Who do we mean by Germans now? First of all, residents of Germany, as well as Austria, Switzerland and other countries that speak the current language German, also bearing in mind a certain conditional “Aryan” anthropological type of the German-speaking population. In exactly the same way, by Lithuanians we mean, first of all, the inhabitants of Lithuania who speak the modern Lithuanian language (and we also tacitly classify them as a conditional “Baltic” anthropological type). And by Russians we mean, first of all, the population of Russia, as well as the Russian-speaking population of nearby countries, who speak Russian and, in our opinion, belong to the conventional “Slavic” anthropological type.
At the same time, the “Aryan”, “Baltic” or “Slavic” type of the type we encountered stranger practically indistinguishable until he spoke. So (as Pushkin accurately said - “every existing ... language”) language, first of all, determines the modern national differences of the majority of the population of the North. of Eastern Europe and only then - citizenship.
But until the 16th century there were no “nations” or “national states” at all, and the spoken language in almost all of Europe, except the Mediterranean, was united, therefore, the current Germans, Lithuanians and Russians constituted one conditionally “Arian” or, if you like, Balto-Slavic people, along with the Czechs, Poles, Danes, Swedes, etc.
This people should include part of the modern Hungarians (descendants of Balto-Slavic settlers on the left bank of the Danube), and part of the Ashkenazi Jews (cf., for example, a similar settlement Russians Jews from the village of Ilyinka in Israel), and even part of the Greeks. This is evidenced, in particular, by the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1771). It says that the “Hungarian language” (English Hungarian) is the same Slavic(Sclavonic), as well as “Corinthian” (Carinthian, i.e. the language of the inhabitants of the Greek Peloponnese peninsula with its capital Corinth).
The reader may be surprised - modern Hungarian or Greek languages cannot be called closely related to German, Russian or Lithuanian. But the little chest opens simply: the capital of Hungary (“Ugric Land”) since the 13th century. until 1867 there was Bratislava (in 1541 - 1867 under the Habsburg name Pressburg), and most of the population of Hungary were the ancestors of today's Slovaks and Serbs. The Ugrians (current Hungarians) moved to these places only in the 14th century. due to climatic cooling and famine in the Volga region.
The population of the Peloponnese Peninsula, right up to the Napoleonic wars, spoke a language practically indistinguishable from modern Macedonian, i.e. the same Slavic. The current Greek language is marginal newspeak, i.e., a mixed language of the former Judeo-Hellenic population of the Mediterranean who converted to Orthodoxy - only less than 30% of Balto-Slavic roots have been preserved in it, in contrast to Bulgarian (more than 90% of common roots) and Romanian (more than 70%). In the so-called In the “ancient Greek” language (i.e., the language of the population of Greece in the 14th – 15th centuries, excluding Macedonia and the Peloponnese), more than half had Balto-Slavic roots. (The same late medieval Newspeak is the Turkish language, in which Arabic influence turned out to be stronger due to the adoption of Islam.)
As for “Lithuania,” in the 14th century it meant practically not only the entire Baltic region and East Prussia, but also Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and part of Russia - including Smolensk, Ryazan, Kaluga, Tula and Moscow up to Mytishchi, where “Vladimir Rus” began. Remember the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 - then “our own” fought against “outsiders” (Teutonic Latins): Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes and Russians under the command of Vladislav Jagiello.
And the main city “ Great Lithuania” (lit. Letuva) were not the legendary Troki (now Trakai), not Kuna (now Kaunas) and not Vilna (i.e. Wolna, now Vilnius), but, most likely, the city. Ltava, from 1430 and until now called Po ltava. That is why in 1709 the Swedish king Charles XII climbed so far to the south, challenging the “Lithuanian” inheritance from Peter I.
All “Old Lithuanian” literary monuments were written Slavic alphabet, not Latin. From “Lithuania” we also have modern Akaya (Moscow-Ryazan) literary vernacular(cf., for example, Lithuanian Maskava- Moscow), and not the surrounding Archangel-Vologda-Yaroslavl - by the way, more ancient, preserving the original Proto-Slavic full harmony.
So the then population of “Lithuania”, “Germany” and “Rus” could not call each other “Germans”: they understood each other perfectly - there were no translators at the Battle of Grunwald! After all, a “German” is someone who speaks incomprehensibly, indistinctly (“mumbles”). In modern German, “unintelligible” is un deut lich, i.e. Not " deut lich”, stupid (from deuten – to interpret), i.e. Not- Deutsch, i.e. not-German!
In the Middle Ages, the Balto-Slavic population of North-Eastern Europe did not understand only strangers: Chud - Yugra - Hungarians. In the Laurentian Chronicle it is directly written: “Yugra people have a dumb language.” And it’s clear why - in Hungarian nem means “no”, for example: nem tudom - “I don’t understand”. Therefore, the medieval “Germans” are Ugras, Ugrians (i.e. the ancestors of modern Hungarians and Estonians), i.e. speakers of the Ugro-Finnish Koine ( spoken language). Medieval “Germans” cannot be identified with “Germans” also because the word “Germans” until the 19th century. denoted relatives by blood, so it could be any tribe not only among the united Balto-Slavic population, but also among the same Ugo-Finns.
