing; an integrated economic system weakened man's dependence on nature and contributed to rapid population growth.

The spread of the manufacturing economy occurred in the Bronze Age. Belarus is located far from the regions where components for bronze were mined, so stone tools continued to predominate here; local bronze casting arose in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.

The genesis of society and the evolution of marriage and family relations are associated with the economic activities of human groups. The oldest association was the ancestral community: a herd of people jointly engaged in production activities and regulating the distribution of the results of labor.

In the Upper Paleolithic, an early tribal community functioned. The clan consisted of female relatives, their descendants and alien male husbands from another clan. Members of the clan had the right and obligation to marry members of another clan (group marriage); kinship was accounted for on the maternal side. In the family and society, a woman occupied an exceptional place: an equal participant in labor activity, a continuator of the family, a keeper of the family hearth, etc. This was the period of the so-called matriarchy.

At the end of the Neolithic - Bronze Age, with the emergence and establishment of productive types of economy, the clan community was transformed. In the family and society, the man has taken a dominant position, the woman passes into her husband’s clan, kinship is counted through the male line, and pair marriage is spreading. A tribal nobility (a council of male warriors, military leaders) is singled out, the former equality of rights is violated, and private property arises.

From ancient times to the middle of the 1st millennium AD. Baltic Leta-Lithuanian ("East Lithuanian") tribes lived on the territory of northern and central Belarus. As for the south and southeast of Belarus, scientists suggest that it is very likely that this territory was part of the zone of early settlement of the Slavs.

In the first centuries AD, under the pressure of the Goths, who came from Scandinavia and landed near the mouth of the Vistula, the Slavs began their migration to the east. From the Vistula basin they moved to the Pripyat basin and reached the Dnieper. As a result of the “great migration of peoples,” the Slavs were divided into three large groups: southern, western, eastern. The Slavic tribes that settled on the Balkan Peninsula became the ancestors of modern Yugoslav peoples - Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins. They mixed with the local Thracian and Illyrian populations, which had previously been oppressed by Byzantine slave owners. The West Slavic tribes, together with the population living on the banks of the Vistula, became the ancestors of the Polish, Czech, and Slovak peoples. Almost simultaneously with the Western and Southern Slavs, a third group emerged - the Eastern Slavs, the ancestors of modern Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians.

Almost no written sources have survived about how and when the Slavs settled on the territory of Belarus. Therefore, scientific debates have not subsided to this day; there are different points of view, different hypotheses on all these issues. Scientists draw their main data, with the exception of brief information about the settlement of the Slavs in the Tale of Bygone Years, from archaeological sources.

Archaeologists distinguish different cultures and identify them with certain ethnic groups. They note that in the south of Belarus monuments of the Prague culture have been preserved (the culture of the early Slavic tribes, which in the U-UP century AD inhabited the territory from the Dnieper and Lake Ilmen to the east and r Elbe and Danube to the west and south) Or, more precisely, its local version - the Korczak-type culture (it refers to the archaeological culture of the tribes that lived in the 20th-20th centuries AD on the territory of northwestern Ukraine and southern Belarus) . It is considered indisputable that these monuments belong to the Slavs.

But the main territory of Belarus and neighboring regions in the U-III century. inhabited by other tribes who left behind monuments of the so-called Bantser culture. It got its name from the settlement of Bantserovshchina on the left bank of the Svisloch. As for the identity of the Bantser culture, there is no consensus among scientists. Some consider it Baltic, others - Slavic, or call it “a kind of Baltic-Slavic culture.” This happens because during excavations in the material culture signs of both Slavic and etc. culture are discovered. Baltic

In general, to resolve the issue of the formation of a separate ethnic group, it is necessary to use special ethnographic materials.

The term “Belarus” is closely related to the term “Belarusians” - the name of the people living in this region. The emergence of Belarus as an ethnic territory is an essential part of Belarusian ethnogenesis, that is, the process of formation of the Belarusian people. It is impossible to scientifically study the emergence of Belarus without examining a number of problems on Belarusian ethnogenesis, without answering the questions: “Who were the ancestors of the Belarusians”; “When Belarusians formed as a people - an ethnic group”; “How and under what conditions did this process develop, when, for what reasons, what contributed to this, on what territory” - the list of questions seems unlimited.

However, the fundamental issue that requires priority resolution is the question of the concept and origin of the ethnos.

The essence of the presentation of the material is that in research on this problem it is necessary, first of all, to take into account the role of many economic, political, and historical factors. Only by comparing data from various sources can we come to the conclusion that the process of formation of Belarus and the Belarusian people was much more complex than many researchers have tried to imagine so far.

First, it is necessary to clarify the content of basic concepts, determine the method of research and analyze the capabilities of sources on this problem.

Ethnicity - (from the Greek word ethnos - society, group, tribe, people), is defined as a historically established stable community of people, which can be expressed in the form of a tribe, nationality, nation. The main conditions for the emergence of an ethnos are common territory and language, which usually act as signs of an ethnos. However, the main features of an ethnos are ethnic self-awareness and mentality, the totality of material and spiritual culture.

Ethnic community - (ethnos) - a historically emerged type of stable social grouping of people, represented by a tribe, nationality, nation. This term is close to the concept of people in the ethnographic sense.

Ethnographic group - (subethnic) - a separate part of a nationality or nation, preserving some features of language, culture and way of life.

Ethnic territory is the territory where a given ethnic group is predominantly located, usually including the area of ​​its formation and compact settlement, as well as areas of mixing with other nationalities.

Ethnogenesis - (from Greek - tribe, people and genesis), the origin of peoples. Includes both the initial stages of the emergence of a nation and the further formation of its ethnographic, linguistic and anthropological characteristics.

Ethnography is the science of ethnic groups (peoples), studying their origin and settlement, life and culture.

Ethnogeography is a branch of science that studies the characteristics of the settlement (past and present) of the peoples of the world, individual countries and regions to determine ethnic boundaries, the dynamics of their development and the number of people.

Ethnolinguistics is a direction in linguistics that studies the interaction of linguistic, ethnocultural and ethnopsychological factors in the functioning and evolution of language.

Anthropology is the science that studies the origins of man and the evolution of the physical organization of man and his races.

One of the most common theories about the origin of Belarusians is the theory of substrate origin. A supporter of this theory is the famous Russian archaeologist V. Sedov. He created the theory of the substrate origin of Belarusians. What is it? The Baltic substrate (from the Latin term - base, lining) is understood as the ethnocultural heritage of the Baltic ethnic group, which influenced the formation of the Belarusian people. Proponents of this theory argue that as a result of the Slavicization of the Baltic population, the mixing of the Slavic with it, a part of the East Slavic people separated, which led to the formation of the Belarusian language and nationality.

