THE MIGRATIONS OF PEOPLES ACROSS RUSSIA

All peoples invading Europe have crossed Russia

все народы захватающие Европу переходили через Россию
Tutti i popoli invasori dell' Europa attraversarono la Russia

Tous les peuples qui envahirent la Russie passèrent à travers la Russie.
Alle Voelker, die auf Europa stuertzten, zogen durch Russland

A)THE FIRST PHASE OF THE "MIGRATION OF PEOPLES"

A period during which today’s Russia exerted a similar “matrix” role in the formation of several European ethnicities was the long period of the “Migrations of Peoples”, which can be situated between 200 B.C., with the settlement of Franks into present-day Belgium, and 1250 A.D., with the conquest, by the Ottomans, of the Aegean coasts.

During this period, present-days’ Russia, Ukraine and Belarus’ were similar to a sort of corridor, where all main migrating peoples run from East to the West, so arriving in Europe.

1. Goths

Goths are reported, by their historian Jordanes, to come from Goetaland, in Sweden. They crossed the Baltic Sea, and landed near to the Vistula River, between Danzig and Kaliningrad.

Afterwards, they migrated southwards and settled in their territories among the Danube, the Bug and the Dniepr, before invading the Danube Valley. Other authors, like Wolf, insist on their presence in the Sarmatic area. In this area, the Gothic bishop Wulfila translated the Bible into Gothic, which constitutes the first version of the Bible into a Germanic language.

Until the XVI Century, a Gothic-speaking minority lived in Crimea. According to some people, their language would have influenced the formation of the Yiddish language.

                  

2.     Huns

The first large migration was the one of Attila’s Huns, which are usually identified with the Central Asiatic people called by Chinese Xiung-Nu, which, after having imposed their rule for a long period (during the Han and Jin Dynasties) over a part of China, were expelled from there, and , it seems, migrated into Europe, building a huge confederation of peoples, stretching from Caucasus to the Rhine River, able to challenge the Roman Empire itself. The debate about the Xiung-Nu/Huns connection has lasted a long time. The latest researches based on Sogdian and Sanskrit sources seem to confirm the link.In any case, all the Peoples of the Steppes were multicultural federations of tribes, whose the denominations may have covered, along the time, severar realities. 

       The battle of Campi Catalaunici between Attila and his European allies, from one side, and the Romans and some Germanic allies, from the other side, is symbolized in the Nordic Middle-Ages eposes,like  Whaltharius, “Nibelungenlied”, Volsungasaga and “Didrekssaga”. Each of the greater “migrant peoples” created, during that period, around itself a circle of allies. For instance, according to the Waltharius and to the Nibelungenlied, Suebians and Burgunds were allied of Attila, but they turned to be his foes because of clanic feuds.

According to some authors, Volga Tatars, Bulgarians Hungarians and Turks bear some connections with Huns.In fact, ancient Xiung-Nu “runes” are similar to the “Old Turkic runes” of the Blue Turks on Mount Orhon in Mongolia.

3.     Avars

Another Eastern people which followed the path of the Huns was the one of the Avars. This nomadic people, living, like Huns,  in typically Central-Asian yurtas, has been usually identified with the Rouran,Juan Juan or Hua, a warlike people which had formerly lived in Mongolia and Xinjang, and which, after having dominated the region for a while, was expelled by the Chinese, and migrated into Pannonia (present-days Hungary.

The connection between Rouran, Juan-Juan and Hua, from one part, and Avars, from the others, is disputed because of difficulties to reconstruct the pronounciation of ancient Chinese. 

Avars settled in the Danube basin, and provoked the migration of Slavic peoples.

B)THE SECOND WAVE OF THE MIGRATION OF PEOPLES

The first wave of “Peoples Migrations”, the one axed on the Germanic Peoples, ended with the stabilization of these peoples and the creation of the Holy Roman Empire.The latter was intended in the sense that the heritage of the Christian Empire, which, following to Constantine’s conversion and Theodosius’ Edict, had become the Roman Empire, was no more recognized to Byzance by the Franks and by the Pope, but, on the contrary, was claimed for the benefits of Franks and of Rome. This led, with the time, to the working out, both by Byzance, and by the German Emperors, of a theory, whereby the “Translatio Imperii”, originally conceived as the transition of the Christian heritage from the ancient Eastern Empires to the Roman Empire, had to be extended, so to include, according to the “Greeks”, the “Byzantines” Empire (which continued to be called “Romaiké Autokratorìa”), and, according to the “Franks”, the Holy Roman Empire.

The definition of the Eastern Church as “Orthodox” was created precisely for stressing the authenticity of the Eastern “Translatio”, whilst the definition as “Catholic” meant that the Western Church was the only one authentic one.