Now about the medieval Russians. Russians are not only part of the Balto-Slavs, speakers of a single language. This is generally the entire non-urban population of not only Eastern, but also Central, and even parts of South-Western Europe, who spoke one common (= Proto-Slavic) language. And it is far from accidental that Pushkin’s brilliant “Latin” epigraph to the 2nd chapter of “Eugene Onegin”: “O Rus!” (i.e. literally from Latin: “Oh, Village!”), i.e. “Oh, Rus'!”
Hence the later “Latin” rustica “village, peasant”, i.e. Russian (i.e. from “The Rusties of the Earth”, “The Degree Book” by architect Macarius, 16th century). Hence the complaints of the pillars of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Tours at the beginning of the same 16th (!) century that “sermons should be read not in Latin, but in “rusticam romanam”, i.e. in Russian-Romance, i.e. Western Slavic dialect, otherwise “no one understands their Latin”!
The population of all medieval European cities, including modern Russian ones, was mixed. In the XII-XIII centuries. they contained small Byzantine garrisons of servicemen hired from different parts of the Empire. In particular, the Dane Harald, the future Norwegian king, was in the service of Yaroslav the Wise. The Novgorod veche sent a certain Lazar Moiseevich to negotiate with Prince Tverdislav. Among those close to Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky were his future murderers Joachim, Anbal Yasin and Efim Moizovich. The defenders of Kyiv glorified their prince Izyaslav-Dmitry, who did not die in the battle with Yuri Dolgoruky, who was besieging Kyiv, with the Greek exclamation “Kyrie eleison!” instead of the Russian “Lord have mercy!” So under the Russian princes, Varangians, Greeks, Jews, etc. lived in the cities.
Let us now take a closer look at the medieval concept of “city”. The first “cities” were seasonal camps of nomads, an analogue of which is the gypsy camp today. Ring-shaped carts-carts (cf. Latin orbis “circle” and orbita “rut from a cart”), serving as a circular defense against robbers, were the prototype of the city - it is no coincidence that in the Old Testament the capital of the “Moabites”, i.e. nomads, (English Moabites, cf., for example, English mob “crowd, mob”) is called Kiriat-A(g)rby (with an aspirated “g”, the current Croatian city of Zagreb, kiryat = city). It is also known as the legendary Phoenician city-republic of Arvad. The same meaning is in the name of the capital of Morocco - Rabat (Arabic for “fortified camp”).
Hence the Latin urb(i)s “city”, and the Moscow Arbat (“road to the city”, i.e. to the Kremlin). Hence the Urban Popes (i.e., “urban”), and the dynasty of “Hungarian” kings Arpads (Hungarian Arpadi, allegedly 1000 - 1301, a reflection of the Byzantine rulers 1204 - 1453 and their heirs - the Russian tsars 1453 - 1505) with the Slavic-Byzantine names Bela, Istvan (aka Stefan, i.e. Stepan), Laszlo (aka Vladislav), etc.
Where did the Polovtsians live?
Massive stone urban planning in Europe technically became possible only in the second half of the 13th century - i.e. about two hundred years later than the first stone city of Tsar-Grad and a hundred years later than the first stone buildings of Vladimir Rus, Kyiv, Prague and Vienna - after the construction of roads and the appearance of horse transport.
Thus, initially a city is always a colony, a new settled settlement of former nomads or forced migrants. At the same time, for other nomads who came to the same, always advantageously located place (high and unflooded, most often on the shore of a flowing reservoir), the city-dwelling colonists who had already settled there were naturally as alien as the new newcomers for the city dwellers. The “city-village” conflict is a continuation of the natural conflict between the subject who has already occupied the cave and the newly arrived contender for the lair.
Therefore, it is funny to read in the chronicle how the army of Yuri Dolgoruky besieged Kyiv: one part of the army - the Polovtsians - forded the Dnieper, and the other part - the Rus - swam across in boats. However, everything is clear here: the Polovtsians are the cavalry part of the advancing army, and the Rus are the foot rural militia.
As for the townspeople, according to the state of the economy of the 13th century. in any city it was hardly possible to constantly feed even a hundred horses. The prince's squad, his honorary escort, consisted of no more than 20-30 horsemen. Cavalry could only be a mobile army of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. Therefore, the Polovtsians, they are also “Lithuanians” (since earlier the “Lithuanian” Ltava-Poltava capital city was the “Polovtsian” Polotsk, cf. Hungarian palуczok “Polovtsians”), they are also later “Tatars”, they are also “filthy” - this is the same Rus', but at the top! Let us also note that in the self-names lit ovtsev, lat yshey and lyakh ov, there is the same Proto-Slavic root l'kt as in the verb fly, which today still has the meaning of “jump, rush at full speed.” The “Tatar” temnik Mamai (Hungarian: Mamaly) could well have been just such a “horse”, i.e. nemanich from Memel (present-day Klaipeda) in the service of the “Lithuanian” prince-khan Jagiello-Angel.
Polovtsy, who are they now?