Other researchers argue that, having settled in the territories previously occupied by the Baltic tribes, the Slavs partially pushed them back and partially destroyed them. And only small islands of the Balts, who probably submitted to the Slavs, were preserved in the Podvinya region, the Upper Dnieper region, but the Balts retained the right bank of the middle Poneman region and some parts of the territory between the Neman and Pripyat.

There is no clear generally accepted opinion among researchers on the formation of tribal unions, which formed the basis of the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian ethnic groups. Some suggest that as a result of the intensive development by the Slavs of the territory of Belarus, where the Balts previously lived, in the 3rd-9th centuries. Ethnically close tribal unions emerged - Krivichi, Dregovichi, Radimichi, and partly Volynians. On their basis, the Old Belarusian ethnos was formed. It was compactly located in the Upper Dnieper region, Podvinya, and Ponemanya. Representatives of several other ethnic entities took part in its formation, including the Yatvingians and some other Baltic-speaking tribes.

The borders of the Belarusian ethnic group, which has evolved over centuries, are approximately one and a half times larger than the territory of modern Belarus.

The ancestors of the Eastern Slavs, who settled in Pripyat Polesie, assimilated the Baltic tribes. As a result, on the territory occupied by the Dnieper Balts, East Slavic tribes arose - Dregovichi, Krivichi, Radimichi - the ancestors of modern Belarusians. On the territory where Iranian tribes used to live, the Polyans, Drevlyans, Northerners, and Volynians settled - the ancestors of modern Ukrainians. The assimilation of the Finno-Ugric tribes led to the emergence of the Novgorod Slavs, Vyatichi, and partly the Upper Volga Krivichi - the ancestors of modern Russians.

Proponents of a different point of view imagine this picture somewhat differently. Firstly, they believe that supporters of the above hypothesis exaggerate the role of the Balts in the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians. Another thing, they note, is the Middle Poneman region, where the Balts made up a significant part of the population at the beginning of the 2nd millennium. In the Slavicization of these lands, a significant role belongs to the Volynians, Dregovichs, and, to a lesser extent, the Drevlyans and Krivichi. Recognizing that the basis of the Old Belarusian ethnic group were the Krivichi, Dregovichi, Radimichi and, to a lesser extent, the Volynians, and that the total territory of their settlement exceeded the borders of modern Belarus, they believe that there is no reason to assert that this excess was 1.5 times. It is further indicated that both part of the Volynians (most of whom participated in the ethnogenesis of Ukrainians) took part in the formation of Belarusians, and part of the Dregovichi - in the ethnogenesis of Ukrainians. Radimichi equally participated in the formation of Belarusians and one of the groups of the Russian ethnic group. The Krivichi played a big role not only in the formation of Belarusians, but also in the formation of the northwestern part of the Russian ethnic group.

As for the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group, it should be said that the main signs of the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group went through difficult stages in their development.

The Belarusian language arose as a result of the mixing of the northern-Podvinsk-Dnieper and southern - Pripyat elements of the colloquial speech of the East Slavic population. The characteristic features of the Old Belarusian language, or more correctly, Old Russian, are also enshrined in written monuments of the 15-16th centuries.

Thus, in the 15-16 centuries, in the northern part of the Popripyat (Polessye) region, the central region and the southern zone of the Podvina-Dnieper region, a system of a new East Slavic language took shape, which was called “Belarusian”, which means that one of the most important features of the Belarusian ethnos arose.

During the formation of the Belarusian nation, features of material and spiritual culture that were special to its ethnic territory developed and strengthened.

Ethnic self-awareness, which is one of the main indicators of the consolidation of a people, is people’s awareness of belonging to their people, its distinctiveness. On the territory of Belarus it arose, first of all, surrounded by progressive-minded citizens, the gentry, and the clergy. It is known that the national self-awareness of Belarusians was subsequently subject to deformation under the influence of first Polanization and then Russification tendencies. Simultaneously with self-awareness, the mentality of the people, their psychology, that is, the Belarusian mentality, took shape.

Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky at the end of the 19th century. formed, and in 1904 published a different, although equally superficial, explanation. The initial tribal differences, in his opinion, had already become indistinguishable by the 13th century, when Rus' split into two poorly connected regions - the southern (Kyiv) and northeastern. “The Great Russian tribe... was a matter of new diverse influences that began to operate after this break in the nationality,” and a significant role was played by interaction with the local “foreign” population (in modern terminology, the substrate), as well as adaptation to the natural conditions of the Volga-Oka interfluve. As a result of the Tatar invasion, the southern center was depopulated, and its surviving population fled to the territory of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the XV-XVI centuries. his descendants repopulated the steppe outskirts, mixing “with the remnants of ancient nomads who wandered here,” which led to the formation of “the Little Russian tribe as a branch of the Russian people” (6). V. O. Klyuchevsky did not touch on the origin of the Belarusians at all, but from the general scheme we can conclude that it could also be explained only by “new diverse influences” of the 13th-16th centuries.

All further proposed explanations of the ethnogenesis of the East Slavic peoples can be reduced either to one of these two extreme positions, or to their combination in different proportions. At the same time, a rather characteristic pattern emerges: representatives of the Ukrainian and Belarusian national movements were generally inclined towards the “tribal concept”, i.e. they postulated the original differences of the ancestors of the three peoples, while Russian (later orthodox Soviet) researchers clearly shifted their emphasis towards secondary influences, tearing apart a once united ethnic group.

The two most developed versions were proposed at the turn of the 20th century. A. A. Shakhmatov and E. F. Karsky. The first of them recognized the division of the tribes of the Tale of Bygone Years into three groups of dialects (northern, middle and southern), but believed that these groups experienced leveling mutual influence in the era of Kievan Rus and served only as the basis for the formation of the East Slavic peoples. In general, this process took place after the Tatar invasion, within the framework of the new states - Moscow and Lithuania. In particular, the Belarusian nationality developed on the basis of the western branch of the Central Russian group of dialects, but thanks primarily to political isolation from the eastern and northern dialects, which evolved in the direction of the Russian language (7).

E.F. Karsky, following N.I. Kostomarov, saw the origins of ethnic-forming traits in the characteristics of the ancient Slavic tribes. But, since in his time the concept of “Belarus” became much broader, including residents of Polesie and upper Ponemania, a mechanical comparison of Belarusians with Krivichi became impossible. E. F. Karsky pointed to three ancient Russian tribes that gave rise to the Belarusian ethnic group: Krivichi, Dregovich and Radimichi. But he dated the formation of a single nationality on their basis to a later time - the 13th-14th centuries, when the descendants of these tribes became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thus, secondary influences were still decisive, although E.F. Karsky, in fact, never specified what they were (8).

