A few years ago, when I was vice-rector at the State Academy of Slavic Culture, Alexey Viktorovich Gudz-Markov, a mathematician by education, who had written 2 books by that time, and considered himself an independent researcher, became my applicant. I also thought he was. However, in graduate school, his books were considered compilations, reviews at best, and they suggested that he write some new work.

Table of contents:

• Were Slovenes Proto-Slavs?

  A few years ago, when I was vice-rector at the State Academy of Slavic Culture, Alexey Viktorovich Gudz-Markov, a mathematician by education, who had written 2 books by that time, and considered himself an independent researcher, became my applicant. I also thought he was. However, in graduate school, his books were considered compilations, reviews at best, and they suggested that he write some new work. Then he left for Italy, and when he returned, he simply disappeared without any explanation. The opinion formed in the graduate school did not play any role in the possible defense of the candidate's thesis, since the main part of the dissertation council consisted of persons who either had nothing to do with it, or were generally invited from the outside. Therefore, I considered that the reason for the departure of Alexei Viktorovich was that the degree of candidate of sciences in cultural studies ceased to attract him. This is his right to choose, for which a person cannot be condemned in any way. One of his articles, handed over to me, was called "Slovenes and Proto-Slavs" and was a review of a book by three Slovenian authors. I quote it here in its entirety, and then my commentary on it.

  Slovenes and Proto-Slavs (review of the book "Veneta")

  A.V. Hudz

  Recently, a wonderful book of three Slovenian researchers "Veneda". Initially, the review was made by V.A. Chudinov, who paid attention mainly to the deciphering of Venetian and Etruscan inscriptions; I'm more interested in the archaeological side of the problem. The authors of the book “Veneti”, which I prefer to give as “Venedi”, argue, while citing a number of serious arguments, that the Slovenes, now a two million Slavic people inhabiting the Eastern Alps and ethnically close to the Slavs, the population of the now Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia, are not included in the group southern Slavs, in the VI-VII centuries. who moved to the Balkan Peninsula from the lands of Central and Eastern Europe occupied by the Slavs since ancient times, and lived here before. Slovenes and the Slavic population of Styria, Carinthia and the province of Norik in the Eastern Alps and a number of adjacent provinces, widely known thanks to the ancient Russian chronicler, lived long before the events of the 6th-7th centuries; the time of their appearance in the Alps dates back to the era of the Lusatian archaeological culture and the culture of burial fields and burial urns dating back to the 13th-8th centuries. BC e. This is the main assertion of the authors of the Venedov. We will have to turn to archeological data, and in doing so I will refer to two sources: A.L. Mongait and on his own book.

  So, I will express my own view on the question of the ancient history of the Slavs and Wends - either the same Slavs, or the Indo-European people very close to the Slavs. The Lusatian archaeological culture is the fruit of an evolutionary process that goes back to a whole series of archaeological cultures created by the Indo-Europeans, which developed not only in Europe, but also in a significant part of Eurasia, including the plains of the center of the continent, Western Asia and Asia Minor, up to the Indus Valley 1 . This process is not at all simple, and it is possible to talk about it in detail only if one is familiar with a colossal amount of factual data. In the center of Europe, the Lusatian culture was preceded by the archaeological cultures of funnel-shaped goblets and spherical amphoras created by the Indo-Europeans of the 4th-3rd millennium BC, which were epochs at least absorbing the foundations of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Slavic, and, possibly, Proto-Celtic and Proto-Baltic worlds 2 .

  The following should be kept in mind here. Common Indo-European parallels in languages, mythologies, material cultures and the social structure of individual peoples date back to the 5th-2nd millennium BC. e. and to earlier epochs, because during these millennia a large Indo-European volcano bubbled up, located both on the plains of the south of Eastern Europe, and in the south of the Urals, in the south of Western Siberia and on the plain of Central Asia. It is thanks to the languages, mythologies, material cultures of the ancient Indo-European population of this vast territory of the center of the continent that we now have such a close relationship between the western and eastern groups of the Indo-European peoples of Eurasia. The exodus of the Indo-European peoples to Europe and Asia from the plains of the center of the continent took place simultaneously, as can be seen from the simultaneity of changes in cultural epochs, primarily on the plain itself and soon after that in Europe and Asia 3 . The evolution of the Proto-Slavs 4 in the center of Europe dates back at least to the 4th millennium BC. e. The Lusatian archaeological culture is one of the brightest milestones of this evolutionary process. And it is significant, among other things, for the fact that it was it that was the center of a wide settlement 5, which is very likely, of the Proto-Slavic population in Europe. The material expression of this settlement 6 was the archaeological culture of burial fields and burial urns of the 13th-8th centuries. BC e., spreading almost throughout the entire territory of Central and Western Europe, from Asia Minor to Britain. In the Eastern Alps, the Proto-Slavs, in a number of regions of Europe called Wends to the present day 7, could live from the era of the XIII-VIII centuries. BC e. until the epoch of the VI-VII centuries. n. e. - the time of the settlement of the Slavs in the Balkans, and to the present. In other parts of the European continent, the Venedian Slavs could be assimilated by other peoples, and they left behind toponymy, one of the classic examples of which is the name of the northern Italian province of Veneto. And in the Eastern Alps, largely due to the conservatism determined by the mountainous landscape, the Wends could hold out, while, perhaps, in certain eras, switching to unrelated languages, such as Latin or German 8 .

  By and large, the point of view of the authors of "Venedov" has serious scientific grounds. It is another matter that questions of the ancient history of peoples require the most serious consideration of a vast range of scientific disciplines 9 and here, as nowhere else, before stating something, it is necessary to repeatedly analyze the essence of what is being considered. The authors of the "Venedi" belong to the category of serious, responsible researchers, although their point of view differs from the views of many historians on the time and circumstances of the appearance of the Slavs in the Balkans and the birth of the South Slavic group of peoples. The statements of the authors of the "Venedi" do not really contradict their opponents, who claim that the Slavs, including the Slovenes-Veneds, appeared in Slovenia in the 6th-7th centuries. The authors of "Venedi" only delved into ancient Slavic history, at least until the III-II millennium BC. e. and in this case, we may not be talking about revising Slavic history, but about expanding the horizons of knowledge relating to it, and along this path, even specialists can expect a lot of interesting and sometimes unexpected things for them, which is natural for the process of knowledge 10.

  To understand the ancient Slavic history, we cannot avoid turning to the Indo-European history of several millennia, in all its material and spiritual aspects. More than ten millennia ago, the era of the last great glaciation ended [Fourth, Würm ice Age, which lasted about ninety thousand years, ended by the XI millennium BC. e.]. For several millennia, the huge ice shell, melting, retreated to the north, leaving ridges of heaps of stones, clay and sand, which still indicate the movement of its border. The river valleys were filled with melt water, and the width of the streams often reached several tens of kilometers. Mosses and lichens gradually hid the boulders left by the ice with a soft green canopy. Following the grasses and mosses, overcoming the cold, dwarf birches and pines moved north. The thawed earth was warmed by the warmth of their wind-torn and cold crowns. With the course of centuries, significant areas of the north of the continent were hidden by coniferous and deciduous forests. It was the forests that resisted the Arctic cold and nurtured life. And all this time, the water element carried fragments of stones and sedimentary soil, forming a profile river valleys and landscape of the continent. Behind the glacier to the north, up to the edge of the continent washed by the ocean, there were mammoths and woolly rhinos. But the days of the giants were numbered, and at the dawn of our civilization they died, giving way to reindeer in the tundra.

  Nature is the greatest artist. One of his most perfect creations is man. But the secret of the appearance of man on our planet is still hidden by an impenetrable veil, because all the “predecessors” are far from him in a number of ways, primarily in terms of the volume and degree of development of the brain.

  As far back as the epoch of glaciation, at a time when a two-kilometer thick ice cover was sinking the continental plates to the center of the planet with colossal weight 11 , man created cultures on our continent, material evidence of which has been preserved 12 , although many of them are still to be discovered. Under the saving shelter of caves, by the light of bonfires 13, man, by means of fine arts and plastic arts, created masterpieces that civilization had not yet fully appreciated. These creations are on a par with the brightest manifestations of the human genius of later eras, and their value is a hundred times higher than given to them already because they were created by artists of the deepest antiquity. In the Stone Age, in the era of frost destroying all living things 14, a spiritual force was already embedded in a person, raising him above the world to an unattainable height. In the consciousness of man, there is initially an all-conquering craving for beauty and harmony, which helps to overcome the blackest hardships, cold, hunger, the most severe need and the hourly threat of death. Beauty initially spiritualized and inspired man. And from recent history it is known that every time the next revival of civilization is based, first of all, on the beauty of thoughts and images, which is expressed in architecture, sculpture, painting, in the artistic word.

  The era that replaced the era of the last glaciation, from the very beginning, was in the highest degree productive for a person 15 . Soon enough, in a number of regions of Eurasia, where the climate favored this, man began to sow cereals and beans, harvesting crops and forming food supplies from them. And the availability of food freed up time for man to improve tools and build comfortable dwellings. People learned to make canoes from tree trunks and fish from them using nets and fishing rods. The tamed dog began to guard the yard. Sheep, goats, and pigs were kept in sheds woven from wicker, covered with clay. Herds of cattle grazed among the river valleys rich in herbs. Their peace was guarded by horsemen armed with spears. So it was in the VIII-V millennium BC. e.

  Each of these steps made a person more powerful, and he rapidly rose, especially with the start of widespread use of the wheel. In some regions, nature was kind to man, in others it showed severity, forcing him to fight for survival day and night. From this, the rates of development of the rudiments of agriculture and crafts were different. If the Lord is the creator, then nature is the conductor. And, having become acquainted with the vagaries of nature, you begin to better understand the reasons for frequent and sharp turns in the course of development. human civilization. Thus, as the glacier retreated, hunters followed the game to the north in a wide front. Moreover, people did this several times before, during periods of temporary warming [In the era of the last glaciation, there were at least three periods of temporary warming].

  With the course of millennia, the Proto-Indo-Europeans occupied significant areas in the north of Europe, on the great plain, called Airiano-Vaejo by the eastern Indo-Europeans, which includes the steppes of the south of Eastern Europe, the south of the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia. At the same time, the Proto-Indo-Europeans occupied part of the lands of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Thus, there were two large groups. The northerners, who lived in the widest expanses of the continent, from the south of Scandinavia to the Altai mountains, for a long time remained committed to the most ancient traditions, which included, along with hunting and fishing, the simplest forms of agriculture and highly developed cattle breeding. And their southern Proto-Indo-European neighbors, due to more favorable natural conditions, actively mastered the simplest forms of copper-smelting, ceramic and agricultural production. However, in the south of the continent, the Indo-Europeans constantly encountered other races, and everywhere there was a struggle for living space. Sometimes different races added up mutual efforts, and often this led to a breakthrough in civilization - production was multiplied by trade, and vice versa. But the hybrid races quickly perished 17, because the light dimmed in their consciousness, spiritual guidelines were lost. And the madman is doomed, for he is blind. An example is the frequent change of civilizations in Mesopotamia 18 .

  The vast plain, in the Vedic and Avestan literature called Airana-Vaeja, for thousands of years preserved the pristine nature of the Proto-Indo-European population 19 . And in many respects it was on this plain that the Indo-European proto-language 20, spiritual views and system material culture later became dominant on the continent.

  Centuries passed and the moment of the VI-V millennium BC came. e., when the population of Persia, the south of Central Asia, Mesopotamia experienced a great civilizational explosion, which led to the birth and rapid rise of the most ancient cities and states of the continent. Blooming at once, like a spring meadow, the urban civilization of Western Asia, Minor and Central Asia, shakes the mind with the power and splendor of material and spiritual culture. With each century, the urban civilization of Asia expanded its borders. In the west, the famous Troy became its outpost [Troy I was founded around 2750 BC. e., Troy VII died about 1250 BC. e.], in the east, in the Indus Valley, the cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa rose [from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. to the middle of the II millennium BC. e.] 21 .

  But nothing in our mortal world lasts forever. The time has come - and the urban civilization of Asia began to suffocate from the drought [starting from the turn of the III-II millennium BC. e.]. Ghibli still recently full-flowing rivers. The areas that were once full of moisture-filled blooming cities immersed in gardens began to shrink tenfold. Many cities and villages were completely abandoned by people. Entire provinces were depopulated, especially in Central Asia. But life on the continent did not stop, it only slowed down the procession somewhat, being on the eve of epoch-making events.

  Once on the watershed between Tanais [r. Don] and Borisfen [b. Dnieper], in the valleys of an unusually beautiful upland 22, the ancient Indo-European culture [Dnepro-Donetsk archaeological culture of the 5th-4th millennium BC] was born and began to develop rapidly. e.]. Its creators were distinguished by mighty growth and strength [average height 189 cm]. These giants were engaged in hunting and fishing, and at the same time they made ceramic dishes, grew cultivated plants and grazing large and small cattle. The steppe expanses of the center of the continent are primordially distinguished by the inconstancy of cultures and relationships created by people. This is largely predetermined by the accessibility of the plain from the outside to all ethnic and cultural influences. The most ancient Indo-European population of the great plain is conservative in spirit already because any deviation from the fundamental canons of the spiritual and material worlds inevitably leads to confusion of consciousness and physical death. The great Airyana-Vaejo is both powerful and very vulnerable from the outside and from the inside.

  In the V-IV millennium BC. Indo-Europeans from the center of the continent began to move into Central and Western Europe in well-organized, numerous groups, very similar to the waves of a mighty sea surf. [The earliest kurgan necropolises, a distinctive feature of the Indo-European nomads 23, are widely represented in Europe from the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e.] This marked the beginning of the division of the Indo-European world into Western and Eastern groups.