Polish history also states that “The Polovtsians were robber people, descended from the Goths (!)”: “Polowcy byli drapieżni ludzie, wyrodkowie od Gottow” (“Chronika tho iesth historyra Swiata, Krakó w, 1564.). The Tale of Igor’s Campaign also speaks of the joy of the Goths on the occasion of the Polovtsian victory. However, there is nothing strange in this, since the word “Goths” meant “idolaters” (see the article “Ancient” and medieval population of Europe and its rulers”). And the unbaptized ancestors of the Poles, the pagan Poles, are also Polovtsians, whose country was called Polonia in Latin, i.e. Poland.
As for the Polovtsians - “robber people”, they were also the ancestors of modern Poles, since in German “to kill” is schlachten, i.e. a word with the same root as “szlachta”, which by no means meant “Polish nobility”, but a horse-drawn gang of relatives-robbers from the highway, i.e. from the way (cf. also Swedish slakta “relatives” and English slaughter “massacre”). By the way, such a route was originally the famous trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” with the only necessary portage from the Western Dvina = Daugava to the Berezina (a tributary of the Dnieper), i.e. the shortest route from the Baltic to the Black Sea - without the “traditional” Ladoga detour and additional portage from Lovat to the western Dvina! So the exhausting medieval “Russian-Lithuanian” and “Russian-Polish” struggle is a completely understandable struggle of local princes for control of the most important trade routes.
The traditional opinion of the Cumans as “Turkic tribes” is incorrect, since the Cumans are by no means a tribe in the ethnic sense, and there were plenty of idolaters among the “Turkic,” and among the “Germanic,” and among the “Slavic” tribes. The names of the Polovtsian khans mentioned in the chronicles, for example Otrok, Gzak (i.e. Cossack) or Konchak, are completely Slavic, and the nickname of Konchak’s daughter, the wife of Vsevolod (brother of Prince Igor) - Konchakovna - is a typical Mazovian surname of a married woman. The chronicles also mention the “Tatar prince” Mazovsha, i.e. prince from Mazovia (region of present-day Poland).
These are the medieval “Polovtsians” who disappeared to no one knows where. And how can one not recall the brave Mstislav from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, who slaughtered a “Polovtsian” with the Russian name Rededya in front of the “Kasozhsky regiments”, i.e. Adyghe, i.e. Circassian, i.e. Cossacks
As for the medieval Russians, all farmers (they are also peasants = Christians), cattle breeders, artisans, elder monks and the cavalry (Cossack) army living outside the city limits were called “Russians” (Rus), and the current word is “Russian”, not carrying a nationalistic meaning - a synonym for the old meaning of the word “Russian”.
Rich medieval cities hired guards from Rus', preferably from another region, without family ties with Russia, i.e. non-urban population: Varangians (whom the rural, i.e. Rus', naturally called enemies), Janissaries = Junkers, Poles, Khazars = Hussars (i.e. Hungarians, i.e. Germans), etc. This custom exists in some places to this day, for example, the Chechens - Vainakhs, i.e. the former guard of the supreme ruler of Vanakh (i.e. John), now serve the King of Jordan as guards, like their ancestors in the 15th century. - Ivan III.
The above considerations allow us to interpret the concepts of “Galician Rus”, “Novgorod Rus”, etc. differently, since each city had its own relationship with the surrounding Rus. After all, today we say: Moscow is the heart of Russia, but not all of Russia. And today Moscow is naturally the most multinational city in Russia. Yes and other modern ones big cities as multinational as any city in Russia in the Middle Ages. And Rus' is always beyond the 101st kilometer... In its vastness there has always been enough space for all its inhabitants, regardless of what is written or not written in their passport regarding nationality.
If you speak Russian, it means Russian... This copy of a Lithuanian proverb about Lithuanians perfectly reflects the essence of the national idea, free from racism, chauvinism, separatism and religious fanaticism generated by ideology, politics and political historiography.
The Polovtsians are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, who entered Russian history thanks to raids on principalities and repeated attempts by the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them.
The Polovtsians themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled throughout a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their ancestry to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.
Polovtsy. Nicholas Roerich
In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Cumans, but also other peoples, who were either united with the Cumans or considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a “monolithic” ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages identify 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different tribes of the Polovtsians lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.
Map of the location of nomadic tribes The descendants of the Polovtsians were many Russian princes - their fathers often took noble Polovtsian girls as wives. Not long ago, a dispute arose about what Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked like.
It is known that the prince’s mother was a Polovtsian princess, so it is not surprising that, according to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones in his appearance.
What Andrei Bogolyubsky looked like: reconstruction by V.N. Zvyagin (left) and M.M. Gerasimov (right)
What did the Polovtsy themselves look like?
Khan of the Cumans (reconstruction)
There is no consensus among researchers on this matter. In sources from the 11th-12th centuries, the Polovtsians are often called “yellows”. Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.
Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Cumans were the “Dinlins” described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But authoritative Polovtsian researcher Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the “blond hair” of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be a self-name of a part of a nationality in order to distinguish itself and contrast it with others (in the same period, for example, there were “black” Bulgarians).