As an example of the evolution of the “tribal concept”, an interesting version was proposed by the figure of the Belarusian national revival V. Lastovsky. It was formulated in the preface to the “Handy Russian-Kriv (Belarusian) Dictionary” he published in 1924 (9). Already in the 10th century, according to V. Lastovsky, the Belarusians were a fully formed people who act under the name “Krivichi”, and a number of tribes in the “Tale of Bygone Years”: Dregovichi, Drevlyans, Radimichi, Vyatichi (as well as those mentioned by him by obvious misunderstanding “Mountains”) - were simply branches of a single “Kriv tribe”. It was the tribal characteristics that, in his opinion, were key in the formation of the Belarusian (“Kriv”) people, and all secondary influences (entering into Rus', the adoption of Christianity, Lithuanian, and then Polish and Russian rule) only eroded the purity of the ancient ethnic group, which should preserve and revive as far as possible. It is interesting that V. Lastovsky did not notice at all the vicious circle underlying his concept: the basis for the inclusion of ancient tribes in the “Kriv tribe” was their localization in the territory, which at the beginning of the 20th century was ethnically Belarusian, while the originality of this territory was explained by the heritage of these same tribes.

The development of the opposite idea led to the formulation of the concept of “Old Russian nationality” in Soviet historiography. Following Klyuchevsky and partly Shakhmatov, its supporters argued that already in the era of Kievan Rus, tribal differences lost their significance, and the main distinctive features of the East Slavic peoples arose later, after the collapse of Rus' and the division of its territory between the Moscow State and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). In the spirit of this concept in the 40s. a number of attempts have been proposed to explain the reasons for the emergence of the Belarusian ethnic group and its differences from the Russian "". The main factors were postulated to be political unification within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and economic ties between individual regions of the future Belarusian territory, and the mechanism of action of these factors was not explained. The subsequent works of A. N. Tikhomirov and L. V. Cherepnin substantiated in some detail the key role of the period of Kievan Rus for the formation of East Slavic unity in the form of the Old Russian nationality (11). The question of the reasons for the differences completely receded into the background. In the field of linguistics, the idea of ​​the secondary nature of the distinctive features of the East Slavic languages ​​was developed in the works of F. P. Filin. He justified the addition by the first half of the 12th century. all-Russian language. in which he distinguished northern and southern ethnographic zones. The formation of three East Slavic languages ​​was, in his opinion, the result of subsequent evolutionary processes. In particular, in the western part of the all-Russian area around the XIV-XVI centuries. such secondary phenomena as hardening of the sound “r”, “dzekanie” and other characteristic features of the Belarusian language developed (12). Linguists tend to explain the reasons for such innovations by the internal laws of language development (by analogy with biology, they can be called a kind of “mutations”).

Moscow archaeologist V.V. Sedov, relying mainly on archeological and toponymic data, in a number of works formulated a concept that can be conventionally called “substrate” (13). According to this theory, the initially single Slavic massif, when settling throughout the territory of Eastern Europe, was layered on different ethnic substrates. On the territory of modern Belarus, the Slavs mixed with tribes of the Baltic language group, related to the Lithuanians and Latvians. The assimilated descendants of the ancient Balts introduced original features into the culture and language of the Krivichi, Dregovich and Radimichi, which subsequently did not completely disappear during the era of Kievan Rus and reappeared after its collapse. It was on their basis that the integration of the descendants of these tribes into a single Belarusian ethnic group took place. This concept met with a rather cold reception during the Soviet period, mainly for ideological reasons. Firstly, adherents of the official dogma were alarmed by the very emphasis on differences rather than on commonality. Secondly, the similarity with the “tribal concept”, whose adherents at that time were labeled “bourgeois nationalists,” was too striking.

The situation changed dramatically after the formation of new independent states on the territory of the former USSR. As might be expected, the “tribal” and related “substrate” concepts have become increasingly popular. The article by V.P. Gritskevich “What should Belarusian historical science be like,” which appeared in 1992, provides a whole list of “myths and omissions that have developed in Soviet Belarusian historical science over the past decades and, with the help of historians, have taken root in the minds of people.” Among them are myths “about the progressive role of the Slavic element in the formation of the Belarusian ethnos”, “about the common ancient Russian nationality”, as well as “about the belated formation of the Belarusian ethnos until the 13th-14th centuries” (14). It is clear that the only alternative can be the recognition of the progressive role of the Baltic substratum, the denial of the ancient Russian nationality and dating the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group to the period no later than the 9th-10th centuries, i.e. before the inclusion of the Belarusian lands into Kievan Rus.

The political meaning of the opposing concepts is quite obvious. It is also obvious that for their supporters it is not so much the correspondence of these ideas to reality that is important, but the conclusions that flow from them “on the topic of the day.” But it is possible to understand the essence of ethnic processes within the Eastern Slavs only by relying on real historical facts. So, the differences between Belarusians and Russians and Ukrainians can go back either to the ancient substrate (through the Dregovichi, Krivichi and Radimichi, who absorbed it to the greatest extent), or to the period of the existence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the second half of the 13th-18th centuries). Naturally, it cannot be ruled out that contributions to ethnic identity were made in both periods. What do the available facts say?

The Tale of Bygone Years gives general indications of the localization of Slavic tribal princes, but contains only very meager data about their origin. Only the Western (“from the Poles”) origin of the Radimichi and Vyatichi is reported. Archaeological data allows us to somewhat clarify this information. Thus, according to modern ideas, on the eve of the mass settlement of the Slavs in Eastern Europe, the area of ​​their settlement was the Prague archaeological culture, which existed in the 6th-7th centuries. in the middle Dnieper region, the Pripyat and Western Bug basins. In the VIII-IX centuries. in its place, the culture of Luka-Raikovetskaya emerged, the features of which were then directly continued in the antiquities of the Volynians, Drevlyans, Polyans and Dregovichi of the 10th-11th centuries. Thus, these tribes represent a closely related group, in the formation of which the role of any substrate cannot be traced (15).

