The Rus! - The Story of Russian Beginnings

[Verbose]

A few words about Rurik and his brother Sineus and Truvor. Some historians supposed there was Scandinavian konung Rurik (from Utland or Sweden or Baltic Coast), but there were no Sineus and Truvor. Realy one ancient historian translated from Scandinavian to Russian "Rurik sine hus thru voring (or woring, waring)" as "Rurik Sineus Truvor". But this phrase must be translated as "Rurik with his family and warriors". May be some Sweden, Danish or Norwegian could answer this question: is "Rurik sine hus thru woring" means "Rurik with his family and warriors"?

To the best of my knowledge there is no Scandinavian record of Rurik or anybody else setting up shop in present Russia. (There are no records from this period at all for the most part.) The story comes from medieval slav-language sources.

Consequently, where is the Scandinavian looking "Rurik sine hus thru woring" coming from?

"sine"=sin/his
"hus thru"=hustru/wife
But both of these look like variation spellings of modern Scandinavian (Swedish more specifically).

"woring" doesnt look Scandinavian at all, more like English. "War" is of latin derivation. The Germanics use "Krieg/krig", or elderly "gun" perhaps, but there are Scandinavian language experts much more knowledgeable than me around who might be able to clarify this.

 

[Commy]

Well, thanks.

 

[himasaram]

There's a pretty good article on Rurik in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik

Here's my interpretation of your sentance as a native speaker of Swedish.

"sine" is most certainly modern Swedish "sin"; "ones" or "his" in English.
"hus" is the same as mod.Swe. "hus"; "house"
"thru" may be mod.Swe. "trygg"; "safe" or rather "trustworthy" in an older meaning
For "voring" and it's variants, I have no good explanation. It do look like a variant of modern English "warrior" which has a Romance root. Could eastern Viking have been using Romance derived words at this time?

If so, the sentance can be translated as: "Rurik, his house (family) and trustworthy warriors"

 

[Combat Ingrid]

"Voring" is probably an older version of "beväring" (draftee).

 

[Rambuchan]

I know relatively little about the history of Russia. I shall print and and hopefully .

EDIT - post Well that was an interesting read, thank you. I have come across much of what you have written (did you write this?) in accounts of Constantinople / Byzantium. Other than that much of it was news to me. Thanks again.

 

[das]

starting the dynasty the ruled Kievan Russ until the 1200s.

No, technically a branch of that dynasty ruled well into 16th century until the Time of Troubles. Admittedly, if we go into all the dynastic connections then the Romanovs were also a branch of Rurikoviches, but that's beside the point.

No objections on other points.

Amirsan, not sure if he ever got translated to English, but IMHO the best source of Medieval Russian history (and not only medieval, but anyhow) is Karamzin.

 

[Damnyankee]

I always wanted to know the history of Russia, not many history books have it...

The History Channel had a great program on Russian history, mainly about the Czars, called Russia:Land of the Czars. It's on DVD so you should be able to pick it up if you want. Bookwise, I really haven't seen many good books on Russian history.

 

[Gelion]

Ukraine and Byelorussia came about after parts of Kievan Rus were occupied by Poles and Lithuanians. Foreign influences together with feodal divisions in Rus' caused the nation to become more split thus creating Russians (independant and Mongol Influences), Ukranians and Byelorussians (polish and Lithuanian influences) not to mention other Eastern Slavs who are no more. Thats the short version of who many Eastern Slavic nations came about.

 

[Suomi]

OK Xen, did you get your paid tribute thing from Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empre? And I dont think that the Rus began Russia. There were many different Slavic, Finnish, and Mongol tribes that settled from Volvograd to Kem that sarted some sort of brotherhood band of chiefdoms.

 

[six]

I took a general Russian history course last year. It was pretty decent. For anyone interested in Russian literature I highly recommend Zamyatin's Heart of a Dog.

 

[Gelion]

Or "We" by the same author for that matter

 

[Commy]

No, don't hear Gellion "We" is very hard-reading novel-antiutopia

 

[sydhe]

I found We considerably easier going than 1984 or Brave New World.

 

[Gelion]

Still its a nice novel to read that actualy preceded 1984. Just chekcing if you know it actually

 

[The Mad Swede]

There's a pretty good article on Rurik in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik

Here's my interpretation of your sentance as a native speaker of Swedish.

"sine" is most certainly modern Swedish "sin"; "ones" or "his" in English.
"hus" is the same as mod.Swe. "hus"; "house"
"thru" may be mod.Swe. "trygg"; "safe" or rather "trustworthy" in an older meaning
For "voring" and it's variants, I have no good explanation. It do look like a variant of modern English "warrior" which has a Romance root. Could eastern Viking have been using Romance derived words at this time?

If so, the sentance can be translated as: "Rurik, his house (family) and trustworthy warriors"

I found this:

The word "väring" means approximately oathsworn and was a name for scandinavians during the viking age. It was used mainly in the Bysantine empire and was the Varangian guard, used as mercenaries or bodyguards. Many of these were scandinavians and later slavs or englishmen. So it may mean trustworthy warriors, I suppose, but not from a roman root.

 

[amaterasu]

There are literally thousands of books on Russian history. A good book to start with is Russia and the Russians by Geoffrey Hoskings. It provides a good overview starting from the earliest times all the way through the downfall of Communism.

IVE READ THAT BOOK

great book, neutral stand point, lots of sources used, clear and easy to read with a good narrative.

Russian history is very interesting, but recently ive become more interested in the dynamics of the USSR.

 

[warpus]

he unified state of Rus, which had grown to encompass most of present day Russia, Byelorus and Ukraine

Really? This must be a mistake. Rus didn't extend far into Asia, did it? Did it at all?

 

[Gelion]

You expect a responce 2 yrs later? Do you?

 

[warpus]

Hey, it wasn't me who bumped the thread

 

[Maimonides]

Old thread, but a very interesting subject.

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Cyrus. Russian history began with him because he invented the written form of Russian.

Cyrus was an Orthodox monk traveling through Russia as a missionary. Rather than teaching the locals Latin or Greek to read the Bible, he decided to invent written Russian, which was only a spoken language until then, & translate the Bible into Russian. He used the Greek alphabet as a basis which is why Russian & Greek look alike & why the Russian alphabet is called, Cyrillic.