Polovtsian encampment
According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - they were Turks with an admixture of Mongoloidity. It is quite possible that among them there were people different types appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took Slavic women as wives and concubines, although not from princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe people.
In the Polovtsian nomads there were also Russians who were captured in battle, as well as slaves.
Where did the Polovtsians come from, how did they become a weapon in internecine strife in Rus', and where did they end up in the end?
Where did the Cumans come from?
The formation of the Polovtsian ethnos took place according to the same patterns for all peoples of the Middle Ages and antiquity. One of them is that the people who give the name to the entire conglomerate are not always the most numerous in it - due to objective or subjective factors, they are promoted to a leading place in the emerging ethnic massif, becoming its core. The Polovtsians did not come out of nowhere. The first component to join the new ethnic community here was the population that was previously part of the Khazar Kaganate - the Bulgarians and Alans. A more significant role was played by the remnants of the Pecheneg and Guz hordes. This is confirmed by the fact that, firstly, according to anthropology, outwardly the nomads of the 10th-13th centuries were almost no different from the inhabitants of the steppes of the 8th - early 10th centuries, and secondly, an extraordinary variety of funeral rites is recorded in this territory. The custom that came exclusively with the Polovtsians was the construction of sanctuaries dedicated to the cult of male or female ancestors. Thus, from the end of the 10th century, a mixture of three related peoples took place in this region, and a single Turkic-speaking community was formed, but the process was interrupted by the Mongol invasion.
Polovtsy - nomads
The Polovtsians were a classic nomadic pastoral people. The herds included cattle, sheep, and even camels, but the main wealth of the nomad was the horse. Initially, they conducted year-round so-called camp nomadism: finding a place with abundant food for livestock, they located their homes there, and when the food was depleted, they went in search of new territory. At first, the steppe could safely provide for everyone. However, as a result of demographic growth, the transition to more rational farming - seasonal nomadism - became an urgent task. It involves a clear division of pastures into winter and summer, the folding of territories and routes assigned to each group.
Dynastic marriages
Dynastic marriages have always been a tool of diplomacy. The Polovtsians were no exception here. However, the relationship was not based on parity - Russian princes willingly married the daughters of Polovtsian princes, but did not send their relatives in marriage. An unwritten medieval law was at work here: representatives of the ruling dynasty could only be given as wives to an equal. It is characteristic that the same Svyatopolk married the daughter of Tugorkan, having suffered a crushing defeat from him, that is, being in an obviously weaker position. However, he did not give up his daughter or sister, but took the girl from the steppe himself. Thus, the Polovtsians were recognized as an influential, but not equal force.
But if baptism future wife seemed to be a deed even pleasing to God, then “betrayal” of one’s faith was not possible, which is why the Polovtsian rulers were unable to obtain the marriage of the daughters of Russian princes. There is only one known case when a Russian princess (the widowed mother of Svyatoslav Vladimirovich) married a Polovtsian prince - but for this she had to run away from home.
Be that as it may, by the time of the Mongol invasion, the Russian and Polovtsian aristocracies were closely intertwined with family ties, and the cultures of both peoples were mutually enriched.
The Polovtsians were a weapon in internecine feuds
The Polovtsians were not the first dangerous neighbor of Rus' - the threat from the steppe always accompanied the life of the country. But unlike the Pechenegs, these nomads did not meet a single state, but with a group of principalities warring among themselves. At first, the Polovtsian hordes did not strive to conquer Rus', contenting themselves with small raids. It was only when the combined forces of the three princes were defeated on the Lte (Alta) River in 1068 that the power of the new nomadic neighbor became apparent. But the danger was not realized by the rulers - the Polovtsians, always ready for war and robbery, began to be used in the fight against each other. Oleg Svyatoslavich was the first to do this in 1078, bringing the “filthy” to fight Vsevolod Yaroslavich. Subsequently, he repeatedly repeated this “technique” in the internecine struggle, for which he was named the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” by Oleg Gorislavich.
But the contradictions between the Russian and Polovtsian princes did not always allow them to unite. Vladimir Monomakh, who himself was the son of a Polovtsian woman, fought particularly actively against the established tradition. In 1103, the Dolob Congress took place, at which Vladimir managed to organize the first expedition to enemy territory. The result was the defeat of the Polovtsian army, which lost not only ordinary soldiers, but also twenty representatives of the highest nobility. The continuation of this policy led to the fact that the Polovtsians were forced to migrate away from the borders of Rus
After the death of Vladimir Monomakh, the princes again began to bring the Polovtsians to fight each other, weakening the military and economic potential of the country. In the second half of the century, there was another surge of active confrontation, which was led by Prince Konchak in the steppe. It was to him that Igor Svyatoslavich was captured in 1185, as described in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” In the 1190s, raids became fewer and fewer, and at the beginning of the 13th century, the military activity of the steppe neighbors subsided.
Further development of relations was interrupted by the arrival of the Mongols. The southern regions of Rus' were endlessly subjected not only to raids, but also to the “drives” of the Polovtsians, which devastated these lands. After all, even the simple movement of an army of nomads (and there were cases when they went here with their entire household) destroyed crops; the military threat forced traders to choose other paths. Thus, these people contributed a lot to shifting the center of the country’s historical development.