The process of formation of the Krivichi, Radimichi and Vyatichi was not so straightforward. They developed as a result of several waves of Slavic penetration into the area of ​​the ancient substratum population, which traditionally belongs to the Baltic language group on the basis that the names of rivers and lakes in this area find the best correspondence in modern Lithuanian and Latvian languages. Traces of this local population can be traced back to the 8th century, and Slavic traits finally prevailed only in the next century - probably as a result of the final wave of migrations. At the same time, the antiquities of the Radimichi and Vyatichi are indeed very close to each other, which corresponds well to the chronicle report of their joint migration. The Krivichi culture stands somewhat apart, moreover, its area covered in the 9th-11th centuries. not only the north and northeast of Belarus and the Smolensk region, but also the Pskov and significant parts of the Tver region, where the substrate was not Baltic, but Finnish. Judging by archaeological data, the closest to the Krivichs were their northern neighbors - the Slovenians of Novgorod.

Thus, various groups of East Slavic tribes really existed, but neither written nor archaeological data provide grounds for identifying among them a single Proto-White Russian (as well as Proto-Ukrainian and Proto-Great Russian) group. The Polotsk Krivichi, the indisputable ancestors of the Belarusians, were closest to the Smolensk and Pskov Krivichi, who later became part of the Russian people. The descendants of the related Radimichi and Vyatichi also later merged into different ethnic groups. Finally, the Dregovichi had common roots with the Volynians and other southern tribes (the ancestors of the Ukrainians, and partly the Poles).

The area of ​​the Baltic substrate also does not completely coincide with the later area of ​​the Belarusian ethnic group. In addition to most of modern Belarus, it covered not only the Smolensk and Bryansk regions, but also the Kaluga, Tula and Oryol regions (16) (the area of ​​the Moshchin archaeological culture, replaced by the antiquities of the Vyatichi in the 8th century (17)), whose inhabitants were not related to ethnogenesis Belarusians. And vice versa, on the territory of Belarusian Polesie, pre-Slavic features had completely disappeared by the 6th century, so the Poleshuks’ belonging to the Belarusian ethnos can only be attributed to the substrate with great stretch.

In short, on the basis of the “tribal” and “substrate” concepts it is impossible to explain why the descendants of the Pripyat Dregovichs became Belarusians, and the descendants of the Drevlyans and Volynians - Ukrainians, why the descendants of the Vyatichi from the upper reaches of the Oka became Russians, and the descendants of the Radimichi - Belarusians. And it is completely incomprehensible what common heritage could lead to the merger of the Pinsk Dregovichs with the Polotsk Krivichi into a single ethnic group. (For the sake of accuracy, we note that part of the Dregovichi area, namely in Central Belarus, absorbed the same substrate as the Krivichi-Polotsk residents, but this does not apply to the original area of ​​the Dregovichi on the banks of the Pripyat, now undoubtedly part of the Belarusian ethnic territory.)

At the same time, the concept of “ancient Russian nationality” does not stand up to criticism, by the time of its formation the features of the tribal identity of the previous era allegedly disappeared. Archaeological data, analysis of regional features of phonetics and vocabulary reflected in ancient Russian chronicles and birch bark letters, as well as the territorial distribution of later dialect features allow us to assert the preservation of tribal characteristics not only in the 12th-13th centuries, but also up to the present day. They, say, do a good job of explaining the Dregovichi heritage of the presence in Polesie dialects of an unstressed “o” or hard consonants in words like “ide”. “moves”, “ishly”. uniting them with dialects on the territory of Ukraine. In turn, the mixture of “ts” and “ch” (“Polotsane.” “German”) recorded in the sources unites the descendants of the Krivichi in the Vitebsk and Pskov regions, and the Vyatichian “akanie” even today brings Moscow dialects closer to Belarusian ones (18). It is noted that the ancient area of ​​the Krivichi and Novgorod Slovenes coincides with the characteristic funeral rite of the “kurgan-zher type” that developed in the 12th-15th centuries. (19) Traces of it are clearly visible in this territory until the 20th century. in the form of gravestones and stone crosses.

However, we are talking specifically about dialect features that make it possible to identify local features within ethnic groups (including those common to adjacent ethnic groups), but not to distinguish ethnic groups from each other. The appearance of signs that unite all Belarusians into one whole and separate them from Russians and Ukrainians requires a completely different explanation.

It turns out that none of the opposing concepts corresponds to the entire sum of the facts. Tribal characteristics not only existed, but also survived to this day in the form of local dialect and ethnographic zones, but they did not form the basis of modern ethnic groups, since they do not coincide territorially with them at all. On the other hand, there was no single ancient Russian massif, which was later torn apart by secondary processes. The emergence of three modern ethnic groups can be compared to pictures or words made from children's cubes: the components are the same, but arranged in a completely different combination. The concepts of A. A. Shakhmatov and E. F. Karsky correspond to this situation relatively better than others. Their main ideas were recently reproduced in the work of M. F. Pilipenko (which, despite the pretentious subtitle “New Concept,” did not introduce anything fundamentally new) (20). But they also lack the main thing - an explanation of the mechanisms of action of the force that created a new pattern from the old cubes.

It seems that the reason that fairly professional researchers for decades have not been able to find a convincing solution to this problem lies in the initial setting: the search was conducted exclusively at the level of material factors. Meanwhile, it is known that the main ethnically defining feature - common self-awareness or, in other words, the “national idea” - belongs to the category of intangible. The role of ideas in the formation of common features of material culture and language has been practically unstudied. This is not surprising - not only in the orthodox Soviet methodology, but also in the neo-positivist materialism characteristic of many Western researchers, the very formulation of the question in this form (the idea forms material objects) sounds like a heresy. Although even the founders of Marxism recognized that an idea, having mastered the masses, can become a material force, it was still believed that “being determines consciousness,” and not vice versa.

This dilemma is akin to the famous question of whether the egg or the chicken comes first. The answer simply lies on a qualitatively different plane. Ideas are born, take hold of the masses and change the world, and these material changes, in turn, give rise to new ideas. An example is the history of the awakening of Belarusian and Ukrainian self-awareness. very briefly stated at the beginning of this article. There is no doubt that both national ideas arose in the heads of specific people as a result of their awareness of objective ethnographic features. However, these objective differences themselves were the result of the influence on the language and culture of the local population of previous ideas, including “national”, or rather “pre-national” or state ones (although none of them was subjectively recognized, and objectively they were neither Belarusian, neither Ukrainian in the modern sense).

At the current stage of study of the issue, it is impossible to demonstrate in detail, especially in a short article, exactly how ideas changed the ethnic map of Eastern Europe. One can try to indicate only the main stages in the evolution of these ideas, in the hope that the mechanism of their influence will be traced later. Below we offer one such rough attempt.