  Indo-Europeans settled Europe many times. Each new invasion was like a storm, sweeping off the face of the earth cultures that had managed to settle down in Europe 24 . And every time the aliens built their own culture on the foundation of the defeated one. At the same time, the grandiose invasions of the Indo-European peoples, along with Europe, experienced Asia, or rather the urban civilization of Western and southern Central Asia and the Indus Valley. At certain moments of time, usually after five centuries on average, the steppes of the center of the continent were shaken by the change of cultural epochs 25 . These events were immediately echoed in Europe and Asia.

  To illustrate what has been said, I will give examples. In the XXII-XIX centuries. BC e. from the south of Eastern Europe, the creators of the Yamnaya archaeological culture were forced out or absorbed by representatives of the Catacomb archaeological culture, who advanced to the lower reaches of the Volga and Don from the eastern shores of the Caspian, which suffered from drought. After another change of cultural epochs in the steppes of the center of the continent, northern Europe, from the mouth of the Kama to the south of Scandinavia, was occupied by the Indo-European people, who left behind ceramic vessels with an imprint of cord 26 and numerous battle axes made of copper and stone. Enormous herds, driven by horsemen, to the barking of dogs, whistles and cries, passed through the valleys of the Volga, Don, Western Dvina, Vistula and Oder, right up to the Rhine and Scandinavia protected by the seas 27 . This legacy is called the Corded Ware and Battle Axe Archaeological Culture. Simultaneously with the invasion of the north of Europe, near the turn of III-II millennium BC. e., through Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Syria, up to the Nile Delta, on war chariots, drowning in clouds of dust raised by countless herds, a wave of the Indo-European people, known as the Hittites, swept.

  Five centuries have passed, and the continent again experienced similar events. In the steppes of the south of Eastern Europe and the south of the Urals, a change of cultural epochs took place. In the XVI-XV centuries. BC e. the Srubnaya archaeological culture replaced the catacomb culture 28 . And in the south of the Urals, rich in easily accessible ores and minerals, in the 15th century. BC e. the first, Petrovsky stage of the Andronovo archaeological culture was replaced by the Alakul stage. Four stages of the Andronovo culture developed in the 18th-11th centuries. BC e. The urban civilization of Western and Central Asia, suffocating from the heat, supplied the secrets of metallurgical, ceramic and other industries to the steppes that stretched to the north. The south of the Urals is rich in raw materials, and primarily in copper ores and other metals. And it was in the south of the Urals in the II millennium BC. e. civilization flourished, leading the entire Indo-European steppe world for centuries. It is significant that with the next change of cultural epochs, war chariots, which were previously placed in burial chambers, under mounds, disappeared from the south of the Urals. At the same time, vast areas in the center of Europe, in the middle reaches of the Danube, were occupied by the Indo-European people, who widely used war chariots and the tradition of burial under mounds. [This refers to the creators of the archaeological culture of burial mounds that developed in the Danube valley in the 15th-14th centuries. BC E.]. At the same time [about the XV century. BC e.] from the steppes of Eurasia, through the lands of Afghanistan, on war chariots, the Indo-European peoples who sang Vedic hymns, calling themselves Aryans 30, proceeded. The main material wealth of the Vedic Aryans was cattle, which filled the Indus Valley. The appearance of the Vedic Aryans in the Indus Valley was heralded by the death of a civilization centered in the cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa 31 .

  Several centuries passed, and the Indo-European population of the continent again experienced epochal changes. In the center of Europe, a culture of burial fields or burial urns flourished, which the Germans called the era of burning. Everywhere they began to commit the dead to fire, and the ashes were placed in vessels placed at the bottom of the graves. In the same era of the XIII-VIII centuries. BC e. the lands of the south of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran were flooded with a new stream of Indo-European peoples. The founder of the spiritual reformation among them was Zaroaster. A detailed account of Indo-European history is given in my Indo-European History of Eurasia, and I will confine myself to a conclusion. The vast plain of the center of the continent repeatedly served as the place of departure of the Indo-European peoples, who simultaneously rushed to Europe and Asia, on average with a frequency of 300-500 years. Almost every major Indo-European invasion of Asia has a kind of "twin" - a simultaneous invasion of the Indo-European inhabitants of the steppes into Europe. Airyana-Vaejo is a global donor, supplying the planet not only with material raw materials, but also with human resources, carrying their own languages ​​and spiritual views to the outside world.

  The Avesta says that the ancestral home of the Aryans, Airiana-Vaejo, is located on the banks of the fertile river Vakhvi-Datia. It is very likely that by the river Vakhvi-Datia, Avesta means the Volga river. However, it is best to cite the text of the Avesta itself, called the “Geographical Poem”: Ahura Mazda said to Spitama-Zarathushtra: “ 1 . O Spitama-Zarathushtra, I have made dwelling places giving peace, no matter how little joy [there] may be. If I, O Spitama-Zarathushtra, did not make the dwelling places giving peace, no matter how little joy [there] may be, the whole corporeal world would rush to Arianam-Vaija.

  2. First, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Arianam-Vaija with the [river] Vahvi-Datiya. Then, in contrast to this, Ankhra-Manyu, the many-pernicious, a reddish serpent and winter, a deva creation, concocted.

  3. Ten months are winter there, two are summer months, and in these [winter months] the waters are cold, the lands are cold, the plants are cold there in the middle of winter, there in the heart of winter; there winter [when] comes to an end, there is a great flood.

  4. Secondly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Gava, inhabited by the Sogdians. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted a multi-pernicious "skaity" multi-pernicious.

  5. Thirdly, I, Ahura-Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Moura strong, involved in Arte. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious “maryda” and “vitusha”.

  6. Fourthly, the best of the countries and habitats I, Ahura Mazda, created: Bahdi beautiful, high [holding] the banner. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious “bravara” and “usada”.

  7. Fifthly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and dwelling places: Nisayu, [located] between Moura and Bahdi. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted a multi-pernicious vacillation of minds.

  8. Sixthly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Haroiva with abandoned houses. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted many-pernicious weeping and groaning.

  9. Seventh, I, Ahura Mazda, have created the best of countries and habitats: Wakertu. Then, in contrast to this, Ankhra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious pairik Khnafaiti, who seduced Kersaspa.

  10. Eighth, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Urva, abundant in herbs. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted many pernicious evil rulers.

  11. Ninthly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Vehrkana, inhabited by the Hyrcanians. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious vile, inexcusable sin of pederasty.

  12. Tenthly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: the beautiful Harahvati. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious vile, inexcusable sin of burying corpses.

  13. Eleventh, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Haetumant radiant, endowed with Hvarno. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted many pernicious evil sorcerers,

  14. [...]

  15. Twelfthly, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Three-tribe stew. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted a multi-pernicious over-reeling of thought.

  16. Thirteenth, I, Ahura-Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Chakhra strong, involved in Arta. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious - vile, inexcusable sin of committing corpses to fire.

  17. Fourteenth, I, Ahura-Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: Quadrangular Varna, where Traitaona was born, who killed the Serpent-Dahaka. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious untimely regulations and non-Aryan rulers of the country.

  18. In the fifteenth, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of countries and habitats: Hapta Hindu. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted a multi-harmful inopportune regulation and inappropriate heat.

  19. Sixteenth, I, Ahura Mazda, created the best of the countries and habitats: [the country] and the origins of Ranha, which is ruled without rulers. Then, in contrast to this, Angra-Manyu concocted the many-pernicious winter, a deva creation, and [foreign] rulers [from the people?] “taozhya”.

  20. There are other countries and habitats, both beautiful and wonderful and outstanding, and magnificent and dazzling”.

  So, Airyana-Vaedzha, located on the banks of the fertile river Vahvi-Datia, is the most ancient country of the Indo-Europeans 32 . After the future Iranians left her, their path ran from north to south. The Iranians subsequently took root in the notion that the south is what is in front, the north is always behind, the west is on the right, the east is on the left. First of all, the proto-Iranians, on their way to the south, reached the province of Sogdiana, located in the middle reaches of the Amu Darya and in the lower reaches of the Zeravshan River. Further, the proto-Iranians passed through Margiana [the valley of the Murghab River], Bactria [the upper and middle reaches of the Amu Darya], Nisaia [located between the channels of the Amu Darya and Tejen rivers]. Having reached the extreme south of Central Asia, the proto-Iranians found themselves under the shadow of a grandiose mountain range, from the south in a gigantic semicircle enclosing the plain of the center of the continent. The proto-Iranians went to Afghanistan and further to Iran along the Tejen River valley. In the upper reaches of the Tejen, in the province called Aria [Kharaiva], the country of Kankha [Eastern Iran] was available to the newcomers in the west, and in the south a province was opened cut through by the “abundant bridges and crossings” of the Khaetumana River [r. Helmand], which flows into Lake Kansava. The path of the Proto-Iranians from the plain of the center of the continent to Asia Minor is outlined by the material monuments of the archaeological culture of roller ceramics of the 13th-12th centuries. BC e. and later era of the XI-VIII centuries. BC Subsequently, the plain of the center of the continent was dominated for centuries by Indo-European nomads called Turanians, Tocharians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians - the eastern, Iranian-speaking group of Indo-Europeans of the 33rd X century. BC e.-IV c. n. e.

  And the western wing of the Indo-Europeans? Having repeatedly rolled onto the lands of Europe in the IV-I millennium BC. e., the ancestors of the future Celts, Germans, Balts, Slavs, Latins, Greeks, Illyrians, Thracians 34 inhabited the peninsulas and protected by mountains, forests and swamps areas of the west and center of the continent, hidden from the storms that so often rage on the vast plain of the center of Eurasia.

  In conclusion of the section, I will give the following remark, which is very important for the present narrative. The Indo-European peoples of the last seven millennia have developed a kind of cultural code. Regardless of the change of eras and circumstances of a very different nature, on differences in location (climate, landscape, degree of communication, etc.) and systems of material and spiritual properties that form the existence of an ethnos, this code is the brightest feature that reveals a separate people and created them an archaeological culture, or civilization, as Indo-European or non-Indo-European. Its most striking expression, as it seems to me at the present time, is the type of ornament preserved by ceramics created by representatives of the urban civilization of the south of Central Asia in the 5th-2nd millennium BC. e. These ornaments will be recognized by us in all Indo-European cultures and civilizations, from the rocky shores of Ireland washed by the ocean to the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and to the valley of the Indus River. The source that once gave birth and nurtured the artistic code, which is distinguished by symmetry and what can be called the harmony of beauty, elevated to an indisputable law, is the center, or the womb of the continent, the ancient forge of the great Indo-European civilization (see drawing with ornaments).

  Such a deep question as the history of the Indo-European peoples, and the Slavic people in particular, has at least two major facets - material (archeology, anthropology and other scientific disciplines that consider specific material evidence of the life of peoples) and spiritual. And we should not neglect any of these general components if we claim to be objective. Let us turn to the set of traditions that are common to individual Indo-European peoples. I leave the process of recreating this pravosvod of legends and the prapantheon of the gods outside the scope of this essay, because this is a deep study that comes out as a separate book called Indo-European Mythology. The set of great traditions of the Indo-Europeans can be conditionally divided into three parts:

  Legends about the creation of the universe.

1. Creation (Chaos. Sky and Earth. Waters. World mountain.).
2. The birth and struggle of the gods (and giants).
3. The legend of the giant (Purusha, Ymir).

Traditions describing the universe.

1. World tree (hierarchy of gods, geography of the universe).
2. Bridge (rainbow) to another world.
3. River (of time). Eternal life of the soul. Hell and Paradise (Hel and Valhalla).

Rice. 1. Table 4 from work

Traditions about the development of the world of gods and people.

1. The legend of the first man.
2. The legend of the twin brother and sister and the seduction of the brother by the sister.
3. The legend about the creation of man from a tree (oak).
4. The legend of the struggle for the chariot of the sun god.
5. The legend of the three goddesses of fate.
6. The legend of the winged dog and the moon dog.
7. The legend of Apam Napat and the well from which flows a triple stream.
8. The legend of the struggle of the god of thunder with the serpent.
9. The legend of the divine drink (sacrifice).
10. The legend of a hero (king) who brought people fire, crafts, a plow (a plow, a bowl falling from heaven).
11. Attributes of the gods (thunder hammer, apples, chariot of the sun god, magic sword, magic cauldron of the blacksmith god)
12. The legend of Trita (Trita Aptya descends into the well for living water, sometimes he is betrayed by two older brothers).
13. The legend of the marriage of a king with a horse.
14. The legend of the lame goat.
15. The legend about the golden age, about the change of epochs, about the fall of mankind.
16. Glaciation and flood.
17. A legend about a dream of a hero waiting for a decisive battle.
18. The legend about the last battle of the gods with monsters and about the death of the world in fire.
19. The legend about the eternal rebirth of the world (the arrival of spring) and about two gods (goddesses) who alternately come with the change of winter and summer.

I will formulate conclusions concerning the spiritual and material evolution of the Indo-European community of the continent. In this case, I will have to turn again to the data of archeology. To resolve the issue, I will again refer to my books: and. They deal deeply with the issues that will be discussed in the conclusion.