The Polovtsians were friends not only with the Russians, but also with the Georgians
The Polovtsians not only marked their active participation in history in Rus'. Expelled by Vladimir Monomakh from the Northern Donets, they partially migrated to the Ciscaucasia under the leadership of Prince Atrak. Here Georgia, which was constantly subject to raids from the mountainous regions of the Caucasus, turned to them for help. Atrak willingly entered the service of King David and even became related to him, giving his daughter in marriage. He did not bring with him the entire horde, but only part of it, which then remained in Georgia.
From the beginning of the 12th century, the Polovtsians actively penetrated into the territory of Bulgaria, which was then under the rule of Byzantium. Here they were engaged in cattle breeding or tried to enter the service of the empire. Apparently, these included Peter and Ivan Aseni, who rebelled against Constantinople. With significant support from the Cuman troops, they managed to defeat Byzantium, and in 1187 the Second Bulgarian Kingdom was founded, with Peter becoming its head.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the influx of Polovtsians into the country intensified, and the eastern branch of the ethnos already participated in it, bringing with them the tradition of stone sculptures. Here, however, they quickly became Christianized and then disappeared among the local population. For Bulgaria, this was not the first experience of “digesting” the Turkic people. Mongol invasion“pushed” the Polovtsians to the west, gradually, from 1228, they moved to Hungary. In 1237, the recently powerful Prince Kotyan turned to the Hungarian king Bela IV. The Hungarian leadership agreed to provide the eastern outskirts of the state, knowing about the strength of Batu’s approaching army.
The Polovtsians roamed the territories allotted to them, causing discontent among neighboring principalities, who were subjected to periodic robberies. Bela's heir Stefan married one of Kotyan's daughters, but then executed his father-in-law under the pretext of treason. This led to the first uprising of freedom-loving settlers. The next revolt of the Polovtsians was caused by an attempt to forcefully Christianize them. Only in the 14th century did they completely settle down, become Catholics and begin to dissolve, although they still retained their military specificity and even in the 19th century they still remembered the Lord’s Prayer in their native language.
We know nothing about whether the Cumans had writing
Our knowledge about the Polovtsians is quite limited due to the fact that this people never created their own written sources. We can see a huge number of stone sculptures, but we will not find any inscriptions there. We get information about this people from their neighbors. Standing apart is the 164-page notebook of the missionary-translator of the late 13th - early 14th centuries “Alfabetum Persicum, Comanicum et Latinum Anonymi...”, better known as the “Codex Cumanicus”. The time of origin of the monument is determined to be the period from 1303 to 1362; the place of writing is called the Crimean city of Kafu (Feodosia). By origin, content, graphic and linguistic features The dictionary is divided into two parts, Italian and German. The first is written in three columns: Latin words, their translation into Persian and Polovtsian. German part contains dictionaries, grammar notes, Cuman riddles and Christian texts. The Italian component is more significant for historians, since it reflected the economic needs of communication with the Polovtsians. In it we find words such as “bazaar”, “merchant”, “money changer”, “price”, “coin”, a list of goods and crafts. In addition, it contains words that characterize a person, a city, and nature. The list of Polovtsian titles is of great importance.
Although, apparently, the manuscript was partially rewritten from an earlier original, was not created at once, which is why it is not a “slice” of reality, but still allows us to understand what the Polovtsians were doing, what goods they were interested in, we can see their borrowing of ancient Russian words and, most importantly, reconstruct the hierarchy of their society.
Polovtsian women
A specific feature of the Polovtsian culture were stone statues of ancestors, which are called stone or Polovtsian women. This name appeared because of the emphasized breasts, always hanging over the stomach, which obviously carried a symbolic meaning - feeding the clan. Moreover, a fairly significant percentage of male statues have been recorded that depict a mustache or even a goatee and at the same time have breasts identical to those of a woman.
The 12th century is the period of the heyday of Polovtsian culture and the mass production of stone statues; faces appear in which the desire for portrait resemblance is noticeable. Making idols from stone was expensive, and less wealthy members of society could only afford wooden figures, which, unfortunately, have not reached us. The statues were placed on the tops of mounds or hills in square or rectangular sanctuaries made of flagstone. Most often, male and female statues - the ancestors of the Kosha - were placed facing the east, but there were also sanctuaries with a cluster of figures. At their base, archaeologists found the bones of rams, and once they discovered the remains of a child. It is obvious that the cult of ancestors played a significant role in the life of the Cumans. For us, the importance of this feature of their culture is that it allows us to clearly determine where the people roamed.
Attitude towards women
In Polovtsian society, women enjoyed considerable freedom, although they had a significant share of household responsibilities. There is a clear gender division of spheres of activity both in crafts and in cattle breeding: women were in charge of goats, sheep and cows, men were in charge of horses and camels. During military campaigns, all the concerns of defense and economic activity nomadic Perhaps sometimes they had to become the head of the kosh. At least two female burials were found with staffs made of precious metals, which were symbols of the leader of a larger or smaller association. At the same time, women did not stay away from military affairs. In the era of military democracy, girls took part in general campaigns; the defense of a nomadic camp during the absence of a husband also presupposed the presence of military skills. A stone statue of a heroic girl has reached us. The size of the sculpture is one and a half to two times larger than the generally accepted one, the chest is “tucked up”, in contrast to the traditional image, covered with elements of armor. She is armed with a saber, a dagger and has a quiver for arrows, however, her headdress is undoubtedly female. This type of warrior is reflected in Russian epics under the name Polanitsa.