Since during the period of the Slavic “princeships” it is difficult to discern traces of ideas leading to the formation of the Ukrainian or Belarusian nationality, it remains to look for them in later eras. The period of the collapse of Rus' into semi-independent principalities seems promising in this regard, but only at first glance. There were clearly more centers of consolidation in that period than there are modern ethnic groups. V. O. Klyuchevsky’s conclusion about two centers (Kiev and Vladimir-Suzdal) seems clearly simplified. We can talk about at least five more fairly independent centers: Galicia-Volyn, Chernigov-Seversk, Novgorod-Pskov, Smolensk and Polotsk. Continuing our analogy with the cubes, we can say that this was not yet their final combination.

The fact that the Polotsk land at that time was distinguished by special separatism also cannot explain the emergence of the Belarusian ethnic group, especially within its current borders. Even if we recognize the attempts to see the beginnings of Belarusian statehood in the Principality of Polotsk as justified, its territory covered no more than half of modern Belarus. Its entire southern part was at that time much more closely connected with Kiev, Chernigov and Volyn than with Polotsk. Suffice it to recall that Gomel and Rechitsa in the 12th-13th centuries. belonged directly to the Chernigov principality, Mozyr - to the Kiev principality, Mstislavl - to the Smolensk principality, and Brest - to the Vladimir-Volyn principality. The independent Grodno and Turovo-Pinsk principalities also gravitated more to the south than to the north. And the isolation of Polotsk from the rest of the Russian principalities should not be overestimated. In the charter drawn up by the Polotsk residents in 1264, it is unambiguously stated that “the Russian land is called Polochskaya” (21). It was during this period that the all-Russian consciousness was finally formed, which was then preserved for centuries.

Moreover, the idea of ​​Polotsk independence was rather ephemeral. Its last surge, perhaps, can be traced during the reign of Andrei Olgerdovich (1340-1380s), but subsequently the self-awareness of the inhabitants of the Polotsk land never went beyond the regional (zemstvo) level. In the XV-XVII centuries there is no need to talk about any special separatism of this land compared to other regions.

Much more important consequences for ethnogenetic processes had the formation on the territory of Rus' of two completely independent and even hostile states: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. It is no coincidence that all researchers who rejected the “tribal” concept turned their attention to this period. Indeed, the state border between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Moscow state, which formed at the beginning of the 16th century, surprisingly exactly coincides with the modern ethnic border between Russians and Belarusians. Moreover, changes in the political border, as a result of which the Smolensk and Bryansk regions periodically moved either to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or to Moscow, correspond well to the “intermediate” ethnic state of these territories, which only in the 20th century. ended with their inclusion in the Russian ethnos (on most ethnographic and linguistic maps of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, these territories are still designated as Belarusian (22)).

Nevertheless, factors derived from the political division of Rus' explain well only the western border of the Russian ethnic group, but not the ethnic border between Belarusians and Ukrainians. There have been no significant differences in the political history of these two peoples since the mid-14th century. until 1569, when, as a result of the Union of Lublin, the territory of Ukraine entered directly into the Kingdom of Poland, and Belarus remained part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which retained its independent status within the federal Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the political independence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was later largely formal, and the main cultural, religious and, to a certain extent, socio-economic processes took place in all the eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth almost synchronously.

Moreover. the very fact of different behavior of the Belarusian and Ukrainian gentry on the eve of the Union of Lublin, which led to the inclusion of Ukraine into Poland, indicates serious differences in self-awareness - despite the similarity of external (material) conditions. The reason for these differences requires an explanation.

The process of formation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began, as is known, in the middle of the 13th century, immediately after the Tatar invasion of Rus'. The surviving principalities in the north and west of Belarus (Novogrudok and Polotsk) came under the rule of the Lithuanian princes. It is possible that they themselves agreed to an alliance with Lithuania in order to avoid the much more unpleasant subordination to the Golden Horde. Over the next few decades, the young state repelled attempts to subjugate it from the Tatars, the Galician-Volyn principality and the Teutonic Order, which proved the viability of the new state (naturally, not national!) idea, which can be conventionally called “Lithuanian”. It engulfed a population characterized by extreme ethnic diversity. It included Baltic-speaking Lithuanians and related people from Prussia and Yatvingia, as well as the Slavic population of the Podvina region (basically consisting of Krivichi-Polotsk), Central Belarus (descendants of the Dregovichi, who experienced the influence of a rather strong substrate in this area) and the upper Ponemania, where There was a mixing of migration waves of Krivichi, Dregovichi and Volynians, layered on the Yatvingian substrate (culture of stone graves).

The ruling dynasty in this state was of Lithuanian origin, which contributed to the assignment of the polytonym “Lithuania” to it, which also became one of the self-names of the mixed population. At the same time, the local Slavic (mixed Krivichi-Dregovichi) dialect, called the “Russian language” in sources, probably became the “language of interethnic communication.”

At the same time, among the surviving population of the forest and forest-steppe zones of Right Bank Ukraine, basically consisting of the descendants of the bearers of the Luka-Raikovetskaya culture, after the loss of ties with other Russian lands, consolidation processes could not help but intensify. They were facilitated by the political unification of this territory under the rule of Daniil Galitsky and his descendants. It must be assumed that the Turovo-Pinsk land was under the influence of the same center, which was facilitated by its initial proximity to Volyn. In fact, in this region there was a process of formation of an independent ethnic group, which, according to one of the names of this area, can be conventionally designated as “Chervono-Russian”.

Another center of consolidation emerged at this time in the Novgorod and Pskov lands, where local descendants of the Slovenes and northern Krivichi had previously absorbed a significant Finno-Ugric substrate. After the loss of previous ties with the devastated south, local characteristics prevailed here even more. There has been a tendency towards the emergence of a separate “North Russian” ethnic group.

The rest of the territory of Rus' was in a state of deep decline and desolation, aggravated by Tatar rule. The first symptoms of overcoming the crisis appeared only in the 1320s, when the fourth center of consolidation was revived on the territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal land. Moscow and Tver fought for the championship. The victory of Moscow and its acceptance of the role of leader in the fight against the Horde yoke led to the emergence of the Great Russian “national idea” and the “Muscovite” ethnic group.

But this arrangement of cubes was only intermediate. The emerging processes of ethnogenesis soon experienced a number of profound transformations. Lithuania, under the rule of the talented politician Gediminas, became so strong that it began to subjugate the neighboring Russian lands. At first, this led to a conflict with the southern (“ChervonoRussian”) hearth, from which Lithuania came under control around the 1320s. the southern lands of Belarus (Pinsk and Brest) were ceded. But soon the situation changed even more dramatically when the dynasty of the descendants of Daniil of Galicia came to an end. Their possessions became an arena of struggle between Lithuania and neighboring Poland, and by the middle of the 14th century. found themselves divided between them.