So, around the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. Indo-European nomads cover the lands of Europe with burial mounds. Around the turn of the III - II millennium BC. e. Hittites invade Asia Minor. Around the middle of the II millennium BC. e. one of the visible evidence of the arrival of the Indo-Aryans in the Indus Valley is the creation and subsequent development of the Rigveda. In the XIII - VII centuries. BC e. a new stream of Indo-European nomads, uprooted by the steppe expanses of the center of the continent, grants Persia a collection of sacred books called the Avesta. Analyzing the huge amount of data on the spiritual and material heritage of the Indo-Europeans, I argue that the flowering of their spiritual worldview falls on at least the 5th - 3rd millennium BC. e. And the era active development spiritual views of the Indo-European community falls on the VIII - VI millennium BC. e. - for the period of the birth of agriculture, cattle breeding, crafts [rudiments of pottery, copper smelting and other industries]. In the IV - II millennium BC. e. Tribes have already carried out active resettlement from the steppe belly of the Eurasian continent to its periphery, from Scandinavia to the Indus Valley; fundamental ideas about the spiritual world were laid down and formed earlier, although the process of worldview development actively continued in the 4th - 2nd millennium BC. e., and subsequently, in the I millennium BC. e.-I millennium AD e. But this is already an era of separate development of individual Indo-European peoples and an era of deepening differences in their languages, in material culture, in spiritual views. For the conditions in Scandinavia, Greece, India and Persia are different, including neighbors, and this predetermined the real diversity of the Indo-European world of Eurasia.

Parallels, so numerous for the codes of legends and for the pantheons of individual Indo-European peoples, help to restore the most ancient worldview of the Indo-Europeans of Eurasia. The image of the World Tree, containing and displaying the pantheon of the Indo-Europeans, is very successful, because it allows you to simultaneously analyze information that is colossal in volume. And the picture should be unified and on one sheet, otherwise it is difficult to perceive it. A kind of control time seems to be the turn of the III - II millennium BC. e., for in this era, archeology testifies to the appearance of the Proto-Balts in the Baltic [the creators of the archaeological culture of corded ceramics and battle axes] and the Hittites in Asia Minor. This means that the parallels that exist in the pantheons and in the codes of legends of the Balts, Hittites and other Indo-European peoples already existed no later than the turn of the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC. e. Such is the depth of the spiritual Indo-European culture. The power and harmony of the spiritual culture, numbering many more than four thousand years, will delight more and more with the passage of time, as wide circles of people who are inclined to comprehend life become acquainted with it.

This material can be viewed in the form of a table.

A striking feature of the Slavic world, and especially the Eastern Slavs, is that it occupies a significant part of the territory that once served as the ancestral home of all the Indo-European peoples of the continent. The power of the Slavic and the Russian language derived from it and the entire system of spiritual and material culture is based and predetermined by the sequence of cultural epochs of the deepest antiquity. I will again refer to and to and give a diagram of the archaeological cultures created by the Indo-Europeans, which laid the foundation for the Slavic community of the continent.

V-IV millennium BC	cultural Dnieper-Donetsk culture + I.-E. nomads of the steppes of Eurasia + urban civilization of the south of Central Asia and Western Asia
IV-III millennium BC	cult. funnel cups
sec. floor. III millennium BC	cult. globular amphorae
turn of the III-II millennium BC	cult. Corded Ware
XVIII-XVI centuries BC.	cult. Unetice
XV-XIV centuries BC.	cult. barrow burials + cult. Trzynecka-Komarovska-Sosnicka
cult. Lusatian XII-VIII centuries. BC. --->Germans influence	cult. Belogrudov XII-IX centuries. BC. —>affectCimmerians
pan-European expansion of the creators of the cult. fields of burials or funeral urns of the XIII-VIII centuries. BC.	class Chernolesskaya X-VII centuries. BC. —>Scythians influence
cult. podkloshevoy V-II centuries. BC. --->influenced by the Celts of the VI-I centuries. BC.	chipped VII-III centuries. BC. —>Scythians and Sarmatians influence
cult. Przeworsk 2nd century BC-V c. AD --->the Goths of the 1st-4th centuries influence. AD	cult. Zarubintska II century. BC-I c. AD cult. Late Zarubinets I c. AD cult. Chernyakhovskaya + cl. Kyiv II-V centuries. AD cult. Kolochinskaya IV-V centuries. AD —>influenced by the Huns 375-454.
cult. Prague-Korchak VI-VII centuries. AD	cult. Prague-Penkovka VI-VII centuries. AD

It should be noted that not all the peoples who created the above cultures were in pure form Proto-Slavs, but they belonged to the Indo-European community and made their own contribution to the process of formation and evolution of the Proto-Slavic world of the continent, while the degree of these contributions may be different.

In the XIII-VIII centuries. BC e. the center of Europe flourished; there is a wide distribution, up to the western and southern coasts of the continent, of the archaeological culture of burial fields or burial urns. The center of this epochal phenomenon was the Lusatian archaeological culture, in the XIII-VIII centuries. BC e. developed in parts of the territories of modern Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are very serious reasons to identify the Proto-Slavs with the creators of the Lusatian and closely related, and possibly derivative, culture of the burial fields. In the event that this statement is true, it follows that in the XIII-VIII centuries. BC e. Central and Western Europe experienced the widest expansion of the Proto-Slavs, otherwise known as Wends 35 . Numerous toponyms, hydronyms and the names of entire regions of Europe, such as the province of Veneto in northeastern Italy, indicate the highest degree of probability of widespread settlement of the Proto-Slavs, Wends, in the 13th-8th centuries. BC e. over vast areas of the continent. In many ways, apparently, it was the Venedian substrate of the center, west and south of Europe in the 1st millennium BC. e. predetermined and facilitated the settlement of the Slavs in Central, Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, up to Asia Minor, where toponymy with the root “Veneda” is also presented. By the way, the mention by the author of The Tale of Bygone Years of the Alpine province of Norik has grounds that very likely date back at least to the 13th-8th centuries. BC. The era of the relatively recent dominance of the Slavs on the continent is the heyday of the archaeological cultures of Prague-Korchak in Central Europe, Prague-Penkovka in Eastern Europe of the 6th-7th centuries. BC e. It was during this period of time that the German pressure on the Slavs weakened due to the mass migration of the Germanic peoples to the territory of the defeated Western Roman Empire, and the Turkic pressure also retreated, marking a hundred-year gap between the invasions of the Huns in Europe and the Avars [Abr] who had not yet arrived from the east. The Slavs did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity and formed a wide geography of their own settlement of the early Middle Ages.

The question arises as to the validity of the above. The first part of this essay presents ornaments that represent the cultural code of the Indo-European world for at least the last seven thousand years. Along with anthropological data, in many respects this cultural code is the key to unraveling the secrets of ancient eras that did not leave written sources of information about their own origin. The ornament, preserved by ceramics for many millennia, the form of ceramics and products made of metal, stone and other materials very often turn out to be those chronicles that tell not only about the existence of a people, but also about its origin, kinship and subsequent evolution. If we turn to the material evidence of the archaeological cultures listed in the table, we cannot fail to notice the consistent reproduction of the ancient Indo-European cultural code, characterized by pronounced symmetry and geometric ornamentation. Without a doubt, each new era gave rise to its own variations. This was predetermined by many reasons, ranging from climate, the degree of development of industries and ending with the impact of various foreign groups of the population. And it was these variations that subsequently predetermined the real diversity of the Indo-European world. The evolutionary process of the Slavs is the brightest page in the great Indo-European history, and the level of understanding of the formation and development of the Slavic community largely depends on the breadth of the outlook precisely from the point of view of Indo-European history on the scale of the entire continent, washed by four oceans.

With this, I will conclude my short essay and express my deep gratitude to the Slovenian authors, who went through several editions in many European languages ​​of the book "Venedi", and finally published in Russian 36 . I have a special sympathy for Just Rugel, the Slovene, whose initiative made this publication possible. I have no doubt that the combined efforts of big Russia and small but beautiful Slovenia in the study of ancient Slavic history is only an initiative, which in the future will be joined by many Slavic intellectuals from different countries. I will say more. It is for the Slavs that the future lies in the reconstruction of the ancient Indo-European history, that is, the history underlying almost all Indo-European peoples. The reason for this is that it was the Slavs who, to a large extent, turned out to be the recipients of the deepest material and spiritual tradition that once formed a large Indo-European community in the center of the continent.

My comment

I would like to comment on a number of provisions of Alexei Viktorovich.

1. From this, as well as subsequent proposals, it is clear that A.V. Gudz-Markov confuses the concept of archaeological culture (the totality of objects found) with the ethnic group, that is, the people who left these objects (most often, they threw away broken or worn out things as unnecessary). In this case, the expression "development of archaeological culture", taken literally, means only the growth of this very pile of discarded things, while this author has in mind the evolution of the people themselves. It is strange that A.V. Gudz-Markov refers to historical reality.
2. An even less clear phrase. Now cultures, that is, sets of objects, are already both epochs and ethnic groups (worlds). In order to move from the objects themselves to the era, it is necessary to date these objects. For periods before antiquity, it is really very difficult to do this, because there are practically no dating objects, and the stratigraphy of the layers has to be compared with reference ones for similar objects on the assumption that they are synchronous. But this is precisely the strongest assumption of archaeologists. As for the attribution of the found objects as products of the activity of one or another ethnic group, there is no unity among archaeologists on most of them. Therefore, the initial prerequisites for further reasoning of the author of the article seem to me very shaky.
3. Gudz-Markov proceeds from the Indo-European theory. This means that a number of peoples were already Indo-Europeans, but settled "on the plains of the center of the continent", and then migrated to Europe and Asia. From my point of view, most of the migrants were not Indo-Europeans at all, for example, the Turks, who, having migrated to Western Europe and became Russified, became a completely Indo-European people. So here I disagree with both Indo-European studies and the position of Gudz-Markov.
4. Gudz-Markov does not give a definition of the Proto-Slavs. By default, one has to assume that they were Indo-Europeans, slightly departed in language from the Proto-Germans, Proto-Celts, etc. From my point of view, there are no Proto-Slavs at all, and the early Slavs are Russians who speak regional dialects.
5. The totality of material remains cannot be the center of settlement. Fragments of vessels and other household items that fell into the ground do not settle anywhere. But who exactly were the ethnic groups that left us the Lusatian archaeological culture, the author of the article does not write.
6. You might think that the resettlement itself was spiritual, and its material side was the monuments excavated by archaeologists.
7. If the Wends are called and up to the present day Wends, how can they be Proto-Slavs? In this case, any modern Slavic peoples - Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Bulgarians, Serbs, etc. can be called Proto-Slavs with equal success. Console proto- characterizes ancestors, not contemporaries.
8. By the word "hold on" Gudz-Markov just means: survive to this day. That is, Proto-Slavs live among us and already speak German. In other words, our non-Slavic speaking contemporaries turn out to be our early Slavic speaking ancestors. Phenomenal!
9. Also a very interesting passage. Instead of considering the documents of the corresponding eras, it turns out that requires the most serious consideration of the huge volume of a number of scientific disciplines. Well, let's teach geometry, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology - maybe then we will understand who the Proto-Slavs are.
10. According to modern historiography, the Slavs appear in Europe no earlier than the 5th century AD, and it is not known from where. Even the transfer of the Slavs to antiquity is already a revolution in historiography. And considering them in the Bronze Age is not something that the coup is a completely different historiographical paradigm. Confirm that it is only about expanding the horizons of knowledge means simply to keep silent about a completely different concept of the three Slovenian authors, which has nothing in common with modern historiography.
11. Some strange demonization of glaciation. Ice weighs slightly lighter than water, that is, 1 cubic decimeter is approximately 1 kg. Rocky soil - 8-10 times heavier. A two-kilometer layer of ice weighed about as much as a two-hundred-meter layer of rock. Any mountains, say, 3 km high, put pressure on the continental plate 15 times stronger.
12. From these words it turns out that the spiritual component of culture has been lost. In fact, we are familiar art and Paleolithic writing, and this is the spiritual component of culture.
13. The ceilings of the caves, according to archaeologists, are not covered with soot, so no fires were lit in the caves. In addition, the brightness of the fires was clearly not enough to create the engravings and paintings remaining in the caves. So Gudz-Markov is just fantasizing beautifully here.
14. The Paleolithic as a whole, including the Upper, is characterized by a warm, if not hot, climate. Glaciation took only a few percent of the time.
15. Following the era of glaciation, that is, the Paleolithic, came the Mesolithic, the era of first floods and waterlogging of the soil, and then droughts. It was one of the most difficult periods in the development of mankind.
16. Gudz-Markov gives a completely idyllic picture of the emergence of agriculture. In fact, scientists see in the transition from an appropriating economy to an economic revolution producing, and give it the name neolithic. Here we are talking about the restructuring of the entire economic structure, habits, way of life; in the end, the Neolithic revolution brought about a change in the calendar and the pantheon of gods. Whereas, according to the author of the article, people just became sow beans.
17. A generalized and somewhat fictional picture of the development of mankind is given. It is not clear, however, what hybrid races are, since the mass of modern ethnic groups contains features of both Caucasoids and Mongoloids. If these are hybrid races, then they have not died out at all, but continue to exist.
18. It is absolutely unclear which of the ethnic groups of Mesopotamia can be considered an ethnic group blind men. Sumerians? Akkadians? Chaldeans? Babylonians? Assyrians? None of these peoples can be said to have behaved foolishly, both towards nature and towards each other.
19. What does "originality" mean? Were the Paleolithic and Neolithic people the same Indo-European ethnic group? And when did the Indo-Europeans themselves appear, in what era? And by what criteria does Gudz-Markov calculate the ethnic identity of the peoples of different eras? Since he does not give answers to any of these questions, this statement of his sounds unfounded, unfounded.
20. What Indo-European proto-language? The result of the desk exercises of 19th-century comparative scientists like Schleicher, who wrote the fable "The Wolf and the Lamb" in this hypothetical language? Not a single monument of this language has been found, but the number of inscriptions in Russian in each era is estimated at tens and hundreds.
21. Gudz-Markov does not give any reasons for this "civilizational explosion". Only mentions it. It turns out that the explosion occurred from scratch.
22. What is a “beautiful hill” (several hundred kilometers long - its “beauty” can only be seen from space)? How is it known that many thousands of years ago this hill was beautiful? What are the general criteria for the beauty of elevation? Again we see a surge of emotions instead of scientific analysis.
23. Where and why did the nomads come from, if we were just told in an idyllic way about the heroes who were engaged in a little bit of everything - agriculture, hunting, cattle breeding, and fishing?
24. How is it known that the change of cultures (that is, the change of clothing complexes found in the earth) was connected precisely with the migration of peoples, and not with the development of trade? In the 70s of the twentieth century, Russian women wore trousers, then young people of both sexes began to wear denim suits (this fashion came from the USA), in the 90s Cell phones(Mobile communication itself was developed in the USSR for nomenklatura workers, and it became mass after the migration of developers from the USSR to the USA and the creation of market mass models of mobile telephones). If this process is described in terms of Hudz-Markov, then in the twentieth century " Each new invasion of nomads from the United States was like a storm that swept off the face of the earth cultures that had managed to settle down in Europe", which is absolutely false.
25. A very controversial statement that the steppes were the center of civilization. The steppes are usually inhabited by nomads, not settled peoples.
26. The inscriptions on objects of the Corded Ware culture are made in the same Russian language as the inscriptions of the Pit and Catacomb cultures. No change in the carriers of these cultures is visible, although the cultures themselves have changed.
27. I can't imagine what these numerous herds ate in the zones deciduous forests listed river basins? Or did the steppes also move there? Or, on the contrary, before the campaign did the nomads manage to procure gigantic, for several years, stocks of hay? Otherwise, all these numerous herds, under the barking of dogs, were doomed to inevitable death, and after the mass loss of livestock, waves of settlers were also bound to die. So Gudz-Markov describes something apocalyptic.
28. The inscriptions of the Srubnaya culture are made in the same runic and in the same Russian language as the inscriptions of the Catacomb culture.
29. Judging by this statement, Gudz-Markov believed that the inhabitants of these regions were complete idiots, because, suffocating from the heat, they also mastered the smelting of metals, coupled with the heat around metallurgical furnaces. That is, the natural heat was allegedly not enough for them, and they added man-made heat to it.
30. Gudz-Markov describes this as if archaeologists heard the Vedic hymns and asked questions to these peoples, who answered that they were called Aryans. He frames his guesses as colorful statements.
31. The causal relationship here is not entirely clear. It turns out that the Dravidian civilizations of the Indus Valley died when they learned that the Aryans want to come to these places. And when they died, it was a sign ( proclamation) that it is time to go on a campaign and the Aryans.
32. To what extent is a religious text, which had dozens of editions, a historical source? How fair is the identification of the state described there with settlements on the Volga? Again we see that Gudz-Markov's fleeting hypothesis turns into an assertion.
33. The Turans are Turks, not Iranian-speaking peoples; Tokhars are also not Persians. As for the Cimmerians, they are most likely also Turks. And the Scythians and Sarmatians spoke dialects of the Russian language, as my research showed. So, most likely, there were no Persians among the listed peoples at all.
34. The ancestors of the peoples listed here, according to my data, were Russians who lived here - they had nowhere to roll. And there were indeed cultural influences.
35. Where did wends come from? Where did they develop, as an ethnos, which then invaded the lands they later occupied?
36. Gudz-Markov means the book.

