Rus' Khaganate or Kaganate of Rus is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe between 830 and the 890s.К. Цукерман (Constantin Zuckerman), "Перестройка древнейшей русской истории", In: У истоков русской государственности, 2007 (a 2005 conference materials); further elaboration of the 2000 Zuckerman's paper
The fact that a few sparse contemporaneous sources appear to refer to the leader or leaders of Rus' people at this time with the word chacanus, which might be derived from the title of khagan as used by groupings of Eurasian Turkic nomads, has led some scholars to suggest that his political organisation can be called a "k(h)aganate". Other scholars have disputed this, as it would have been unlikely for an organisation of Germanic immigrants from the north to adopt such a foreign title. Some historians have criticised the concept of a Rus' Khaganate, calling it a "historiographical phantom", and said that the society of 9th-century Rusʹ cannot be characterised as a state. Still other scholars identify these early mentions of a Rus' political entity headed by a chacanus with the Kievan Rus' state commonly attested in later sources, whose princes such as Vladimir the Great (), Yaroslav the Wise (), and perhaps Sviatoslav II of Kiev () and Oleg I of Chernigov () were occasionally identified as kagans in Old East Slavic literature until the late 12th century.
Mentions in documents Overview The word khagan for a leader of some groups of Rus' people is mentioned in several historical sources. According to Constantin Zuckerman (2000), these sources are divided into two chronological groups: three or four Latin and Arabic sources from 839 to 880 (which he labelled "1a, 1b, 1c"), while three Old East Slavic sources (labelled "2a, 2b, 2c") date from 200 years later in the 11th and 12th centuries, and are "fundamentally different". The Perso-Arabic (Islamic) sources mentioning a khāqān rus or Khāqān-i Rus all appear to follow a single common chain of tradition tracing back to the "Anonymous Note". (1a) The Latin Annales Bertiniani or "Annals of St. Bertin" (this part written by Prudentius of Troyes, who died in 861) mention certain men called Rhos, whose king (rex) they called chacanus or Chacanus, visiting Frankish emperor Louis the Pious in Ingelheim in 839.
(1b) The Latin Chronicon Salernitanum or "Salerno Chronicle" (anonymous 10th-century chronicle) reports of a diplomatic dispute in 871 between Carolingian emperor Louis the German and Byzantine emperor Basil I, in which Basil (in a letter now lost) appears to have claimed that chaganus is a title used amongst the Avars, Khazars and Normans; Louis replies he has heard of an Avar caganum, but never of Khazar or Norman ones:
(1c) The Arabic "Anonymous Note" dating from 870–880, which was reused by a number of Arabic and Persian writers, including the following: Ahmad ibn Rustah wrote 903–913 (or 920) in an Arabic-language book that the Rus' had a prince called khāqān rus or Khaqan-Rus. Hudud al-'Alam (anonymous late-10th-century Persian-language geography text) refers to the Rus' king as "Khāqān-i Rus". Abu Saʿīd Gardīzī (died 1061), Zayn al-Akhbār (11th century), also referred to "Khāqān-i Rus". (2a) Hilarion of Kiev's 11th-century Sermon on Law and Grace mentions the title of kagan five times, and applies it to Volodimir I (Vladimir/Volodymyr "the Great") ), and his son Georgij, baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise (). (2b) A short inscription on the wall of Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv expresses a plea for divine deliverance for the (unnamed) "our kagan", possibly prince Sviatoslav II of Kiev (): "G-d, save our Kagan" (; ). (2c) The Tale of Igor's Campaign (12th century) calls Oleg I of Chernigov a kogan. According to Donald Ostrowski (2018), 'the word kogan is referring to a specific ruler or just to a time when there were khagans.'
Annales Bertiniani sub anno 839 The earliest claimed reference related to Rus' people ruled by a "khagan" comes from the Frankish Latin Annales Bertiniani, which refer to a group of Norsemen who called themselves Rhos () and visited Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, around 839. Fearful of returning home via the steppes, which would leave them vulnerable to attacks by the Magyars, these Rhos travelled through the Frankish kingdom accompanied by Byzantine Greek ambassadors from the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus. When questioned by the Frankish king Louis the Pious at Ingelheim, they stated that their leader was known as chacanus (hypothesized to be either the Latin word for "khagan" or a deformation of Scandinavian proper name Håkan), that they lived far to the north, and that they were Swedes (comperit eos gentis esse sueonum).
Chronicon Salernitanum Thirty years later, in spring 871, the eastern and western Roman Emperors, Basil I and Louis II of Italy, quarrelled over control of Bari, which had been besieged by Arabs. The Byzantine Emperor sent an angry letter to his western counterpart, reprimanding him for usurping the title of emperor. He argued that the Frankish rulers are simple reges, while the imperial title properly applied only to the overlord of the Romans, that is, to Basil himself. He also pointed out that each nation has its own title for the supreme ruler: for instance, the title of chaganus is used by the overlords of the Avars (Avari), Khazars (Gazari), and "Northmen" (Nortmanni). To that, Louis replied that he was aware only of the Avar khagans, and had never heard of the khagans of the Khazars and Normans.Monumenta Germaniae 385–394.cagano veram non praelatum Avarum, non Gazanorum aut Nortmannorum nuncipari reperimus. Duczko 25. The content of Basil's letter, now lost, is reconstructed from Louis's reply, quoted in full in the Chronicon Salernitanum ("Salerno Chronicle"). According to Dolger, it indicates that at least one group of Scandinavians had a ruler who called himself "khagan",Dolger T. 59, No. 487. but Ostrowski (2018) countered: 'The letter of Louis II to Basil I states specifically that the Northmen do not have a khagan. From that, the non-extant letter of Basil I has been thought to have stated that the Northmen had a khagan, but we do not know that. (...) Besides, even if Basil's letter did assert that the ruler of the Northmen was called a khagan, that testimony is negated by the statement of Louis II that their ruler is not called a khagan.'