With the end of the Byzantine Empire and the conquest, by the Turks, of Byzance, things became still more complicated, so that we had, now, several claimants to the Roman Empire: the Pope, the Byzantine Empire, and, later on, also the Bulgarian and the Russian Empires. Moreover, the Ottoman Emperor, being the Chief of Islam and the King of Constantinople, claimed to be the protection of Christendom.By the way, the flag of Turkey is an ancient flag of the Bizantine Constantinoupolis.Finally, even the King of  France  pretended to be the true heir of Charlemagne, and, hence, the true “Sacred Roman Emperor”.

This plurality of lineages in Europe’s political and religious continuity constitutes, according to us, one of the most characteristic features of European history, which may not be overseen in considering European cultural history, as well as its practical consequences for today.

1.Ancient Slavs

The migration of the Avars was also an occasion, for Slavs, to migrate, from the Danube-Dniepr region, to Central Europe (Abodrites, Sorabes, Vends and Lusatians into Eastern Germany; Polane, Vislane, White Croatians into Poland; Moravians into Czechoslovakia; Slovaks into Pannonia); into the Balkans (Slovenians to the Alps and Serbs to Moesia), and, it seems, even into Eastern Europe (Rus’).

According to the traditional learning, both Slavs and Balts descended from Scythians, and, in particular, from that tribe of Scythians, the “Anti”, which were devoted to agriculture, and, therefore, were called also “Scythians Farmers”. According to the Gothic historian Jordanes, the Anti were overcome and merciless repressed by the Goths.

Slavs are mentioned for the first time in the 5^th Century East of the Carpaths, and arrive at the borders of the Bizantine Empire in the 6^th.

Russians, together with Belarusians and Ukrainians, are considered as Eastern  Slavs. However, all scholars  recognize that the original Rus’ included, since the beginning, the Norse “Ross”, Slavic tribes (in first instance, the Poliani), Ugro-Finns and Turkish-Tatar peoples, all of them being merged into the Slavic culture of Rus’. The latter constituting, in its own turn, the common root of all Eastern Slavs.

2.     Khazars

Another people which may be probably considered as being a successor of Scythians are the Khazars, a Turkish-speaking people which, always in the 7^th Century, founded a large empire, stretching from the Danube to the Urals, from Muscovy to Caucasus. This people is known for having converted to the Jewish faith, and having hosted, within its territories, several other peoples, like Don Bulgarians, Magyars, Tatars, Cumans and Pechenegs. During the Middle Ages, Sefardic Jew writers belongings to the Muslim Emirate of Al-Andalūs (Spain) entertained relationships with Khazar Great Kaghans (Emperors), a name of presumed Jewish origin, and, in particular, “Kitab ul-Kuzarī” of Jehuda ha-Levi describes the conversion of the Kaghan as a paradigm of Jewish conversion (“teshuvà”). Also Arabic writers, such as al-Fadlān, described the Khazar Empire with admiration. By the way, the title of “Great Prince” (Veliki Kniaz, Wielki Kniaz), common to ancient Russia and Lithuania, seems to be originated, from one side, from the one of the Khazar “Great Kaghan”, and, from the other, from the Scandinavian “Konung” (“King”).

The German Jew writer Köstler raised a profound disconcert in Jewish culture claiming that the Askhenazi Jews are not of Semitic, but of Khazar descent. Still now, the tenants of the Khazar origin of the Askhenazim, like, for instance, Shlomo Sand, go on generating a sense of scandal in Israel, because they are  questioning the ethnical homogeneity of the Jewish people.

Also in Soviet Russia the memory of Khazars was considered as disturbing, since it was suspected to become a pretext, for Soviet Jews, for claiming that the fledging Jewish Socialist  Republic could be located not in the Far East (Birobidjian), but, on the contrary, between Crimea and the Don Basin.

3.Karaites

Finally, another Turkish-Jewish people, the Karaites, speaking a Turkish language similar to the one of Crimea Tatars, lived between Crimea and Lithuania, and become later the bodyguard of the Great Prince of Lithuania, settling around the Royal Castle of Trakai, where they are living still now.

4.     Bulgarians

Also Bulgarians , a Turkish-speaking people worshipping Tengri, the God of the Turks and of the Mongols, originated from Asian steppes. They are supposed to be allied of the Huns, and having migrated to present-day Tatarstan, where the city of Kazan’ was originally called “Bolgar”. Bolgar was a very flourishing city already in very ancient times. Later on, it become the first muslim territory in Europe in early 10^th Century. Ibn Fadlān was sent to Bolgar for bringing qadis an to help building a fortress and a mosque. He describes the richness of Bolgar. It constituted, for a certain time, a part of the Khazar Empire, and, later on, it became one of the centers of the Mongol Empires.. By the way, also Mordostan claims to have been a cradle of Bulgarians. In a later stage, Bulgars ravaged the Byzantine empire, up to the moment in which they were allowed, in late 7^th Century, by the Basileus, to settle in Dobrudja (in present-days Romania and Bulgaria) where they built up their capital city in Pliška, and later on in Preslav(893-972), Ohrid(891-997-1051) and Veliko Tarnovo(1185-1396). According to Byzantine theology, Byzance was also the successor of Rome, the head of Christendom, and, as such, could also create new Christian Churches among barbarians.  So, Bulgarians were converted to Christianism in 864 CE. At the same time, they created, around itself, in present-days Bulgaria, a federation of Slavic peoples, of which Bulgarians took over the language.