As you can see, the above essay is a summary of the books of A.V. Gudzia-Markov. It follows from this that this researcher somehow took the archaeological data too literally, believing that each archaeological culture corresponded to some people. Let me remind you again: Under the archaeological culture is understood a group of relatively simultaneous monuments with similar inventory and occupying the same territory., and nothing more. The connection of archaeological culture with one or another ethnic group or one or another stage of its development is the subject of ten-year discussions of representatives of various archaeological schools and trends, and not at all a firmly established scientific fact.

Thus, having read a lot of archaeological monographs, the author of books and essays concluded for himself that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were nomads. In itself, only this statement causes great skepticism, and yet it is central to his concept. For some reason, the location of this people is associated with the Volga, but it is not clear with which part of it - with the upper reaches, with the middle or with the lower reaches. In fact, the excavations of each of its parts do not indicate the existence of any grandiose civilization in the specified region, so the Gudz-Markov hypothesis is not supported by archaeological material. The main historical source for him is the Avesta, a collection of religious provisions, which, of course, does not and in principle cannot provide any valuable historical information. This position is also highly questionable. Finally, it is somehow strange to consider that the core of culture is an ornament. Although the ornament is certainly one of the archetypal features of the ethnos, it is still closer to the periphery of culture than to its center. Therefore, my colleagues from the GASK graduate school were quite right in considering the works of this researcher to be compilative and rather superficial.

But the completely unscientific style of presentation is also striking, and the enumeration of such small details that do not follow in any way from archaeological data, but are the author's fantasies. How does he know that the settlers to India went to the singing of Vedic hymns, if many researchers note that the Vedas were formed very late? From which it follows that the nomads drove huge herds of domestic animals, if he lists the territories occupied deciduous forests where there is nothing to feed herbivores with? In a word, after reading the essay, one gets the impression that we have some kind of emotional, but completely uncritical retelling of archaeological literature, undertaken by an incompetent person.

As for the Slovenes themselves, this researcher did not give us anything new - he only became delighted with the book by Jožko Šavli. Why he considers Slovenes and Venets to be Proto-Slavs, Gudz-Markov does not explain. In my opinion, both of them were simply Slavs, one of the branches of the far-dispersed Russians. How close Veneti and Slovenes are is the subject of further research.

Literature

1. Šavli Jozko, Bor Matej, Tomazic Ivan. Veneti. First Builders of the European Community. Tracing the History and Language of Early Ancestora of Slovenes, Wien, 1996
2. Chudinov V.A.. Decoding of Venetian and Etruscan inscriptions by Matej Bor (review of the book “Venety”) // Economy, management, culture. Sat. scientific works, issue. 6. M., GUU, 1999
3. Mongait A.L. Archeology of Western Europe. M., 1974
4. Gudz-Markov A.V. Indo-European history of Eurasia. The origin of the Slavic world. M. Rikel, Radio and Communications, 1995, 312 p.
5. geographical poem. Translation S. P. Vinogradova, according to the edition: Avesta, St. Petersburg, 1998
6. Gudz-Markov A.V.. History of the Slavs. M., 1997
7. Sarianidi V.I. Monuments of the Late Eneolithic of South-Eastern Turkmenistan of the 5th-3rd millennium BC.
8. Shavli Yozhko. Veneti: our ancient ancestors. Translated from Slovenian by J. Gileva. M., 2003, 160 p.
9. Matyushin G.N. Archaeological dictionary. M., "Enlightenment", 1996, 304 p.

Aleksey Viktorovich Gudz-Markov was born in 1962 in the city of Kupavna, Moscow Region. In 1985 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering with a degree in applied mathematics. Author of numerous books on the history of the Slavs and the origin of the Slavic world. In 2002 wrote the book "Rostov the Great and its district", and later "History of Serpukhov and Obolensky districts".

Gudz-Markov A. V. is professionally engaged in historical and intellectual tourism, and offers general public more than a hundred bus travel routes across Russia, which, along with the display of traditional objects, provide for the presentation of little-known and very beautiful archaeological sites - settlements, mounds, against which the world history in all its bright and fateful manifestations is presented in an accessible form to the participants of the trip.

REVIEWS ABOUT THE GUIDE'S WORK

Unforgettable bus tour "Tour of 10 churches"! In one day we saw many interesting architectural monuments, where the amazing beauty and grandeur of temples, churches and estates of the Moscow region were discovered. learned a lot historical facts associated with the history of the Fatherland. Many thanks to the guide Alexei Viktorovich Gudz-Markov. A smart, erudite person and a great conversationalist. I would like to note his unique knowledge in the field of history, as well as a creative approach to the material presented. We got a lot of interesting knowledge, as well as a big charge of vivacity, optimism and good mood! Raevskaya Natalia

Tour of ten churches, Alexey Gudz-Markov - amazing guide, smartest person. Thank you for the great day tour we had with him. The tour is so inexpensive compared to how much we saw and learned. We are happy that this Sunday we went on this excursion, full of delight from everything we saw. Clean bus, quality route, excellent driver! We recommend to everyone, visit, you will not regret, drop all your affairs and go on a tour with Alexei Gudz-Markov, an amazing guide. Alexander Ivanovich. [email protected]

Yesterday my wife and I went on a Tour of Ten Churches. Many thanks to the organizers for the pleasure provided. All 10 temples are selected with great taste and love. Such grace and such peace of mind after such trips. I really liked the Vladimirskaya Church in Bykovo. And many thanks to our guide Alexei, we didn’t remember his complicated surname. Very correct tactful and interesting storyteller. Only at the end of the tour did we learn that he was also the author of books on the history of the Slavs. It would be interesting to get on a tour of this topic. Igor Nikolaevich. [email protected]

March 17, 2012 went on an excursion. There were four of us in the company - everyone was very satisfied. The tour is simply amazing, it feels like you are transferred from the bustling Moscow to a completely different calm spiritual world. And a very big contribution to the feeling of this was made by the guide Alexei, because. with his unobtrusive story, he created an atmosphere of peace and contributed to immersion in the charming world of our history. One girl from our group even went on a tour for the second time, because for the first time they did not manage to visit the St. Nicholas Church in Poltevo (they went on Sunday and the Church was already closed in the evening) and the Church of Peter and Paul in Malakhovka, but they managed to visit the Relics of the Saints in the Nikolo-Ugreshsky Monastery (during our visit they were closed ). Moreover, she said that this time Aleksey told many facts that he did not tell on the first trip, which speaks of his unique knowledge of the subject and creative approach to preparing the program of each excursion. We sincerely thank Alexey and the bus driver. We will definitely go on other excursions with you. Thank you very much! Vladimir and Svetlana [email protected]

Instead of a preface

It is not easy to write about ancient, pre-Mongolian, and, moreover, pre-Christian and early Christian Russia, and this occupation is akin to an attempt to grasp the boundless expanses of the Russian Plain with consciousness. But help in writing such a book comes from a tear-jerking love for the fatherland and generic affiliation to the great and mighty community of Slavs.
A grandiose picture of the formation and development of Russia will be unfolded before the reader. We will take a close look at Russia and see it in all its diversity of hundreds of amazing natural beauty, crowning the peaks of riverside hills of cities, villages, graveyards lost in the wilderness of northern forests, river and land routes and portages knitting into a single continental path. We will also describe the lines of defense of Russia, point out the places of battles. The reader will learn a lot about the history of the Russian principalities, about the marriage unions of princes and about relations with the states that surrounded Russia and lay far beyond its borders. We will tell about the fortress, beauty and wealth of cities, temples, princely and boyar estates, about the art of Russian masters, the courage of warriors, the holiness of ascetics and the wisdom of chroniclers.
Ancient Russia, like a huge white-stone city, standing on a high river cliff, rises behind us, its descendants, serving as a living example or ideal.
One of the main lessons for us lies in the death of Kievan Rus, which fell like a cathedral wall, swallowing up hundreds of thousands of lives and leaving many cities, villages and entire volosts in desolation for centuries. The consequences of the catastrophe were such that for almost five centuries the Galician, Volyn, Polotsk, Turov-Pinsk, Kyiv, Seversk and Smolensk lands were in the hands of the Polish and Lithuanian rulers. And the Rostov-Suzdal and Ryazan lands were humiliated by the Tatar yoke and turned out to be almost completely dependent. There were reasons for such painful disasters in Russia, it is important for us to know about them in order to protect ourselves from possible shame and reproach.
The world and the people living in it are whole. Ancient Russia and its creators were a reflection of the spirit and material flesh of the East European Plain, and therefore we will give importance description of river valleys, lakes, dense forest thickets and endless fields of Russia. One must feel the smell of steppe grass, the freshness of spring water, the breadth and power of the rivers and the hidden twilight of the forests of Russia in order to understand its character and its fate, great both in victories and defeats.

Chapter 1
Slavs of Eastern Europe in the 5th–8th centuries

Union of Eastern Slavs

To understand the process of the formation of the East Slavic community of the early Middle Ages, let us turn to the map of the spread of the Prague-Korchak and Prague-Penkovo ​​archaeological cultures of the 5th-7th centuries. The monuments of these cultures, and in the first place the ceramics and principles of house building presented on them, are classical Slavic samples of the 1st millennium AD. e. and can be considered as a kind of standard or Slavic standard among the later variety of cultural manifestations of the Slavic world. The heritage of the Prague-Korchak culture captured that moment of Slavic unity, albeit a relative one, which preceded the separation of the Slavic unions of the early Middle Ages, the connection between which was often hampered by significant distances and not always peaceful neighbors, who tore the Slavs of the western, southern and eastern into fairly isolated worlds.
After the beginning of the 7th century in Europe, the process of disunity of the Slavs began, they began to be divided by confessional features, the originality of linguistic dialects, different ways historical development. Separate unions of the Slavs with each decade went further south and northeast from the ancient cradle of the Slavs. It is all the more interesting to understand the location of the most ancient Slavic lands and to look closely at the toponyms and hydronyms carried by the Slavs to the south, up to the Peloponnese and Asia Minor, and to the northeast, up to the Kola Peninsula and the Ural mountain range.
Looking at the map, one involuntarily wants to compare the outlines of the areas of individual archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe in the 5th-7th centuries. with areas of settlement of historically and archaeologically attested unions of the Slavs.
The comparison shows that the eastern territory of the spread of the Prague-Korchak culture corresponds to the classical Russia of the chroniclers of the early Middle Ages. Unions of Croats, Volynians, Drevlyans, Polyans and partly Dregovichi in the 9th-13th centuries. were located just on the lands of the distribution of the Prague-Korchak culture in the east of Europe.
In the V-VII centuries. the Prague-Korchak culture was also spread over significant territories of the Western Slavs of the center of Europe. In the IX-XIII centuries. in the center of Europe, unions of Croats, Volhynians, and Polans are also documented. The presence of representatives of the Slavic unions of Croats, Slovenes, Volynians and others in the Balkans points to the 5th-7th centuries. as for the time of active movements in Europe of Slavic unions, all with the same names of Croats, Slovenes, Volhynians and others.