Thus, the southern ethnogenetic center lost its unity. Its western part (Galicia) became part of Poland for several centuries, while Volyn, following Polesie, fell under the rule of the Gediminovics. This could not eliminate the objective similarities of local residents, but it made the subjective awareness of this similarity extremely difficult. On the contrary, the political and intellectual elite in Galicia could not help but be strongly influenced by the ideas of Polish statehood, and in the rest of the territory by similar ideas of “Lithuanian” statehood (in the above-mentioned “interethnic sense”). After the Union of Krevo in 1386, when both states formed a confederation under the rule of a single monarch, competition began between the Polish and “Lithuanian” ideas.

The position of the local gentry on the eve of the Union of Lublin, when the sejmiks of Podlasie, Volyn land and most of the Kyiv voivodeship spoke in favor of direct inclusion into Poland, was the result of this competition. At the same time, the gentry of the Brest, Pinsk and Mozyr districts, ethnographically close to the Volynians, decided to remain part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which can be regarded as evidence of the complete disintegration of the southern Russian ethnogenetic center. In one part of its territory the Polish idea prevailed, in the other - the “Lithuanian” one. As a result, its population later merged into two different peoples, the dividing line between them ran precisely along the border between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland after the Union of Lublin.

The North Russian ethnogenetic center had also disappeared by this time as a result of the conquest of the Novgorod land by Moscow in the second half of the 15th century. The final blow to him was dealt by Ivan the Terrible during the years of the oprichnina, when Novgorod suffered an unprecedentedly cruel defeat. After this, the surviving local population lost all support for ethnic consolidation and gradually merged with the Great Russian ethnic group.

He believed that the Belarusian ethnic community formed in the 13th-14th centuries [ ], Moses Greenblat - from the 14th to the 16th centuries [ ] .

Encyclopedic YouTube

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Elementary TEXTBOOK of Russian History 1917

Subtitles

did you know that in uganda more than half of the population is under 15 years old hello everyone the book cop welcome to my channel today the focus of my attention is a wonderful book called an elementary textbook of russian history by professor efimenko it was published in 1917 in petrograd the book is remarkable because she has her own here, well, maybe let’s say that there are a number of facts already known to us, and of course she has her own historical essays, little things that other textbooks, let’s say, misses, that is, I want to say that any textbook of Russian history that is then published by them or by another publication is of course in In some places the head in its descriptions will be brief, in other places it will be more expanded than in others, so when you and I study the history of Russian lands, I certainly advise you to watch and read as many similar textbooks as possible and then you can put together the historical picture that you imagine at least you can put it in your head, well, in fact, very often I was worried about the history of the north-west of the Slavic territory, in fact, let's talk about Riga, regin, the city of Riga means its foundation, and so on, I found in chapter 12 in Aleksandro-Nevsky that you and I can learn here and so who knows anything about Riga, of course, many will say we all know, but nevertheless, repetition is the mother of the teaching, so let's look at Riga founded, meaning the foundation since 1150, Dutch traders regularly entered the lower reaches of the Western Dvina to the river and Riga from which the name of the city of box comes from, after all very often the name of the river remember how I made a video about Orenburg when Ari the river Ari and that’s how it was all attacking in the German manner Orenburg was founded with the same name but there are many cities, okay, so in fact further here he writes that the river was engaged here by the Teutonic Order who such a Teutonic Order was a powerful and independent church organization, which soon began to compete with the Greek archbishops for influence in the region, so it was formed, and the Lebanese branch of the Teutonic Order, led by Mr. Land, who reported directly to the Grand Master of the Order, something like that, well, let's go back to the wonderful textbook described here at the same time as the Tatars at the same time in the half of the 13th century a new enemy appeared in the Russian land who threatened it from the opposite side of the west these were the people of the German tribe Swedes and Germans for several centuries the German prize I saw the Slavs all trying to expand to the east but only in the thirteenth century did it reach the Russian Slavs and appear on the Russian plain, and however, the ancestors of the Swedes, the Varangians and Normans, had previously made successful attempts to impose their power on the Russian Slavs and took part in the formation of the Russian state, and so the entire eastern coast of the Baltic Sea is the western outskirts of the Russian plain was inhabited by small wild Finnish and Lithuanian tribes, these tribes were partly independent, partly paid tribute to their Russian neighbors, but in the Garda and the Prince of Polotsk, the Russians built towns on their lands to keep them from raids and generally keep them in obedience to their acceptance. Orthodoxy and Russians in a row cove, however, the Orthodox faith penetrated to these savages, at the same time, changes took place in concepts and in the way of life, and among these Finnish and Lithuanian peoples, the Swedes and Germans appeared, the Swedes of Finland, the Germans in the lower reaches of the Western Dvina, and so the Germans had long known the eastern coast the Baltic Sea since they carried on a large trade with Novgorod with Novgorod and Polotsk, but they settled here only from the very beginning of the 13th century, they settled peacefully as traders who were simply allowed here by the Polotsk princes here at the very mouth of the Western Dvina they founded the city of the league of books and the surrounding area the country of the so-called Libania, following the German traders, missionaries appeared, they began to teach Catholicism among the natives and forced them to be baptized, peaceful and slave natives were baptized, well, they rushed to wash themselves baptism in the Western Dvina eos sent her back to the Germans and then the bishop decided to invite the risks of the German Union brotherhood brotherhood order knightly monks and give Livonia to them, these knights appeared under the name of the Knights of the Livonian Order or Swordsmen and immediately energetically began to spread catalysis to the German German order among the pagan natives, the shadows had the strength to resist, but also by the way, then the Russians were there, well, that is, as if they were with they didn’t take over all the business, something here somehow, okay, while Christianizing the native population, the knights at the same time took away the land from them and turned the natives themselves into the same serfs as the German peasants of that time were, and when the knights were firmly established in Livonia, they decided to spread further to the north and east lay vast Russian lands, although the Russians were Christians, but Christians were Christians of the Orthodox rite, and according to the concepts of a zealous Catholic of that time

Basic concepts of ethnogenesis

There are several fundamentally different concepts of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians.

“Polish” and “Great Russian” concepts

Chronologically, the first to arise "Polish"(L. Galembovsky, A. Rypinsky) and "Great Russian"(A. Sobolevsky, I. Sreznevsky) concepts according to which the ethnic territory of the Belarusians was considered as primordially Polish or primordially Great Russian, respectively, the argument for which was the absence of a separate language among the Belarusians. Meanwhile, already at the beginning of the 20th century, Efim Karsky, in his fundamental work “Belarusians,” proved the independence of the Belarusian dialect from both the Polish language and the Great Russian dialect of the Russian language, thereby refuting the main argument of the supporters of these concepts. Nowadays, the point of view that considers Belarusians and the Belarusian language an independent ethnic group and language within the East Slavic group absolutely prevails in academic science.