When the Byzantine Basileus felt the need to diffuse, among Slavic peoples, the Christian faith, he decided to entrust, with this challenging task, two Slavic brothers and intellectuals, Kyrillos and Methodios, originating from Solun, present-days Thessaloniki, which, in those days, was inhabited by Southern Slavic populations similar to Bulgarians. The two brothers, before leaving for their pastoral mission, started to translate the Bible, from Greek, into a Slavonic language created by them, which was called “Old Slavonic” or “Church Slavonic”, or, even “Old Bulgarian”, utilizing, first of all, a new alphabet, called “Glagolica”, and which, later on, was transformed and re-baptized “Kirillica”in Bulgaria.

The diffusion of Christendom in its oriental version by means of the Church Slavonic was contrasted, in Greater Moravia, by the Latin and German-speaking clergy influenced by the Holy Roman Empire. So, the clergymen educated by Kirill and Methodius, according to the Eastern Ryths, in Church Slavonic language were obliged to flee into Bulgaria, which, thus, became a stronghold of East European Christendom and riths. Before the end of the X^th Century, the Basileus of Byzance decided to overcome the competition which was exerted, at those times, in the Balcanic area, by the Bulgarian Empire. The Basileus, which was renamed Bulgaròktonos “the Killer of the Bulgarians”, conquered the land, and imposed his Greek clergy.

However, when, in 1185, Byzance was weakened (and, later,  conquered by the Crusaders, who created in Constantinople their “Latin Empire”), the ruling clan of the Assenoviči insurged in Northern Bulgaria, created a New Bulgarian Empire and proclaimed themselves the “Kaisars”, or “Zar”, that means the heirs of the Roman and Byzantine Empire. For this reason, Veliko Tărnovo, the capital city of the Bulgarian Empire, was proclaimed “Third Rome” (after Rome itself and Constantinople), that means the true heir of all large empires of Antiquity, as well as the leader of Christendom. When, at its turn, Bulgaria fell under the attacks of the Turks, Bulgarian monks migrated to Russia, and urged the prince (“Kniaz”) of Moscow, to proclaim himself “Czar”.The designation of the new Bulgarian capital city, Veliko Tărnovo, as the New Constantinople (and thus the “Third Rome”) was the reply and act of resistance of tsar Ivan Alexander’s ideologists to the attempts of some critics at Constantinople to discredit the autocephalores statute of the Bulgarian Church in the 1350s and 1360s. Patriarch Kaliste headed the campaign. We have Kaliste’s letter of 1361 to the monks of the Tărnovo community, his life, written a little letter in dedication by his pupil, Theodosius of Tărnovo, as well as other Byzantine sources of the 1360s.

The doctrine of Tărnovo-New Constantinople (“The Third Rome”) became a programme for tsar Ivan Alexander’s struggle to defend the independence of Bulgarian Church and the international prestige of Tărnovo as a seat of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Historical records show that Emperor Ioannes V Paleologus of Byzance in the face of the Ottoman threat asked the west for assistance. This means that Constantinople was planning to enter into alliance with Rome, what created an opportunity for Tărnovo to assume the functions of the “Third Rome” in view of its superior loyalty to Eastern Orthodoxy.

When Byzance was conquered by the Turks, Ivan III of Moscow married Zoe Paleologos, daughter of the last Byzantine emperor, and grown up to Italy, later baptized as “Sofia”. At the same time, the Bulgarian clergy emigrating to Russia, as well as Russian clergy worked out the theory of Moscow as the true “Third Rome”.

The history of this part of the “Translatio” is very complex and controversial. For instance, the metropolite of Monemvasia, who signed the charter of the Moscow Patriarchate, containing the idea of a Third Rome, pretended to ignore its content, because the document was written in Russian.

Moscow so became “Tretij Rim”, “the Third Rome”, in lieu of the conquered Constantinople and of Veliko Tărnovo. Even Russia was re-baptize “Romejskoe Carstzo” (Roman Empire) Ivan the Terrible rounded for his pretension to be the “Roman” emperor on the apostolate of St. Amir in Russia.

In any case, the creation of new Orthodox Churches, like the ones of Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, created a whole “world” which, albeit divided by the pretention of the “Translatio Imperii”, shared a common view of religion (orthodox) and history (“Roman”). The Turkish Empire recognized this reality, and baptized its Christian inhabitants as “Rūm Millet” (the “Roman Nation”).