Krivichi

The vital activity of the Slavic unions, whose names are the same in the center, in the south and in the east of Europe, in the 5th-7th centuries. and recorded the Prague-Korchak culture and its southeastern correspondence to the Prague-Penkovka culture.
The territory of distribution of the archaeological culture of Bantserovich-Tushemlya of the 5th–7th centuries. in general terms, it is surprisingly close to the lands occupied by the Slavic union of the Krivichi in the 8th-12th centuries.
The areas occupied by the archaeological culture of the Kolochinsky type of the 5th–7th centuries are close to the outlines of the lands of the historical Radimichi and Northerners of the 8th–12th centuries. (basin of the Desna and Sozh rivers).
Lands in the upper reaches of the Oka, in the 5th–7th centuries. occupied by Moshchinskaya archaeological culture, in the VIII-XII centuries. were inhabited by Vyatichi.
Territory, in the V-VII centuries. covered with the so-called early long mounds, in the VIII-XII centuries. was inhabited by the Pskov Krivichi (the basin of the Velikaya River, the upper reaches of the Lovat and the Western Dvina).
Lands in the basins of the Lovat, Meta and Volkhov rivers and the shores of Lake Ilmen, in the 5th–7th centuries. occupied by the creators of the culture of the hills, in the VIII-XII centuries. turned out to be inhabited by a union of Novgorodian Slovenes.
However, when comparing two maps: the era of the V-VII centuries. and the era of the VIII-XII centuries. - it should be understood that any union of the Slavs is a single organism. Its life support systems in the occupied territory were built, as much as possible corresponding to natural conditions. Most often, the union of the Slavs closed in a single river basin, the lands of which made it possible to develop Agriculture and supplied raw materials for the production of labor and household tools. Examples include the unions of the Posozhye Radimichi, the Vyatichi of the Upper and Middle Poochya (and the Middle Don), and the Krivichi of the Upper Dnieper. Slavs, in the VIII-IX centuries. settled in the middle reaches of the Western Dvina, in the valley of the Polota River, soon separated themselves and formed their own union of Polotsk.
The name of the union is presented only in Eastern Slavs. This means that earlier the ancestors of the Polotsk people were either in the Polansk, or in the Volyn, Slovenian or any other union that lived on the lands occupied by the Prague-Korchak culture in the 5th-7th centuries.
It should also be understood that the Baltic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples, in the V-VII centuries. inhabiting the lands in the east of Europe, were also guided by natural and landscape conditions in their life. Two neighboring river systems, having a vast impassable watershed (forests, swamps, mountains, seas or bays), for several centuries can isolate representatives of one people to such an extent that they not only form different unions or states (which is vital for survival), but also become difficulty understanding each other's speech. However, Eastern Europe, with its flat landscape, is the least of all.
Let's make one preliminary conclusion. Representatives of one or another Slavic union, who left the ancient lands of settlement, were called on the new lands either by the name of their old union, or by an absolutely new name prompted by the surrounding nature (river valley, swamp-dregva), or by the name of the head of the association (clans) of the Slavs who committed resettlement (Radim, Vyatko).

Vyatichi

It is possible that the new name of the union of the Slavs, which settled far from the ancient ancestral cradle, meant the proclamation of the political and economic independence of the newly created association in case of possible claims of the old union to the newly occupied lands.

Unions of the Slavs of Eastern Europe V-VII centuries.

Perhaps, in many ways, it is precisely the desire for independence, that is, for isolation from the ancient metropolis proclaimed through a new name, that explains the fact that in the east of Europe there are, as it were, two Russias - classical forest-steppe and northern (forest) external. Slavic families, in the V-X centuries. those who left the lands of the Polyans, Volynians, Croats, Dulebs to the upper Dnieper, Western Dvina, Oka, Volga and White Lake, Volkhov, to the Velikaya and Peipsi and Pskov lakes, felt the proximity of those who had above them absolute power old unions. This prompted the Slavs, who settled in the forest belt of Eastern Europe, to create their own unions of Krivichi, Polochan, Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi, although they were neighbors with the glades, Volhynians, but opposed them to their own system of power, economy and defense.
Only the Slovenes of Novgorod, who found themselves among the dense forests of the north of the Russian Plain, were not afraid not to invent their own name and were called the most ancient and therefore the most understandable and desired name of the Slavs.
Also Slovenes, Serbs and Croats, in the VI-VII centuries. who settled in the Balkans were far enough from the lands they had previously inhabited, and it made no sense to proclaim a new name, that is, independent of the old union.
Radimichi, Vyatichi, Krivichi, Dregovichi, Drevlyans, Polochans sat close enough to the glades, Volhynians, Croats, and the preservation of the old name of the union could lead to submission to the old control centers. However, this was rather difficult due to geographical factors - lack of roads, distances.
Here is the composition of the Slavic unions that formed the Eastern European wing of the Prague-Korchak culture of the 5th-7th centuries. and Prague-Penkovka culture of the same time.
In 450-560 years. part of the Slavs of the center of Europe (carriers of the western wing of the Prague-Korchak culture of the 5th-7th centuries) descended the Siret (Prut, Dniester) river basin, east of the Carpathians, to the Danube Delta.
At the same time, the Antes Slavs advanced to the right bank of the lower Danube, marching to the borders of the Roman Empire from the banks of the Dniester, the Southern Bug and the Dnieper. Thus began the era of Slavic conquests in the Balkans described above in the 5th-7th centuries.
In the V-VII centuries. individual Slavic clans and associations of clans began to move north of the lands of the glades and Volynians. Their paths ran along the channels of the Dnieper and Berezina rivers. Further, the Slavs moved to the basins of the Neman and Western Dvina rivers. In the northeast, the Slavs in the VI-VII centuries. began to penetrate the upper Oka.
Having overcome the "okovsky" forest of the watershed between the Western Dvina, the Dnieper and the Volga, the Slavs in the VI-VII centuries. came to the banks of the Velikaya River and further north to Lake Peipsi, to Lake Ilmen and to the basins of the Lovat, Meta and Volkhov rivers. On the southern shore of Lake Ladoga, the Slavs, later called Novgorodians, stopped in the 8th century. set about building Staraya Ladoga. It was the northernmost stronghold of the Slavs in eastern Europe.
It was written above that in the VI-VII centuries. the Avars (Turks) harassed the Duleb Slavs, who lived in the forest-steppe zone of eastern Europe, in those places where the upper reaches of the Western and Southern Bug (south of modern Volhynia) converge, partly to the center of Europe (to the south of the Czech Republic), partly to the Balkans, and partly in the strip of forests of Eastern Europe. A similar story happened with the Croats, who sat in the upper reaches of the Dniester and the forced Avars in the 6th-7th centuries. partially go to the north-west of the Balkans, to the lands of modern Croatia.
Part of the Croats, as, perhaps, the Dulebs, never left Central Europe and was represented from ancient times among the Slavic unions of the Czech Republic, Poland, Moravia.
The living conditions of the Slavs in the east of Europe in its individual regions were quite different. One of the consequences was the emergence a large number settlements of the 6th-9th centuries. on the southeastern borders of the Slavic lands, on the ever-troubled frontier with the world of the Turks. Settlements surrounded by settlements, forefronts, most often arose or, rather, were built on the right (western or northern) banks of the Vorskla, Pel, Sula, Seim, Desna, middle Don, upper Oka. On other lands of historical Russia in the VI-IX centuries. fortified settlements were presented, but their number was less than in the forest-steppes of the left bank of the middle Dnieper. Neighborhood with the Turkic and Iranian worlds of the steppes of Eurasia made itself felt almost every year, and the Slavs of the future Pereyaslavl, Seversk and Ryazan principalities had to defend their borders already in the 6th-8th centuries.
Settlements of the forest belt of Eastern Europe in the 6th–9th centuries. mainly controlled river routes, passing the lion's share of cargo flows. These settlements did not build continuous defense systems, and their guards mainly took care of paying the travel fee - myta, because among the endless forests and swamps the appearance of steppe hordes was a rare occurrence.
Moving north, the Slavs, divided into hundreds and thousands or representing separate clans, came into contact with the Balts, or rather with the Balto-Slavs, and with the Finno-Ugric peoples who inhabited the strip of forests in eastern Europe. Often such meetings ended in armed clashes. In particular, archeology testifies to the layer of conflagrations on the settlements of the Bantserovich-Tushemlya archaeological culture, in the 6th–7th centuries. which occupied part of the territory in the early Middle Ages (VIII-XIII centuries), occupied by the Slavic union of the Krivichi (upper Dnieper).
Gradually in the VI-VIII centuries. north of the lands occupied by the classical Slavic unions of the Polans, Volynians, Croats, Severians, Dulebs, etc. (Prague-Korchak culture of the 5th-7th centuries), a system of Slavic unions developed, which in the 9th-11th centuries. the ancient Russian chronicler gave the names of the Drevlyans, Dregovichi, Radimichi, Vyatichi, Krivichi, Polochan, Novgorod Slovenes.
The process of settlement in the forest zone of Eastern Europe of Slavic unions, the names of which are not presented either among the western or southern Slavs, or among the Slavs of the forest-steppes of eastern Europe, took several centuries and deserves special consideration.
The world of the Slavs of the forest belt of Eastern Europe in the VI-IX centuries. in many respects it took shape anew, laying down with its Central European and forest-steppe Middle Dnieper nature on a wonderful land of endless forests, clear full-flowing rivers and deep, like heaven reflected in them, lakes, the riches of which are not known and not mastered to this day.

Slavs among the virgin nature of the Russian Plain of the 1st millennium AD. uh

Here we allow ourselves a slight digression from the story and try to imagine what the Russian Plain was like one and a half thousand years ago.
Describing the continuous advances of the Slavs across the expanses of eastern Europe in the 5th-9th centuries, we must imagine how this happened in practice, abstracting from specific temporal and historical references.
One and a half thousand years ago, the east of Europe was a land for the most part wild, impenetrable, deaf. The only ways to penetrate deep into the forest country, to the north of the fairly habitable Eastern European forest-steppe, were rivers. Gradually, along the banks of the upper Dnieper, Don and Volga, a few settlements began to appear, like beacons showing the way to the north and northeast of the new Slavic population, coming from the forest-steppes of eastern Europe and from the center of Europe. With the passage of time around one settlement, surrounded by arable land cleared from the forest, a bush of settlements grew, which later grew into a whole garland of bushes of settlements with their own centers.

Dugout boats of a single tree in the village of Georgievskaya on Lake Verkhopuyskoye. Photo by Makarov I.A., 1987

Slavic hunters and fishermen set snares and nets not only along the banks of large rivers, the valleys of which were quite densely populated by farmers and cattle breeders, but also on numerous large and small tributaries, the upper reaches of which were hidden in the intricacies of forest ravines. Often hunters in search of rich fishing grounds went deep into the jungle of dense dark forests that hid watersheds.
Rivers, forests, meadows in those days were pristine. The water in the streams was cold and clear. The ponds were full of fish. Many wild animals hid under the shadow of the forest. The crowns of huge fifty-meter firs and pines abounded with fur-bearing animals. Under the roots of centuries-old trunks, the earth was pitted with burrows of foxes and badgers. Flocks of wild boars roamed in the moisture-saturated ravines. The meadows that framed the valleys of large and small rivers, resembling a precious frame because of the flowers, fed countless herds of ungulates with herbs and shrubs. The forest was filled with the singing of birds and the noisy clapping of alarmed black grouse and bustards.
Beavers, whose houses are half hidden under the water, half cut into the banks, tirelessly felled the trunks of huge aspens and other trees across the reservoirs. By building dams, beavers dammed rivers, creating their own habitat.
On the surface of the water, among the reeds and muddy swamps overgrown with water lilies, ducks and swans swam, herons strode importantly. From the thick of the forest at night came the hooting of owls. And on long winter nights, all living things shuddered from the chilling howl of wolf packs.
The honey and raspberry trades were carried out by bears, tirelessly marking the boundaries of the lands and vigilantly following the stranger who appeared at the turn.
Thin-legged graceful storks made their nests on forest clearings, on high, like haystacks, thatched roofs of Slavic huts, barns and barns. And above the river valleys plowed under arable land, wings spread wide, looking out for hares, kites and other raptors soared.
For several millennia, the Slavs were fed from arable farming and domestic cattle breeding, from ancient times they kept poultry, planted a garden, and put logs - bee logs. The opportunities provided by the Russian Plain were accepted with reverence by the Slavs. At the same time, they idolized nature, striving to fit the way of life and economy organically and without damage to the earth into the frame of the greenery of forests, meadows, and the blue of always cool and clear water, fascinating with divine beauty.
From ancient times, a tower was erected over the springs in Russia, which became a chapel in the Christian era.
The Slavs adapted the riverine capes of the root coast for settlements, cutting like fangs into the floodplain meadow valleys. The capes were cut off from the flat plain with a rampart, poured from the soil taken from the moat framing the rampart. Most often, the structure of logs served as the basis of the shaft, but more on that later.
The Slavs often occupied settlements that were first settled in the early Iron Age and later inhabited by the creators of the Dyakovo, Moshchin, Yukhnov and other cultures.
The peace of the Slavic settlements and villages was guarded by the boundless expanses of the Russian Plain, covered with forests, marshes and forest-steppes with herbs the height of a man, which are difficult to pass even in our time. Campaign in Russia in the V-IX centuries. was a valiant feat, sung by epics.
As experts say, in our time and in the reserves it is almost impossible to recreate and preserve the islands of the Russian Plain as it once was. Our planet is small, and the world that inhabits it is very interdependent. The slightest violation of the normal laws of development immediately has a detrimental effect everywhere on the planet. There are many examples of this, and they lie not only in the material, but also in the spiritual plane. But back to the Slavs.