"Tribal" concepts

At the beginning of the 20th century, a concept was formed among the Belarusian national intelligentsia, according to which Belarusians descended from the chronicled Krivichi tribe. By "Krivichi" concept was Vaclav Lastovsky. Even earlier, similar ideas, conventionally called the “tribal” concept, were voiced by Nikolai Kostomarov and Mikhail Pogodin. The concept was not widely adopted, but served as the ideological basis for the formation of the so-called "Krivichi-Dregovichi-Radimich" concepts. Its authors were famous historians and linguists Efim Karsky, Moses Greenblat, Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky and Vladimir Picheta. The concept is based on the idea of ​​the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group as a result of the ethnic consolidation of the Belarusian tribes inhabiting the ethnic territory. The popularity of this concept is quite high, although it does not take into account the chronological interval between the disappearance of chronicled tribes in the middle of the 12th century [ ] and the formation of an all-Belarusian ethnic complex.

"Old Russian" concept

After World War II, the dominant role in Soviet science was taken by "Old Russian" the concept according to which Belarusians, along with Ukrainians and Russians, were formed as a result of the collapse of a single ancient Russian nationality in the XII-XIII centuries, or significantly later, starting from the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries.

Theoretically, this concept was substantiated by S. Tokarev, and archaeologists Peter Tretyakov and Boris Rybakov also took part in its development. Certain provisions of the Old Russian concept were seriously criticized by archaeologists Valentin Sedov and Eduard Zagorulsky. Archaeologist Georgiy Shtykhov actively opposes the hypothesis of a single Old Russian nationality as such, as a result of which the largest textbook ever created on the history of Belarus included a subsection “On the problem of the Old Russian nationality,” containing criticism of this concept. Despite the existence of criticism, the “Old Russian” concept remains the most widespread at the beginning of the 21st century [ ] .

"Baltic" concept

In the 1960s - early 70s of the 20th century, Moscow archaeologist Valentin Sedov formed a new concept that did not fundamentally reject the hypothesis of the existence of a single ancient Russian nation. According to this concept, called "Baltic", the Belarusian ethnos was formed as a result of the mixing and mutual assimilation of local Balts with alien Slavs, while the Balts played the role of a substrate (substratum) in the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians. The concept is based on the classification of archaeological cultures of the late Iron Age on the territory of Belarus as Baltic, which is now practically not disputed by anyone. During numerous excavations, Valentin Sedov found a number of jewelry, tools, and weapons that were characteristic of the Baltic culture and did not belong to the Slavs. In his opinion, the migration of the Slavs to these territories began in the middle of the 1st millennium AD, and during this period the Slavs settled only the territories south of Pripyat. The settlement of the main part of the territory of Belarus by the Slavs, according to Sedov, dates back only to the 8th-10th centuries. As an argument in favor of the “Baltic” concept, the fact of the presence of Baltic roots in many elements of the language and culture of the Belarusians is also cited, for example, the worship of snakes and stones in the traditional religion of the Belarusians, straight-woven bast shoes, housing construction techniques, a number of sounds of Belarusian phonetics (hard “ r", akanye). On the other hand, Ukrainian bast shoes are the same as Belarusian ones, and the veneration of stones is found among all Eastern Slavs. Despite the fact that most modern researchers generally accept the “Baltic” concept, such a significant influence of the Balts on the formation of the Belarusian people, their culture, and language is often questioned. According to the opinion of ethnologist Mikhail Pilipenko, the Balts acted as a substrate not for the formation of Belarusians directly, but as the basis of the Slavic communities of Krivichi, Dregovich and Radimichi. However, according to Nosevich, the “new concept” of Mikhail Pilipenko is essentially an attempt to smooth out the contradictions between the “Baltic”, “Krivichi-Dregovich-Radimich” and “Old Russian” concepts and in itself does not bring anything new.

"Finnish" concept

There is also "Finnish" concept put forward by the writer Ivan Laskov. According to it, the ancestors of the Belarusians were the Finno-Ugrians. Proponents of the concept stated the presence of a significant number of ancient Finno-Ugric hydronyms on the territory of Belarus (for example, Dvina, Svir). Opponents of the hypothesis point out that, despite the objective presence of a Finnish substrate, the Finnish-speaking population on the territory of Belarus lived in ancient times and was assimilated not by the Slavs, but by the ancient Balts, who settled in Ponemanya, Podvinia and the Dnieper region in the Bronze Age. The Finns on the territory of Belarus were the substrate not of the Belarusians, but of the ancient Balts.

Genome research

Mitochondrial DNA Research Autosomal DNA Research

A comparative analysis of the gene pools of Western Eurasia showed that “according to autosomal DNA markers, all Eastern Slavs are included in one cluster of Eastern Europe. However, Russian and Ukrainian populations are located closer to each other than to Belarusians... Russians and Ukrainians are closer to the populations of Western and Southern Europe than Belarusians. Unfortunately, the closest western and northern neighbors of the Belarusians, and in particular the Baltic peoples, have not been studied using these markers. It can be assumed that some of the uniqueness of the gene pool of Belarusians is associated with the contribution of the Baltic substrate."

Research findings

The authors concluded that “differences between Belarusian populations are smaller than differences between Ukrainian populations and much smaller than differences between Russian populations. That is, different populations of Belarusians are genetically very similar to each other.” At the same time, regarding the question of the similarity of the gene pool of Belarusians to the Balts and Slavs, the authors note that “on the paternal line, the differences between Belarusians and the Balts are very clearly expressed - according to haplogroup Y, Belarusians belong to the circle of Eastern and Western Slavs. On the maternal side (mtDNA haplogroups), Belarusians are equally similar to the Balts and the Slavs - both Western and Eastern."

Anthropological analysis

Doctor of Biological Sciences, anthropologist and geneticist Alexey Mikulich, based on anthropological characteristics [

Basic concepts of ethnogenesis

There are several fundamentally different concepts of the ethnogenesis of Belarusians.