Where did the Polovtsians go?
No people disappears without a trace. History does not know cases of complete physical extermination of a population by alien invaders. The Polovtsians didn’t go anywhere either. Some of them went to the Danube and even ended up in Egypt, but the bulk remained in their native steppes. For at least a hundred years they maintained their customs, although in a modified form. Apparently, the Mongols prohibited the creation of new sanctuaries dedicated to Polovtsian warriors, which led to the emergence of “pit” places of worship. Recesses were dug in a hill or mound, not visible from afar, inside which the pattern of placement of statues, traditional for the previous period, was repeated.
But even with the cessation of this custom, the Polovtsy did not disappear. The Mongols came to the Russian steppes with their families, and did not move as a whole tribe. And the same process happened to them as with the Cumans centuries earlier: having given a name to the new people, they themselves dissolved in it, adopting its language and culture. Thus, the Mongols became a bridge from the modern peoples of Russia to the chronicle Polovtsians.
- Garkavets A.N. Codex Cumanicus: Polovtsian prayers, hymns and riddles of the 13th–14th centuries.
- Druzhinina I.P., Chkhaidze V.N., Narozhny E.I. Medieval nomads in the Eastern Azov region.
The Polovtsians are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, who entered Russian history thanks to raids on principalities and repeated attempts by the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them. The Polovtsians themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled throughout a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their ancestry to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.
In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Cumans, but also other peoples, who were either united with the Cumans or considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a “monolithic” ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages identify 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different tribes of the Polovtsians lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.
The descendants of the Polovtsians were many Russian princes - their fathers often took noble Polovtsian girls as wives. Not long ago, a dispute arose about what Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked like. According to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, his appearance combined Mongoloid features with Caucasoid ones. However, some modern researchers, for example, Vladimir Zvyagin, believe that there were no Mongoloid features in the appearance of the prince at all.
What did the Polovtsy themselves look like?
There is no consensus among researchers on this matter. In sources from the 11th-12th centuries, the Polovtsians are often called “yellows”. The Russian word also probably comes from the word “polovy”, that is, yellow, straw.
Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Cumans were the “Dinlins” described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But authoritative Polovtsian researcher Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the “blond hair” of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be a self-name of a part of a nationality in order to distinguish itself and contrast it with others (in the same period, for example, there were “black” Bulgarians).
According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - they were Turks with an admixture of Mongoloidity. It is quite possible that among them there were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took Slavic women as wives and concubines, although not from princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe people. In the Polovtsian nomads there were also Russians who were captured in battle, as well as slaves.
Hungarian king from the Cumans and the “Cuman Hungarians”
Part of the history of Hungary is directly connected with the Cumans. Several Polovtsian families settled on its territory already in 1091. In 1238, pressed by the Mongols, the Cumans under the leadership of Khan Kotyan settled there with the permission of King Bela IV, who needed allies.
In Hungary, as in some other European countries, the Cumans were called “Cumans”. The lands on which they began to live were called Kunság (Kunshag, Cumania). In total, up to 40 thousand people arrived at the new place of residence.Khan Kotyan even gave his daughter to Bela's son Istvan. He and the Cuman Irzhebet (Ershebet) had a boy, Laszlo. Because of his origin, he was nicknamed “Kun.”
According to his images, he did not look at all like a Caucasian without an admixture of Mongoloid features. Rather, these portraits remind us of reconstructions of the external appearance of steppe people familiar from history textbooks.
Laszlo's personal guard consisted of his fellow tribesmen; he valued the customs and traditions of his mother's people. Despite the fact that he was officially a Christian, he and other Cumans even prayed in Cuman (Cuman).
The Cuman Polovtsians gradually assimilated. For some time, until the end of the 14th century, they wore national clothes and lived in yurts, but gradually adopted the culture of the Hungarians. The Cuman language was replaced by Hungarian, communal lands became the property of the nobility, who also wanted to look “more Hungarian.” The Kunsag region was subordinated to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. As a result of the wars, up to half of the Cuman-Kipchaks died. A century later, the language completely disappeared.
Now the distant descendants of the steppe people are no different in appearance from the rest of the inhabitants of Hungary - they are Caucasians.
Cumans in Bulgaria
The Polovtsians arrived in Bulgaria for several centuries in a row. In the 12th century, the territory was under the rule of Byzantium, Polovtsian settlers were engaged in cattle breeding there and tried to enter the service.
In the 13th century, the number of steppe inhabitants who moved to Bulgaria increased. Some of them came from Hungary after the death of Khan Kotyan. But in Bulgaria they quickly mixed with the locals, adopted Christianity and lost their special ethnic features. Perhaps some Bulgarians now have Polovtsian blood flowing through them. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to accurately identify the genetic characteristics of the Cumans, because there are plenty of Turkic traits in the Bulgarian ethnos due to its origin. Bulgarians also have a Caucasian appearance.