Solid settlement of the Slavs in Eastern Europe

In the VI-VII centuries. Krivichi (Pskov) settled in the basin of the Velikaya River and on the shores of the Pskov and Peipsi lakes. On the site of the later Pskov, the Slavs erected ground log cabins, heated by stoves or hearths.
On the sides of the lands of the Krivichi (Pskov) lay the countries of the Balts and Chudi (Ests).
In the 7th century the lands lying in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, the Dnieper and the Volga were occupied by the Slavic union of the Krivichi. Without a doubt, elements of the Eastern Baltic population, who worshiped the god Krivi, were represented in the Krivichi massif. Old Russian chroniclers singled out the Krivichi as a special people. But the Slavic element dominated their world.
We remind the reader that back in the VIII-VII centuries. BC e. As a result of the invasion of the Scythians, part of the settled agricultural population (cleaved) of the Middle Dnieper forest-steppe was forced to retreat to the forests of the upper Dnieper. And it was in those times of the Early Iron Age that the beginning was laid for the mixing of the Proto-Baltic (left by the carriers of the Corded Ware culture at the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC) and the Proto-Slavic population of Europe.
A similar process took place at the turn of the eras, when the farmers, the creators of the Zarubinets culture, were pushed back by the Sarmatians to the upper Dnieper and Desna.
But be that as it may, by the VIII century. the Slavic beginning finally prevailed on the upper Dnieper and the lands of White Russia. Southern and central regions of Belarus in the 6th–8th centuries. were occupied by the Slavic union of the Dregovichi. It is believed that the name of the Dregovichi came from the dregva - a swamp. Huge swamps surround the Pripyat River. They are hidden by the forest sea of ​​Polissya. It should be mentioned that in Macedonia in the 7th century. settled Slavs, called Dregovichi. This is one of the few correspondences between the names of the Slavic unions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
If the Krivichi (Pskov) left long barrows, similar to the long barrows, poured by the Indo-Europeans of Britain and Poland in the III-II millennium BC. e., then Slovenian (Novgorod) in the 7th-10th centuries. dotted the shores of Lake Ilmen and the basins of the rivers Lovat, Volkhov, Meta with round mounds - hills and their own long mounds.

Old Russian circular ceramics from Eastern Belozerye and Ustyug region

1,2,3,4,5 - Morozovica I–II; 3 - Bolgarino; 6 - Karbotka III

In the 8th century Slavs from the Ilmen region and from Ladoga began to pave the way to the upper reaches of the Volga to White Lake.
Much later, in the 12th-14th centuries, thousands of stone crosses would adorn the Slovenian lands of Novgorod. But about everything in due time.
For a number of centuries that have passed from the 5th to the 8th centuries, the Slavs, united in clans and unions, in addition, divided into hundreds and thousands, constituting a ten thousandth people, were engaged in the development of those lands that in the 9th-13th centuries. appeared as an arena for the development of ancient Russian history. The axes of the Slavs bit into the centuries-old trunks of oaks, firs and pines. The fire cleared the fleas or navins. Harnesses of horses and bulls helped people uproot stumps not destroyed by fire. Garlands of riverside villages connected country roads cut through the thickness of the forest.
In the upper reaches of the rivers, villages with the names of portage and portage arose, usually standing opposite each other no more than five kilometers away. Narrow watersheds were cut by ditches, skillfully combined with natural lowlands. The path on the portage was covered with logs-skating rinks. On their surface, wiped out by the bottoms of boats and canoes, local residents dragged ships and luggage of merchants moving through Eastern Europe. Often a land road ran along the portage, and part of the cargo was transported by carts. Already in Christian times, the churches of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, the patroness of trade, often stood over portages. Previously, temples were located in those places.
A rare, somewhat noticeable river in the forest strip of the Russian Plain does not have at least one settlement with an Old Russian archaeological layer and several Old Russian settlements and barrow necropolises. Larger rivers, like the Klyazma, Ruza or Protva, take into their valleys a good dozen or more ancient Russian settlements, settlements and barrow necropolises. On the banks of such rivers (let's call them middle ones), several Slavic clans settled, each with its own center - a settlement and a sanctuary, and with a garland of villages surrounding them.
Later, in the 8th-11th centuries, one of the settlements of one or another river valley in central Russia began to rise in size and composition of the population above the surrounding villages and the entire volost. Such centers grew up most often in places of concentration of cargo flows. The most striking example of such a center is Kyiv, in the V-VIII centuries. former one of the centers of the land of glades. In the 9th-10th centuries, largely due to the collection of duties from merchants descending from the upper Dnieper, Pripyat and Desna, Kyiv, which stood on the high right bank of the Dnieper, opposite the mouth of the Desna and below the mouth of the Pripyat, turned into the capital of the Eastern European Slavic state, which absorbed the composition of a certain element of the Finno-Ugric and Eastern Baltic populations.
In the VIII-X centuries. in the basin of the upper and middle Oka, the Vyatichi union settled (leaving the Roman-Borshevsky culture). By the beginning of the IX century. Vyatichi advanced to the banks of the Don, to the mouth of the Voronezh River. The area had known location benefits. It lay on the land route from Bulgar (a city on the Volga at the mouth of the Kama River) to Kyiv and was the Slavic province of the center of the Russian Plain closest to Bulgaria and Khazaria.
On the banks of the rivers Don and Voronezh, the Vyatichi built a series of settlements, around the perimeter surrounded by walls of wooden log cabins, gorodens filled with earth, and settlements, and set about cultivating lands rich in black soil. Immediately unfolded metallurgical and pottery production. By the end of the X century. Pechenegs (Turkic nomads) forced the Vyatichi to leave the banks of the Don at the mouth of Voronezh with incessant raids.

Alexey Gudz-Markov

History of the Slavs

7.2. Czech

Talking about the history of the Czech Republic in the early Middle Ages, we will more than once resort to the Czech Chronicle, compiled in 1113 by Kozma, the dean of the Prague church. The Prague church, or Prague chapter, was founded simultaneously with the Prague bishopric in 973. The Chronicle of Cosmas of Prague is the oldest surviving collection of ancient Czech history, and its evidence cannot be overestimated. Kozma writes about the past of the Czech lands in this way: “In those days, the surface of this country was covered with large forests not inhabited by people; they were filled with the noise of bees swarming there, the singing of various birds. There were an infinite number of forests, like sand by the sea or stars in the sky; They stretched out, and the herds of animals scarcely had enough ground. Herds of horses could only be compared only with locusts galloping through the fields in summer. There was a lot of clear water suitable for human consumption, as well as fish, tasty and healthy for food. It was amazing how high This region is located. This can be easily seen, for not a single foreign river flows here, but all streams, small and large, originating in various mountains, are absorbed by one large river, called Laba, and flow from here into the North Sea.

The virginity of the Czech forests, the freshness of the river valleys and the purity of the waters were not a legend even in the time of Cosmas, although the ax and plow were already transforming the landscape with might and main, and the masons' hammers tirelessly decorated it with man-made monuments.

About the first settlement of the Czechs in the basin of the Vltava River (the left tributary of the Laba), Kozma writes: "People located their first settlements near Mount Rzhip, between two rivers, namely, between the Ohri and the Vltava; here they founded their first dwellings ..."

Mount Rzip has a height of 456 m. It rises above the left bank of the Laba, between the mouths of the Vltava and Ohře rivers, 30 km north of Prague.

To the east of the Laba riverbed in the valleys of the north-east of the Czech Republic in the early Middle Ages lived representatives of the Slavic Union of Croats. In the V-VI centuries. part of the Slavs who inhabited the valleys of the Carpathians moved to the west and south of the upper Laba. That was the heyday of the archaeological culture of Prague - Korczak. At that time, the Slavs went to the banks of the blue Danube.

The Laba Valley in the region of Mount Rzhip attracted the Slavs for a reason. The Slavs were attracted by the fertility of the soil, the abundance of water and the richness of forest trade lands. Kozma put the following words into the mouth of the Slavic elder: “This is exactly the country that, as I remember, I often promised you: not subject to anyone, full of animals and birds, honey and milk; the air, as you yourself will see, is pleasant for living . On all sides there is a lot of water, abounding in fish."

According to the legend cited by Cosmas, the Slavs named the country after their leader: "... and if your name is Czech, then let the country be called the Czech Republic." Thus was named Czech and the union of the Slavs who settled around Mount Rzhip in the 5th - 7th centuries. We do not know the oldest name of the union of the Slavs, from the depths of which the Czechs emerged. Most likely they were Croats, because it was the Croats who occupied the north-east of the Czech Republic in the era of chronicle writing. Although the Czechs could also come from the Serbs, who were sitting north of the Czech Republic, on the banks of the middle Laba.

Curious is the testimony of Kozma about the separation of the tribal nobility, later reborn as feudal lords: "... if only ... someone with better morals and more respected for his wealth turned out to be in the family, people voluntarily turned to that person without calling him, without a certificate with a seal and with complete freedom, they talked about their disputed deeds and about the insults that were inflicted on them.Among such people, a certain person, named Krok, stood out, his name is given to the city, now overgrown with trees and located in the forest, which is near the village Zbechno."

In the VIII - IX centuries. the leaders of the Slavic clans, like the prudent, good-natured and wealthy Krok, began to acquire their own squads, collecting tribute from the surrounding villages. And it is not so important whether the figure of Krok is real or invented by Kozma, what is important is the characteristic of the rudiments of stratification in the once fairly homogeneous, which had elected leaders, the society of the Slavs of ancient eras. Although hardly in ancient eras the Slavs were not divided into at least three layers - the aristocracy, spiritual apologists and ordinary community members. But still, the Slavs chose a leader from among the most worthy and could always replace him.

According to the chronicle, Croc had three daughters. The eldest was named Kazi. She skillfully healed people, knew the properties of herbs and was a soothsayer. Kazi was buried under the barrow. The mound was built "... on the banks of the Mzha River (modern river Beroun-ka) near the road that leads to the Bekhin region and runs along Osek Mountain."

The Bechyn region is located in the south of the Czech Republic. It is identified with the region occupied by the union of dudlebs (dulebs). They were the closest relatives of the dulebs in the 6th century, who lived in Volhynia. Perhaps part of the dulebs in the VI-VII centuries. fled from the oppression of the Avars from Volhynia to the Czech Republic under the protection of the state of Samo. The location of Mount Osek is not clear.

The second daughter of Krok was called Tetka. It was "a woman of fine taste, lived freely, without a husband." Tetka built a city on the banks of the river Mzha (R. Berounka) and named it after her own name Tetin. It is located near the modern city of Beroun. Tetin was placed on the top of a steep mountain and was reliably protected by nature. Kozma writes that Tetka taught the people to worship forest and water nymphs.

Here Kozma, who was a Christian, is annoyed: "Until now, many peasants worship pagans: one honors fire and water, another worships groves, trees and stones, and the third makes sacrifices to mountains and hills and asks for deaf and silent idols, which he himself created to protect him and his home."

The third daughter of Krok was called Libusha. She excelled her sisters in wisdom. Libusha had the gift of divination and after the death of her father was elected as a judge. Libusha founded the city of Libushin [near Smechna on Slanska). "A very powerful hail near the forest that stretches to the village of Zbechno."

Once, Lyubusha was offended by a farmer who said that “all women have long hair and a short mind. Better for men to die than to endure such a thing." The Czechs demanded a male prince. Libusha consulted with the sisters and, having convened a meeting, announced to the people from the high throne: "Over those mountains ... there is a small river Bilina, on the banks of which there is a village known as Stadice. And in it there is arable land 12 steps long and the same number of steps wide (an ancient Czech measure of land). Surprisingly, although this arable land is located among so many fields, nevertheless it does not belong to any field. On this arable land, on two motley oxen, your prince plows ... bring him to your princes, and to me as a wife. The name of this man is Přemysl, he will invent many laws that will fall on your heads and necks, for in Latin this name means "thinking in advance" or "thinking beyond". His descendants will rule this land forever."

The village of Stadice is located in the north of the Czech Republic, in the valley of the Bilina River (the left tributary of the Laba), near the town of Usti nad Laba. In the early Middle Ages, this area was inhabited by the Slavic union of Lemuzes. The Czech kings emphasized their respect for the tradition of Stadice and allocated allotments in the Bilina valley, which were considered the family property of the Přemyslids. On the banks of the Bilina they settled "grandfathers". These were farmers who had special privileges guaranteed by the kings.

But back to the chronicle of Cosmas. Libusha gave the horse to the ambassadors, who did not know the way, and said: "Why are you delaying? Go calmly, following my horse: he will lead you along the right road and lead you back, because he has already walked along it more than once."

Přemysl was tending oxen when the embassy approached Stadice. Having heard from those who came calling to the princes, Přemysl dined with the ambassadors and made the following statement: “... Know that many of our kind will be born masters, but only one will always rule. time the decree of fate and would not send for me so quickly, then your land would have as many masters as nature can create noble-born.

Then Přemysl dressed in princely clothes, mounted a horse and took with him on a campaign towards the crown bast shoes woven from bast. The late Czech chronicler Pulkava reports that Přemysl's bast shoes and bag were preserved by the church under King Charles, and every time at the coronation they were taken out by the clergy to be shown to the people. No wonder Kozma writes that bast shoes and bag "are stored in Vyshegrad in the royal chambers until now and forever."

Přemysl himself explained his order to keep the bast shoes and bag: "I ordered and order to keep them forever so that our descendants know where they come from, so that they always live in fear and alertness, and so that the people sent to them by God, they they were not oppressed, they were not treated unjustly because of arrogance, for we are all created equal by nature. In addition, Premysl said such wise words: "... it happens that earthly dignity, which once led to glory, when lost, leads to dishonor, and poverty, defeated by virtue, does not hide under a wolf's skin, but elevates the winner to stars, while before it carried him to the underworld.

