[gothic-l] Goths in the East

[Bertil Haggman]

Thank you for rendering your reading of the
Nestor Chronicle. I have the latest Swedish
translation at hand and it is distinctly different
from you account. I think you have mixed things
up:

"Och de drog oever havet till varjagerna, till
ruserna. Ty dessa varjager kallades ruser
på samma saett som  andra kallas svear,
andra aater normanner och angler och ytterligare
andra foer goter - paa samma saett aeven dessa."
(p. 27). So Varyagi, Rus, Swedes, Normans, Angles
and Goths are mentioned in the same sentence
here as peoples of a similar kind. Now, a people
called the Rus has never been identified in Sweden,
so ther has to be another explanation.

The peoples you mention had representatives
coming to the Rus asking them to bring order
to their country. They were not Rus but exactly
the tribes mentioned 

Bertil Haggman


> The "Nestor Chronicle" mentioned nothing of
> the sort. There were in fact two notions about the
> "Rus" conveyed therein (both in the earlier Kyivan
> (Old Ukrainian) and in the latter Suzdalian (Old
> Russian) recensions). (1)The notion that the "Rus"
> were an aristocracy of northerners which arrived in
> Kyiv with Oleg [actually the first of three conflated
> "Helgis" GK]: they comprised :(a) "Varangians" (but
> not ethnically defined) (b)Chuds (probably Estonians)
> (c) Slovenians (inhabitants of the Novgorod area) (d)
> Merya (a Volga Finnish group)(e) Ves' (another Finnish
> group) (f) Krivichi (probably people from Pskov). Now
> all of these TOGETHER were the "Rus" in this context,
> which you can read in the Chronicle s.a. 882. This
> text is generally considered older than the recension
> of Nestor, and incorporated by the latter into his
> edition, (2) The other notion, perhaps originated by
> Nestor himself, or by his successor Sylvester (ca.
> 1116 AD) is that the "Rus" were a distinct "Varangian"
> ethnos from somewhere on the shores of the Baltic.
> These "Rus" are NOT, in this context, Swedes, nor
> Angles, NOR GOTHS (as the Chronicle called the people
> from Gotland) nor anything else except themselves. I
> don't propose to comment on this further here. Simply
> to point out that your notion of the "Rus" as Swedes
> is not found in the source you have cited. Perhaps you
> have confused the Chronicle of Nestor with the Annales
> Bertiniani s.a. 839.



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