Eastern Vikings Conference Results

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

The Legends of the Eastern Vikings Sigfús Blöndal memorial conference was held at Laugarvatn on the 21st to 22nd of October. Sigfús Blöndal wrote one of the defining accounts of the Vikings in the east over 50 years ago, but a lot has happened in the field since and at Laugarvatn some of the world’s leading scholars in the field presented their findings. Happily, the papers will be published in a book that should be out next year.

Meanwhile, Sverrir Jakobsson’s The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire presents an updated account of recent scholarship. And while we wait for the book, here is a radio interview with Þórir Jónsson Hraundal about the conference.

Samfélagið – Flatnefja gæludýr, meðafli og væringjar | RÚV Útvarp (ruv.is)

Who Did the Rus Fear More than the Mongols?

Posted on September 3, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Ryazan was one of the easternmost principalities of the Old Rus and hence one of the first to feel the Mongol fury. After resisting for about a week in 1237, the city was raised to the ground and apparently not a single inhabitant was left standing.

It perhaps comes as little surprise that some elected to bury their valuable possessions before the Mongols came. Russian archaeologists have unearthed a treasure including hryvna pendants, which could be used as both jewelry and currency, and from which the current Ukrainian currency derives its name.

What is more surprising is that the treasure seems to have been buried 100 years before the Mongol attack. So what were the inhabitants of Ryazan afraid of? Perhaps further research will shed further light.

Medieval Russians hid silver hoard before Mongol invasion | Live Science

old ryazan buried treasure

New Podcast Available! Who Were the Rus?

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Who were the Rus? Host Valur Gunnarsson speaks with Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson, one of the worlds’ leading authorities, about all things Rus. Where did they come from, and how did they impact the Middle Ages as well as the world we know today? (In English)

Part 2 of the Legends of the Eastern Vikings Podcast.

Spotify – Legends of the Eastern Vikings: Who were the Varangians and the Rus, with Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson – Legends of the Eastern Vikings | Podcast on Spotify

(see also the Podcast Page for Part 1)

Were the First Norwegian Kings Copying the Rus and the Romans?

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

One of the more preposterous plot points in “The Vikings” TV show is when the Rus invade Norway. This would have been geographically impossible without cutting through present-day Finland and Sweden first, quite apart from the fact that the Rus and the Scandinavians were generally on good terms.

It is fairly well established that the Scandinavians played a part in the founding of the Rus state, which leads back to modern day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. But what about vice-versa? In his book The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire, Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson points out that both St. Olaf and Harald Hardrada, two of the kings most fundamental to the creation of the Norwegian state, had been in exile in the Rus for long periods of time. Harald even went further and served in the Varangian Guard of the Roman Emperor.

The Rus at the time had so many towns that the Scandinavians called it “Garðaríki,” sometimes translated as “the kingdom of cities” or “the realm of towns.” And the court of the East Roman Emperor in Constantinople was the greatest in all of Christendom. Were the Norwegian kings inspired by the Rus and the Byzantines when they set about creating a state in Norway? These and many other Rus-related questions will be answered in an upcoming podcast with Sverrir Jakobsson on this very page.

Harald Hardrada window in Kirkwall Cathedral | Colin Smith / Harald Hardrada / CC BY-SA 2.0

Ukrainians March to Commemorate St. Volodymyr

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

This week, Ukrainians celebrated 1033 years since the adoption of Christianity. According to tradition, this took place in the summer of 988. Prince Volodymyr (or Vladimir or Valdimar), soon to become a saint, decided he needed organised religion to hold his vast realm together. To this end, he summoned emissaries representing the major monotheisms to his court. The great prince found Judaism to be too complicated while Islam banned alcohol which was an obvious no-no. This left the two major strains of Christianity at the time, the Catholic and the Orthodox.

Volodymyr went with Orthodoxy, no doubt the promise of marriage to a Byzantine princess having sweetened the deal. Had he opted otherwise, the history of not just Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, but perhaps also of Europe as a whole, might have been very different. However, Orthodoxy was probably always the front-runner, despite this rather amusing story. The Byzantine Emperor was still the regional great power and Volodymyr’s grandmother Olga had converted, although this did not extend to her subjects.

The day has been an official holiday in Ukraine since 2008. However, it can still be cause for contention. 34 percent of Ukrainians see themselves as belonging to the Kyiv patriarchate which became separate from Moscow in 2019, while 14 percent still look to the Moscow patriarchate. The rest see themselves are being Orthodox of no particular denomination or belonging to other Christian sects.