The lifetime of Přemysl, Krok and his daughters is attributed to the second half of the 8th century. In the second half of the VIII century. Prince Ludevid rose to war with the Franks, sitting in the valley of the Sava River (a tributary of the middle Danube). Could not help but feel the danger coming from the banks of the Rhine, and the Slavic alliances, in the VIII century. sitting on the lands of the historical Czech Republic. On these lands, they could not but remember the state of Samo in the 7th century. In the second half of the VIII century. the Czechs really needed a courageous prince capable of defending the country.

Kozma reports on Libushi's prophecy about a great city on the Vltava River. The wise Libusha also said the name of the future city - Prague. In Czech, prah means threshold. From the same word came the name of the suburb of Warsaw - Prague, standing above the rapids on the Vistula. In the tenth century the Dnieper rapids were also called the same word.

The princely power of the Czech Union needed its own center, and such was the mistress of Prague and the beauty of the Czech Republic. The old centers of Slavic unions and clans did not meet the new requirements. The new government took on new forms.

In addition to Prague, Kozma points to the construction of the city of Devin. According to legend, this city was built by warlike virgins, who aspired to be in no way inferior to men. The young men, on a rock in a forest thicket, built their city of Vyshegrad, which at first was called Khrasten from the word thicket. He was no further than Devin's distance from him to hear the sound of the horn.

Přemysl was succeeded by Nezamysl. Mnat succeeded unintentionally. He was succeeded by Voen. After his death, Vnislav ruled the Czech Republic. Following him, Krzhesomysl reigned. He was succeeded by Neklan. Following him, Gostivit sat on the high throne.

All these princes ruled Bohemia in the 9th century. Kozma says about that era: "At that time there was no person who (could) keep their deeds in people's memory with the help of a letter."

The son of Prince Gostivit was Borzhivoy, the husband of Lyudmila, in the tenth century. who lived in the very city of Tetin, which in the VIII century. founded by Croc's daughter Tetka. The city is located 30 km southwest of Prague.

Here we are forced to plunge into the abyss of European politics, in the 9th century. which captured the Czech Republic in its maelstrom.

At the beginning of the ninth century Charlemagne laid an annual tribute on Bohemia, at that time already sufficiently united. The amount of tribute was determined by 500 hryvnias of silver and 120 bulls. From the very beginning, the Germans felt the well-known intractability of the Slavs of the Czech Republic. And in 805 - 806. Charlemagne sent troops to the Czech Republic. The Slavs met the troops in the highest degree inhospitable.

In 846, Ludwig the German, returning from a campaign in Moravia, where Rostislav was put in his place of Moimir, suffered a crushing military defeat in the Czech Republic. And then Germany, instead of a sword, launched a Latin cross. A year earlier, in 845, fourteen princes of the Czech, Luchansk and other West Slavic unions were baptized in the city of Regensburg near the borders of the Czech Republic. But this was not enough for the Christianization and Latinization of the Czech Republic.

After 846, the Czech Republic entered into a close alliance with Great Moravia, and in 890 Arnulf renounced his claims to the Czech Republic in favor of Svyatopolk of Great Moravia.

The alliance with Moravia had another important consequence for the Czech Republic. We remember that in 862 Prince Rostislav invited Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius to Moravia. And it was under the auspices of the first teachers from Thessalonica that Christianity was adopted in the Czech Republic.

Obviously, by 863, the Slavs of the center of Europe felt an urgent need for spiritual unification under the auspices of the 7th-9th centuries. in the Balkans of the Greek-Slavic Church. Byzantium served as a spiritual and cultural counterbalance to Rome, and consequently to Latin Germany.

Kozma of Prague placed in the chronicle an invaluable evidence of the organization of one of the West Slavic unions of the 9th century, called Luchansk.

Prince Neklan, the son of Krzhesomysl and the father of Gostivit, and, consequently, the grandfather of the baptized Borzhivoy, led a unifying policy. The center was the union of Czechs, whose lands are like the lands of the glades Poland and glades of Russia had certain advantages of location in the economic, commercial, and, consequently, political sense. Figuratively speaking, the union of Czechs, having found itself in the geographical center of the country, located in the upper reaches of the Laba and on the banks of the Vltava, voluntarily or involuntarily in the 9th century. began to develop into the center of the emerging Czech statehood. It is quite natural that the unions of other Slavic associations sought to preserve their independence. Let's turn to the chronicle: "This country (the country of the Luchians) is divided into five regions, covering many areas. The first region is located near a stream called Guntna (apparently, the Svine stream near the town of Zhatets), the second - on both sides of the Uzka River (R. Chomutovka); the third - extends in the vicinity of the Broknitsa stream; the fourth, which is called Silvana (si-lva lat.) - forest, vana (Skt.) - forest, is located below the Mzha River; the fifth, located in the middle, is called Luka; it is outwardly beautiful, suitable for habitation, quite fertile and very abundant in meadows. This area bears such a name, because "luca" in Latin means meadow. And since this area has been inhabited since ancient times, long before the foundation of the city of Žatec, the inhabitants of it rightly according to their region are called Luchians.

The lands of the five regions of the luchin almost completely coincide with the five most recent deaneries of the Czech bishopric of Třebenice. Reaper. Kadan, Žlushice and the ancient part of the Tepleti deanery. Kozma explains the name of the union of the Slavs, the Luchians, by the fact that their lands are rich in meadows. The name of the union of Czechs is explained by Kozma by the name of her husband, who led the Slavs to the mouth of the Vltava, under the mountain Rzhip. It is possible that Lutsk and Czechs came from the bowels of the same union of Croats. However, having occupied new lands, the Slavs separated themselves from the old associations, and the new name of the union became a symbol of independence, taken either by the name of the leader (Chech, Radim, Vyatko), or by the natural or geographical sign of the newly occupied region (Lucians, throughpi-nans, Dolenchans ). Often the Slavs in the lands new to them retained the most ancient name of the association (Croats, Serbs, Slovenes), but this happened on the condition of sufficient remoteness from the lands of the most ancient metropolises. The reason for this could be the geographical diversity of the lands of the western and southern Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. The power of the ancient Slavic unions did not extend so far, and the historical memory of the people, without the risk of losing independence, willingly preserved the ancient self-name.

At the head of the Luchians was Prince Vlastislav. He was cunning, brave and warlike and did not want to bow before the power of the same as himself, the prince of the neighboring union of Czechs.

Involuntarily, a parallel comes to mind: did not the Kievan chroniclers of the 11th century, who were very dependent on the grand ducal court, create it? The legend about the calling of the Varangians (that legend was born in the north of Russia, and was picked up in Kyiv), in order to distinguish the Kyiv princes from the circle of princes of the Slavic unions of the Drevlyans, Northerners, Vyatichi (Mal, Cherny, Khodot), etc.? After all, the center was already in the tenth century. to prove the validity of the claims of precisely the Kyiv princes to all-Russian domination. Vlastislav made frequent incursions into the lands of the Czechs. On the border of the Bilinsky and Litomerzhitsky regions, the prince founded the city of Vlastislav. The cities of Malin and Chernihiv involuntarily come to mind. Interesting is Kozma's testimony about the organization of a military action among the Luchians: "Vlastislav sent a sword to all parts of the country with such a princely command that everyone who exceeded the height of the sword should immediately go to war." Let us recall the military arrow sent out by the northern Germans of the early Middle Ages. Apparently, such a custom has very ancient Indo-European roots and its origins should be sought in very distant eras of the unity of the Indo-European peoples, customs and languages ​​of the 5th - 3rd millennium BC. The Lutsk and Czech armies met on the Turzko field. It is located south of the town of Kralup on the Vltava River, apparently at the border of the lands of the Luchians and Czechs. The Czech prince Neklan was afraid of battle and instead of himself sent Tyr, a noble warrior dressed in princely armor. The Czechs won the battle and entered the borders of Lutsk. The towns and villages of Lutsk were devastated by the Czechs, and near the modern city of Zatec, the Czech city of Dragush was erected. Its ruins have survived to this day. The city was built near the mentioned Cosmas, and therefore, existed no later than the 9th century. Postoloprty villages. In 1113, the walls of the monastery of St. Virgin Mary were erected in those places. Before Cosmas described the baptism of Prince Borzhivoi, which he received in 894 in Moravia, he inscribed these words: "And now I will sharpen a pen to tell about what was preserved in the righteous stories of faithful people." If the assumption is correct that the first author of the Old Russian chronicle was a person who worked at the turn of the 10th-11th centuries, that is, a century after 894, then Kozma's words could well have been written by him. So, according to Kozma Borzhivoy was baptized in 894 and became "the first prince of the holy Christian faith." The date indicated by Kozma may not be correct, because Methodius, who is believed to have been present at the baptism of Borzhivoy, died in 885. The Czech prince Borzhivoy, together with his wife Lyudmila, was baptized by Bishop Methodius at the court of Prince Svyatopolk of Moravia in the city of Velehrad. The father of Lyudmila was the ruler of the city of Pshov Slavibor. The city of Pshov is mentioned in the Life of St. Wenceslas. Upon his return to the Czech Republic, Bořivoj built the first Christian church in his state in Levi Hradec. This ancient city is now abandoned, and once it was located near Rostock on the Vltava. Thus, the military alliance of Bohemia and Moravia, which existed in the 9th century, hpopoc spiritual fruits. Great Moravia after the death of Svyatopolk (+894) was measured a little time. And the Czech Republic, which was baptized in the coming tenth century. began to come to the forefront in the world of the Western Slavs of the center of Europe.

After the death of Svyatopolk, the union of the Czech Republic and Moravia was broken by the sons of Borzhivoy, Spitignev and Vratislav. Following that, the Czech princes came to Regensburg, recognized the authority of Arnulf, pledged to pay tribute to Germany and subordinate the Czech church to the bishop of Regensburg. But despite this, the Greek, or Orthodox, rite existed in the Czech Republic for another two centuries. The spiritual fortress of Orthodoxy in the Czech Republic was the monastery, standing on the Sazava River, founded by St. Dig-eat. In 1097, the Orthodox monks were expelled from the monastery, and the monastery on Sazava was occupied by the monks of the Benedictine order, who came from the Brevnov Monastery.

About the sad fate of Great Moravia, Kozma wrote: "Part of the kingdom was captured by the Hungarians, part by the Eastern Teutons, part was completely devastated by the Poles."

About the death of Prince Svyatopolk, Kozma says that he "disappeared among his army and did not show up anywhere else." The prince appeared on the slope of Mount Zaber (north of Nitra), in the monastery of hermit monks. For some time Svyatopolk hid his name and only before his death revealed himself to those around him.

The old princess Ludmila, mother of Spitignev (+c. 916) and Vratislav (916-921), remained faithful to Greek Christianity to the end. At Ludmila's urging, her eldest grandson Vaclav was taught the Slavic script.

The Czech prince Vratislav had to fight the Ugrians. At the same time, the political winds in Europe changed direction, and Vratislav, taking advantage of the turmoil that broke out in Germany, stopped paying tribute to the empire, to which he himself had recently almost readily agreed.

The wife of Vratislav Dragomir was brought to the Czech Republic from the banks of the Gavola River, from the country of the Lutician Slavs, from the region of the Stodorians. From this marriage two sons were born - Vaclav and Boleslav.

In 921 - 935. The Czech Republic was ruled by Vaclav. The beginning of his reign was overshadowed by tragedy. The mother of Prince Dragomir ordered to kill the old princess Lyudmila, who was later proclaimed a saint. Dragomira was afraid of Ludmila's Old Testament influence on Wenceslas.

Wenceslas waged war with the freedom-loving prince of Zlichans Radislav, whose center was the city of Ljubica.

In 929 Henry I the Fowler became a military camp under the walls of wayward Prague. Wenceslas was reminded of the strength of Germany and forced the Czech Republic to pay tribute. This event was preceded by the campaigns of Henry I in the lands of the Polabian Slavs and the battle with the Czechs, which the latter lost.

Wenceslas was succeeded by his brother Boleslav I (935 - 967), who previously reigned in the Pshovan land. Those lands went to the Přemyslid dynasty by right of inheritance as the estate of the father of St. Lyudmila.

The new reign was stained with blood. Boleslav I invited his brother to the city of Old Boleslavl for a holiday. At night, during a feast, Wenceslas was killed. Cosmas writes that this happened on September 28, 929.

The chronicle reports that on the terrible night of the murder, a son was born to Boleslav I and his beautiful wife. They called him the strange name Strahkvas, which means a terrible feast. Boleslav I was so tormented by what he had done that he vowed to give his son to the service of God. When the boy grew up, he was sent to study in Regensburg under the care of Abbot Tuto (+942). pastor of the church of St. Emmeram (+ c. 549).

During his lifetime, Wenceslas built a church in Prague dedicated to St. Witt, Consecrated the church, already at the request of Boleslav 1, Bishop Michael of Regensburg (942 - 972). And on March 4, 932, the body of Wenceslas was transferred from Boleslavl to Prague.

In chapter 20 of the chronicle, Cosmas describes the events that took place in Europe in 933-966. In this era, the raids of the Hungarians continued, bringing monstrous destruction to the states of Europe and sowing death. In 933, the Hungarians invaded the lands of the Eastern Franks, Gaul, Italy, and then returned to the middle Danube.

In 934, Henry I defeated the Hungarians and captured many. But in 934 Henry I was paralyzed and died in 935. He was succeeded by his son Otto I. In 994, the Slavs of Carinthia (a province in the eastern Alps) crushed the Hungarians in a big battle.

For almost a decade and a half Boleslav I of Bohemia waged a fierce struggle against Otto I's Germany. Merseburg is a city on the border with the Polabian Slavs. Even Henry I settled robbers in Merseburg, who were called upon to oppress the Slavs in every possible way.