Polovtsian blood in the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and Tatars
Many Cumans did not migrate - they mixed with the Tatar-Mongols. The Arab historian Al-Omari (Shihabuddin al-Umari) wrote that, having joined Golden Horde, the Polovtsians switched to the position of subjects. The Tatar-Mongols who settled on the territory of the Polovtsian steppe gradually mixed with the Polovtsians. Al-Omari concludes that after several generations the Tatars began to look like the Cumans: “as if from the same (their) family,” because they began to live on their lands.
Subsequently, these peoples settled in different territories and took part in the ethnogenesis of many modern nations, including the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic-speaking peoples. The types of appearance of each of these (and those listed in the section title) nations are different, but each has a share of Polovtsian blood.
The Cumans are also among the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars. The steppe dialect of the Crimean Tatar language belongs to the Kipchak group of Turkic languages, and Kipchak is a descendant of Polovtsian. The Polovtsians mixed with the descendants of the Huns, Pechenegs, and Khazars. Now the majority of Crimean Tatars are Caucasians (80%), the steppe Crimean Tatars have a Caucasian-Mongoloid appearance.
Another mysterious one ancient people who have settled all over the world are the gypsies. You can find out about this in one of our previous reviews.
The Polovtsy remained in the history of Rus' the worst enemies of Vladimir Monomakh and cruel mercenaries during the internecine wars. Tribes who worshiped the sky terrorized the Old Russian state for almost two centuries.
"Cumans"
In 1055, Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich of Pereyaslavl, returning from a campaign against the Torks, met a detachment of new, previously unknown in Rus', nomads led by Khan Bolush. The meeting passed peacefully, the new “acquaintances” received Russian name The “Polovtsians” and future neighbors separated.
Since 1064, Byzantine and 1068 in Hungarian sources mention the Cumans and Kuns, also previously unknown in Europe.
They were to play a significant role in the history of Eastern Europe, turning into formidable enemies and treacherous allies of the ancient Russian princes, becoming mercenaries in fratricidal civil strife. The presence of the Polovtsians, Cumans, and Kuns, who appeared and disappeared at the same time, did not go unnoticed, and the questions of who they were and where they came from still concern historians to this day.
According to the traditional version, all four of the above-mentioned peoples were a single Turkic-speaking people, which were called differently in different parts of the world.
Their ancestors - the Sars - lived in the territory of Altai and the eastern Tien Shan, but the state they formed was defeated by the Chinese in 630.
The survivors headed to the steppes of eastern Kazakhstan, where they received a new name “Kipchaks”, which, according to legend, means “ill-fated” and as evidenced by medieval Arab-Persian sources.
However, in both Russian and Byzantine sources, Kipchaks are not found at all, and people similar in description are called “Cumans”, “Kuns” or “Polovtsians”. Moreover, the etymology of the latter remains unclear. Perhaps the word comes from the Old Russian “polov”, which means “yellow”.
According to scientists, this may indicate that these people had light color hair and belonged to the western branch of the Kipchaks - “Sary-Kipchaks” (Kuns and Cumans belonged to the eastern branch and had a Mongoloid appearance). According to another version, the term “Polovtsy” could come from the familiar word “field”, and designate all the inhabitants of the fields, regardless of their tribal affiliation.
The official version has many weaknesses.
If all nationalities initially represented a single people - the Kipchaks, then how can we explain that this toponym was unknown to Byzantium, Rus', and Europe? In the countries of Islam, where the Kipchaks were known firsthand, on the contrary, they had not heard at all about the Polovtsians or Cumans.
For help unofficial version archeology comes, according to which, the main archaeological finds Polovtsian culture - stone women erected on mounds in honor of soldiers killed in battle were characteristic only of the Polovtsians and Kipchaks. The Cumans, despite their worship of the sky and the cult of the mother goddess, did not leave such monuments.
All these arguments “against” allow many modern researchers to move away from the canon of studying the Cumans, Cumans and Kuns as the same tribe. According to Candidate of Sciences Yuri Evstigneev, the Polovtsy-Sarys are the Turgesh, who for some reason fled from their territories to Semirechye.
Weapons of civil strife
The Polovtsians had no intention of remaining a “good neighbor” of Kievan Rus. As befits nomads, they soon mastered the tactics of surprise raids: they set up ambushes, attacked by surprise, and swept away an unprepared enemy on their way. Armed with bows and arrows, sabers and short spears, the Polovtsian warriors rushed into battle, pelting the enemy with a bunch of arrows as they galloped. They raided cities, robbing and killing people, taking them captive.
In addition to the shock cavalry, their strength also lay in the developed strategy, as well as in technologies new for that time, such as heavy crossbows and “liquid fire,” which they apparently borrowed from China since their time in Altai.
However, as long as centralized power remained in Rus', thanks to the order of succession to the throne established under Yaroslav the Wise, their raids remained only a seasonal disaster, and certain diplomatic relations even began between Russia and the nomads. There was brisk trade and the population communicated widely in the border areas. Dynastic marriages with the daughters of Polovtsian khans became popular among Russian princes. The two cultures coexisted in a fragile neutrality that could not last long.