Putin has emphasised the Christianisation of Rus as an event that unites Russia and Ukraine and came to Kyiv to celebrate in 2013, before the present war started. Ukrainian president Zelensky, however, asked people to stay home to avoid contagion. The mayor of Kyiv did allow the Moscow-led event to take place on July 27^th, with tens of thousands of people attending. The next day, the Kyiv patriarchate also held a march. There is now worry that the marching may have been a superspreader event, but participants claim to have faith that God will protect them.

Remembrance of St. Volodymyr of Kyiv and the Day of baptism of Rus celebrated in Ukraine - RISU

Links:

Zelensky criticizes Klitschko for allowing religious mass event amid pandemic | KyivPost – Ukraine’s Global Voice

https://jamestown.org/religion-as-a-hybrid-war-weapon-to-achieve-russias-geopolitical-goals/

BBC World Service – The Fifth Floor, Kyiv march: ‘Eucharist is our vaccine’

Origin Stories: The Kyivan Rus in Ukrainian Historiography

Posted on July 6, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

A new paper is now available in our dissertations segment. Written by your humble editor while on location in Kyiv and having to prolong his stay because of covid, 2020 turned into a very productive period. The stay formed the backdrop to the nr. 1 best-selling non-fiction book Bjarmalönd, now back in the Icelandic charts. The dissertation, which was part of my master’s degree, can be found below. The opening reads:

“The Russians and the Ukrainians, and indeed the Belarusians too, share an origin myth which reaches back to the legendary Rurik’s founding of the kingdom of the Kyivan Rus However, rather than reaching fruition in the early 20th century, as was the case in much of Central Europe, the origin story was subsumed into the Soviet experiment, and only remerged after 1991. It is still very much a work in progress.
Here we will look at how the founding myth of the Rus has been used in the Ukrainian
nation building project, which will unavoidably lead to comparisons with Russia and, to a
lesser extent, other neighbouring countries such as Poland, Belarus and Lithuania. From the Normanist debate of the mid-18th century to the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the use of the Rus in the the Soviet Union, we turn to the present with its all its historical complexity and political ramifications regarding the relationship between Ukraine and Russia.”

Lokaverkefni: “Origin Stories: The Kyivan Rus in Ukrainian Historiography” | Skemman

Were the Estonians Vikings?

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

When one visits Estonia (thank god we should soon be able to travel again), one can’t help but notice refrigerator magnets and other souvenirs celebrating Estonian Vikings. But were they?

Perhaps inspired by more recent history as well as Egil’s Saga, it is easy to see the Estonians as on the receiving end of Vikingdom. After all, Egill is captured by Estonians but manages to escape with a fair bit of loot, only to turn back and murder his captor and his family, as robbing a sleeping man would be an insult to said man. Even so, the story tells us two things. The Estonians were able to capture such as ferocious warrior as Egill. And he did, in fact, respect them.

It seems that on more than one occasion the proto-Estonians gave as well as they got. In Heimskringla, Snorri Sturluson relates how the Swedish King Yngvi patrols his shores for Estonian pirates in the 7th century. Eventually, he invades Estonia but is killed in battle and hastily buried there by the sea. In a later chapter, Queen Astrid of Norway escapes with her son, the future king Olaf Tryggvason, from Norway to Novgorod where her brother Sigurd holds high position at the court of the great prince Vladimir (or Volodymir or Valdimar). On their way, they are raided by Estonian Vikings, here being called Vikings in the proper sense of the word as hostile raiders and taken captive. Later, as queen brother Sigurd is collecting taxes on behalf of Valdimar, he finds Olaf being auctioned at the local market and buys him free. This latter story is set in 967 and five years later, a battle between Estonian and Icelandic Vikings off Saaremaa is described in Njál’s Saga.

Archaeological evidence also suggests plentiful contact between Norse and Estonian, reaching to before the Viking Age proper. Probably the Norse navigated along Baltic Coasts and islands before braving the more unpredictable North Atlantic. In 2008, two Viking ships full of slain warriors were discovered on Saaremaa and may have been buried their in a hurry after a fierce battle at around the year 700 CE. If these are the remains of Yngvi and his men remains a matter of conjecture, but it shows that Snorri’s tale is at least historically plausible.

So were the Estonians Vikings? Well, sort of, but that would depend on definition. It seems that to the old Norse societies, they were.

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/941-vikings-saaremaa-estonia-salme-vendel-oseberg

https://books.google.is/books?id=4M1BAAAAcAAJ&dq=eysysla+adalsysla+virland&q=adalsysla&redir_esc=y&hl=is#v=snippet&q=adalsysla&f=false

Icelandic Fans of the Eastern Romans

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Among the many interesting points raised in Sverrir Jakobsson’s recent podcast on the Varangians is how they have been viewed by posterity. The Varangian Guard was know for its loyalty to the Eastern Emperor, who was not always on good terms with the West, not least after the sacking of Constantinople by Western crusaders in 1204.