In 950 Bolesław I came out against Germany. The Czech Republic was defeated and forced to recognize a certain dependence on Germany. And in 955, a thousand Czech soldiers fought with the Hungarians on the Lech River as part of the forces of Germany. It was a general and victorious battle given by Germany to the Hungarians.

The policy of Boleslav I and his military victories over the Hungarians allowed the Czech Republic to annex to their lands the raided Moravia and the Slavic lands in the upper reaches of the Oder and Laba, which previously belonged to Poland.

The daughter of Boleslaw I Dubravka (+965) was married to the Polish prince Mieszko I. Dubravka played a significant role in Christianization Poland.

July 15, 967 Boleslav I of Czech, nicknamed the Cruel, died. His son Bolesław II (967 - 999), not without the help of Otto I, achieved the founding of the Prague bishopric, subordinate to the archbishop of Mainz.

Kozma writes that Boleslav II had a sister, Mlada. She went to Rome and was received by Pope John XIII (965 - 972). The pope was favorable to the Czech princess and, on the advice of the cardinals, ordained her as abbess. In baptism, Mlada was named Mary. In addition, the Czech was granted the charter of St. Benedict and the baton of the abbess. Mlada Maria received a high blessing for the introduction of a monastic Catholic order in the Czech Republic.

In Prague, to the court of Boleslav II, Mary brought a papal letter, the contents of which Kozma gives: “John, the servant of the servants of God, sends Boleslav, the champion of the Christian faith, his apostolic blessing. at the Church of the Martyrs of St. Vitus and St. Wenceslas, an episcopal see, and at the Church of the Holy Martyr Yuri, under the Order of St. Benedict and under the obedience of our daughter, Abbess Mary, the Congregation of Holy Virgins.

However, you choose for this work not a person who belongs to the rite or sect of the Bulgarian or Russian people, or the Slavic language, but, following the apostolic decrees and decisions (choose) better than the priest most pleasing to the whole church, especially knowledgeable in the Latin language, who could with a plow words to plow anew the hearts of the Gentiles, sow in them the wheat of good deeds, and give the fruits of the harvest of your faith to Christ. Be healthy".

So the Eastern, Greek, Christian rite, adopted by the Czech Republic around 894 from Great Moravia, changed to Latin by 973. The words of the pope that the pastor must be versed in Latin are not accidental. The Greek rite took root in the Czech Republic for a century. At the same time, Christian worship was conducted in the Slavic language. Prince Vratislav in 921 - 935 personally patronized the Orthodox monastery on Sazava. The struggle between Latin and Greek-Slavonic writing continued in Bohemia after 973 for more than a century. In the tenth century the Hungarians cut the world of the Slavs and the Western Slavs had practically no connection with the southern Slavs and with Byzantium. But Germany and Rome were close, and Latin began to overcome Cyrillic and Glagolitic.

The first bishop of Prague was the Saxon Dietmar (973 - 982), who was fluent in Slavic speech. Bishops Willigam of Mainz (975 - 1011) and Ernenbaldom of Strasbourg (965 - 991) consecrated Dietmar as bishops.

It is believed that in 974 the bishopric in Prague was founded, and in 975 Dietmar was consecrated. Boleslav II himself, according to Kozma, founded twenty churches and was a zealous Christian.

In 974, Bolesław II quarreled with Otto II shortly after the establishment of the episcopal see in Prague. In June 974, the Polish and Czech princes supported the speech of Henry of Bavaria against Otto II. The campaign of Otto II against Boleslav II, which took place in the autumn of 975, did not give results to Germany. And in the same year, the Czechs, in retaliation, devastated the possessions of the Algaikh Church.

In 976, Henry of Bavaria escaped from imprisonment in Ingelheim, where he ended up in 974. Henry returned to Bavaria. The capital of Bavaria, Regensburg, was besieged by the troops of Otto II in June 976. On July 21, Otto II entered Regensburg, while Henry fled to Bohemia.

In place of Henry in Regensburg, the Duke of Swabia Otto, the nephew of Otto Z., was planted. At the end of the leg of 976, the Bavarian army was poisoned in the Czech Republic. It was completely destroyed by the Czechs near Pilsen.

At the same time, an ally of Henry of Bavaria, the Saxon Count Dedi, who had gone to the head of the Czech detachment, robbed the city of Zeitz (Zhygice).

By August, Otto II retreated to the city of Jena, to the line of Magdeburg - Merseburg, walking along the Saale River. To the east of the Saale Otto II did not dare to stay for the winter.

In August 977, two armies moved against Bolesław II. From Saxony came Otto II. From Bavaria, his nephew Otto approached.

The “Altaikh annals” about the campaign of 977 in the Czech Republic report: “Emperor Otgon Jr., setting off with an army to the Czech Republic, burned and devastated most of that country. But the emperor himself lost a considerable part of the army as a result of insidious ambushes arranged by the local people. The army also suffered greatly from the epidemic of disinteria.

But the plans of Otto II were confused by internal unrest. Three Henrys spoke in Bavaria: Henry of Bavaria, Henry, Duke of Carinthia and Henry, Bishop of Augsburg. Those were the South German Wichmanns. Wichmann was a Saxon duke who fought the empire with the help of the Polabian Slavs.

Two Henrys captured the Lower Danubian city of Passau, and Bishop Henry tried to cut off Otto II from Swabia.

Bolesław II met with Otto II in early autumn and, pledging to renew the former relations with the empire, established peace between Germany and the Czech Republic.

Officially, Boleslav II and Otto II concluded peace on March 31, 978, at Easter, in Quedlinburg or in April in Magdeburg.

The position of Otto II was complicated by the fact that, in addition to the Czechs, Bavarians and Carantians, the Danes and Polabian Slavs opposed the empire. And with the Polish prince Mieszko I, Otto II had to fight until 978.

After the death of Dietmar, Vojtech (Adalbert) became the second bishop of Prague, former son Slavnik (+981), prince of the freedom-loving union of the Zlichan Slavs.

The Slavnikov clan in the 10th century acted as a rival of Prascha Přemyslov. Prince Slavnik sat in the city of Libica, at the confluence of the Cedlina with the Laba. Kozma gives a description of the lands of Slavnik: “The Principality of Slavnik had its borders: in the west, towards the Czech Republic, the Surinu stream and a castle located on Mount Osek near the Mzha River, in the south, towards Austria, the castles: Khynov, Dudleby, Netolice, up to to the middle of the forest, in the east, towards the Moravian kingdom, a castle located under the forest and called Lito-mysl; and further (up to the stream) Svitava, which is located in the middle of the forest, in the north, towards Poland, city of Kladsko, located near the river Nisa".

Khynov is a city located southeast of the city of Tabor. Dudleby - a city of dudlebs, located in the basin of the Malsha River [a tributary of the upper Vltava].

Netolice - border town of dulebs. Apparently, in the tenth century. dudlebs in southern Bohemia were subjugated by the princes of Zlichan. And about the prince of Zlichan, Kozma writes: "This prince Slavnik was happy throughout his life." Otgon II did not object to the candidacy of Vojtech, for he was of a different kind than the Přemyslids and could have personal scores with the ruling house of the Czech Republic. Vojtech was brought up by the Germans. No wonder Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg (968-981) granted Voitekh his own name.

The proclamation of the new bishop was announced immediately after the death of Dietmar in Lev Hradec in 982. In 983, the new appointment was approved by Otto II at the Diet in Verona. Vojtech-Adelbert was ordained by Bishop Willig of Mainz.

In the same year 983 Otgon II died. Otto III (983 - 1002) became the head of the empire. The new emperor was very friendly with Voitekh-Adalbert and honored him by instructing him to put a crown on his head. Otgon III presented Voitekh with a vestment, later kept in Prague and called the vestment of St. Adalbert.

Vojtech earned a special favor of the emperor. Let us turn to the testimony of the Pannonian Life of St. Cyril: "Then, much past summer, Voitekh came to Morava and to the Czechs, and to Lakhs, destroyed the right faith and rejected the Russian literacy, and put the Latin faith and literacy."

Kozma writes about Vojtech: "... got Hungary in the net of faith and Poland... sowed the word of God in Prussia".

In 993, the Břevnov Monastery was founded near Prague. In the preface to the second book of his chronicle, Cosmas of Prague turned to the abbot of this monastery, Clement (+1,127).

Kozma reports that before Vojtech left for Rome, otherwise it was his second trip to the Holy See and it took place at the turn of 994 - 995, Strahkvas came from Regensburg to the Czech Republic. It was the son of Boleslav I and the brother of Boleslav II. Vojtěch had a meeting with Strahkvas, and the bishop bitterly told the monk about the debauchery, disobedience, and carelessness that reigned in the Czech Republic. Vojtech said that Strahkvas belongs to the ruling family and only he can curb the passions of the flock. Vojtech handed over the episcopal staff to Strahkvas, the latter refused such an honor.

Kozma spoke about the terrible fate that befell Voitekh's hometown - Libice. Death befell the city the same hour that Vojtech-Adalbert left for Rome.

Boleslav II did not get along with the princes of Zlichan, the brothers of Vojtech, for a long time. And the Zlichansky princes were looking for support in Poland Boleslav I the Brave, then in Germany.

The laws of history are sometimes very cruel. The Czechs took Libica and destroyed it. The brothers Voiteha Sobebor, Spitimir, Dobroslav, Por-zhey, Chaslav died in the city. The lands of the Zlicians, located to the east and south of Prague, were annexed to the Czech state. Thus, an end was put in the unification of the Slavic lands in the upper reaches of the Laba under the auspices of the Czechs. Kozma calls the year of the fall of Libica 995. After the departure of Vojtech-Adalbert to Italy, he was not again admitted to the episcopal see of Prague. Strahkvas came to the fore. The candidate for bishops went to Maina, and then, during the consecration to the dignity, a strange death befell him: standing among two bishops, to the singing of the choir, Strahkvas fell on his face and died. Recall that Strahkvas was Přemysl, the brother of the reigning Bolesław II. It is unlikely that such a bishop could satisfy the imperial house of Germany. The event described happened in 996.

As for Vojtech-Adalbert, he never got along with the secular authorities of the Czech Republic. Vojtech was martyred in the land of the Prussians who opposed baptism in 997.

The Prague episcopal see was again occupied in the same year 997. Bolesław II sent envoys to Otto III with a request to send a shepherd. The new bishop was a Saxon who owned Slavic, chaplain Tegdag.

Soon the Bishop of Mainin consecrated Tegdag to the dignity, and this time everything turned out well. Bolesław II could only favorably meet the newly arrived Bishop of Tegdag (998-1017).

Wife of Boleslav II Kozma calls Gemma. She gave birth to the prince's sons Wenceslas and Boleslav III. Wenceslas died in childhood, and the second son succeeded the prince.

Of interest are the dying parting words cited by Kozma, spoken by Boleslav II to his son. Among other things, the prince said: “Charles (the Great), the wisest and most powerful king, ... deciding to elevate his son to the throne after himself ... took a terrible oath from him: not to spoil the weight and dignity of the coin, not to allow fraud in it. Indeed, no disaster, neither plague, nor general mortality, nor the devastation of the country, due to robberies and fires committed by the enemy, do more harm to God's people than the frequent change and insidious damage to the coin. into poverty and debilitate and destroy the Christian people, which can still cause such harm as damage to coins by the prince.Following the weakening of justice and the intensification of injustice, it is not the princes who take power, but the criminals, not the rulers of God's people, but dashing extortionists, the most greedy and evil people who are not afraid of the almighty God: changing the coin three and four times a year, they themselves, for the destruction of God's people, find themselves in the devil's nets.

With such unworthy tricks, such disregard for the laws, these people narrow the boundaries of the principality, which I, by the grace of God and thanks to the power of the people, have expanded ... "

Truly, Boleslav II was a wise ruler and his words hardly lose their relevance with the course of centuries.

Meanwhile, Christianity was adopted from the Czech Republic Poland. The first archbishop of Gniezno was the brother of Vojtech-Adalbert, and consequently, the son of the Prince of Zlichians Slavnik Radim-Gaudentsy (999-1006).

Boleslav II moved the borders of the Czech state to the upper reaches of the Vistula, to the region of Krakow. His son and successor Bolesław III (999 - 1003, +1037) was out of luck. Troubles and strife began in the Czech Republic. The neighbors of the Czech Republic did not fail to take advantage of this, and first of all, the strengthened, rapidly uniting Poland.

Boleslav III had two sons - Oldrich (1012-1033, 1034) and Jaromir (1003, 1004-1012, 1033-1034, +1035). Jaromir -was brought up in the Czech Republic. Oldrich was sent to Germany, to the court of Heinrich, Duke of Bavaria. In 1002, Henry became king, and in 1014, emperor. According to Kozma, they sent Oldrich to Germany "to get to know the temper, deceit and language of the Germans."

And this is what happened to Boleslav III. He came to meet with Boleslav I the Brave, Prince Poland, in Krakow. Bolesław III was captured and blinded by the Poles.

When the news of the incident reached the Czech Republic, the nobility almost dealt with the heir to the Prague ruling house, Oldrich. Only the intercession of one of the servants, whose name was Govor, who brought guards to the hunting place in time, saved Oldrich from death. The speaker was granted the princely estate of Zbechno, located near the village of Krzhivoklad.

In connection with the story with Oldřich, Kozma mentions the Vršov family, who had previously won the sacked city of Libice. Apparently, the Czech nobility, by the beginning of the XI century. having received land grants from the Prague princes, she felt a taste of power and in many ways took the place of the largely destroyed princes of individual Slavic unions. At the beginning of the 11th century the northern neighbor actively intervened in the fate of the Czech Republic - Poland. We will use this and turn to ancient history