Arabic-Persian sources Ahmad ibn Rustah, a 10th-century Persian Muslim geographer, wrote that the Rus' khagan ("khāqān rus") lived on an island in a lake. Constantin Zuckerman comments that Ibn Rustah, using the text of the Anonymous Note from the 870s, attempted to accurately convey the titles of all rulers described by its author, which makes his evidence all the more invaluable. Ibn Rustah mentions only two khagans in his treatise—those of Khazaria and Rus.
Hudud al-'Alam, an anonymous geography text written in Persian during the late 10th century ( 982–983), refers to the Rus' king as "Khāqān-i Rus". The unknown author of Hudud al-Alam relied on several 9th-century and 10th-century sources. Abu Said Gardizi, an 11th-century Persian Muslim geographer, mentioned "khāqān-i rus" in his work Zayn al-Akhbār. Ibn Rustah, the Hudud al-Alam and Gardizi all copied their information from the same late 9th-century source.
Zuckerman (2000) argued that Ya'qubi, Kitab al-Buldan ("The Book of Countries", 889–890), also has a relevant passage. In a legendary story about a siege of the Tsanars in the Caucasus in 854, mention is made of "the overlords (sahib) of the Byzantines (al-Rum), of the Khazars, and of the Slavs (al-Saqaliba)", which Zuckerman connected with a supposed Rus' khagan.Laurent and Canard 490. According to Zuckerman, Ibn Khordadbeh and other Arab authors often confused the terms Rus and Saqaliba when describing Caspian expeditions of the Rusʹ in the 9th and 10th centuries. But Ibn Khordādbeh's Book of Roads and Kingdoms does not mention the title of "khagan" for the ruler of Rus'.
Old East Slavic sources The three later Old East Slavic sources mentioning a kagan (Hilarion of Kiev's 11th-century Sermon on Law and Grace, and the 11th-century Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv inscription) or kogan (the 12th-century The Tale of Igor's Campaign) have generally been understood to refer to the ruler of Kievan Rus'. According to Halperin (1987), the title kagan in the Annales Bertiniani sub anno 839, Hilarion's Sermon, and in The Tale of Igor's Campaign all apply to "the ruler of Kiev". He agreed with Peter B. Golden (1982) that this reflected Khazar influence on Kievan Rus', and argued that the use of a "steppe title" in Kiev 'may be the only case of the title's use by a non-nomadic people'. Halperin also found it "highly anomalous" that a Christian prelate like Hilarion would 'laud his ruler with a shamanist title', adding in 2022: "The Christian ethos of the sermon is marred by Ilarion's attribution to Vladimir of the Khazar title kagan, which was definitely not Christian."
Hilarion's Sermon on Law and Grace mentions the word kagan () throughout the text, a total of five times. и похвала каганоу нашемоу влодимероу, ѿ негоже крещени быхом ("And: an encomium to our kagan Volodimer, by whom we were baptized.") великааго кагана нашеа земли Володимера, вънука старааго Игоря, сына же славнааго Святослава ("the great kagan of our land Volodimer, the grandson of Igor' of old, and the son of the glorious Svjatoslav.") каганъ нашь Влодимеръ ("Volodimer, our kagan") Съвлѣче же ся убо каганъ нашь и съ ризами ветъхааго человѣка ("So our kagan cast off his clothing") Паче же помолися о сынѣ твоемь, благовѣрнѣмь каганѣ нашемь Георгии ("And furthermore, pray for your son, our devout kagan, Georgij";). Georgij was the baptismal name of Yaroslav the Wise, who reigned in Kiev at the time and was Hilarion's patron.
A colophon preserved in a 15th-century manuscript, at the end of a set of works usually attributed to Hilarion, adds one more mention: Быша же си въ лѣто 6559 (1051), владычествующу благовѣрьному кагану Ярославу, сыну Владимирю. Аминь. ("These things came to pass in the year 6559 (1051), during the reign of the pious kagan Jaroslav, the son to Volodimer, Amen.")
Absence in other contemporary sources The absence of any khagan in the following sources has been taken by several scholars as evidence indicating either that there had never been a Rus' khaganate (Tolochko 2015, Ostrowski 2018), or that it must have disappeared by 911 (Zuckerman 2000), probably already before 900 (Golden 1982). The Book of Roads and Kingdoms ( 870) written by Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh does mention the Rus' as important traders, but does not mention a title of a Rus' ruler in his chapter "Titles of the rulers of the Earth", where only the Turks, Tibetans and Khazars are said to be ruled by khaqans. If the Rus' had a khaqan at the time, the author would have been expected to mention it, but he did not. Ibn Khordadbeh's book is a notable exception amongst the Arabic-Persian sources in mentioning the Rus', but not a khaqan; more generally, his information also does not appear to stem from the same source (possibly the now-lost book written by Jayhani) used by others such as Ibn Rusta and Gardizi. The Primary Chronicle (an anonymous Rus' chronicle completed 1110) does not mention the title of khagan anywhere, for example in the three Rus'-Byzantine treaties of 907, 911, and 944. The Risala of Ahmad ibn Fadlan (written in Arabic, documenting his visit to Kievan Rus' around 922) calls the monarch of the Rus' a malik (Arabic for "king"), not a qagan, even though it does say that 'the king of the Khazars [is] called a Qagan'.