In the Icelandic Sagas, however, the view on the Byzantine Empire seems overwhelmingly positive, despite the Great Schism having taken place a couple of centuries earlier, in 1054. In a previous paper entitled “The Schism That Never Was.” (see link below), Sverrir says, as the title implies, that the Schism may not have had as great an effect on contemporaries as often supposed, the real break coming in 1204.

For the Saga heroes, to have served the Byzantines always engenders respect. In fact, to have done so means that the hero is not called upon to prove himself further with great deeds, this seen to already having been done. This view is in opposition to other contemporary Western literature, which tends to have a negative view of the Eastern Romans. In Nordic sources, this only becomes apparent in Sweden in the 14th century. In that sense, he says, Icelanders were more Catholic than the pope, seeing all Christians as belonging to the same group.

It was only centuries later that the Varangians Swedish roots were emphasised in Russia. The Empress Catherine the Great, herself of Germanic stock, even wrote a paly about them and found obvious allusions to herself in noble foreigners ruling Russia. The Scottish poet Walter Scott sees them as English heroes, as later on the Varangian Guard were mainly composed of Englishmen, whereas the Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson sees them as modernisers and proto-businessmen, an image of Viking-bankers that Icelandic oligarchs would attempt to project. As Sverrir says, the view of the Varangians is usually based on present needs rather than medieval sources.

(article in English)

The Schism that never was: Old Norse views on Byzantium and Russia – Medievalists.net

(podcast in Icelandic)

Second Day of Summer

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Today is World Book Day (almost) everywhere except in Britain, which feels it must go its own way and celebrate books on March 4th. Ironic, considering that the day was chosen since it was the day that Shakespeare died, as well as the Spanish Miguel Cervantes.

More interesting for Norse scholars is the fact that yesterday marked the first day of summer in Iceland, this then being the second. The first day of summer is the first Thursday after April 18th, this year landing on the 22nd. True, it does not always feel very summery on this day, and has been known to snow. In fact, if there was frost the night before as did sometimes happen, it was said that summer and winter froze together, and this would auger a good summer for farming.

Choosing this day as the official start of summer (and it is in fact a public holiday in Iceland since 1971) makes sense if one keeps in mind that the year was divided in two equal halves. At this time, Harpa would begin, the first of the summer months. The tradition of the first day of summer has been documented as early as the 12th Century in Iceland. In Norway and Sweden, summer was said to begin on April 14th and lasting until October 14th.

We do not know if the old Rus celebrated the first day of summer or when. Present day Russians, like many nations, divide the year into four seasons. This then puts the beginning of spring on March 1st, a day when it is distinctly un-summery in most of Russia. And yet people congratulate each other on the onset of a new spring and, perhaps, on having survived another winter.

Vísindavefurinn: Hvenær er sumardagurinn fyrsti og er hann vel valinn sem upphaf sumarsins? (visindavefur.is)

Why the first day of Russian spring doesn’t feel like spring at all – Russia Beyond (rbth.com)

The Volcano Erupts!

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

We interrupt our regular programming to bring you volcano news, as we have just had one in Iceland. The current eruption started on the evening of March 19^th in Geldingadalur, which roughly translates to Eunuch Valley, although it probably refers to horses rather than people. The Reykjanes peninsula is the youngest part of Iceland and it has five live volcano zones. At one end is the international airport and at the other is the capital city of Reykjavik.

The eruption may have little to do with Eastern Vikings, but it does actually connect to Viking history. The last series of eruptions here began in around 950 CE, so roughly a century after settlement of Iceland began. It lasted for around 300 years. Among the largest eruptions was one that took place at around the year 1000 and is called the “Christianisation Eruption,” as it happened at the same time that Iceland was becoming Christian. Some pagans took this as proof that the gods did not approve of the new custom, as it was called, but the Christians pointed out that many eruptions had taken place before, and so could hardly be traced to the anger of the gods.

The largest eruption took place in 1226, six years after the Saga writer Snorri Sturluson returned from Norway and so is mentioned in annals. It is said that the there was a winter of sand falling from the sky. The eruptions finally ended in around 1240, the year before Snorri died. Since that year also marked the end of the Kyivan Rus with the Mongols sacking Kyiv, as well as the last Viking raids around Scotland, one can say that the Viking Age was bookended by volcanic eruptions.

There has not been another eruption on the peninsula for 781 years, that is, until last night. Time will tell if we will get another sandfall winter or 300 years of eruptions, but as for now, it doesn’t look too bad.

If you want to see the eruption live, it is being streamed by Icelandic National Television: https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/03/20/beint-vefstreymi-fra-eldstodvunum