In 1073, the triumvirate of the three sons of Yaroslav the Wise: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, to whom he bequeathed Kievan Rus, broke up. Svyatoslav and Vsevolod accused their older brother of conspiring against them and striving to become an “autocrat” like their father. This was the birth of a great and long unrest in Rus', which the Polovtsians took advantage of. Without completely taking sides, they willingly sided with the man who promised them big “profits.”
Thus, the first prince who resorted to their help, Oleg Svyatoslavich (who was disinherited by his uncles), allowed the Polovtsians to plunder and burn Russian cities, for which he was nicknamed Oleg Gorislavich.
Subsequently, calling the Cumans as allies in internecine struggles became a common practice. In alliance with the nomads, Yaroslav's grandson, Oleg Gorislavich, expelled Vladimir Monomakh from Chernigov, and he took Murom, driving out Vladimir's son Izyaslav from there. As a result, the warring princes faced a real danger of losing their own territories.
In 1097, on the initiative of Vladimir Monomakh, then still the Prince of Pereslavl, the Lyubech Congress was convened, which was supposed to end the internecine war. The princes agreed that from now on everyone should own their own “fatherland”. Even Kyiv prince, who formally remained the head of state, could not violate the borders. Thus, fragmentation was officially consolidated in Rus' with good intentions. The only thing that united the Russian lands even then was a common fear of Polovtsian invasions.
Monomakh's War
The most ardent enemy of the Polovtsians among the Russian princes was Vladimir Monomakh, under whose great reign the practice of using Polovtsian troops for the purpose of fratricide temporarily ceased. Chronicles, which, however, were actively copied during his time, talk about Vladimir Monomakh as the most influential prince in Rus', who was known as a patriot who spared neither his strength nor his life for the defense of Russian lands. Having suffered defeats from the Polovtsians, in alliance with whom his brother and his worst enemy– Oleg Svyatoslavich, he developed a completely new strategy in the fight against nomads - to fight on their own territory.
Unlike the Polovtsian detachments, which were strong in sudden raids, Russian squads gained an advantage in open battle. The Polovtsian “lava” crashed against the long spears and shields of Russian foot soldiers, and the Russian cavalry, surrounding the steppe inhabitants, did not allow them to escape on their famous light-winged horses. Even the timing of the campaign was thought out: until early spring, when the Russian horses, which were fed with hay and grain, were stronger than the Polovtsian horses, which were emaciated on pasture.
Monomakh’s favorite tactics also provided an advantage: he provided the enemy with the opportunity to attack first, preferring defense through foot soldiers, since by attacking, the enemy exhausted himself much more than the defending Russian warrior. During one of these attacks, when the infantry took the brunt of the attack, the Russian cavalry went around the flanks and struck in the rear. This decided the outcome of the battle.
For Vladimir Monomakh, just a few trips to the Polovtsian lands were enough to rid Rus' of the Polovtsian threat for a long time. In the last years of his life, Monomakh sent his son Yaropolk with an army beyond the Don on a campaign against the nomads, but he did not find them there. The Polovtsians migrated away from the borders of Rus', to the Caucasian foothills.
On guard of the dead and the living
The Polovtsians, like many other peoples, have sunk into the oblivion of history, leaving behind the “Polovtsian stone women” who still guard the souls of their ancestors. Once upon a time they were placed in the steppe to “guard” the dead and protect the living, and were also placed as landmarks and signs for fords.
Obviously, they brought this custom with them from their original homeland - Altai, spreading it along the Danube.
“Polovtsian Women” is far from the only example of such monuments. Long before the appearance of the Polovtsians, in the 4th-2nd millennium BC, such idols were erected on the territory of present-day Russia and Ukraine by the descendants of the Indo-Iranians, and a couple of thousand years after them - by the Scythians.“Polovtsian women,” like other stone women, are not necessarily images of women; among them there are many men’s faces. Even the etymology of the word “baba” comes from the Turkic “balbal”, which means “ancestor”, “grandfather-father”, and is associated with the cult of veneration of ancestors, and not at all with female creatures.
Although, according to another version, the stone women are traces of a bygone matriarchy, as well as the cult of veneration of the mother goddess among the Polovtsians (Umai), who personified the earthly principle. The only obligatory attribute is the hands folded on the stomach, holding the sacrificial bowl, and the chest, which is also found in men and is obviously associated with feeding the clan.
According to the beliefs of the Cumans, who professed shamanism and Tengrism (worship of the sky), the dead were endowed with special powers that allowed them to help their descendants. Therefore, a Cuman passing by had to offer a sacrifice to the statue (judging by the finds, these were usually rams) in order to gain its support. This is how the 12th century Azerbaijani poet Nizami, whose wife was a Polovtsian, describes this ritual:
“And the Kipchak’s back bends before the idol. The rider hesitates before him, and, holding his horse, He bends down and thrusts an arrow between the grasses. Every shepherd driving away a flock knows that it is necessary to leave the sheep in front of the idol.”