“Polish” and “Great Russian” concepts

Chronologically, the first to arise "Polish"(L. Galembovsky, A. Rypinsky) and "Great Russian"(A. Sobolevsky, I. Sreznevsky) concepts according to which the ethnic territory of the Belarusians was considered as primordially Polish or primordially Great Russian, respectively, the argument for which was the absence of a separate language among the Belarusians. Meanwhile, already at the beginning of the 20th century, Evfim Karsky, in his fundamental work “Belarusians,” proved the independence of the Belarusian dialect from both the Polish language and the Great Russian dialect of the Russian language, thereby refuting the main argument of the supporters of these concepts. Nowadays, the point of view that considers Belarusians and the Belarusian language to be an independent ethnic group and language within the East Slavic group absolutely prevails in academic science.

"Tribal" concepts

At the beginning of the 20th century, a concept was formed among the Belarusian national intelligentsia, according to which Belarusians descended from the chronicled Krivichi tribe. By "Krivichi" concept was Vaclav Lastovsky. Even earlier, similar ideas, conventionally called the “tribal” concept, were voiced by Nikolai Kostomarov and Mikhail Pogodin. The concept was not widely adopted, but served as the ideological basis for the formation of the so-called "Krivichi-Dregovichi-Radimich" concepts. Its authors were famous historians and linguists Evfim Karsky, Moses Greenblat, Mitrofan Dovnar-Zapolsky and Vladimir Picheta. The concept is based on the idea of ​​the formation of the Belarusian ethnic group as a result of the ethnic consolidation of the tribes inhabiting the ethnic territory of the Belarusians. The popularity of this concept is quite high, although it does not take into account the chronological gap between the disappearance of the chronicled tribes in the middle of the 12th century and the formation of the all-Belarusian ethnic complex.

"Old Russian" concept

After World War II, the dominant role in Soviet science was taken by "Old Russian" the concept according to which Belarusians, along with Ukrainians and Russians, were formed as a result of the collapse of a single ancient Russian nation in the 12th-13th centuries. Theoretically, this concept was substantiated by S. Tokarev, and archaeologists Pyotr Tretyakov and Boris Rybakov also took part in its development. Certain provisions of the Old Russian concept were seriously criticized by archaeologists Valentin Sedov and Eduard Zagorulsky. Archaeologist Georgy Shtykhov actively opposes the hypothesis of a single Old Russian nationality as such, as a result of which the largest textbook ever created on the history of Belarus included a subsection “On the problem of Old Russian nationality,” containing criticism of this concept. Despite the existence of very serious scientific criticism, the “Old Russian” concept remains the most widespread at the beginning of the 21st century.

"Baltic" concept

In the 1960s - early 70s of the 20th century, Moscow archaeologist Valentin Sedov formed a new concept that did not fundamentally reject the hypothesis of the existence of a single ancient Russian nation. According to this concept, called "Baltic", the Belarusian ethnos was formed as a result of the mixing and mutual assimilation of local Balts with the alien Slavs, while the Balts played the role of a substrate (underground) in the ethnogenesis of the Belarusians. The concept is based on the classification of archaeological cultures of the late Iron Age on the territory of Belarus as Baltic, which is now practically not disputed by anyone. During numerous excavations, Valentin Sedov found a number of jewelry, tools, and weapons that were characteristic of the Baltic culture and did not belong to the Slavs. In his opinion, the migration of the Slavs to these territories began in the middle of the 1st millennium AD, and during this period the Slavs settled only the territories south of Pripyat. The settlement of the main part of the territory of Belarus by the Slavs, according to Sedov, dates back only to the 8th-10th centuries. As an argument in favor of the “Baltic” concept, the fact of the presence of Baltic roots in many elements of the language and culture of the Belarusians is also cited, for example, the worship of snakes and stones in the traditional religion of the Belarusians, straight-woven bast shoes, housing construction techniques, a number of sounds of Belarusian phonetics (hard “ r", "akanie"). Despite the fact that most modern researchers generally accept the “Baltic” concept, such a significant influence of the Balts on the formation of the Belarusian people, their culture, and language is often questioned. Also, the hypothesis is sometimes blamed on the desire to tear Belarusians away from Russians and Ukrainians. According to the opinion of ethnologist Mikhail Pilipenko, the Balts acted as a substrate not for the formation of Belarusians directly, but as the basis of the Slavic communities of Krivichi, Dregovich and Radimichi. However, according to Nosevich, the “new concept” of Mikhail Pilipenko is essentially an attempt to smooth out the contradictions between the “Baltic”, “Krivichi-Dregovich-Radimich” and “Old Russian” concepts and in itself does not bring anything new.

"Finnish" concept

There is also "Finnish" a concept put forward by writer Ivan Laskov. According to it, the ancestors of the Belarusians were the Finno-Ugrians. The concept was formed on the basis of the presence of a significant number of ancient Finno-Ugric hydronyms on the territory of Belarus (for example, Dvina, Svir). However, the Finnish-speaking population on the territory of Belarus lived in ancient times and was assimilated not by the Slavs, but by the ancient Balts, who settled in Ponemania, Podvinia and the Dnieper region in the Bronze Age. The Finns on the territory of Belarus were the substrate not of the Belarusians, but of the ancient Balts.

Genome research

Frequency distribution of R1a1a, also known as R-M17 and R-M198, adapted from Underhill et al (2009). This haplogroup is found with approximately equal frequency among the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, and northern and central India, among the peoples of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as well as among the Altaians. Its high content is characteristic of some Indo-European peoples (but with the exception of the peoples of Western Europe and Iranians), the Turkic aboriginal population of Altai and the eastern Sayan Mountains.

Autosomal DNA Research

A comparative analysis of the gene pools of Western Eurasia showed that “according to autosomal DNA markers, all Eastern Slavs are included in one cluster of Eastern Europe. However, Russian and Ukrainian populations are located closer to each other than to Belarusians... Russians and Ukrainians are closer to the populations of Western and Southern Europe than Belarusians. Unfortunately, the closest western and northern neighbors of the Belarusians, and in particular the Baltic peoples, have not been studied using these markers. It can be assumed that some of the uniqueness of the gene pool of Belarusians is associated with the contribution of the Baltic substrate."

Research findings

The authors concluded that “differences between Belarusian populations are smaller than differences between Ukrainian populations and much smaller than differences between Russian populations. That is, different populations of Belarusians are genetically very similar to each other.” At the same time, regarding the question of the similarity of the gene pool of Belarusians to the Balts and Slavs, the authors note that “on the paternal line, the differences between Belarusians and the Balts are very clearly expressed - according to haplogroup Y, Belarusians belong to the circle of Eastern and Western Slavs. On the maternal side (mtDNA haplogroups), Belarusians are equally similar to the Balts and the Slavs - both Western and Eastern."

Anthropological analysis

Notes

Literature

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